Nobody will claim that Melee is the be all end all of video games. From nuisances like Falco lasers, Marth’s incredible range, and Puff’s Rest confirms, there’s a lot of things to be frustrated at in Melee. Even the stages, from Whispy on Dreamland to the varying platform heights on Fountain of Dreams, can be annoying.
But few things in the game are as polarizing as the transformations on Pokemon Stadium. The smoke at the ground can make it hard to see what grounded opponents are doing, the platforms and walltechs can be really weird, and… it’s also possible to fall through the stage.
Pokemon Stadium is a good stage pic.twitter.com/2gtPcK2spC
— Panda (@PandaGlobal) August 27, 2018
Falling through the stage isn’t too common because it’s very precise, but it still happens. It’s brought about by very small gaps existing in the stage that you can clip through with very specific positions. There are even a few known setups for the glitch, including one for Samus on the Fire Transformation.
Still, it’s hard to imagine anybody expected it to happen during top eight of Shine 2018. Down quite a lot, Johnny “S2J” Kim gets a weird down throw on Justin “Plup” McGrath on the Fire Transformation which leads Plup to fall straight through the stage. Knowing he could still get back, Plup jumps up and recovers up and a bit left. S2J manages to read Plup’s recovery angle and hits him with a meaty dair to steal the second game of the set from Plup.
Plup ultimately won the set 3-1, but was visibly frustrated at the beginning of the third game.
That didn’t actually count as a round right?
— J-Protostar (@j_protostar) August 27, 2018
On Twitter, a few people unfamiliar with the Melee scene didn’t even think that should’ve counted as a game win. It certainly did though. It’s all part of the risk of playing on Pokemon Stadium, a risk all competitors know about.
It is funny though that the entire situation would have been avoided if Plup had teched on the tree. At least it had no bearing on the set outcome. That would’ve brought out true salt.
