In 2011, the Super Smash Bros. Brawl community officially banned Meta Knight from tournament play. It was a nearly unanimous vote among 15 council members, and for good reason; MK was almost universally known to be the best character in the game from day one. He had no bad matchups and was by all accounts an extremely "safe" pick-- both in the sense that MK players couldn't be counterpicked, and in the sense that his style of play was really conservative and defensive (boring!). To a lot of players, this ban was considered way overdue. Almost every decent tournament player in the world either had Meta Knight as a main or secondary character. So what happened?
The ban was overturned within a few months of the original ruling. Actually it might be more accurate to say that the ruling never went into effect. The reason for this is that the tournament directors basically did not give a shit, at all, about the "official" ruling. B-b-but what about the o-official council vote thing? Here's what happened: a tournament director would take a look at the new official Meta Knight ruling. Then they would just, not care at all about that, and not implement it at all. Enough tournament directors did that, that ultimately the ban was overturned and the council was disbanded. That's literally it.
The lesson here is this: official rulings do not matter very much at all. Okay yes, official rulings are very important for Gen 6, that's a totally different world right now. But in Gen 2, it matters for uh? A handful of tournaments and a dead ladder or something? I, literally me, Kristoph, could basically do all of that. If I cared about Gen 2 (which I don't), I could run a Gen 2 tournament with literally any rules I want. And if the format actually ends up being pretty cool, and if people like it and it's successful, I don't say oh wow that was a fun little mini-test thing... I run another tournament with the same rules, and promote the ruleset.
Anyone who wants HP legends banned can just run tournaments with HP legends banned, it's not complicated. Btw that's tournaments, plural, not just some little mini 'suspect test' thing that nobody is encouraged to take seriously. Run tournaments with your ruleset, post replays of people having fun playing your ruleset. Ask someone with a server to set up a ladder or whatever, it'll be dead 90% of the time but so is the 'official' ladder. The point is, if you really believe in your ruleset then you can show that by actually supporting a scene for it. Show, don't tell. And if you're right, and that ruleset is actually an improvement on the official, then people should play and enjoy it and encourage others to do the same. Maybe you can even create enough support there to change the 'official' ruling.
The ban was overturned within a few months of the original ruling. Actually it might be more accurate to say that the ruling never went into effect. The reason for this is that the tournament directors basically did not give a shit, at all, about the "official" ruling. B-b-but what about the o-official council vote thing? Here's what happened: a tournament director would take a look at the new official Meta Knight ruling. Then they would just, not care at all about that, and not implement it at all. Enough tournament directors did that, that ultimately the ban was overturned and the council was disbanded. That's literally it.
The lesson here is this: official rulings do not matter very much at all. Okay yes, official rulings are very important for Gen 6, that's a totally different world right now. But in Gen 2, it matters for uh? A handful of tournaments and a dead ladder or something? I, literally me, Kristoph, could basically do all of that. If I cared about Gen 2 (which I don't), I could run a Gen 2 tournament with literally any rules I want. And if the format actually ends up being pretty cool, and if people like it and it's successful, I don't say oh wow that was a fun little mini-test thing... I run another tournament with the same rules, and promote the ruleset.
Anyone who wants HP legends banned can just run tournaments with HP legends banned, it's not complicated. Btw that's tournaments, plural, not just some little mini 'suspect test' thing that nobody is encouraged to take seriously. Run tournaments with your ruleset, post replays of people having fun playing your ruleset. Ask someone with a server to set up a ladder or whatever, it'll be dead 90% of the time but so is the 'official' ladder. The point is, if you really believe in your ruleset then you can show that by actually supporting a scene for it. Show, don't tell. And if you're right, and that ruleset is actually an improvement on the official, then people should play and enjoy it and encourage others to do the same. Maybe you can even create enough support there to change the 'official' ruling.