Lylat: The Necessary Evil
CTQ - May 22, 2017Quick disclaimer: This is mostly opinion. If you have a differing opinion, that’s perfectly fine, but please don’t bash me or this blog for it. However, if you want to give your take on why we should/ should not ban Lylat, feel free to say so in the comments.
Glitches
To start off, I’ll start by addressing the main point that every anti-Lylat person will bring up: the glitches. First off, I just want to say that I am certainly not denying the glitches. It is easily one of the buggiest legal stages in Smash history. The list of clips in Blank's anti-Lylat blog is easy proof of that. Although when you think about it, it isn’t terribly crazy. For every time someone’s gone through/missed the ledge on Lylat, someone’s gone through/missed the ledge on Melee Battlefield. If there were as many Melee players posting every time they clipped through the ledge, it’d match or outnumber people posting every time they clip through the ledge on Lylat. And while it isn’t as common as with Lylat, people have many a time clipped through Melee Pokemon Stadium. Really, every stage has problems of some sort. Even Smashville can be clipped through under extreme circumstances. (And no, this isn’t just a Peach thing. It can happen with several other moves/characters as well.)
While on the topic of glitches, an important thing to note is how rare it is. Sure, there may be dozens of videos of people clipping through Lylat, but for every time that happens, there’s a hundred matches where Lylat is nothing but a uniquely-designed stage. Glitches are a poor reason for banning a stage if they only affect one, maybe two percent of all matches. You may always seem to get screwed over by Lylat, but a good amount of its problems, specifically ledge clipping, can be eliminated by careful angles, recovering above ledge, and staying aware of surprises. True, things like Gyro falling through the stage or a teleporting Bayo are strange, but they all relate to the tilt. Simple being wary of the tilt can solve a lot of issues.
Necessary Evil
Now that that’s out of the way, the main reason to save Lylat: It’s, as Biddy perfectly puts it, a necessary evil. I’m certainly not saying it’s a great stage, I’m simply saying it should be legal. The reason is that taking out Lylat means more for the ruleset than just taking out Lylat. It forces a three-stage starter system, which, upon release of Recommended Ruleset v1, was harshly bashed by the community. 5 stages could yield no bans, which is quite crippling for anyone with a very bad stage for them. Also, with only 5 stages, we would inevitably need to change DSR, possibly taking it out altogether. No DSR is certainly not a good solution. (And yes, I know I’m branching into a separate topic here, but it’s the next step if Lylat is banned, so it’s relevant.) Anyone who’s played a Bo5 set against a Melee Puff can tell you how infuriating it is to force you to win on Dream Land at least once if you lose game 1. Game 1 becomes almost a must-win for anyone playing against someone with an almost guranteed win stage (Sheik on SV, Diddy on FD, etc.).
That covers the first, main reason Lylat needs to stay. The other reason is that it’s a counterpick stage. Yes, it’s a neutral, but that’s not what I mean. I mean that it’s a stage designed to be counterpicked to or away from. You despise Lylat? Just strike it. Banning it as a stage is a much stronger step, and just because a person struggles grab the ledge on Lylat doesn’t mean it should be fully banned.
A Possible Compromise
That leads into my last main bit, and it’s not an opinion of mine, just an idea: If Lylat gets so much more hate than any other stage, why is DL a counterpick and Lylat isn’t? (Again, this is just an idea, which even I don’t think is a great solution.) The main problem with this is having two triplats as neutrals, which brings up the problems that caused the already-existing dual-ban rule. However, if the community continues to be divided on this issue, maybe making it a counterpick is a logical compromise. Some regions, such as Minnesota, had Lylat as a counterpick (and thus, DL as a starter) even before DH was banned. While it was not the more common ruleset, the success of the MN scene with this ruleset proves that having two tri-plats as neutrals is not the end of the world.
Lastly, a couple misc. things that relate.
As it amassed a whopping 6,205 votes, it’s fair to say that this poll represents the community’s collective opinions with pretty strong accuracy. In this poll, 67% of people voted to bring Lylat back for Recommended Ruleset v2. I don’t really need to say too much with this, as the number speaks for itself. We fought to bring Lylat back, so why are we now fighting to go back to an option that more people disagree with? Granted, the poll was taken a few months ago, but it's still a very strong piece of evidence that shows where the community lies on the argument.
Great video from ESAM talking about banning Lylat and DH. Even though it’s from October, many things it says about Lylat still ring true. Most importantly, this video goes into great explanation of the disastrous consequences that will happen if we go to a five-stage ruleset. I highly recommend you give it a watch, no matter which side of the argument you fall on.
Conclusion
So, that covers it for the main reasons for why Lylat is a necessary evil. While it may be buggy and affect some games, a five-stage ruleset cannot function without causing a great deal of more arguments and issues. If you still think Lylat should be banned, I respect your opinion, but think through all the consequences that stem from it before making a decision.
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