by Doc – Owner, Founder, Three Children in a Trenchcoat
Stagelists are far and away the most interesting thing about any fighting game, ever.
…if your name is Amiibo Doctor. Seriously, I love this stuff.
Stagelists are actually interesting decisions to make when determining a fair and balanced ruleset because they require a deep understanding of what circumstances can make a stagelist fair or unfair. For example, Final Destination in Melee was a neutral and relatively fair stage according to the SBR stagelist, but in competitive Smash Ultimate amiibo it would be a gross misstatement to call it fair when top-tier threats like Min Min and Mii Gunner take advantage of the lack of platforms so easily. Simultaneously, a stage that is often considered balanced by human Ultimate players like Pokemon Stadium 2 would actually be grossly unfair against most amiibo because Pokemon Stadium 2 has an SD glitch that is more frequent on certain kinds of recoveries. PS2 is balanced for humans – amiibo, not so much. Without a proper understanding of the limitations of amiibo, it’s impossible to produce a stagelist that’s actually fair.
Typical Amiibo Tournament Stagelists
During the Smash 4 amiibo days, tournaments used almost exclusively Omega stages. This was due to the insistence that platforms caused AI issues in amiibo (a claim that is now dubious). Omega stages were also preferred for their simplicity in tournament setup, as the host could simply set the ruleset to only permit Omega stages and his work was finished.
For much of Smash Ultimate amiibo’s lifespan, rulesets used exclusively Omega and Battlefield-form stages for the same reasons. Arenas could only be set to Omega/BF or to choose between one of the stages selected by the participants in the match, so it was most convenient to stick to Omega/BF. Using a consistent stagelist between arenas and offline tournaments also allowed for consistency in rulesets between the two kinds of tours.
This stagelist wasn’t actually fair, though. Omega stages favored opponents with strong anti-air options like Link’s Up Smash, and Battlefield stages favored opponents who could poke through platforms, which was usually performed by their same anti-air options. Link’s Up Smash is favored on both stages for different reasons.
Producing a Stagelist That’s Actually Fair
In USAC, Eon_II took the time to evaluate every semi-bearable stage in Ultimate as of the Sora update for their legality and potential amiibo-specific flaws. This document is very much worth a read, not only for the conclusions it draws but also the methodical reasoning behind it. In the document, Eon recommends five stages for use in an amiibo stagelist (the first five listed in the document):
- Small Battlefield
- Final Destination
- Battlefield
- Hollow Bastion
- Northern Cave
This is a pretty dang solid stagelist, and I like it a lot. Of import is the fact that these are not Omega-form or Battlefield-form stages: Eon is specifically recommending Final Destination and Battlefield due to slight differences between the visual forms and the actual stage.
I’m not sure that I’ll be exclusively using this stagelist over my own that I linked earlier, but it’s very much worth examining if you’re a newer tournament host who wants to run a proper tournament.
What do you think?
Amiibo Doctor 