- This is the ruleset for American rules in Smash Bros. 64. For other rulesets and general info on tournament legal settings in Japan, see Tournament legal (DSB). For other rulesets and general info on tournament legal settings, see Tournament legal.
Tournament legal describes the rules and settings that are accepted for use in competitive Smash tournaments. The following is the current accepted ruleset for the original Super Smash Bros.
Definitions
Neutral Stage: A neutral stage is any stage allowed in the initial random select for the first game of a match (e.g. Dream Land).
Counterpick Stages: A counterpick stage is any stage that can be only be chosen in game 2, 3 (etc.). These include all of the neutral stages, but exclude all banned stages. Therefore, all neutral stages are available stages, but not all available stages are neutral. The only Counterpick stage is Peach's Castle outside of the neutrals listed.
Banned Stage: A banned stage is any stage that is not allowed either in the initial random select or by choice in games two and three (e.g. Sector Z).
1-on-1
- Sets between players are played best 2 out of 3 matches
- 3 out of 5 matches apply for all of Top 8, which is Winner's Semis, Loser's Semis, Winner's Finals, Loser's Finals, and Grand Finals
- For some tournaments, 4 out of 7 matches may apply for Winner's Finals, Loser's Finals, and Grand Finals (though this is not as common)
- Double Elimination.
- The banning of cargo stalling is up to the tournament organizer's discretion.
- Each match is played with stock and 5 lives.
- Items are turned off.
- The first selection is decided by striking from the other Neutral stages. These stages are:
- Dream Land
- Hyrule Castle (Though this has recently been banned in most North American tournaments starting with Apex 2014, due to extended camping or stalling during matches and the random spawning of tornados.)
- Note that in Japanese tournaments, there is only one neutral as Dream Land is the only allowed stage.
- For the first match, characters are chosen double-blind - at the same time, so that neither player knows his opponent's character beforehand. In practice, this rule is often ignored, but players always reserve the option to force a double-blind pick.
- The loser of the first match (and of successive matches) chooses the next stage, and then the winner chooses his character, and then the loser chooses his character. This series of choices is called slob picks.
- The loser can pick either a neutral stage or a counterpick stage, and counterpicks usually consist of:
- Peach's Castle
- Kongo Jungle - Note that Black DK (Right-C), Dark Samus (Down-C) and Dark Falcon (Right-C) are discouraged if Congo Jungle is the stage chosen for visibility reasons. The opposing player may reset the match without penalty if they wish for a color change. Taking or dealing any damage nullifies this right.
2-on-2
- Rules that apply to 1-on-1 apply to team tournaments as well
- Note that there are 0 changes to the stage selection. However, Hyrule is generally played more often as the other stages are generally too small.
- Friendly Fire (also called "team attack") is on.
- Players are allowed to steal lives from their teammates by pressing start after they die.
- Overclocked n64's are preferred as there is lag otherwise in doubles.
Low tier ruleset, emulation legality and other various rules
- "Low tiers" characters are considered to be in the C and D tiers: Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Jigglypuff, Ness, Link, Luigi and Samus.
- Gameshark stages are in general banned as they are hard to setup and many of them have glitches or oddities that don't occur on normal stages
- Examples of this are:
- Battlefield- DI'ing into the ledge causes characters to die via being pulled to the center of the stage
- Final Destination- There are glitches occasionally that cause the game to freeze. An example of this can occur after 5 minutes (possibly due to Master Hand's timer in 1 player games. 4 player games occasionally freeze.
- Debug only stages- All of these stages have either invisible walls, excessively large/small boundaries far beyond, and/or weird ledge physics.
- A Nintendo 64 console is strongly recommended over using a Wii (due to frame skipping) or laptop, though laptops and Wiis aren't discouraged, particularly if there are special requests. A lagless laptop in particular is usable, as it has no frame skipping or input delay, but console is still strongly recommended.
- If there are requests to play using Gamecube controllers, a Wii with the Virtual Console version of Super Smash Bros. can be used. Alternatively, suitable PC adapters may be used if they are connectable to the n64/Wii/TV
- Disrupting your opponent physically or intending to disrupt their play will result in a warning. Repeated action will result in disqualification from the tournament. Observers who physically disrupt players are to be dealt with as the Tournament Organiser sees fit. Disqualification is recommended if possible.
- Pausing is discouraged, and should only be done at the end of a stock, if at all. At other times, the pauser loses their current stock. If the pause causes the opponent to lose their stock, the pauser loses two stocks.
- Extreme stalling is disallowed. Any reported case of such will result in a warning, followed by automatic forfeit of the match. If this is reported again, automatic forfeit is enforced without a warning. If there is no movement from either player, the player with fewer stocks/loser percentage is considered to be stalling.
- Pausing and resetting (A+B+Z+R) should not be done unless both players have given consent prior. It is strongly recommended all tournament matches are left to finish, without any resets, even for the sake of saving time. This clearly shows who would have (and did) win a match. If resets do occur and there is a valid dispute, the person who reset forfeits.
- Mages DQ is enforced. When a match is called, both players must promptly arrive. If a player is 2 minutes late, they receive a warning. At 4 minutes late, they lose the first game of the set and forfeit counterpick rights. At 6 minutes late, they forfeit the entire set.
- Pool play should preceded brackets play if the number of participants is suitably large. This is left to the Tournament Organiser's discretion, given 64 has low dedicated attendance rates.