Recap of Starter/CP Divide

Normally, in traditional Smash, there is a fixed list of starters and a fixed list of counterpicks. In Smash 4, the starters are BF, FD, SV, TC, and LC. A 5-starter system is sound because 1-2-1 striking is sound.

However, the drawback is that starter stages are automatically more important than counterpick stages, in terms of how crucial it is to learn them. This is reflected in how counterpick stages are almost always banned by the end of a game's life cycle; Smash 4 has no counterpicks aside from echo stages. Nobody needs to practice CPs --> nobody is good at them --> nobody likes them --> nobody picks them --> nobody needs to practice them --> etc.

Static lists of starters/CPs are not good for stage variety long-term.

Stage variety is VERY important right now! Ultimate is a new game, so we need to thoroughly test as many stages as possible, without leaving any stages out.

Why do we have starters/CPs, then? It's simple: to serve game-one striking.

As mentioned above, 5-starter lists are a sweetspot. The list is small, and 1-2-1 is, in practice, a fair way to strike stages. Get much larger than that, and game-one striking procedures take too much time. There are other restrictions too, such as having to have an odd number of starter stages.

Thus, if the stage list is even-numbered and/or too large, the stages that "don't fit" into the starter list must become CPs.

Note that starter/CP divide's reason for existing is NOT in order to make sure that only "neutral" stages get played on game one; there is no such thing as a neutral stage. FD is a starter, but favors zoners and Little Mac. etc.

The way we avoid polarizing stages in game one is through 1-2-1 striking. Each player bans 2 stages, so you meet in the middle and end up at the most neutral stage you can. Even though FD is on the starter list, it doesn't make zoners OP – the zoner's opponent can ban FD. The same works in reverse, of course; the zoner can ban stages that are bad for zoning. Naturally, to facilitate this, it helps if the starter list has a decently balanced variety of stages; a starter list full of triplats would favor ladder combos.

If a stage is too polarizing to play on game one, it probably shouldn't be in the ruleset at all. Similarly, if a stage is fine to play on games 2+, up to and including the deciding match of grand finals, there's no inherent reason it can't be used game one.

A New System: VSL

To summarize, starter/CP divide exists to serve 1-2-1 striking, and any legal stage is also a candidate for a starter list.

For this reason, my proposal is as follows. I'll call it Variable Starter Lists, or VSL.

In VSL, rather than one fixed starter list, there are a handful of different 5-starter lists. If this system were to become widespread, ideally these lists would be agreed upon by the community, and standardized. They'd be the same at every tournament.

Each starter list includes 5 different stages from the legal stage pool. Every stage in the game is present in at least one of these lists.

In a tournament bracket, each round uses a different starter list for game one. If there are five different lists, then they can be aligned like this, for example:

Winners Round 1 = Starter List 1
Winners Round 2 = Starter List 2
Winners Round 3 = Starter List 3
Winners Round 4 = Starter List 4
Winners Round 5 = Starter List 5
Winners Round 6 = Starter List 1
Winners Round 7 = Starter List 2
etc...

For game one, you 1-2-1 strike from the respective starter list. For game 2+, you can counterpick from any of the legal stages. This is aside from the main point, but I'm in favor of "loser nominates 3-ish, winner picks 1" for game 2+.

To implement VSL into a tournament, it's simple. TOs assign each round to a starter list as seen above. When the TO calls someone for a match, he also tells the players what starter list they're playing on, e.g. "your starter list is List One."

All of the starter lists are posted on some sort of resource visible to all players. This could be:

• pamphlets handed out
• pieces of paper posted at each setup
• a whiteboard on the wall
• a website
• etc...

Here's a summary of how VSL works in practice:

• TO calls you for a match, tells you your opponent and your starter list.
• You look at the resource to see which stages are included in the list.
• From here, game one plays out like it currently does in Smash 4, with these starters.

Unrelated: If you go with the game 2+ solution I prefer, here's how each game after game one will go:

• Loser of the previous match nominates 3 stages.
• Winner of the previous match picks 1 of those 3 to play on.

The mindset behind VSL is that, as discussed earlier, the important thing about starter/CP is the amount of starters. No stage is too polarizing for game one while also being okay for game 2+. Here, variety is promoted, while 1-2-1 is retained.

Example Stage List + Starter Lists

Here's an example list of lists that I've made, to demonstrate how VSL might work:

SET 1

Battlefield
Kalos
Island SSBB
Prism Tower
Rainbow Cruise

SET 2

Mushroom Kingdom U
Final Destination
Green Greens
New Donk
Orpheon

SET 3

Arena Ferox
PS1
Wuhu
Brinstar
Castle Siege

SET 4

Gamer
Unova
Lylat
Delfino Plaza
Dracula's Castle

SET 5

WarioWare
Town and City
Halberd
Skyloft
Reset Bomb Forest

SET 6

Yoshi's Story
Wily's Castle
Smashville
Port Town Aero Dive
Find Mii

To create this list, I sorted stages into archetypes. Then, I included one from each archetype in each starter list. This is a good way to ensure that none of the starter lists biases one type of stage. Here are the archetypes:

Stacked Platforms:

Battlefield
Mushroom Kingdom U
Arena Ferox
Gamer
WarioWare
Yoshi's Story

Open Air and Two-Plat: (combined b/c only 2 each)

Kalos (open air)
Final Destination (open air)
PS1 (two-plat)
Unova (two-plat)
Town and City (hybrid of both)
Wily's Castle (open-air)

Roofed:

Island SSBB
Green Greens
Wuhu
Lylat
Halberd
Smashville

Sharking / Traveling:

Prism Tower
New Donk
Brinstar
Delfino Plaza
Skyloft
Port Town Aero Dive

Asymmetrical Terrain:

Rainbow Cruise
Orpheon
Castle Siege
Dracula's Castle
Reset Bomb Forest
Find Mii

This stage list isn't final or entirely thought-through; this is just a proof of concept! But for the record, I made it with hazards universally off.

Other Advantages

Over the current system, VSL has notable advantages.

VSL scales well to large stage lists without taking up more time, unlike FLSS.

VSL avoids the starter/CP divide which often leads to certain stages becoming less relevant – no stage is permanently a CP, and each stage is sometimes a starter.

VSL is easy to understand – the procedure is the same as the current system, but with variable starters.

VSL keeps players from falling into routines during stage selection. In Smash 4, due to fixed starter lists, players often gentleman to Smashville or immediately ban Lylat. In VSL, the dynamic starter lists mean that players won't fall into these routines – gentlemanning to Smashville or banning Lylat aren't always options.

Potential Concerns

Perhaps the largest potential concern with VSL is that communication is now more important. If you mishear the TO, you might play on the wrong stages. This can be fixed by ensuring proper communication through "backups." For example, rather than pieces of paper being handed out to all entrants / placed at every setup at the start of the event, TOs could hand out pieces of paper with a set's respective starter list when calling you over for the match. In other words, here's what a TO would do when calling for a match:

• call the player over
• say "you're using this starter list"
• hand him a sheet of paper which says "WarioWare | Kalos | Smashville | Skyloft | Orpheon"

Another worry is that depending on the starter list used, some characters might be more favored than others, varying per set. My response to that would be to compare this to our current striking system, where there's only one fixed starter list. Any starter list will favor certain characters over others. With the current Smash 4 system, that favored character will never vary. With VSL, any imbalances are likely balance themselves out over the course of a tournament. It also helps if the lists themselves are balanced with various characters / playstyles in mind.

And of course, like any other proposal to change the way competitive Smash is played, this system has a good chance of never, ever catching on. Regardless, I plan to use it in my upcoming biweekly online tournaments, such as this one.