With regards to the bng rules i believe these are biased to notchers. I'll try to write an explanation why i believe unlimited shotgun, the removal of positional darksiding rules and map styles encourage notching, not combat it.
First of all, everyone is learning to notch and competitive bng (based on the limited games i've played this year) have turned more into a 3sec, 4sec, lg 5sec and low strength full power wind shots. This mainly comes from the high style maps made with narrow tall gaps where sometimes you don't have many 3sec options unless you dig. Don't even think about zooking with some mid-full strength winds. Hides are deep in these gullies and 4secs and lg 5s are notched for the majority of the game. (map style here:
https://www.tus-wa.com/leagues/game-149237/) Then maps which have tunnels under single dots allow a worm to find new gaps and create angle with sg which only gives them an option to 1 or 2 shots and these hides have been made based on knowing the notch distance (probably from a visual aid) to hit your opponent.
If you remove unlimited shotgun, you have to rely on teleporting into a riskier position to gain angle, or blast a much larger opening to create angle, allowing your opponent a better chance to hit you. This creates a disadvantage which i think is justified because alternatively you are taking an evil hide with limited shot options when using shotgun. Also while you make your hide with shotgun you don't have angle and in old rules this is a cow because you don't have angle to make a shot. In old BnG rules you should be able to attack every turn. If you were darksiding and didn't get the wind you wanted when having no bank or grenade option this was a cow.
As notching is more exposed and gaining popularity, why not tailor the bng rules to be more like nrbng? When notching wasn't well known some 6 years ago or so myself and many clan mates would use darksiding methods in bng's to beat notchers. Me and ropa would play sCa with unanch bng. Me and Dub would find hides where it was difficult to notch us between the notches and use skillful bank shots to still deal damage to opponents. Now this form of defense is limited because you can create almost any angle with the sg option and make evil hides with the prefect notch shot in a couple of turns.
Now I guess you can look at it in two ways and say its peoples fault for not learning to notch while others took the time to learn a aiming technique. That's fair enough, but i believe the current scheme is in favour of that playing style.
Personally i think the scheme shouldn't include sg, should have more griders, consider limiting the number of teleports, reinstate the darksiding rule where if you do not have a shot you cow. This would limit the option of creating evil hides tailored to a notch specific shot. It would put more focus on making hits and pushes because you have to be careful about your hide choices, going somewhere that will open up easily could come back to get you later if you can't escape. If two notchers are playing then there will be more of an intense rally as both are getting decent hits, but the power of pushes will limit the angles and potentially ask for a creative floor bank or different style zook shots as a result of this.
I think we should look at the style of maps, many years ago we wouldn't use flat maps, we'd use the 1 island random and people could darkside on the edges and build a girder. This resulted in having to learn some banks and also curling zooks with strong winds. You can see this skill set from darksiding in hysteria, i think it encourages some nice style of bng with lg winds that you just don't see in bngs anymore. The opponent who is still up top needs to know how to curl zooks against the wind, can attempt to hit the enemies girder to get a transfer and also as the worm they are going for is much lower then the whole power of your shot is totally different to the standard style that has been mastered by notching. With limited teleports the player that decides to darkside in this manor has to pay serious thought as they could get stuck in an awkward place in the map with no shots and be cowing and take a necessary penalty.
Anyway, my main point is that this older style of bng, with older schemes and older rules is a decent tactic against notching that the current style of competitive bng games does not encourage. I don't believe the scheme is dead as others have said, i just think it needs to go back to the roots, and does not allow for a scheme and rule set that is not so advantageous to notching and limits the 'Darth Naders' of us in bng
These tactics and style of play i've used in many leagues and clanners in the past and although i can still handle my own in the current rule set, the option to play in this style has been removed.
When we edit schemes we shouldn't just think about what is being added or taken away, we should look more deeply into the tactics that are behind the schemes and the different playing styles that are effected by the decisions we make. The more playing styles and variations that we can bring to a competitive league match the better. People have developed their own styles and tactics personal to them over many years and that is the joy of worms. Just look at inter/elite and how there are so many different ways of implementing your tactics and style in the scheme. Changes can limit the options and style of a player that others many not have considered or learnt, just because something is popular by the majority of players doesn't necessary means it should change, allowing more variation is the key, steering us to all play a scheme with the same tactic isn't.
ps. If you wanna move this to the barman bng thread it may be more appropriate there.
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