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.
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.
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.
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.
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!