Stage legality
Banned stages are stages that are banned from most mainstream tournaments. Stages can be banned for several reasons, including:
- Providing an unfair advantage for certain characters (such as excessive camping)
- Allowing players to abuse glitches in the game
- Completely altering the strategies needed to win (such as Temple and Icicle Mountain)
- Having a significant amount of slowdown during a match
The Major differences in the communities
There are many community preferences in terms of stage choices. For example, when Luigi's Mansion was all but banned on the East Coast, it was allowed on the West Coast. Another example is Green Greens in brawl where it is allowed in the South, such as in Texas while not allowed in other areas. This is usually due to the main characters used in the community, as the South has many competitive Wario's and Peach's allowing in Green Green's. The East Coast is majorly dominated by Metaknights with little amount of Falco's so Jungle Japes is usually not allowed. Another part of this is due to that the East Coast is well known since melee to have an overall smaller stage list otherwise, referring to the joke that the West Coast is known to play for more fun while the East Coast was more serious, similarly to the DI joke. Part of this is also due to the main people running the smash scene in their areas, as an example is Inui for the East Coast.
Banned stages in SSB
| Banned in both singles and doubles | |
|---|---|
| Stage | Reason for Banning |
| Mushroom Kingdom | Pipe camping; stalling |
| Planet Zebes | Acid (this stage is sometimes allowed in tournaments, it is semi-banned within the community) |
| Sector Z | Overly large; Arwing lasers |
| Yoshi's Island | Cloud camping |
Banned stages in SSBM
In the current Smash Back Room rule set, certain stages are left up to the tournament organizer to decide on banning versus counter-pick. Stages marked with a single X are left up to the tournament organizer, whereas those marked with XX are always banned.
| Stage | Banned in | Reason for Banning | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singles | Doubles | ||
| Big Blue | XX | XX | Random terrain; random scrolling |
| Brinstar Depths | XX | XX | No ledges to grab; stalling; "caves of life";low ceiling favors Star KOs |
| Flat Zone | XX | XX | Randomness of falling materials; too small |
| Fountain of Dreams | XX | Significant slowdown during doubles play | |
| Fourside | XX | XX | Uneven recovery potential; no large platforms for fighting; stalling; walls allow infinites |
| Great Bay | XX | Camping; stalling; ceiling spikes many characters easily | |
| Green Greens | X | X | Over-reliance on camping; bomb blocks disturb players; walls allow infinites; low ceiling favors Star KOs |
| Icicle Mountain | XX | XX | Randomly moving stage; significant advantage to characters with good jumps |
| Kongo Jungle | XX | XX | Small rock on the right enforces stalling |
| Mushroom Kingdom I | XX | XX | Completely irregular design |
| Mushroom Kingdom II | X | X | All fighting centers on small middle platform in singles; camping at blast zones |
| Mute City | XX | Too small to accommodate doubles play as well as significant slowdown during doubles play | |
| Onett | XX | XX | Cars can KO at low percents; walls allow infinites |
| Princess Peach's Castle | X | X | Banzai Bill is a one-hit KO; walls allow infinites |
| Hyrule: Temple | XX | XX | Too large; over-reliance on teching; see here for more |
| Venom | XX | XX | Slowdown; walls; game-breaking stalling and camping potential. |
| Yoshi's Island N64 | XX | XX | Camping and stalling on clouds; significant advantage to characters with good jumps |
| Yoshi's Island (Pipes) | XX | XX | Fox can waveshine most characters off the right side; "caves of life"; low ceiling favors Star KOs |
Banned Stages in SSBB
In the current Smash Back Room rule set, certain stages are left up to the tournament organizer to decide on banning versus counter-pick. Stages marked with a single X are left up to the tournament organizer, whereas those marked with XX are always banned.
| Stage | Banned in | Reason for Banning | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singles | Doubles | ||
| 75m | XX | XX | Too large, stalling, random obstacles, fighting centers around top-right corner, difficult to move about stage |
| Big Blue (Melee) | XX | XX | Random terrain, random scrolling, ground too close to the cars, gives a large advantage to faster moving characters, stage moves too fast |
| Bridge of Eldin | XX | XX | Potential for game-breaking camping/stalling, walk-off edges, bomb in center of stage |
| Corneria (Melee) | XX | XX | Extremely close blast lines, gives a big advantage for those with good vertical KO attacks, excessive camping/stalling behind the big fin, wall infinites |
| Distant Planet | X | X | Rain makes the left side slippery and hard to walk on, Bulborb, Walk off edges |
| Flat Zone 2 | XX | XX | Randomness of falling materials, extremely small, variety of damaging stage hazards |
| Green Greens (Melee) | X | X | Bomb blocks are excessively powerful, blast lines very close to stage |
| Green Hill Zone | XX | XX | Excessive camping near checkpoints, walk-off edges, blast lines are slightly close to the stage in which it makes it a little too small |
| Hanenbow | XX | X | Highly irregular design, stalling potential, Sonic spin glitch |
| Luigi's Mansion | X | X | Over-reliance on teching, small ceilings, projectiles blocked by pillars |
| Mario Bros. | XX | XX | Gameplay is vastly altered by stage enemies, ceilings, walk-off edges |
| Mario Circuit | XX | XX | Potential for game-breaking camping, walk-off edges, damaging karts |
| Mushroomy Kingdom (1-1 and 1-2) | XX | XX | Side-scrolling, stage moves too fast, underground's ceiling, ledges are not grabbable |
| New Pork City | XX | XX | Overly large, stalling potential, camera refuses to zoom in, Ultimate Chimera |
| Norfair | X | X | Randomness in stage incidents, horizontal lava allows lava combos, ledge stalling |
| Onett (Melee) | XX | XX | Cars, walls interrupt attacks, very small size, no lower blast line |
| Port Town Aero Dive | X | X | Randomly moving stage, cars KO at low percentages, cars difficult to see coming due to the colors |
| Rumble Falls | XX | XX | Gives overly large advantage to characters with large or multiple jumps, hurts those who rely on Tether Recoveries, first spike has One-hit KO potential, centers more on moving in the stage than fighting |
| Shadow Moses Island | XX | XX | Removes lower blast line, walls can block access to side blast lines, over-reliance on teching, walls allow infinites |
| Skyworld | XX | XX | No passable platforms; over-reliance on stage spikes; significant lag in doubles |
| Spear Pillar | XX | XX | Randomness of Pokémon attacks, excessive stalling potential, tunnel under stage similar to Temple's underground |
| Summit | XX | XX | Terrain is slippery, The Fish, ledges are not grabbable, Tether recoveries do not work |
| Temple (Melee) | XX | XX | Too large, stalling potential, over-reliance on teching, lower area with ceiling |
| WarioWare, Inc. | XX | XX | Over-reliance on random bonuses from Microgames |
| Yoshi's Island (Melee) | X | X | Blocks easily interrupt KO attacks, central pit blocks certain recoveries, blast lines very close to stage |
