- This is the US ruleset 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.
Please note that this is the Ruleset in nationals. Certain regional tournaments may feature Congo Jungle and Peach's Castle as counterpicks, instead of having Dream Land as the only legal stage.
1-on-1
- All matches are played on Dream Land, the only legal stage.
- Sets between players are played best 2 out of 3 matches.
- 3 out of 5 matches apply for all (or occasionally most) 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.
- 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.
2-on-2
- Rules that apply to 1-on-1 apply to team tournaments as well.
- Team attack (sometimes called friendly fire) is on.
- Players are allowed to steal lives from their teammates.
- Overclocked N64's are preferred as otherwise there is lag in doubles.
Low tier ruleset, emulation legality and other various rules
- "Low tier" characters are considered to be in the C tier: Samus, Donkey Kong, Ness, Link, and Luigi.
- Gameshark stages are in general banned as they are hard to set up 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 Nintendo 64.
- 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.
- Late player 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 precede 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.