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The MPGR Top 100 and the Melee community tackle rules debates

By Andrew "PracticalTAS" Nestico and Jack "Jackie Peanuts" Moore | 04/05/21

Included as part of the survey for the 13th Official Melee Tier List, revealed last week here at PGstats.com, were three questions intended to gauge the Melee communities opinion on three major rules issues. Should Melee tournaments ban wobbling? Can low-latency HD monitors be used at offline Melee events? Should there be bans in best-of-five sets? See how 63 top 100 players plus Armada and 1,077 community members answered these questions below.

Question 1: Should wobbling be legal?

Gray represents "I don't know," answered by 6% of community responders
A clear majority of both top players and community members support a wobbling ban. A much greater proportion of Top 100 players support legalized wobbling than do the community responders.
This actually represents a somewhat major swing in community thinking over the past two years. In February 2019, Ambi released the results of a community survey that received 1,731 responses, including one asking if wobbling should be banned or legal:
Later in 2019, Get On My Level would become the first major to ban wobbling, a decision that was repeated by numerous offline majors before becoming the standard in COVID-era online events. Essentially all of the undecideds and then some have switched over to affirming the wobbling ban, a sign that the community is ready to accept it as the standard going forward.

Question 2: Do you think low-latency monitors can be used in offline tournaments?

One of the biggest questions facing offline Melee before COVID hit was whether or not the scene was ready to accept low-latency monitors as a competitive option. The dwindling supply of CRT televisions, the difficulty in storing and transporting them, and the power required to run them for a day or a weekend all pose obstacles to organizers from the local to the national level (not to mention events like the CRT bomb threat panic at The Big House 7 in 2017).
After a year of playing on monitors in quarantine, it appears the community is ready to consider a change to the CRT standard. We're still some time from the first massive majors in the West, at least, but is it possible the next Genesis or Big House could be played on monitors? It seems much more likely than it did a year ago.

Question 3: Should there be bans in best-of-five sets?

The blue section represents two Top 100 write-in votes for "one counterpick only."
For as long as Melee has existed, best-of-five sets have been conducted without stage bans. Over the past few years, the institution of a single stage ban in best-of-five sets has been discussed as way to counteract massive advantages like those enjoyed by Jigglypuff on Dream Land or Marth on Final Destination.
While both the community and top players are far from a consensus, it's notable that there is this much support for changing a rule that has been in place for two decades. Don't be surprised if we see some majors experimenting with stage bans late in bracket once majors return.
One final note: The community consistently picked "I don't know" at a substantially higher rate than the Top 100. Take that, Dunning and Kruger!
PracticalTAS is one of the Smash community's most well-known statisticians, and he has worked on the community's official Melee rankings since 2015. He previously served as head editor for SSBMRank before taking over as project lead in 2018, when the project was rebranded to MPGR. He is also PGstats' statistician for Smash Ultimate and various FGC rankings. Outside of PGstats, he runs a Smash-centric Youtube channel, and you can most often find him tweeting about Melee minutiae at @PracticalTAS.
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