This is a hard question. And its one that tugs at both sides of my beliefs as far as competitive gaming goes. Both sides here have made valid arguments as to why Skarlett should either be banned or not.
I do not have the anwser. Whenever Im faced with a question like this that I dont know the correct anwser to, I go back to basics. The foundation of my mindset about competitive games comes largly from David Sirlins book "Playing to win" And it is to that book that I now turn for anwsers.
The first chapter that seems to be the most relevant here is "What should be banned" Its a long article so I wont quote the whole thing but only the parts I believe to be most related to the discussion at hand.(You can view the whole article here if you wish:
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html )
Now this is a tricky subject, not nearly so clear-cut as the last. The world is full of players who think everything under the sun should be banned. The scrub believes that any tactic or maneuver that beats him should be labeled “cheap” and consequently banned. In actuality, very little ever needs to be banned.
Ok so the first thing he says off the bat is basically very little ever needs to be banned. This is common knowledge to most of us but I thought id reemphasize it here. Banning anything in a game is never something that should be taken lightly or done freely.
Before we discuss what should or should not be allowed in tournament play, I should acknowledge that different forms of distribution of games have led to different attitudes about banning. Some types of games are released, and that’s that. The players are stuck with whatever is in the game. Other types of games see a patch or two to fix the most egregious bugs and perhaps game balance problems. I’ll lump these two into the same category though as they both basically stick the player with whatever is there after the last patch. These are the types of games I grew up with.
Pretty much exactly what we are talking about here. We are talking about "sticking players with whatever is there after the last patch".
The entire notion of radically patching and altering a game after its release may have many desirable properties, but it also has created an attitude among developers that they can release a somewhat buggy and imbalanced game and just patch it later. It is no surprise then that players of this type of game see differently than players of more “static” games on the issue of banning and altering a game. To players of my kind of games, banning is an ultra-extreme measure. To players of some internet games, the changing of game balance can be an everyday occurrence, as can the fixing of bugs.
The difference between the way games were back in the day and the way modern games are handled today, and the shift in mentality that has gone with them.
The “constant patching” approach by developers also often leads to laziness on the part of the players; there’s less reward for trying as hard as you can within the given rules, because if you are successful, your tactic will just be patched into obsolescence anyway. You might be a footnote someplace, but you won’t still be winning.
Bingo. This is what I was looking for. so the question is are we being lazy? Is it easier for us to just ban Skarlett rather then potentially have to deal with her? Keep in mind we already know from the first quote that very little needs to actually be banned. We have already seen NRS patch out or nerf things that we know were not broken or overpowered. Kung Lao's spin, Smokes OTG smoke bomb and cyrax's bomb traps all come to mind. In fact the only truly broken thing Ive seen expoited in a tournament that actually ruins the game was Kabal's block infinite. Thats it.
We know virtually nothing about Skarlett yet compared to what we will know as people begin to break her down. What are our grounds for banning her? Because no one will have that much experience with the matchup? Utter nonsense. EVO is still a month away. Powerup was held less than 2 weeks after MK9's release, and PDP was about 1 month. Skarlett is in the same situation as every other character was in at Powerup. If skarlett is to good then a tournament is the place for that to be put to the test. Not "Well. she might be to good, we just dont know, so lets go ahead and ban her anyway"
That is in direct opposition to what Sirlin is saying.
A note to game developers: fix your bugs after release if you have the opportunity to do so. But beware that players enjoy the feeling of wielding “unfair” tactics, and taking that away from them can be a mistake if the “unfair” tactic isn’t powerful enough to single-handedly win tournaments.
^^^ NRS please read this.
Anyway after thinking about this I believe Skarlett should NOT be banned at EVO. Not unless some game breaking problem with her is PROVEN(not found and then just accepted as game breaking.) to be broken or to good.
