Rules and game settings that are widely accepted in the competitive community for use in professionalSmashtournaments are considered to be within the bounds of what istournament legal. These rules are listed by a tournament and all participants must follow these rules or else face punishment. These rulesets did not suddenly appear overnight, but instead have been tweaked and iterated on in response to the developingmetagame since the inception of the series.

Most rulesets typically run all settings at default and disallow any gameplay modifiers, and use bothstock andtime for a game. Some multiplayer game elements, such asitems and certain stages, are believed to cause gameplay to become degenerate or unfair in the context of tournament level competition. Because of this, these elements are not considered tournament legal, and are illegal in competitions barring fringe examples like theGentleman's rule. For example, theMelee stageBig Blue is not accepted as tournament legal and is abanned stage. At a level more specific to tournaments, certainadvanced techniques that have been discovered over time have been specifically disallowed for being considered unfair. Examples includeWobbling and any glitch that makes a game unwinnable for a player. The most widely accepted sets of rules forMelee andBrawl are those proposed by theSmash World Forum'sBack Room (the SBR rulesets), while the originalSuper Smash Bros. does not have an official SBR ruleset. The formation ofSmash 4 andUltimate rulesets are less centralized and are more the result of large tournaments simply proposing certain rules and eventually coming to a consensus.

While tournament rulesets are generally accepted by most major tournaments, they are not set in stone. There may be minor differences between them, and some local tournaments may make their own ruleset completely different from the standard to meet their specific goals. Rulesets are also subject to change at any point in an effort to address a loophole or account for a new gameplay discovery.

Common rulesets by game[edit]

• Red Mario/Moyashi Ruleset forSuper Smash Bros. in Japan
• N64 BR Ruleset forSuper Smash Bros. in America
• SBR Ruleset forSuper Smash Bros. Melee
• Summary of various rulesets forSuper Smash Bros. Brawl
• Summary of various rulesets forSuper Smash Bros. 4
• Summary of various rulesets forSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate

See also[edit]

• Stage legality
• Character legality
• Historical rulesets

• Competitive play