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A crew battle is form of competition between two teams, or crews. Each team starts out with the same number of stocks, which is usually divided evenly between the members of a team. For example, a Melee crew battle with five members on each team might have 20 stocks per team, four for each member.
Players from the opposing teams then take turns fighting in 1v1 matches, with the winner of a match carrying their remaining stock(s) to face the next member of the opposing team. Stocks lost by the victorious player in a previous match are subtracted from the player's stocks by self-destructing at the beginning of the next match. For example, if Player A defeated the other team's Player B with two stock remaining, he or she would need to SD until only two stock remained for the next match against Player C, who starts with full stocks.
History
The Smashboards crew battle is a variant of "team" battles found in many Japanese 2D fighting games. Traditionally, each player will select 3-5 characters to play, and they must play through the other player's line-up before they lose all of their own characters. KishSquared, a member of the crew "Ship of Fools", located in South Bend, Indiana, decided to try to apply these mechanics found in other fighting games to Melee.
The first crew battle actually followed this format very closely, and it did not track stocks between matches. It occurred in August, 2003 at the "Midwest Challenge", held by the Ship of Fools. The crew battle was between the Ship and a crew consisting of Eddie (BigGMan) and 4 Ohio players. Eddie was on top of the Midwest at the time, claiming first place in the actual tournament. Despite this, he remained conservative and sent out all 4 of his players prior to sending himself in, and all four lost to Ignatius, who had been sent in first by the Ship. Ignatius was helped greatly by the fact that he regained all his stocks between matches. Finally, Eddie went in and proceeded to defeat each member of the Ship - Ignatius, KishPrime, Joshu, KishCubed, and finally played KishSquared on Jungle Japes, in which KishSquared pulled off a narrow victory. Thus, the Ship of Fools won the very first Crew Battle ever held.
The flaws of the original crew battle were obvious - whoever won the match of "best vs best" would win the entire crew battle, regardless of the skill levels of the other players. The best player on each crew would sweep through the rest without taking any damage. KishSquared offered a new suggestion: tracking stocks between sets and having one player jump off the stage as needed before the match began. It should be noted that when KishSquared presented this idea to KishPrime, he laughed it off, saying that "no one would ever jump off the stage to begin a match."
Fortunately, KishPrime was unable to attend a smashfest between the Ship and Eddie and Eduardo's Chicago crew held a month later, so KishSquared presented the idea there and several such crew battles were held. A couple of these battles were actually recorded and edited into a "how to" video for crew battles. The two crews agreed that this format was far superior to the first, and jumping off the edge at the start of a match was no big deal. So the first modern crew battles were held between the Ship of Fools and the original Chicago crew.
Crew battles were then introduced to the rest of the Midwest. Several small ones occurred over the next year without gaining much popularity. It was at MELEE-FC, held in July, 2004, when the first national crew battle was held. 9 crews entered, including a Michigan crew led by Jv3x3, which ended up opting out of the competition in order to play sand volleyball instead. Ken and Isai formed a crew and handily won the event, laying a seed for the following year.
MELEE-FC3 is perhaps best known for the regional crew battle that was held. The entrants included the West Coast, the East Coast, the South, and the Midwest. The major players were the East and West Coasts, who used this opportunity to settle a rivalry that had existed for years. Wes and Ken were the organizers of this event, and KishPrime set some new rules for counterpicks and character selections.
The FC3 regional crew battle set the precedent for nearly every crew battle that followed, and those rules are still used today. The rules were largely designed by the Ship of Fools with minor influences from other parties.