While the Melee ruleset is mostly the same as in recent majors, there are a few things in the Wii U ruleset that I want to address below. Click here to go to the rulesets, and read further for more details.
One of the most common inquiries over the past few weeks has been the legality of wireless controllers at TBH5. Due to several logistical concerns, TBH5 staff has unanimously decided that wireless controllers of all kinds are banned at the tournament. This applies to the Nintendo 3DS, Wii Remotes, Wii U Pro Controllers, Wii U Gamepads, Wavebird GameCube Controllers, and all other controllers that connect wirelessly in some capacity to the GameCube or Wii U consoles.
Wireless controllers by nature remain connected to the system even when the player is no longer present. This creates a significant chance that players may unknowingly disrupt the flow of the tournament by either turning off a system or rendering a system unusable due to the Wii U waiting for a player that is no longer present to finish the action they started. Wavebirds and the Nintendo 3DS are easier to desync, but at a tournament of this scale there is too much risk of interference from other players (ex: two players coincidentally using the same Wavebird signal).
When potentially 1000+ attendees get together in one venue, interference from the density of wireless devices becomes a major issue. Because of this, our decision is to ban wireless controllers of all kinds instead of risk giving players a poor experience as a result of a complete preventable source of interference. I do feel for the wireless users who have gotten used to their control schemes, but honestly, Smash 4 TOs should have enforced this ban from day one to prevent others from digging themselves into that hole. Wireless controllers have no place at the biggest Smash events.
Another common inquiry has been the legality of customs at TBH5. Our Wii U staff and I have unanimously decided that custom moves are banned at the tournament. There are two main reasons for this.
Logistically, customs are more trouble than they’re worth with respect to ruleset enforcement and console maintenance. The inherent imbalance within the customs library is a nightmare to deal with as a TO, and the extremely tedious overhead required to unlock all customs creates a dangerous precedent for the community if Smash 4 majors were to start playing with them legal. We won’t put our TOs and equipment vendors through that burden in exchange for little to no reward.
Philosophically, custom moves also represent a disconnect between hardcore competitors and viewers who don’t play with them. When I direct a non-Smash friend to the stream, I want them to be able to relate to what they see on the screen. I don’t want to tell that friend, “well, if only you had spent countless hours grinding through the game to unlock all the custom moves…” Customs don’t test the skills we deem important to evaluate in a tournament setting.
The fact that the DLC chars don’t have custom moves further illustrates the point that customs aren’t meant for competition. They were a fun spectator novelty at Evo, but they are banned at TBH5. Thanks for reading.
If you’re as excited about The Big House 5 as I am, join the social media discussion! This year’s installment is set to take place on October 2-4, 2015 in Dearborn, MI.
“Gentleman’s Clause: There is no gentleman’s clause at this tourney. Players may NOT agree to play on a non-legal stage, and players may NOT agree to change the number of matches to be played in a set.”
Question about the following best of 3 scenario:
P1 wins game 1 on BF
-P1 bans FD
-P2 counterpicks to BF
P2 wins game 2 on BF
-P2 bans PS
-P1 tries to counterpick BF
-P2 wants to allow the counterpick but knows P1 has already won on BF which is against the rules
If both players agree to go back to BF for game 3, is it allowed? Typically the players can go BF game 3 since it falls under the gentleman’s clause (assuming they both want to go BF game 3), will players still be allowed to enact the gentleman’s clause to agree to play on legal stages at TBH5? The current ruleset is slightly confusing on this topic (slight semantic-y I know, but I just want to clarify)
“Players may NOT agree to play on a non-legal stage”
Non-legal meaning they can not agree to play on Pokefloats, BF would be fine
“the extremely tedious overhead required to unlock all customs creates a dangerous precedent for the community if Smash 4 majors were to start playing with them legal.”
Boy, I sure am glad we haven’t had any majors recently that ran with customs legal. Can you imagine what a disaster it would be if, I dunno, a 1,900-man tournament had to unlock all the customs on all the systems? What a nightmare! They’d never pull it off! It’d be completely impossible!
This is implying a dangerous assumption that tournaments like BH5 have the same budget that EVO does. The reality is that they don’t, and they have to largely depend on community effort and the staff themselves to provide and adequate amount of set-ups, especially considering that Gaming Generations (the ones who helped provide set-ups for EVO) have no legitimate means of providing set-ups to BH5, which is located in Michigan.
This is also dangerously assuming that any tournament in general has the same budget/resources as EVO or even BH5. This is simply not the case. Even then, I’ve still heard that there was one or two faulty equipments that didn’t have all customs unlocked at EVO, so that should give you the scale of the exact problem that we have.
You’re misusing the word “dangerous” buddy
Gaming Generations is based in Wisconsin, so it’s actually much easier for them to come to Michigan than it is for them to go to EVO. They *are* in fact providing equipment for TBH5.
How to ruin Smash 4: Banning the best controller a nintendo console has ever offered…
A good tournament organizer would be able to solve this problem without forcing people to use the worst controller for Smash ever.
They are banning wired gamecube controllers?? Weird. Pretty sure juggleguy knows what he is doing.
Well said
You list five starter stages for Wii U, but the stage striking process says each player bans one stage, then play on the remaining starter. Did you intend to have only three starters, or to use 1-2-1 striking?
Disagree with the Wii U pro ban. I think it is detrimental to the Sm4sh community as a whole by alienating a large chunk of the player base.
No one has ever not gone to a tournament because of wireless controllers being present. On the other hand, I’m thinking you will lose at least 10-20% of potential entrants because of this.
Maybe you believe that this is a good trade to make tournament run smoother, but I simply cannot agree.
This will hinder the growth of the smash 4 community, which is exactly opposite of what you should be doing.
I don’t mean to downplay any work you have done to grow the community, I just disagree with this decision fairly strongly.
20% = 1/5 entrants. I think that’s rather high, considering how many wireless controllers I saw at CEO.
May have been overstated..I can easily see 10% though.
The biggest factor is that most of those 10% are going to be newbies trying to get into the game/community. This will shut them out.
I think you’re seeing it backwards. It’s other Smash 4 TOs’ fault for enabling wireless users to dig themselves into that hole. They should never have been legal at tourneys.
“Smash 4 TOs should have enforced this ban [on wireless controllers] from day one”
Right, because Wii U gamecube adapters were totally available and in supply from day one.
“Smash 4 TOs should have enforced this ban from day one”
Oh really? So the only controller people should be using is the one from a 13-14 year old console and tied to an adapter that most people could not acquire for months following the release of the game? Get fuuuuuucked.
“Smash 4 TOs should have enforced this ban from day one.” Wow Big House 5 sounds really arrogant. They realize they’re just one tournament out of hundreds held in a year, some bigger than this, that all allow pro controllers right?
And their disallowing of customs is unfortunate, oh well. I’m sure the next major will correct this.
Actually larger tournaments are banning custom wireless controllers because of the aforementioned issues and banned customs will be the norm, now that Evo2015 is over.