Rivals Championship Series Ruleset

The Rivals Championship Series Ruleset is the standard ruleset used in pretty much all Rivals tournaments.

A. Tournament Type

 * The tournament format is double elimination unless otherwise specified, meaning each player will have the chance to compete in a minimum of two sets.

B. Game Settings
Tournament matches are initiated through Local Versus mode with Tournament mode enabled using default settings (3 stocks, 8:00 minute timer, Aether Stages “OFF”, Turbo Mode “OFF”).


 * 3 stocks
 * 8 minutes
 * Aether Stages off
 * Turbo Mode off
 * Best of 3 unless otherwise specified
 * Tournament Mode enabled

C. Set Format
Sets are played in a best two-out-of-three game format unless otherwise specified.

D. Character Selection
Characters for the first game are chosen double-blind (at the same time). For successive matches, the winner chooses their character first, and then the loser chooses their character. Characters are chosen before the stage is selected. If a player wishes to choose a random character, that character may remain unknown to both players until the game starts only if the random character pool includes ALL characters. Players using custom random character pools must determine which character is randomly chosen before proceeding to Stage Selection.

E. Stage Selection
The first game’s stage is selected using 1-2-1 stage striking. Players should determine fairly who strikes first through a method like a coin flip or rock-paper-scissors. Subsequent games in the series use winner-strikes-three. When choosing stages, a player cannot return to any stage they have previously won on without the consent of their opponent (modified Dave’s Stupid Rule). Playing a match on a stage where this rule applies without immediately stopping and notifying your opponent that you wish to invoke this rule implies that you have agreed to play on it.

F. Stage Legality
All stages available in the game are legal in both singles and doubles. The legal starter stagelist will be displayed in-game. Starter stages include all stages not marked “COUNTERPICK”.