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Steve from Minecraft was added Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in October 2020. In the following years, the feeling around the character has got worse and worse due to accusations that the character is broken and overpowered. Now, a recent discovery surrounding a competitively advantageous flaw has brought those conversations back into the spotlight. Now it sounds like shards Smash Bros. the competitive scene bans the character from tournaments.
Steve was controversial from the start, with players taking issue with his combo potential and large amount of ranged attacks. It makes him a frustrating character to fight, and not many characters in it Super Smash Bros. Ultimatehis expansive roster serves as a tough counter to him. Because of this, talks to have the character banned have been ongoing since he launched. It looks like some of those people are getting their wish now that a new bug has been discovered that pushes the character from overwhelmed to unfair.
What is the problem with Steve i Smash Bros.?
In layman’s terms, Steve has a glitch associated with 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 retaliate before the opponent can even act. This is not an intentional part of the character’s toolkit, but rather an unfortunate technical solution that worked in the players’ favor. Despite this, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is no longer receiving balance updates from Nintendoso competing organizers are left with two options: do you ban the strategy, or do you ban the character?
The logistics of banning the strategy are complicated. If you choose to allow players to continue to use Steve in competitive tournaments, but intentionally prevent players from using this technology, moderating matches where the character is used becomes a huge time commitment. It requires the players to save a replay of the exchange and for an organizer to see and verify that the Steve player is breaking the rules, and ultimately make a call that the play is legal. While these types of conversations can be done more easily during in-person tournaments (although pulling an organizer always interrupts something else at the event), doing them in an online setting becomes much more complicated. These replays must be uploaded or streamed in ways much more time-consuming than having an organizer walk up to the relevant players on a game set-up. Because of this, some tournament organizers have called for banning Steve entirely, rather than spend valuable time and resources 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 online tournaments. The Coinbox better known by its handle Hungrybox, released a video about the situation on its YouTube channel. In the video, DeBiedma goes through several tournament organizers around the US and announces their decision to ban Steve from their events. Finally, after some deliberation, he follows through, saying that Steve would not be allowed in The Coinbox “for now.”
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How widespread is the Steve ban?
Barnard’s Loop, a computer organizer for Smash society, has compiled data on the current stance most states have taken on Steve. At the moment, there doesn’t seem to be a ton of consensus on how hard the organizers are coming down on the character. However, several place at least some restrictions on players using him, such as allowing him in local tournaments but not state tournaments. Despite this, Hungrybox notes in its video that The Coinbox making the ban can be seen as a blueprint for others to follow, and that time will tell how far this will go.
All in all, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate does not depend on uniform rules, esp without Nintendo’s direct involvement in the competitive scene, so tournament organizers are free to do whatever they want. But the current state of Steve points to an underlying issue with combat balance that occurs when the developer has finally moved on from supporting it. Super Smash Bros. Ultimateits last update was released in December 2021, and since then the community has had to contend with the state of the game while sorting out its own competition rules. So for now, Steve will be banned from some tournaments, and will be at least a contested pick in others.
