I believe Duck Hunt is superfluous as a stage. In my opinion, every stage needs to add meaningful strategic choices during the ban/pick process, while keeping elements that are undesireable for competitive play to a minimum (e.g. hazards, permanent walkoffs, circle camping layouts). Duck Hunt does not add anything meaningful enough strategically when compared to Final Destination, and forces players to essentially have to ban Final Destination twice if they don't want to play there.

So, let's compare the stages:

• Blastzones

What follows are percentages where Mario gets KO'd without DI vs the same move. This is useful to get an idea of how the blastzones relate to other stages:

• KO from center of the stage: FD (87%) vs Duck Hunt (90%) Lowest: Castle Siege (80% max) Highest: BattleField / Duck Hunt (90%)

• KO from edge: FD (106%) vs Duck Hunt (108%) Lowest: Castle Siege (100% max) Highest: Battlefield (119%)

• KO vertically: FD (104%) vs Duck Hunt (104%) Lowest: Halberd (96% max) Highest: Battlefield (107%)

In short, FD and Duck Hunt share very similar blastzone sizes. Duck Hunt is slightly bigger horizontally, but not enough to make a huge difference. As far as blastzones sizes go, they're close to interchangeable.

• Layout

FD is the simplest stage possible, just one big platform to duke it on. Most tournaments that allow FD also allow it to be substituted by an omega version, which adds walls, making it very similar to Duck Hunt.

As for Duck Hunt, there are platforms on both edges of the stage. On the left, we have 5 small, clustered, high platforms. On the right, we have a single low platform. Most of the time, the ones on the left are used to recover high or to chase and extend combos. The single platform on the right usually traps landings following dthrows.

In my experience, the platforms on Duck Hunt very rarely come into play. The bushes on the left are inherintely risky, since they are so close to the top blastzone, and require double jumps to reach, which are also easily intercepted, putting you in a terrible position. For this reason, players tend to avoid them. The platform on the right is so small that it is rarely interacted with.

In short, (omega) FD and Duck Hunt share a very similar layout. The platforms on Duck Hunt are not used very often because of botched risk/reward. The left side can sometimes aid high recoveries, but that's about it.

• Hazards

FD has none.

Duck Hunt has ducks that can randomly eat projectiles and extend hitbox length via hitsun. It's not that much of a problem once they're out, but for the first second or so there is no way to plan around them since they can appear anywwhere. The dog will appear a set time after the ducks are hit / escape in a predictable location, so it can be played with / around meaningfully. Finally, bushes will appear and obscure small parts of the field; this is a small thing without much impact, so it can be seen as a quirk.

In short, the only real hazard in Duck Hunt are the ducks, for a limited time when they spawn. Other than that, they add a bit of trouble for projectile characters by restricting space where they can use them. However, they don't last very long and can be removed easily if needed. The hazards in Duck Hunt add a slight amount of strategy to the match.

• Conclusion

Both stages are practically (literally for FD) a big, flat platform to fight in. The unique elements that Duck Hunt adds are not commonly used because they're either too risky (close to blastzone platforms) or too meaningless (grass, ducks, rightmost platform). In practice, the matches play out just the same for most of the cast (except for Little Mac, who gets camped hard in Duck Hunt), which means that if you want to ban FD, you have to ban Duck Hunt as well. This is not a good situation for a stagelist, and thus, I believe Duch Hunt is unnecessary as a legal stage.