# Link vs Zack Fair vs Duke Nukem vs Altair 2008

_source: Link vs Zack Fair vs Duke Nukem vs Altair 2008 (revid 85834)_

## Results

**Round Three**

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Division 1 Final
- **Match \#:** 49
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
- **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 47.22% Zack Fair - 22.58% Duke Nukem - 15.87% Altair - 14.52%
- **GameFAQs Expectations:** Link first place (8pts) - 78.03% Link second place (4pts) - 6.77% Zack second place (8pts) - 6.96% Zack first place (4pts) - 6.40%
- **Advancing Prediction:** Link - 84.80% (36,382) Zack - 13.36% (5,732)

Before we get to the obvious, the number Link got here is completely asinine. Breaking 50% in a 4way poll this late into a contest, against competition that all advanced twice, is almost impossible. This dude was on an absolute warpath in this contest, and nothing on God's green earth was stopping him. The vote total itself is also absurd. In most of Link's 1v1 matches, he hasn't gotten close to 74,000 votes. Here he was dropping 74k like it was a warmup. I know people are bored of Link, but some of the numbers he gets are a marvel to watch.

But that's all well and cute. All that actually mattered in this poll was...

Zack.

F.

A.

Qs.

Zack is one of the most fun bandwagons we've ever had in a contest, because he has the rare distinction of being liked by everyone. Board 8 loves the guy. JRPG fans love the guy. Bandwagon rally contest people love the guy. It was just a big lovefest with no arguing or anti-bandwagon blowback, and it was just so fun to be there. Zack is so popular despite his small bit role in FF7 that he got his own spinoff game. The game was gutter trash, but still! He got one!

It led to people going total fangirl during this match, even though it was fairly predictable when we saw the layout. Duke Nukem's run was fun, but him even being here counts as a win for the guy. Hell, him not being last place here counts as a moral victory. This is the only contest Duke has made round 3 in, and even in getting destroyed by the Link/Zack combo, he got to look respectable on his way out. Shout out to Duke and his run; he is definitely one of the stars of the contest.

Altair gets similar love, even finishing in last. We've seen new characters in contests make some terrible debuts, but that didn't happen this year. He represented the gurus well, even with this exit. A third round run is always respectable, regardless of competition, but every character but one was going to lose eventually. Altair would go down as one of the most successful guru nominations ever, topped only by Black Turtle's X vs Zero nomination in the (ugh) Rivalry Rumble.

All that said, all anyone cared about here was ZackFAQs running wild, and to say people's imaginations were also running wild is an understatement. There was a loooooot of potential fanbase leeching from Nintendo's heavy hitters moving forward, and we've seen crazier things happen. Who knew how far Zack could go?

## Stats and Analysis

- Zack Fair advancing was the **\#5** most surprising result of 2008
- Zack Fair advancing was also the **\#22** most surprising result of all-time
- Link overperformed by **+4.30%**, the **\#20** most impressive performance of 2008

After the excitement of the previous day (\<\_\<), we needed a breather - and while it's hard to NOT get all hot and bothered when Mr. UNfair is involved in a match, he did his best to oblige.

In all seriousness, this match was pretty much a gimme - Altair was going to need to perform significantly stronger than Duke to even give Zack a run here, and seeing as how he couldn't pull that off LAST round there was no way that was happening with Link sapping every drop of that casual appeal.

Anyway, Zack tore a nice percentage into Link as per last time, but without Nintendo and pseudo-Nintendo holding him back Link really swung for the fences. It's not like Duke and Altair are anything special, but they just got absolutely fodderized here. Link was looking more like Link 2k6 than Link 2k7, and seeing as how Mario got his face pounded in by the former it was going to be one tough number awaiting the plumber once he advanced next round. Though against MMX or Zack (or even Liquid!), no one could say.

It was also cool to see that our freeform pictures got off to a pretty awesome start as well. I'm of the opinion that we need to go back to one picture a match the whole way through a la 2k2/2k3 - some of these things were WAY too gimmicky - but if you do something, may as well go all the way. Round 1 multiple freeform pics, anyone? \<\_\<

## Match Trends

## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis

### Match Prediction

And this election has robbed me of my time, so let's hurry on to

X-Stats from Round Two

Don't have them! I have to set up my spreadsheet to cover the R2 results once election fever is over. So let's rush on to

- Link: he one-upped Cloud in R1, but his eternal rival showed him up in R2; I see the mean green machine being out to revenge in this one and looking to toss out a stunning percentage of his own. without anything Nintendo to limit his damage, watch out for Link tonight!

- Zack: should look very solid as well; this is tougher competition than last round, and yet he might very well do the almost unheard of and increase his percentage now that Zidane's out of the way. I think he powers past these others in style, number 1 because Square's looked good, number 2 because Square always brings its A game against big Nintendo, and number 3 because these other guys are kind of chumps!

- Duke: alright alright, so he's clearly not the same Duke we'd seen in years past, but still, there's a world of difference between not collapsing under Nintendo when it's being represented by Marth/Lucario and when it's being represented by LINK. I think this is finally the time for him to wilt under pressure as he did in R2 last season... but even so, Altair probably flops harder!

- Altair: prime casual bait right here. congrats on surviving Marth, I guess (though I still don't think you'd have done it in a legit match without Lucario there wrecking him), but now that he's running into the teeth of the combined casual appeal of Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy 7 it's going to take more than an appealing character design to save him. Altair for last, though he can still probably at least take a run at Duke during the ASV.

And converting those thoughts to numbers, potting and stirring should yield a result like:

- Link - 47.92%
- Zack Fair - 23.47%
- Duke Nukem - 14.45%
- Altair - 14.16%

That looks... rushed!

Ngamer Says: **Link \> Zack**

### Next Day Review

Yesssss, now here's the Character Battle I love to see. Cloud and Link playing an interstellar game of HORSE- "match this!" "no, you match THIS!" Ah, just like old times! No matter how you slice it, Link holds the upper hand in the '08 version of their rivalry so far thanks to this performance- I'm seeing Oracles for him at 45, 46, 47... to barely fall under 50% all day is truly astounding. Oh, and Zack is once again putting on a very nice show of his own. Assuming Liquid doesn't crash the party, we could be in for one heck of a threeway between Mario and X and himself, something I never thought I'd find myself saying two months back.

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3292&num=4)
- [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=49)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=49)

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