Bayo

Ok after all that Smash Twitter bullshit I have to say some real talk about this. Sadly a lot of arguments from both sides are basically people promoting what benefits them

First off, what it takes for a character to be banned. The classic argument is that there is no character in Smash 4(or any Smash) that deserves to be banned because none of them blatantly breaks the game like Akuma in SF2. None of them have dominant ass results that imply that if you don't play that char, you're doing something wrong. The only character that is close to that is Melee Fox (apparently 64 Pikachu is worse but idk) but people don't mind him. Even if your game is unbalanced af it can still thrive if the top tiers are fun to watch or play. What makes games alive is passion. Now something happened with MK tho. A lot of anti-ban arguments are either false equivalencies or straight up misinformation, so Ima have to talk about MK a bit

MK was banned for 4 months by the smash ruleset illuminati(URC). That shit was suspect af overall but it basically happened when smashboards randoms got together and said "mk is killing the game. he's in most top 8s and he's too good, no bad matchups". This benefitted a lot of scrubby players that were entitled af.(BTW WHILE MK DID CAUSE LEDGE GRAB LIMIT TO BE A THING AND BRINSTAR AND RAINBOW CRUISE TO BE BANNED, THESE SHOULD HAVE BEEN RULES IN THE FIRST PLACE, IF YOU THINK OTHERWISE YOU'RE AN IDIOT) For example, 8bitman wasn't as good as OCEAN, yet his scrbby floridian ass was like "I'm not going to anything with MK legal". This is the prime example of being a conceited scrub that thinks he's the shit, this was the case with most of the southern states, especially Texas and Florida. They did well in MLG but didn't do much after that. Instead of simply continuing to play this wonderful game and get better they instead blamed MK for everything when they are missing the point. Yall just not as good as Tristate/Cali in this game. Your streams/tournaments are not as good, who cares about crazy ass Xyro and his mid tier doubles that he hosts so he can get carried by Trela to then at least make money with one event. On top of that all of your MKs are ass so no shit that you have trouble in this matchup. Thing is, while he's good af MK is as good as the player. They thought they were the shit but they ain't shit, plain and simple. Meanwhile, the east coast actually made the game grow, with each Apex being a culmination of the improvements in literally everything in and outside the game. NA Olimars were bad and had pessimistic ass theorycrafting about the character, he couldn't do shit outside of wifi they said. Boom, Brood does work. People had these toxic ass mindsets about MK when the reality clearly states he was never as problematic than people think, playing another character clearly proved to be valuable. When he did get banned, shit made no difference, hell you had Tyrant winning WC tourneys with Marth. Top MK players were just top players. The most hype MK banned tournament was before the URC banned, it was Concentrate II. However that was hype simply because it was Salem's breakout tournament, it also featured a lot of great players that didn't main MK. M2K/Nairo/Anti wouldn't have been the favorites to win if he was legal, you had freaking Ally and ADHD there. Hell MK banned actually made it better for some MK mains, Shadow was forced to go Falco(shit mu for zss) vs Salem and beat him, don't think he would be able to do that with MK. All in all, MK never crippled Brawl's competitive life, the biggest proof of all that is Japan refusing to do to MK banned events and we all know that they were the best+made the most hype. Now that's a good example of not banning a character because it would just be scrubby. When MK did get banned and when you saw stupid bitching about him on Twitch chat, that was just dumb casuals parroting about him being broken or boring or whatever purely because that was during a post evo2013/documentary/least terrible version of pm world, on top of that the URC MK ban was the only coverage gaming media ever did about Brawl's competitive life.

Now what does this mean. Bayo shouldn't be banned because she's not as good as MK? Nah, both her and ICs are WORSE than MK. The community never wanted to ban chars/infinites/setups that could kill at absurdly low percents because they didn't fit the arbitrary rules about why a fighting game character should be banned. Those characters never really had blatant dominance. The thing is, Smash in general isn't your usual 2D fighting game. It's a fighting game with platforming movement options. Winning in Smash was never about "hitting the lab" to figure out ways to execute combos or setups that basically limit the options of your opponent so far that they can't do shit and have to eat that. Smash is much more dynamic than that, there is a lot of player agency in every scenario, this is why it's lightyears beyond any 2D fighter. If you take off a stock in Smash it's the result of several good decisions. Now this is getting very long so I won't go in to deep about why anything close to an infinite or robbing stocks doesn't belong in Smash, if you're somehow skeptical about that just watch M2K's video about banning wobbling. Basically his point is that when playing against ICs(in either game) avoiding the chaingrab made it very boring. The thing is though, even though ICs aren't that strong on paper, it's much easier for them to win despite this lack of other strong options because they already know that you will play to avoid the grab. Therefore they can easily hit you with other stuff, hit you with shit that sets up into grab or just go 9B style and grab you every time you slightly mess up.

When MK was banned a lot of players picked up ICs. That let to a lot of disgusting matches. Obviously there was no possible patches. The community was pretty much just waiting for Smash 4 at that point. Apex 2013 and SKTAR2 were amazing showings, but after the surge of docuevopmkids and all the sabotage going on, Brawl simply wasn't at the spotlight at this point. ICs being a much more known tournament threat didn't fucking help, therefore it died. Community argued about irrelevant things to "save" it and the only commonly broadcasted tourneys at the time was freaking tristate locals that were boring because Ally and ADHD weren't there. The only compelling story happening was ZeRo getting better and better, that's it. It wasn't nearly as compelling to follow compared to when it was alive, therefore it had no chance of retaining its playerbase/viewership after "one unit" happened.

The biggest factor in what makes a game alive is passion. Love for the game. A lot of anti-ban people are like "just sdi, just hit the lab, deal with it or quit" (btw I can't sdi lmfao, also I can't dacus and I can't swim). You can't force people to think like you though. Bayo is simply a boring character to play against or to watch, she is making people lose interest in the game, that is a fact. I think she's doing to the Smash4 meta what ICs end up doing to Brawl. She might not be obviously ban worthy due to being broken in theory or being overused in tourney but again, getting your stock robbed isn't why people play smash. At least against ICs you only had to worry about the grab, vs bayo you need to worry about like 5 moves+rage. Against ICs if you hit them you can separate them and kind of take their stock off for free, if you hit bayo you can get punished on hit by bat within/bitch time. That's how ridiculous she is. Picking a top tier usually never drastically makes you better, that's the case with Bayo/IC players though, aka characters that can kill you with one hit. They get better by practicing a "skill" that makes you rob people's stocks for free, they are playing a different game than the other people playing smash. This is very different from "characters that play defensive/lame", this is about turning smash, the most dynamic fighting game ever, into a single player game. Bayo/ICs players basically get a stat boost akin to how the Majin dudes in DBZ got much stronger thanks to Babidi's mind control. I remember a very pouchon dude from this community, back in Brawl. Basically that game was so consistent that players here were kinda stacked in tiers, you had people placing the money, people that were pr/top 10 worthy that rarely placed the money, people that passed pools but placed rarely in the top 10, people that didn't pass pools and people that drowned in pools and never came back. Now this pouchon dude went from passing pools at best(he was around pixie/genesis level. not bad but not top 10) to placing the money everytime thanks to cgs. Same shit but even worse with the bayo players, fucking jk would be completely irrelevant if she wasn't in the game(btw mistake is very good and people hating on kids are just dumb, one of the main reasons I quit tbh. some people just hate on you even if you play well).

So far the community aren't suggesting any good solutions, all I see is 2GG suggesting shit to see what group of people would be likely to attend their events(smh) or freaking panda gaming pushing agendas and shit, yall lame af. Just ask Nintendo if there's a patch incoming for Smash4Switch, they sponsor your events right. If not well banning her is the best option tbh, I can't see this game growing further due to that. Sure MKLeo being the best is great, most people winning events aren't Bayo mains... Here's the other thing though. Again, passion is what makes a game alive. The few Bayo slayers there is are people that they basically live for the game, playing Smash is their job. MKLeo is mad good but he's a kid with infinite free time, you don't even need to study in high school, no shit that he's good. Tweek has a fucking rich ass family, idk if he's in college but even then american colleges are stupid like their population. Dabuz is a full time gamer. Even the top players that lose to Bayo don't have it this bad because their sponsors are paying for their travels. They not only love the game and have the drive to be the best but they also have nothing outside of the game that can hinder their passion for the game. Now while I played Smash, I managed to adapt and do some shit. In Brawl I got good enough to beat mus that were seen as unwinnable for Yoshi, like Falco and Toon Link. Better example, yall know how broken Holy is right, when he plays it's like tier lists become law and you can't do anything against it, shit naturally hard counters me tbh. (btw hoo hahs should all get patched out). As I played smash4 though I did end up taking a set off him, I felt especially optimistic about this game despite many dumb things like rage and such because that was the time when shields got patched, luigi got nerfs and bayo wasn't announced yet. This is the kind of improvement that can be possible when you actually like a game/is motivated to get better. Now I partly quit since I'm forced to actually study during my free time now but if I enjoyed that game I would actually make time for it though. I would pick up Marth or Lucina to counterpick bayo. But no, game is just not enjoyable at this point, I don't feel it's even worth getting good at anymore. I coulda played a lot of Smash4 last summer but nope, when I tried to play it just felt like gambling/waste of time, especially with the awful wifi community there is. I prefered getting drunk on 4lokos with my crazy arabic friend with multiple personalities rather than playing smash4, that's how bad it is. Now all of that is about me but what about all the other people that aren't passionnate about the game, they just won't feel like it's worth their time. Bayo makes the game bad for some people, that is a fact. Don't be surprised if your random favorite player that aint sponsored/isn't part of the top player clique ends up quitting too. Even the anti ban dudes that say "figure out solutions or quit". Yall talking like genki ass anime characters but there is a breaking point in this, someday l'osti de vase va déborder and yall realize how shitty it feels to play a game where the other character can kill you in one hit BUT YOU CAN'T. It ain't about "getting better and stop blaming the game", in that case it's okay to blame the game. We play freaking smash competitively, we ban the stupid stages because they are unfit for tournaments. This is exactly the same thing. The bayo mains can just go back to their pre-dlc main and do well if they actually love smash and not just love being good with a character that robs stocks. If people keep losing passion for the game aside from a select few then no shit that it will become stagnant and won't live through its full potential.

PS: ban double cloud too lmfao. tbh all double characters should just be banned from all doubles, they just wack