Super Smash Brothers Melee is a better competitive fighter than Super Smash Brothers 4.

Thanks to Lulzy, again, for hosting this debate. There are a few primary reasons why I’m arguing Sm4sh is a better competitive fighting game than Melee. Even though I could go down the route that Melee is NOT a better fighting game than Sm4sh and have less of a BoP to fulfill, that isn’t fun. So I’ve decided to take my own share of the BoP and increase that by trying to prove that Sm4sh is a better competitive fighting game than Melee. Fighter Viability (Custom Moves included) Informational Wall in Melee Patience Constant Patches Online Play (especially FG and tournaments) Let’s begin. 1. Fighter Viability At the beginning of Melee’s lifespan, people HATED Link, especially his d-throw to up b combo. As time progressed, however, people became smarter about the game, and more AT (advanced tech) showed up. Fox, Falco, and Sheik were dominating the Melee scene in around 2005-6. When people like Armada (with his Peach), Mango (with his Puff), Hungrybox (again, with Puff) and Mew2King (with his Marth) stepped into the scene though, it shook up the rankings a ton. Every character can be played at a decent level in Melee (in fact, M2K has a pocket Pichu for that disrespect, heheh), but there was common trait that the top tiers had: speed. Whether it be on the ground running across the stage, in the air maneuvering over the battlefield, or in their attacks, punishing opponents for the simplest mistakes, those faster than the rest naturally became top tiers. Those slower had more powerful attacks, but with a faster character you could perform combos that racked up too high of a % for heavies to even matter. The top tiers today are Fox, Falco, Marth, Jigglypuff, Peach, Sheik, and Captain Falcon. Nearly every other character cannot compare to the options that these characters have. So despite Melee’s relatively large roster, only seven of those spots are somewhat viable. Pikachu is still relatively good, but Axe is the only person that plays Pikachu at a high level, so I don’t think Pikachu really counts here. Sm4sh, on the other hand, is a completely different story. With constant patches that tweak a character’s combos, attack %s, and functionality, each character has a chance in the spotlight. Even Samus saw play in CEO 2015 when Esam picked her and ended up throwing his opponent off and winning, despite her being considered “low tier”. Leo, a 14 year old in Mexico, ended up beating Mr. R’s Sheik with Meta Knight, who many considered low tier. Now people pick Meta Knight against Sheik. Abadango constantly places well with Pacman and Wario, even placing fourth at EVO. And more recently, HoodedAltair is making HUGE progress with Ryu. SilentDoom dominates his local scene with Shulk. Some people consider these characters low tier, and some consider them high tier, but this is unimportant. The main difference between these two games is that you have more freedom when choosing a character you like. In Melee, you’re restricted to the people above or else you’re choosing to have a disadvantage against everyone else who picks top tiers. In Sm4sh, you get to choose who you want to and go far with them if you desire. Custom moves branch out this versatility even more. Personally, I’m against custom moves being implemented as competitive in Sm4sh, but you can’t deny how much variety and play style options they offer that Melee simply cannot. 2. Informational Wall This exists in every fighting game, and it’s still a rather sad thing. To play any FG competitively, you have to be willing to put in the time and effort into learning combos against every possible matchup, how each matchup behaves, how your character approaches, zones out, or does to control the area around you. With Melee, this informational wall is FAR greater than any other fighting game, as it’s a lot faster and requires a lot more APM and tech skill. So not even the info is just a problem, physical ability can hinder your performance in Melee by a longshot. Mew2King is currently having hand problems and thus unable to perform his best (see M2K being 3 stocked on FD by Leffen at SmashCon). Mango says he only has one or two more good years left in his hands before he stops playing Fox. After a while, he will switch to Marth or someone with less tech needed. The reason Sm4sh thrives competitively is because there isn’t a whole lot you need to know about the game apart from raw fundamentals and your character’s combos to get started. In Melee, if you don’t know wave dashing, there’s no point trying to go into the competitive scene before you’ve mastered that. If you don’t know l canceling, there’s no point trying to go into the competitive scene before you’ve mastered that. If you don’t know how to double laser as Fox, there’s no point trying to go into the competitive scene before you’ve mastered that. And there’s just way too much you need to know before you can even skim the surface of competitive Melee, and that’s the downside of so many years of development. I know this affects newer players more than veterans, but it’s still highly important to the competitive life of a game. LoL thrives because it is easy to learn yet extremely hard to master. The same applies to Sm4sh competitive. For competitive Melee, there’s just way too much you need to know before you even start. 3. Patience There’s always that one guy in Melee that just spams tech skill and doesn’t know what he’s doing in terms of fundamentals. This guy can waveshine for days yet not even know Fox’s short hop timing. The problem is that this type of player is too common in Melee. I used to be like this myself until I tried to understand what I was doing wrong. A huge problem in Melee is the presence of ATs. A newer player sees Mang0 wavedashing/landing and multi shining a ton, not to mention those double lasers. They wanna be just like him, cause he’s one of the best players in the world for this game, so obviously if he’s doing it it must be good (which it is). There’s no harm in learning tech skill, in fact it’s vital to learn it to play Melee (see point 2). But the problem comes in when people learn ONLY tech skill, and not one of the most important aspects of a fighting game: patience. Knowing when to strike and when your opponent has messed up, waiting for them to do something wrong is sometimes not present in the Melee scene. Brawl players are often considered extremely smart and good at mind games. Why? Because that’s what they focused on as there weren’t any ATs they had to worry about. Even when Brawl players transition to games like Melee or PM, they play a lot more patiently and often yield great results. Melee players are often too impatient, and impatience leads to mistakes, which leads to punishes which leads to death. This is all too common in Melee. In Sm4sh, seeing as how there aren’t many ATs (apart from foxtrot canceling and the MALLC), people don’t focus there, and instead focus on patience and waiting for the right time to attack, which is the centerpiece of the fighting game genre. While some spectators are not a fan of patience, perfectly timing that attack and shielding it in response it still a wondrous thing to watch. 4. Constant patches I mentioned this briefly in point 1, but it needs to be addressed here too. Melee has no patches whatsoever to balance the characters. In Sm4sh, more stages, characters, and balance changes are being implemented, making for a growing, ever-expanding game. This results in glitches being passed. If Sm4sh weren’t patched at all, Sheik, Rosalina, and Diddy Kong would DOMINATE everyone else by a longshot, similar to Melee’s Fox, Falco, and Sheik. Vectoring would still be an issue, and as well, DACUS’ing would return. But unlike previous Sm4sh games, this one is constantly monitored by Nintendo. Glitches and exploits are patched out. Vectoring was changed drastically. DACUS’ing was removed. While some of this may seem negative, it overall leads to a much bigger point: support from Nintendo. Nintendo has provided very little support to Melee in its competitive endeavors and even tried to stop it, but thanks to the community backlash it continued into a thriving community. Smash 4 has no such barrier to deal with, which will help it in the long run.5. Online PlayThis is a huge benefit Melee couldn't possibly provide apart from Netplay, and Netplay is a huge legal gray area. Nintendo has decided to make online even better than in Brawl (thank God cause Brawl online was horrible), and even added in new modes that weren't just for fun. They added a "For Glory" mode, and later a "Tournament" mode, which promotes one on one skill vs skill gameplay. It doesn't seem like such a huge deal at first. But it's crucial to the life of the game to have a decent online, as nearly every major fighting game nowadays has an online feature to test your skill against opponents. Tournaments can now be hosted online instead of in person, and it would bring in more people towards the competitive side of Smash 4.I can agree that both games share their niche, and as stated in R1 I'm playing devil's advocate. I personally believe Melee has the superior competitive scene as of now. However Smash 4 is still relatively new, and who knows how the game might change from now until then. It may become even more popular than Melee, but I don't know. To wrap up:- Smash 4 has a greater variety of "viable" characters that can be used competitively as well as the variety of custom moves for further strategy. - Smash 4 lacks an enormous physical and informational wall, but both are still present. Melee's is a ton larger.- Patience is often overlooked in Melee, which results to mindless spamming at times, and a lack of patience contrasts greatly with traditional fighting games which emphasize them.- Constant patches indicate the support of Nintendo as well as the game's continued lifespan.- Online play opens the door for huge competitive opportunities for Nintendo.With that, that's my round.Over to you, Pro.