Bunt Clashing

Bunt Clashing makes low level play more exciting

Bunt Clashing makes bunting riskier

Bunt Clashing increases average high level ball speed

Bunt Clashing is an incredible offensive tool

Bunt Clashing increases importance of spacing

With tons of recent footage and experience I think it is the right time to have an in depth discussion about bunt clashing, since we have a lot of strong opposing opinions about it. No promises on it resulting in any changes, since Dion mentioned in the AMA being happy with the current balance of the game and metagames evolving over time without balance updates anyway (just look at the history of melee, beautiful). But that makes the discussion itself even more important since it evolves the metagame (and the better we have explored it the better potential changes will be).Let me follow with a big mix of facts and hypotheses about bunt clashing, each with a set of supporting evidence and arguments.This may be a weird point for most around here, but I want it out first, because I feel it has higher importance than you may realize. First of all clash stun in general is a very exciting part of the game, as it's the only direct power trade between characters. It comes with a very satisfying audio visual effect, a short loss of control and that suspense of whether you manage to recover from it or not. It can add suspense to the least exciting casual matches you can think of. Next to high speeds, clashing has been a driving hype factor in a lot of lets plays I've seen and it always saddened me that they were so rare before bunt clashing. Clashes are Lethal Leagues Sm4sh items - except they aren't random and thus don't infringe on anyones entitlement to full control (LL confirmed better than smash :p). Now the Lethal League Pro may ask: Why would I care? You care because the large less vocal majority of Lethal League owners plays this more casual than you, hopefully on a comfy couch with friends (wild dreams right?) - this majority is also the larger financial base for Team Reptile. Not a plea to cater entirely to this type of play (I do think it's best to consider highest level first and figure out how to make it work for anyone), but it has to be considered to make anyone enjoying it that way enjoy it for as long as possible. Most may play it like that forever and some may only discover their love for competitive LL in the far future. Better have the fondest memories possible at that point.There is little arguing about this. And I've heard lots of complaints that this is bad, since bunting has been very risky already and this simply disencourages it, thus making the game less dynamic and more boring. However there are more consequences, which in my opinion are beneficial even to high level play - making it in fact more diverse and exciting (perhaps still less dynamic - but maybe we've been a bit over the top dynamic).First of all let me notice that I haven't yet seen a decline of bunt frequency in high level matches. People are insanely good at controlling bunted balls just outside of the opponents hitbox - so much in fact that I argue the largest portions of high level matches are still spent just juggling the ball around. To me bunting well deserves to be just that clashing bit riskier than it already was to force a little more action and a little less juggling (as beautiful as juggling can be - remember it's just a small shift, not the end of bunts). It makes actions potentially more diverse and balanced rather than keeping the heavy bunt juggle focus.Since bunt clashing is risky and normal swings can clash too you are more inclined to use smashes, right? More smashing means we get to higher speeds more often in competitive matches - and I feel that's been true for me, I've reached 6 digit and 1M bursts with strong opponents more often recently instead of ending on low speed parries. Now this could potentially also increase match lengths as getting stuck in a long smash hit lag takes time, but since this also empowers the position of the player forcing the safe smash it makes having/gaining ball control all the more important and shifting the odds towards the player with the upper hand (potentially still ending bursts as fast as usual). Again I've seen this as an argument against bunt clashing - because the defending player has fewer safe options, potentially getting stuck in a constant ♥♥♥ saving smash loop. But really having a higher risk as the recieving player is automatically a higher reward for me when I do regain control and turn the tides (which is instant in LL). Plus: reaching higher speeds more often without enlengthening bursts in general and increasing risk/reward stakes seems like a win-win-win situation to me. More hype and in fact not less skill.Now most players report having their majority of bunt clashes being accidental and being able to count the intentional ones on one hand. I argue this is because most are still used to being safe when bunting close to an opponent as long as the ball is kept out of the opponents range and also not putting a lot of effort into incooperating bunt clashes as an offensive element. Once enough players are more aware of how bunt clashes change the game this too should change.Here is an offensive example I recently managed to pull off against T0asty (granted not the super saiyan we saw on stream yesterday):I used a Dice special to send the ball behind me into the ground corner with T0asty trying to pick my forward options with a bunt in front of me. I knew he would bunt again to pick the shallow special angle because that is the strongest and usually somewhat safe option, so instead of letting him take the ball or stopping it before it could reach him I clashed his second bunt and scored (hope I remember all that correctly :p).Granted this was an easy hard read with preceeding indication of his next action, but with bunt clashes triggering earlier than swing clashes (on second frame rather than later - giving normal swings more priority on hitting the ball than clashing; intel from Mecha, correct if wrong) it should be possible to bunt clash an opponent just at the human reaction speed limit (see a close bunt whiff and have ball control? clash it!). With the large bunt hit box and being able to move as you go (compared to stanionary parries) it has huge potential to be used intentionally. Also should parries get toned down a bit at some point this seems a much needed spread of the clash stun onto different actions to keep a players options diverse and powerful (thus more depth to the game, higher skill ceiling).Lets face it: top players hardly respect each others space. You are all up in each others faces quite a lot of the time. This makes matches both very hard to read for the contestants and hard to follow for spectators (wanna go esports? we gotta consider this!). Parries were meant to slightly deal with respecting space, but they only do that for a very limited and stationary moment that lots of players can tiptoe around now at a very close range (be it just outside or camping behind). Normal clashes deal with the free ball situations, but as mentioned earlier they have a higher priority on hiting the ball, are thus rather uncommon and can be avoided with a defensive safe smash (and it used to be "easy" to fish a ball out of the opponents hit range with a bunt). Bunt clashes fill that very last gap of being able to hog each other. To me this is good because it forces players to think about their positioning on a larger scale more often than short distance pixel perfection somewhere around your opponent. They have to respect their opponents space more often, making character speeds/angles/spreads/etc and stage sizes more relevant. And as mentioned at the beginning here: ♥♥♥♥ is easier to follow and tell apart with well spaced opponents.Now I'm obviously biased with my opinion, but I hope I explained well enough why bunt clashesme. Gimme your thoughts and arguments on this.