One thing's clear – we have next to no competitive data.

Another thing's at least noticeable – online tournaments are unreliable and difficult to set up.

We need to find a way to encourage more local tournaments. But how would we be able to do that?

won't be easy at all - the core of competitive players is pretty small and is spread over the globe.

option a) get others to play the game at smashfests and eventually organise a tourney through those, if enough of them get interested enough.
option b) tourney with a large enough prize pool to draw good players from other states/countries (lol)
option c) US side-tourney at a large event (APEX / EVO)

so far, I think option B is the most difficult.
option C has a good chance for happening since the developers can say that they're going to host an official tournament (which yea, would be side-tournament) at a large smash tournament, which would encourage more fans to either go to the event if they live nearby or travel to it if they live from afar.
option A, however, is probably the most important one our of the 3 options mentioned. the common fan can do this easier than the other 2 options, which is why it's so great. that, and it brings in new players.

here's what I suggest: most local scenes (from what I've seen) are driven by school communities, so starting things in your schools and possibly streaming the events, if possible, can create more of a local tournament gathering. players might be encouraged to continue showing up if they know that there is some sort of broadcast of them playing or if they know there i some sort of money involved (could be a tiny pot with just the entry fees for the tournament bracket in general).
Other scene (could be the school scenes as well) either have [A] lots of players who play a certain game or [B] a higher density of popular top players in the area, which help expand the scene from the local to the region in general (see: SoCal and NorCal).

here are the things that are probably standing in the way of local tournaments and local scenes (may not apply to you (the reader)):
[A] playing SSF2 locally has been proven to be somewhat difficult due to set-up with controllers vs set-up with keyboards. looking back at the tournament from Indiana, it took matches a while to set-up since some matches would have 2 controller players, and then a keyboard player would later play a controller player an muck up the set-up with Xpadder or whatever. Then the tech guy would have to come in and mess with the configurations to suite both players' needs.
•Possible Solution: have players bring their own laptops, or have multiple set-ups (computers lol) so that the games could be played via online mode locally. this isn't hugely ideal, but it a great replacement from what I've tested. It helps a lot of the internet connection is stable and if the Online mode server that day is feeling good (some days I've noticed it poops out on you and other days it doesn't with the same player-to-player connection, so idk what's going on there). this solution avoids controller/keyboard preference very well.
another solution, although maybe not possible or easy to do, is that some dude comes along and invents (or figures out a way) a keyboard that is able to be plugged in as a controller and have it's keys mapped to keys on another keyboard where the controller has it's inputs mapped. that way the controller player doesn't have hi key bindings dictated by the keyboard player's key bindings. and then if there are 2 keyboard players, they have none of their key bindings conflicting with each other.

just my thoughts and stuff. I think local scenes should be more popularized or at least attempted.

Keyboards are a non-issue, since they will very likely be banned soon The backroom determined that, while making people play with a controller that they're not used to isn't ideal, there's too much potential for "accidentally" seizing control of the opponent, along with the difficulty they add to setting up.

Having devs come out and have booths for Smash Flash 2 at other tournaments such as CEO, Evo, and any other tournament with major player representation and then having small side tournaments for it would aide in the growth of the Smash Flash 2 community quite a bit. But there are a lot of logistical issues with that so I can understand why this does not happen.

There isn't any pro or con to having Smash Flash 2 at any tournaments as of now. If the community grows, maybe people would be more willing to host tournaments for this game. But as of now, there isn't any motivation.

If any dev or community leader comes to tri-state, I'd be willing to help host a side event at any tournament in tri-state. I work closely to the Hitbox Arena chain of tournaments here in New Jersey, so getting Smash Flash 2 as a side event wouldn't be too hard. If you guys want this game at more tournaments, the Flash 2 community as a whole needs to start making a push.

I've personaly met a total of TWO people interested in SSF2. I'm trying to get a scene started here in the Lower Mainland of BC, if anyone here on the forums sees this topic and lives there let me know lol. What I've found is that many people don't have interest in it probably because 1) it's not based on or is a major release, and 2) many communities are trying to build smash 4 scenes.

This will prolly be easier to do the closer we get to a full release of the game.

It's kinda sad that I won't be able to get into Local Tournaments in a long time. I don't have the resources or the time to travel to USA for now. And here in my country the few people that know the game, barely even take it seriously... That's depressing :<

Even though SSF2 is fairly popular where I am, it's popular casually. I've only met one other person who sees its competitive merit so far – however, once I get a good laptop, and HDMI cable, and a GC USB adapter, I hope to make it more popular by having a setup at my college.

Wait, keyboards are going to be banned?

Why ban keyboards when more than half of all the SSF2 players use it?

regarding the keyboard/controller issue, can't you just have the P1 & P2 configs set up for controllers and then just have P3 and P4 available to mess with for keyboard users?
seems like this would resolve the problem for singles at least.

The problem with keyboards is that there's nothing to stop you from "accidentally" pressing the opponent's keys.

I think that'd be obvious if that happens, and would warrant a disqualification.

...Or use two different keyboards.

lol, well the main point of my reply to the original topic wasn't about keyboards vs controllers and which one should be banned (although it does bring up the alternative choice of banning keyboards which I disagree with but will talk about some other time in the right place).
the main point about what I wrote earlier was basic info and caveats for people that jut happen to be reading here and decide to create a scene for SSF2 in their area or not.

tbh though I think locally playing online mode is one of the best alternatives for running tournaments that suite the needs of both keyboard and controller users.