The most powerful character in Smash Bros is Steve from Minecraft. The organizers of tournaments are now taking the consequences and excluding the “hero” directly.
Super Smash Bros. is probably one of the most well-known fighting game series and has delighted players for generations. There are absurd combinations of opponents that meet each other – Link from the Zelda universe fights with different Pokemon or Ganondorf gives Bowser a good one on the spiked armor. But there are also some unusual characters in “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate”, such as the Minecraft character “Steve”.
However, it has now turned out to be so overpowering that it is banned from tournaments.
Hitstun-Cancelling becomes Steve’s undoing
What is Steve doing so op? The blocky Steve from the Minecraft universe has been a subject of controversy since its inception. He’s long been considered “op” in the eyes of many, as he can pull off absurdly long combos that are virtually impossible to escape from. Once struck, most are left with no choice but to endure the misery that then unfolds.
A second point is that Steve rarely has pure “counters”. So there are few other characters who took a solid stance against him from the ground up.
By far the worst thing, however, is that Steve is able to do a so-called “Hitstun Canceling”. This allows him to get out of many stuns much earlier than other characters – and thus start a counterattack before the actual attacker even had a chance to react. Steve can even survive supposed deathblows quite easily and unleash his own combos.
What has now been decided? More and more tournament operators have therefore now decided to exclude Steve from the tournaments. He can therefore no longer be chosen at such events and players have to switch to other characters.
Is that even “official”? No, at least not in the strict sense. Because the whole tournament scene around Super Smash Bros. has nothing to do with Nintendo and is held by other organizers. As such, tournament organizers face a dilemma here and must agree on one of two scenarios:
The second scenario in particular would mean a great deal of extra work, because in online tournaments each game would have to be checked individually to see whether the corresponding trick was not used.
Why isn’t Nintendo doing anything about it? The reason why Nintendo isn’t doing anything about the all-powerful Steve is quite simple: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will no longer be provided with updates and patches.
The game is therefore “finished” and any balance problems that still exist in the game will probably remain in the game forever.