The Team Battle option as shown on the character selection screen in Melee. The current setup shows a 2 vs. 1 vs. 1 team setup, with Players 1 and 2 fighting solo and Players 3 and 4 on a team.

Team Battle is a Versus Mode setting present in all games of the Super Smash Bros. series. As the name suggests, players (whether human or CPU) fight alongside others on their team, against the opposing team(s). Team Battle can be toggled on and off in the upper left-hand corner of the character selection screen by selecting the word "Free-for-all" in Smash 64, or the word "Melee"/"Brawl"/"Smash" in subsequent games.

Gameplay

A team battle can contain red, blue, and green teams. Prior to Super Smash Bros. 4, characters are required to use alternate costumes matching their team color; if two or more players are using the same character on the same team, they will be differentiated by a lighter or darker tint. In Smash 4 and Ultimate, a character's allegiance is instead indicated by a colored outline, thus enabling the player to use any color costume of their choice for their character. Once a game that features teams is completed, the announcer will announce the winning team color on the results screen instead of the last character standing. The following team setups are possible (not counting combinations with only one player per team):

Additionally, with the introduction of the 8-Player Smash mode in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, made a default option in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, an additional yellow team color can be selected. With a maximum of eight characters that can participate in a match, further team setups become available. The setups done with 5 or more players are:

Since team battles are a regular type of Versus Mode, the usual options of Time, Stock, and Coin Battle matches can be selected, along with Special Smash rules as well. In Time and Coin matches, the score (or coins collected) of each team is the combined score of its members and if multiple teams have the same total by the end of the match, then Sudden Death will occur between all members of the tied teams. Stock matches are played in essentially the same manner; each player starts with a set number of lives and the objective is to deplete the stock of the opposing team(s). However, in Team Stock matches there is a feature known as Share Stock where, when one player on a team loses their last stock and has a teammate with two or more stocks, the fallen teammate may borrow one of their teammate's stocks and re-spawn as usual.

With the default setting, members of the same team cannot attack each other. However, turning on Friendly Fire on the options screen will allow players to damage their allies. This can lead to techniques such as easily using Mr. Game & Watch's Oil Panic move, giving Kirby a copy ability using Inhale, healing Ness or Lucas with PSI Magnet, or hitting a recovering ally with a low-knockback projectile, allowing them to reuse their up special move after becoming helpless.

Team battles are also available when playing With Anyone online. This requires four players, who are randomly split into red and blue teams for a two-minute time match with Friendly Fire disabled.

In all games except Smash 4, all members of the winning team will perform their victory poses simultaneously. In Smash 4, only one of the characters (the player with the highest score/stock count) will perform a complete victory animation and even then, only one of their animations can ever play, usually being the least special effects-heavy (Mewtwo, for example, can only use the victory animation where it turns its head towards the screen after facing away, and can never use its other two). In Ultimate, if Joker or Sephiroth poses in front, no other team members will appear. Furthermore, if a solo player wins a Team Battle, the character will perform their victory pose, as in a regular Free For All match.

In Ultimate, players have the option to toggle whether their teammate is translucent or not in Local Wireless and Online battles, so that they can focus more on their battle, not the other teammate.

In competitive play

Team Battle is sometimes used during tournaments for specific events. The most common use by far is for doubles, or a 2v2 format, but Smash 4 allowing 8 players introduced the possibility for triples, quadruples, and any other team setup mentioned above. While not as popular as the singles format due to logistical issues inherent to relying on other people to compete, dedicated tournaments and exhibition matches using this mode are commonplace as side events.

Gallery

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  Team Battle flags in Brawl.
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  The final five seconds of a team battle in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS on Yoshi's Island.

Trivia

• In Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. 4, enabling team attack will make the shield color for human players based on port number, rather than team color (i.e. Player 1 has red shield, Player 2 has blue shield, Player 3 has yellow shield, and Player 4 has green shield). This also affects their blast KO's explosion color. This was fixed in Ultimate.
  • Brawl also erroneously gives the green team a yellow shield.
  • In Smash 4, both Player 3 and Player 4 will have their shield, launch trail, and blast KO explosion colors swapped from their normal port colors.
• In the original Super Smash Bros., selecting the blue team was the only way to use Samus' or Captain Falcon's blue color, and selecting the green team was the only way to get Captain Falcon's, Mario's, Kirby's, and Donkey Kong's green color, which were not selectable otherwise.
• During 2 vs. 1 or 3 vs. 1 battles in Super Smash Bros. Melee, despite there being only one opponent to attack, the Bully, Predator, and Stalker penalties will still be given out to the members of the multi-player team for only attacking a single participant.
• Because Wario in Brawl has two sets of outfits, each with its own team setup, he is the only character who has a choice of clothing in team battles prior to Smash 4.
• According to codes, Melee has two unused Team Colors that normally only apply to 1P game modes. When Port 3 is the only controller to select modes in the main menu, Player 3 will be their assigned number and color for all solo modes, with Classic mode using an exclusive Yellow Team for their CPU allies in 2 vs. 2 matches or Giant Battles. Their other unused Team Color is Gray, which applies exclusively to all CPU opponents in nearly every solo game mode.

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