Tournament rulesets (SSBU)

This is the ruleset for SSBU. For other rulesets and general info on tournament legal settings, see Tournament rulesets.

Tournament legal describes the rules and settings that are generally accepted for use in competitive Smash tournaments. In SSBU, while many elements of tournament rulesets are consistent across major tournaments, they are not set in stone. Some specific details vary from tournament to tournament, with some local tournaments having completely different rulesets depending on the goals of said tournament.

General ruleset

Singles

• Ruleset: 3 Stock
• Time Limit: 6-8 minutes
• Items: Off
• Stage Selection: Anyone
• Stage Hazard Toggle: Off
• Final Smash Meter: Off
• Spirits: Off
• Damage Handicap: Off
• First to: 1 Win
• Launch Rate: 1.0x
• Underdog Boost: Off
• Score Display: Off
• % Show Damage: Yes
• Custom Balance: Off
• Echo Fighters: Separate
• Radar: Big
• Mii Fighters and their respective custom moves are allowed. Movesets will be shown in their name with each individual special move numbered from 1 to 3, based on the order shown on the move selection screen (ex. 1111, 2223, 3121).
• Similar to previous Smash titles, if time runs out, the winner is first determined by how many stocks remain, and then by the percentage after time is up.
  • If both stock and percentage are the same, or a game ends in both players losing their last stock at the same time, then a tiebreaker is played, which consists of a 1 stock and 3 minute match with the same characters and the same stage.
• If pausing is turned on, rulesets will have clauses on how to proceed if a pause occurs. This does not apply if pausing is turned off.

Doubles

• All rules for singles apply for doubles.
• Team Attack: On
• Teammate Highlight: On
• Share stock is allowed.

Online

• All rules for offline matches apply.
• All players are allotted a time limit to report to a match. This time limit is typically 5-10 minutes. Failure to report within this time limit will result in a disqualification.
  • Players are responsible for contacting the tournament organizer to report their own connection issues.
• A wired online connection is typically required. A "lag test" is sometimes enforced to determine if a wired connection is being used and to gauge the connection quality of individual players. Players that are not wired and/or have sufficiently poor connection speed may be disqualified.

Stages

Since the competitive scene is still rather young, and because of the sheer number of stages and the option to turn off stage hazards, there is no universally agreed upon stage list. This is why some tournaments use stages that are banned in others. When the losing player is choosing a counterpick stage, the winning player is sometimes allowed to ban one to two stages they have not counterpicked to or won on in the set. The list compiled below is an estimate based off of the most recent major Ultimate tournaments. All stages not listed are assumed to be universally banned.

Universal starters

The following stages are on the starter lists of virtually all tournaments, meaning they can be selected for any game in a match:

• Battlefield*
• Final Destination*
• Pokémon Stadium 2 / Small Battlefield*
• Smashville

Counterpicks

The following stages are commonly seen as counterpick stages, meaning they can only be picked after the first game in a match. In some tournaments, they may be used as starter stages, or be banned altogether:

• Yoshi's Story
• Lylat Cruise
• Kalos Pokémon League
• Town and City
• Northern Cave
• Hollow Bastion

Uncommon counterpicks/Semi-retired

The following stages rarely see use in larger tournaments, but may still be found in smaller tournaments and tournaments hosted by Nintendo. These stages may also see use in competitive play via the Gentleman's Rule.

• Dream Land
• Rainbow Cruise
• Fountain of Dreams
• Pokémon Stadium*
• WarioWare, Inc.
• Frigate Orpheon
• Yoshi's Island
• Halberd
• Castle Siege
• Unova Pokémon League
• PictoChat 2
• Skyloft
• Wuhu Island
• Wily Castle
• Midgar
• Umbra Clock Tower
• Mementos
• Yggdrasil's Altar
• Spring Stadium
• Minecraft World

Battlefield and Ω forms

Most Battlefield and Ω forms are typically allowed, but there are several that are explicitly banned for one reason or another. Stages that only have two dimensions cause significant differences during gameplay due to manipulating the Z-axis, and as such are always banned. Stages that conceal the ground are banned due to the unfair advantage they provide to characters that lay traps on the stage, such as Snake, Isabelle and Steve. Stages that conceal the blast zone walls are banned due to hindering player visibility and unfairly affecting characters that rely on offstage chases; though this rule is sometimes contested due to the introduction of the radar.

Stages that manipulate the Z-axis

• Hanenbow
• Dream Land GB
• Mute City SNES
• Flat Zone X
• Duck Hunt
• Pac-Land
• Super Mario Maker

Stages that conceal the ground

• Windy Hill Zone

Stages that conceal the blast zone walls

• Gamer

No longer banned as of version 8.0.0

• Fountain of Dreams (Previously banned due to the water's reflection causing framerate drops.)
• Garreg Mach Monastery (Previously banned due to the stage's ceiling blast zone differing from Final Destination and Battlefield.)

The Gentleman Rule

The most basic form of the rule dictates players may play on any stage, including banned stages, if all players in the match agree to it. While rarely actually used to play on banned stages (as even if a player wanted to play on a banned stage, it's highly unlikely the opponent would agree to it), the rule is often used by players in game one of sets to bypass stage striking (by a player suggesting a starter stage to just go to, such as Smashville, which the opponent then agrees to or refuses and stage strikes). The rule also sees frequent use when a player faces off against a player of a much lower skill level (and usually much younger), where the player allows the lower skilled player to choose any stage they want to play on, whether as a sign of courtesy and/or the player not seeing their opponent as a threat and thus not caring about the stage chosen. The rule is near universally seen, and even if the rules don't explicitly allow it, players often enact the rule regardless of if it's written in the rules or not. While TOs usually don't impose any restrictions on the Gentleman Rule, they may occasionally explicitly disallow banned stages from being played on at all regardless of the rule; extending or shortening the amount of games to be played in a set is generally disallowed as well.