I love you all to death (Just so I can smash bros with you) (SSBWiiU/3DS)

[Terminal Devastation]

Skill in chaos? Bull. One of the main reasons items are banned because they're OP as shit or pretty useless. A bomb that takes up half the screen? A rapid fire rocket cannon that has both good range and damage? A hammer that kills anyone who gets close? Ever have a crate kill you because it spawned right in front of you in the middle of an attack and exploded? Try hitting someone who isn't terrible with a warp star. It won't happen. An almost invisible mine that could kill at low percentage by simply being there? A star that makes you goddamn invincible? Or how about a cloaking device that virtually does the same thing /and/ makes you invincible. Or how about a bumper that kills anyone over 50%? Mushrooms that either make someone a killing machine or death fodder? Anyone with a linear recovery becomes gimped with all of the fast projectiles you have at your disposal by throwing weapons. Shells are very fast and hit as hard as a fully charged Samus shot. Anything bomb hit as hard as an attack that takes ten seconds to charge before it goes. Curry gives you a giant wall of fire that eats up shields and can rack up a stupid amount if damage. The fan can trap you even with good DI.A lot of the Pokemon are OP, taking up half the screen with easy to kill moves. Assist Trophies are the same, although while they usually don't take up half the screen they home in, which makes them almost impossible to avoid on maps in competitive. Most Melee battles don't last too longer over 100%, so anyone with half a brain could understand why Hearts are a bad idea. Soccer balls may be hard to aim, but it's possible and becomes a super fast death machine projectile. With items on, gameplay becomes centered around the items rather than fighting itself and luck. I've yet to see any competitive fighting game centered around luck. That's mainly because luck is competetive. Luck doesn't take skill. There's no skill in chaos or overpowered weapons. It's bullshit. And if my rambling don't convince you, here's a video:

Everyone should know that the best players just don't give a crap one way or the other. They'll STILL dominate.

A lot of people say items are banned because they are "too random" or "too OP" but the fact of the matter is, it just takes less time to determine skill without them on.

A single match without items is all you need to determine who's the best without items.

You need multiple matchs WITH items to determine if someone is just lucky or if there's combination of raw character skill combined with high adaptibility to a random element.

Also, a good 75% of the items are a variation of a character skill. If you can deal with most characters, you can deal with most items.

I mean really, how is the sudden appearance of an item, any worse than an opponent suddenly changing his playing style. You adapt, you move on.

Bottom line: If you need items to win consistantly, you're bad. If you need NO items to win consistantly you're bad.

But the problem is is that I severely doubt either if you two have competitive experience, or your tunes would quickly change.

And this line is bull. You know why it is bull? Because competitions don't use items. If you focus SOLELY on no item training, items are going to wreck your game. It's like only learning half a martial art really well. Sure you'll be really really good in situations where only that half will be used... but when the other is used? Good luck winning.