Keep in mind, I don't think SFD will ever do well with a 1v1 or FFA type of competitive scene. Everything I've put together should be used in 2v2, 3v3, or even 4v4 fights.(though I don't think those will do well either)
GENERAL RULES
-Four minute time limit.
->In the event of a time-out, the team with the most players still alive wins.
-->In the event of there being the same amount of players alive, the team with the most combined health wins.
--->If there are equal players and health amounts on timeout, the match is void and a rematch on the stage will begin.
-No infinite anything (Health, ammo, stamina, etc)
-Host is not allowed to use commands mid-match.
-Players are not allowed to tamper with their files at all. Any amount of hacking/modding will result in a forfeit.
RECOMMENDED SPECIFIC RULES
-Each Match against a team is best 3/5 to mitigate randomness a little
-Finals / Grand Finals (should be) best 5/9 (this is up to the tournament host themselves, though I'd encourage it)
-Double Elimation
-General stage striking
Preferably, the host will be on neither team so that nobody has the host advantage. Sometimes that's not possible, though.
STAGES
The stage list is pretty large, with 21 total official maps existing! A large handful of them have gimmicks or flaws that, while no problem in FFA or more casual matches, will disrupt or hamper competitive matches. Here are the criteria that I've come up with to judge whether or not a map isn't fit for competitive play:
-(IVP): Invincible Cover that has large map coverage, aka Invincible Vantage Points. If something has no durability and thus can not be broken, you should not be able to take cover behind it and shoot a large portion of the map, especially with few means of beating or approaching it.
-(PoD): No impassable Pits of Death. If sprinting and jumping from one side can not reach a ledge, platform, ladder, or wall cling with some room to spare, then it is an impassable Pit of Death.
-(DE) A location needs two ways to enter and leave it, otherwise it is a Dead End. If you are unable to fire upon the spot while the spot can fire upon you with ease, it is likely a dead end. If you can only access this spot with one entryway, it is guaranteed a dead end.
-(N2P) A competitive map should have no more than 2 portals, or one set of portals. Only players and throwables can go through portals, while bullets and cover can not, offering a quick and cheap means of escape. Camping on portals is an easy way to disrupt gameplay and can go on for a very long time. The only hard counter to portal camping is molotovs, which still doesn't quite cover the issues involved. Due to how polarizing portals can be when tied to camping spots or other unavoidable means of reaching destinations, only one set of portals can be present per map. The less, the better.
-(NML) No Man's Land. While this isn't a true rule that I used to come up with the stage list below, I feel there needs to be some sort of "openness rule" for us to judge maps by. Maps that are hugely guilty of this "rule" are East Warehouse, Fairground, Trainyard, and Tower. They should not be legal maps, but since I can't accurately quantify what makes an area NML, I can't rule these maps out. That said, just by looking at these maps, it's readily apparent that they have huge, wide-open areas that can often shoot anywhere from anywhere or just plain ruin movement options since it's so easy to fire upon people in this NML area.
That said, here are the stages that I believe fit the categories of starter vs counterpick (which I will explain later for stage striking)
STARTERS
Alley, Facility, High Moon, Police Station, Steamship
COUNTERPICKS
Canals, Fairground, Rooftops, Subway, Trainyard, Tower
Tower, Trainyard, Rooftops, and Fairground all suffer heavily from NML, landing them in the counterpicks at least. I hope we can come together to find legitimate reasons and methods of testing how open an area is and thus being able to ban stages if they have large patches of NML.
STAGE STRIKING
Stage striking is the go-to method of deciding a stage to fight on each round. Your stages are divided into starters and counterpicks. Starters are the maps that the first round can be held on, and counterpicks are legal stages that, while available, can not be played on first round. The method of stage striking I'm about to explain is 1-2-1: For the first round, each team is to play rock paper scissors (RPS). If playing online, hopefully we can all be honest and whisper our choice to one player, and let them announce the winner. Afterwards: Whoever won the RPS strikes one stage. Then, the loser strikes two stages. Then, the winner strikes the last stage, limiting the stages left to one stage and thus deciding the first stage to play on. In other words, winner of RPS strikes one, the loser strikes two, then the winner picks. After that, the team that wins the round in-game strikes a few stages and the losing team picks a map from the leftover pool, which now includes counterpicks. The number of stages allowed to be struck by the winner is dependent on the available stages. If you are deciding on your stages based on the legal stagelist I've made above, then the winning team would strike 4 stages, leaving seven stages available for the losing team to pick. The number of strikes available to the winner may be different depending on who your tournament host is; always be sure to read individual rulesets for variations and other factors.
Again, never forget to read individual rulesets! This set is mostly a guideline for other tournaments to base their rules off of. I spent several hours and used all my previous experience playing this game to come up with these rules, and especially the stagelist. Hopefully this will be the go-to in terms of how tournaments are run from here forward.
For now, the rules are solid and all of the stages have been checked and rechecked to be sure they weren't infringing on any of the stated rules. Personal opinion says that Hotel should be a counterpick, though the slight dead end on bottom left technically knocks it out. I think if I edited some of the maps we'd have a larger competitive pool to pull from, but then I'd be making custom maps for this when we already have an entire set of officials to choose from. Even then, it is up to the community to decide what maps should be legal and which ones shouldn't.
If you have any questions about why I said these are the rules we should use, why certain stages are or aren't allowed, or have anything to say, please post it! Any and all discussion is heavily encouraged here. If you think a certain map should or should not be used, open up some discussion and I'll show you why a map is or isn't bad, or maybe you'll change my mind! Either way, this is a community effort; it's up to us to cement the competitive rules and stagelist for a healthier meta.