Steve out Minecraft was added Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in October 2020. In the years since, the mood around the character has changed got worse and worse due to allegations that the character is broken and overwhelmed. Now, a recent discovery of a competitive advantage has put those conversations back in the spotlight. Well it sounds like swaths of smash bros Competitive scene prohibit the character outright from tournaments.
Steve was controversial from the start, with players raising issues with his combo potential and wide range of ranged attacks. It makes him a frustrating character to fight and not many characters in him Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s extensive squad looks like a tough counter to him. Because of this, there have been repeated calls for the character to be banned since its inception. It looks like some of these people are getting their wish after discovering a new bug that takes the character from overpowered to unfair.
What’s the problem with Steve in there smash bros?
In layman’s terms, Steve has a bug related to his recoil animations that allows him to recover faster than other characters in the game, meaning he can break combos that should otherwise work with other characters and get revenge, before his opponent can even act. This isn’t an intentional part of the character’s toolset, but rather an unfortunate technical workaround that worked in the players’ favor. Despite this, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Is No longer receive balance updates from Nintendoso competitive organizers are left with two choices: ban the strategy or ban the character?
The logistics of banning the strategy are complicated. If you allow players to continue using Steve in competitive tournaments, but don’t allow players to use this technology on purpose, moderating games that use the character becomes a huge time-consuming exercise. It requires players to save a replay of the exchange and for an organizer to view and verify if the Steve player is breaking the rules, and then ultimately announce the legality of the game. While these types of calls are easier to make during in-person tournaments (although an organizer’s move away always interrupts something else at the event), making them in an online environment becomes much more complicated. These replays must be uploaded or strThis was much more time consuming than having an organizer go to the players concerned during a setup. Because of this, some tournament organizers have called for simply banning Steve entirely, rather than investing valuable time and resources into micromanaging a specific character.
Juan Manuel DeBiedma, a prolific Super Smash Bros. Player who has won tournaments like EVO throughout his career and organizer of the online tournament The Coinbox, better known by his name Hungrybox, posted a video about the situation on his YouTube channel. In the video, DeBiedma walks through several tournament organizers in the US announcing their decision to ban Steve from their events. Ultimately, after some deliberation, he follows suit and says that Steve would not be allowed into The Coinbox “until further notice”.
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How widespread is the Steve ban?
Barnard’s Loop, a data organizer for the smashed Community, has compiled data on most states’ current attitude towards Steve. For now, there doesn’t seem to be much consensus on how hard the organizers are falling on the character. However, some at least restrict the use of players, e.g. E.g. admission to local tournaments but not to state tournaments. Despite this, Hungrybox notes in its video that the ban on The Coinbox can be seen as a blueprint for others, and time will tell how far-reaching this will become.
In total, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Above all, it is not bound by any uniform rules without Nintendo’s direct involvement in the competitive scene, so tournament organizers can do whatever they want. But Steve’s current state points to an underlying combat balance issue that’s occurring when the developer has finally stepped away from support. Super Smash Bros. UltimateThe last patch of was released in December 2021 and since then the community has had to wrestle with the state of the game to set their own competitive rules. So at the moment Steve is suspended from some tournaments and will be at least a controversial choice in others.
