Stage striking
Stage striking is a common procedure in Super Smash Bros. tournaments, typically found in the tournament's ruleset. Though the exact process can vary depending on amount of acceptable stages and the goals of the tournament, the basic idea is that the players are allowed to prevent stages from being played in the future.
Overview[edit]
As stages are more important to game play than most other fighting games, stage selection is taken very seriously. This is why most tournaments ban a majority of stages due to being extremely unbalanced in some way. Even the tournament legal stages can provide an advantage to one playable character over another, which is where stage striking comes in. After a game is completed, the winner of said is usually allowed to strike one or two stages depending on the size of the stage pool, and the other player then allowed to select the stage for the next game barring the striked stages. This process is to ensure the stage is fairly selected and prevent the loser to make a counterpick heavily in their favor and easily tie the set. If the very first game in a set is also to be striked, players must settle who gets to strike between themselves, often by coin flip or rock-paper-scissors. Any stage can be striked, even starter stages picked specifically to have a relatively neutral layout. This rule is popular in all games except for modern Smash 64 tournaments, of which only one stage is commonly used, making stage striking pointless. However, best of five Melee sets tend to forgo stage striking entirely due to the legal stage pool being too small, causing only one or two stages to be picked for a whole match.
Another version of stage striking involves all involved players taking turns removing one or more stages from a list until only one stage is left. The procedure can be skipped entirely by invoking the Gentleman's Clause, provided the tournament has such a rule. This version of stage striking operates similarly to the 1-2-2-1 setup of doubles matches. It begins with the players deciding who will strike first (such as by coin flip or rock-paper-scissors), after which one player will strike a stage, and the next will strike another stage. The process then repeats in reverse, with the player that went second striking another stage before the player that went first can strike another. This continues until only one stage is left, including the scenario in which there are fewer than five legal stages, and that stage will be used for the game. For successive games in the match, the winner typically starts this striking process again. Variations of Dave's Stupid Rule may limit which stages can be selected in these cases.
Example of stage striking[edit]
The above is the most common starter stagelist for Project M tournaments.
The Marth player strikes Delfino's Secret first, as its large size accentuates Link's projectile game and downplays Marth's ability to control space.
The Link player can now strike two stages, electing to strike Battlefield and Green Hill Zone, owing to their relatively small sizes that poorly complement Link's projectile game and allow Marth to control space.
The Marth player gets to strike one more stage, selecting Pokémon Stadium 2 due to its slightly larger size compared to Smashville. Smashville is the last remaining stage, and so, it will be used as the first stage in this set.
