Air Time Rulings

So remember how I talked about Metaknight's planking yesterday? Well, Ledge grab limits are a fairly sensible solution to his planking, which is, in fact, broken. But there were also other solutions proposed. I took apart one of the more common ones, "Ban Metaknight", in my last article. But it's not exactly an open-and-shut issue; there are very good arguments for banning Metaknight. But this time, I'm going to take a rule apart that is not hard to figure out. As in, "this rule is HORRENDOUSLY bad". Air time limits.
The rule's name is slightly misleading, but almost as bad. The contents of the rule is, essentially:

"If a match goes to time-out, the player with the lower air time is declared the winner."

Now, can you see the issue with this rule? Immediately, the term "Completely arbitrary bullshit" comes to mind. Air time? Yeah, sure, I guess MK spends most of the time in the air when he planks, and you can stay on the ground while sitting there and waiting for the time to run out. But this isn't attacking the problem at the root at all. What's broken is not "A character spending too much time in the air". It's not even "Metaknight spending too much time in the air". It's "Metaknight spending too much time on the ledge". So the first issue is that it doesn't address the problem. And to be honest, we could stop there. That's all a rule like this really needs to be struck down–the inclination that, "yes, it's bullshit," combined with the realization that there are other rules that fit the bill way better. But no, apparently this is not enough for some people. Japan has had this rule in its rulesets for as long as I can remember, and Mexico just adopted it as a part of their national ruleset, which has inspired me to write this article–this CAN NOT STAND. It's incredibly bad, and I honestly think I should stand up and say it. So I'll go into the other problems this rule has.

As far as problems go, it's worth mentioning that this is a rule that has grave effects over every game that goes to time. Not games that go to time because someone was abusing a broken tactic, but EVERY game that goes to time. Especially in matchups where both characters are very mobile and have weak kill moves, or trouble landing them, this is a big deal. The Peach-Diddy matchup is a primary example of this.
Peach has relatively lousy kill moves, and a lot of trouble landing them. Diddy struggles to score a kill on peach at all, especially because she spends most of the match floating above the bananas he uses to set up his kill moves. Both characters have to play the matchup extremely carefully. Or Sonic-Wario, which, as far as I know, works similarly–Sonic spends most of the game dancing around Wario's kill moves, and wario spends most of the time floating around trying to land a hit. These are matchups where the only smart thing to do is to play amazingly safe and campy. Hell, you want an extreme example? Metaknight-Ice Climbers. MK has to camp the ICs until they make a mistake, then separate them and kill Nana. The chances for this to happen are few and far between against a good Ice Climbers player. And even after Nana is dead, the smart thing to do is get the lead, and continue to camp Popo, because he's not a serious threat (as in, it's smarter for the ICs main to just take a stock loss)!
Think for a moment. In any of these examples, is anything broken happening? No, of course not. It's just how the matchups are played intelligently. And there are many more examples. Hell, there are whole characters who need to camp around in the air, and have trouble killing. Jigglypuff. Samus. Toon Link. None of them are doing anything broken. And yet, they are all affected by this rule. And this rule will be overriding the game's internal win criteria–being a stock or more ahead. Think about it–if it doesn't override it, it's not an effective stop for planking. And can you imagine the situation? You're Peach, you're a stock ahead of Diddy Kong, have a solid lead, and suddenly he gets the idea to camp harder because, well, you only took one stock off of him in 5 minutes, and if he can run the clock down without losing all of his stocks, he wins because your character puts you in the air more! He never has to leave the ground. ICs and Snake are even better at this game-they have amazing field control and great projectiles, forcing you into the air, and can control gameplay because if you get too close, you get raped. ICs get a MASSIVE boost by this. You can't camp them out, and there is maybe one character in the entire game who can take the Ice Climbers head on on the ground. So you have to play amazingly carefully. It's not impossible to win, but the best option of Wario, G&W, Metaknight, and assorted others is gone. It's a staggering injustice.

But wait, it gets worse. You know who else has an amazing "shutout" grounded moveset, half of which launches or juggles, plus short jumps and a good fastfall speed? Metaknight. Just for reference, if you get hit by MK's upB, you are airborne longer than him. If he pops you up with a short-hop, fastfall uair, you're going to be airborne longer. It's not a winning situation if you're easily juggled, or have poor kill moves...

The Mexican and Japanese TOs try to excuse this by pointing to the fact that their timer has been increased from 8 minutes to 10 minutes, and that this makes time-outs less likely. First of all, good for them, but running tournaments with 10-minute matches is simply unfeasible for most TOs. That's extra time on the clock, and it doesn't matter if it's disincentivised-what about the players who camp on purpose? DMG, Bloody (german wario main), Overswarm... These are players that are play amazingly campy, and that rely on that to win games. And they will keep camping. Any smart TO plans in advance to the extent that any number of matches in the tournament, or, let's say, at least half of them, could go to time without running out of time at the venue. What does this mean? 10-minute games means less play time, a lower maximum number of competitors, and a worse tournament environment. It is an issue, as much as you want to wave it away. And even then, even if you get your tournaments running well with 10-minute timers, the issues of the rule are still there. You didn't remove them, you just made them more rare in happening. 

Actually, you know what? I think it's worth talking about the reasoning behind this rule. It CAN'T be planking. If it was planking, they'd take a ledge-grab-limit. So it's got to be something else. What else is there, huh? Oh right, Metaknight's dair camping. Wario's aerial runaway. Falco's SHDL spam. This rule is aimed not at planking, a broken strategy, but rather at an assortment of non-broken, legitimate play strategies. I've tried to wean myself off of this word, because I've gotten a reputation for using it too much, but this is a scrub move. And in fact, I've gotten confirmation from a major Mexican TO (Kyoko_Pamuyo) that this is not some lapse in logic on their part-Mexico is proud, and they don't see time-outs as legitimate, or "fun", so they're trying to cut it down. Nobody likes Metaknights who Dair camp all game long, or Warios who hop around battlefield for 10 minutes.

Mexico, let me spell this out for you. Something being more "fun" is not an excuse for CHANGING THE WIN CRITERIA OF THE FUCKING GAME. Even ignoring all of the other issues that this rule has, this alone should kill it. It's a rule crafted by scrubby TOs to satisfy players who are refusing to "get better" to the extent where they can beat tactics like Wario's aerial runaway or MK's dair camping, or at least put up with it because, well, it's a part of the game (and I'm suspecting that incredibly manipulative, egotistical pros who have trouble with such tactics have their hands in this–here's looking at you, TKD). And even if the only effect was getting rid of these tactics, then it still would not be excusable, but this rule has wide-reaching consequences for the whole cast. A rule like this is one of the worst things you can do to a game. It would be like saying in street fighter that, when the timer runs out, the character who had the most hitboxes active (like, a light Shoryuken which hits once counts as one, Seth's super shoryuken counts as 5) wins. And you know what the worst part is? You can't even measure it until the end of the game. Wanna know how ridiculous this is? Play the game with a hack that turns off your damage meter. You can't count how long you've been in the air, and especially if it comes down to the wire and it's close, it can end up being flat-out ridiculous.

In short, the rule awards wins to people who, according to the game, lost, without even giving them a chance to keep track of the deciding factor for the rule, drastically changes the entire makeup of many matchups, drastically weakens several characters, severely helps others, has no reason to exist beyond pure scrubbiness or selfishness, and in general SHOULD throw Mexican players and TOs in an incredibly negative light. And I haven't even gotten into how gimped their stagelist is (in fact, TKD came right out and said that the reason that their stagelist is so small is to weaken metaknight!). But this... This rule must not stand. It's one of the worst rules I have ever heard of, period. Just... no. I'm ashamed to be a part of the same community as these people, and I can say with confidence that the day that this becomes accepted in my region is the day that I quit brawl for good.

Also, a little postscript: I don't mean anything bad towards mexican TOs–at least, not good ones. Kyoko_Pamuyo is a really cool person who actually knows what he's talking about most of the time, and his rules are generally good. No, the anger in this post is for all of the dolts who went ahead with this rule. Honestly, you guys should feel ashamed, both for your playerbase for wanting the rule, and yourselves for bowing down to completely scrubby behavior.

BPC out.

EDIT: Btw, in the original draft of this, I forgot something... I only gave the mexicans flac. Japanese players, what's your excuse, huh? This is not something new for you guys; you've been running with these rules for years, despite it being ridiculously scrubby. And you guys are the MASTERS of tech skill, camping, gimmicky runaway, and arguably brawl itself! What gives? Ah, **** it.