Hero's Thwack scores an instant 0 percent KO during grand finals of a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament
Dragon Quest's Hero instantly became one of the most controversial characters in Super Smash Bros. history after he was released for Ultimate earlier this month having already faced bans in some corners of the globe.
One of the fighter's attacks which is seen as "problematic" is Hero's Thwack ability that can KO opponents instantly though it's supposed to have a much lower chance of working if the enemy is at lower percentages. Puppeh managed to end a match of grand finals, however, hitting a hefty and successful Thwack at zero percent.
During game two of grand finals against Adastran at a tournament in Virginia, Puppeh was actually put to sleep with Snooze in the Hero mirror match before getting smacked with forward smash bringing him down to his last stock.
Upon his respawn, Puppeh pulled up his Hero down special menu and selected Thwack... and it worked.
The game was suddenly over which sent the room into a bit of a frenzy with other players / commentators exclaiming that he just killed at zero percent with another stating "this character is disgusting."
Much of the controversy around Hero comes down to how random and volatile his tool set is in a competitive setting. Part of it boils down to his down special which pulls up an RPG skill menu where the character can select a variety of spells and abilities from a random list that could include things like Thwack, Zoom, Kaclang for invincibility and many more.
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Hocus Pocus can also pop up in that special which will then use a random spell effect from the aforementioned bunch plus other effects like giving Hero a super mushroom, poison mushroom, invincibility star or could even just make him blow up with Kamikaze.
The South Australia Smash Central scene took steps earlier this week to actually ban Hero from their competitive settings deeming his "design as a character is fundamentally dependent on randomness to the point that it is not reasonable in a competitive environment."
This isn't the first time that the Smash community at large has faced questions about banning characters either. Meta Knight was often barred from use back in the Brawl days thanks to his wild tools plus Melee has seen community push for bans against things like the Ice Climbers' Wobbling technique and Jigglypuff altogether.
Without a central pro tour making decisions about official rule sets for Smash Ultimate, the decision to entertain these ban requests come down to the tournament organizers and scene leaders, so it may be hard to find an overall consensus on the game's latest DLC character.
You can check out the clip of the zero percent Thwack by clicking the thumbnail above or watch the full Hero mirror match set in the stream embed below from Game On Gaming Center.
Image source: Eric Andre Show via Linkmas15712558.
