Sudden Death
- For the Special Mode, see Super Sudden Death.
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Sudden Death occurs when any VS. mode match ends in a tie. When one occurs, the match will restart with only the players involved in the tie, all of whom will be given 300% damage as opposed to 0%, making them very easy to KO. If items are on, then they will not spawn during Sudden Death, with the exception of the original game. The crowd will be silent during Sudden Death.
If no characters are KO'd after roughly twenty seconds, Bob-ombs will begin to fall from the sky; unlike normal, these Bob-ombs immediately explode when they make contact with players or the ground, thereby speeding up the match. It is possible for a falling Bob-omb to instantly KO a player (off a side blast line) while the other player is currently being sent flying by a screen or star KO, causing the latter player to win the match.
A mode that replicates Sudden Death can be accessed via the Special Melee or Special Brawl mode "Super Sudden Death". This mode however simply sets all players' damage to 300% and lacks the falling Bob-ombs or the silent crowd (who will cheer or make noise as usual).
Conditions to occur
In Time battles, Sudden Death occurs when at least two characters have the same final score at the end of the match. In Coin Battle, players with the same amount of coins will fight in a Sudden Death battle; the same applies to Bonus, where players with the same final score will square off. Sudden Death almost never occurs in a stock match (barring a timed Stock Match, where Sudden Death will occur if time runs out and multiple players have the same amount of stocks), though it is possible if all characters lose their last life on the same frame. Kirbycide and other Sacrificial KOs can easily create this situation in matches with two players remaining, and having all characters on a falling horizontal platform that hits the bottom blast line can cause it with any number of players.
Ties in Sudden Death
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If all characters are KO'd at the same time in Sudden Death, a second Sudden Death will not be performed; rather, the match will end and one character will be chosen as the winner. In the original game, the winner will be the character with the highest player number, while in Melee, the player with the lowest player number will win; for instance, if Player 1 and Player 2 tie in Sudden Death, then Player 1 would win in Melee while Player 2 would win in Smash 64. As both players must be KO'd on the same frame and the games run at 60 frames per second, the chances of this occurring are slim, and any advantage given to lower player numbers is decidedly negligible. Tests in Brawl Sudden Death mode have shown that the player who wins the match is decided at random.
In competitive play
In tournaments, should Sudden Death occur, it is ignored, with the winner being decided by other factors. Sudden Death is not played out in tournaments because of its numerous gameplay issues, while severely skewing matchup balance, as it provides extreme advantages and disadvantages to certain characters. One such issue is the fact that there is no time limit, causing the safest, most effective strategy to win to be via abusing camping tactics to avoid the falling Bob-ombs, most notably by planking (where the player is essentially immune to any Bob-ombs that fall). This gives an extreme advantage to those with strong planking capabilities, while greatly hindering those who are less capable at planking. Because of planking being the prominent tactic and there being no time limit, a Sudden Death between two competent players playing to win can feasibly go on forever, often with little to no actual combat between them (as approaching the opponent is extremely risky in Sudden Death, especially if they are planking). In other cases, matches may not last any significant time; faster characters such as Fox and characters with fast projectiles that have some knockback scaling, such as Pit, have a large disproportional advantage, as they can land a KOing blow quickly and relatively safely, while having some of their primary weaknesses in standard play nullified (being lighter or having subpar KO power makes little difference when one hit can decide the match). Additionally, slower and heavier characters are put at a large, disproportional disadvantage, as they both are typically less effective at planking and have some of their primary advantages under standard gameplay nullified (greater endurance and KO power cannot make up for being easier to hit and having harder to land attacks, when virtually any attack is a one-hit KO anyway). This results in some characters, such as Bowser and Ganondorf, having almost no feasible chance of winning under Sudden Death conditions at a high level of play.
In addition to these gameplay flaws, smashers generally agree that Sudden Death can become an unfair way to stage a comeback. In this regard, Sudden Death can allow a player who was clearly losing before time ran out, such as by having a considerably higher damage percentage than their opponent, to try and equalize by forcing a Sudden Death; the losing player can camp until time runs out, then potentially win the match just by being able to land the first blow in Sudden Death, or by simply camping again. As such, a player that reasonably should have lost if the match had no time limit and continued as normal can win the match despite being outplayed by their opponent. An infamous example of this occurring was in the grand finals set between Zero and Hungrybox at the Super Smash Bros. Invitational; the Invitational, while having standard competitive rules for its grand finals match, used Sudden Death to resolve a stock tie. Zero, being aware of this, intentionally camped out and avoided confrontation at the end of the match when Hungrybox took a significant percent lead on their last stock. With Hungrybox playing Kirby against Zero's much more agile Zero Suit Samus, he was unable to land a finishing blow before time ran out despite his significant percent lead, leading to Sudden Death where Zero then won by just being able to land a quick hit despite clearly losing the match before the Sudden Death.
As a result of being too imbalanced to be used to resolve ties, tournaments instead declare the winner through other ways in the event of Sudden Death occurring; should the usual tie occur with time running out and stock being equal between combatants, the player with the lower damage percentage wins. In the rare event of equal stock and percentage, or with both players being KO'd at the same time on their last stock, a one stock rematch with the same characters and on the same stage is held to determine the winner. If both players are KO'd at the same time due to a sacrificial KO, tournaments often have a rule that declares the initiator the winner, instead of holding a one stock rematch.
Gallery
The Sudden Death screen in Smash 64.
The Sudden Death screen in Melee.
- Sudden death.PNG
The Sudden Death screen in Brawl.
