# (7)Pikachu vs (8)Mega Man (Losers Bracket) 2018

_source: (7)Pikachu vs (8)Mega Man (Losers Bracket) 2018 (revid 88621)_

## Ulti's Analysis

I really have to sit in awe of some of the calls yoblazer makes in these things. He went on The Show and called that we would have a rematch in the loser's bracket that flips, and he said this was the most likely candidate. He even predicted the trends and the reasons. Damn bro.

I did not think Mega Man would be able to win the rematch, and the funny thing here is this match did not at all look as close as that score is. Without Europe, I'm willing to bet Mega Man pushes to a 1000 vote win or so. When this started, there was a small blip at the beginning, but then Mega Man just took off from poll opening until the overnight Europe vote kicked in. He had about a 500 vote lead at that time, and the typical "you murdered my dog" overnight vote that typically buries Mega Man simply was not there. Well I mean it was, but we've seen Mega Man do worse overnight. Pikachu only got that lead down to 250 during the assistance of the entire overnight vote, and when Mega Man won the morning match against a Pokemon this thing was over. Pikachu was able to shave off some votes during the day time, but he never once threatened to actually win this match after the first five minutes.

It's cool that Mega Man got some revenge here, but I'm not sure how much a loser's bracket match actually means in the long run. I actually said during the contest that these felt like bonus polls to me. Like who really cares that ? Block won a bonus poll once? At the time this match happened, we all assumed Zelda would just stomp through the loser's bracket anyway, and even then these matches didn't feel like they had the same meaning as the legends bracket. Basically, Pikachu's win over Mega Man meant a lot more than the getback. I would feel the same had Mega Man won first and Pikachu won the rematch. Outside of Mario vs Samus, it was hard for me to really care who won these losers bracket matches, even though double elimination was a good idea. Having a predictable overall winner will do that.

## Safer777's Analysis

We saw this match a few days ago and Pikachu won and it was the first ever win against a NN'er in a 24 hour 1 on 1 match from a non NN'er. In this match MM won and with more than Pikachu defeated him. Barely though. Well in such close matches it makes sense that they can turn around. I wanted Pika to win but I don't care. Pikachu will  always be remembered in the contest history as the one that broke the NN so that is all that matters to me. Still turning around such a loss with a bigger win is nice to see of course. The question is will Pikachu hold on this power for the next contests though? Because MM will hold it if not go up for sure. Guess we shall see eventually.

## Tsunami's Analysis

Pikachu 13809 Mega Man 14182

Whereas Pikachu and Mega Man's first match set a new record for closest wire-to-wire 24 hour match, their second match set the record for closest wire-to-wire 24 hour match in which the loser never led. It was actually on the wiki for awhile as the closest wire-to-wire match in which the loser never led, period, due to a digit transposition that had Mega Man's maximum lead listed as 478 rather than 487. Yes, the 9 votes makes a difference; the record, set in a 12-hour match in 2013, is 480.

The prevailing theory tossed around as to how Pikachu was able to pull out the upset the first time was that because of the hiatus between the end of the main bracket and the start of Legends, casuals "weren't ready" for the return. They point to the fact that Mega Man won the raw vote in that match and only lost because of the registered user bonus. And the fact that Mega Man's lead, which as stated above never reached 500, was already above 400 *three hours into the match*, certainly does suggest that a "readiness" was involved. But I say that's still bunk. Here, let me pull up the numbers for you from that first match:

Mega Man 14396 Pikachu 14458

Mega Man had fewer votes in the match he won than in the match he lost! In fact, the only figure that's higher in the match that people were supposedly "more ready for" is Mega Man's unregistered votes, 5308-5288. Both characters received fewer total votes and fewer votes from registered users, though the most glaring discrepancy, at 5140-4845, is Pikachu's unregistered votes. A far more likely explanation is that Pikachu voters were unmotivated to go back for a match they'd already won. Which kind of makes sense, because double-elimination brackets aren't supposed to look like this. It's supposed to be that each successive round sends its losers to a far-flung region of the loser's bracket from the previous one, so that rematches of winner's bracket matches are kept to a minimum. I *kind* of understand why Allen did it the way he did--to minimize how much a wrong pick wrecks your bracket--but it was wrong and it was stupid.

As for the match, Pikachu never really threatened to take back the lead. Mega's lead maxed out around 5 hours in, Pikachu eventually whittled it down to under 250 over the next 6 hours, and then Mega slowly started building it back up, maxing it at...478. Maybe it wasn't a digit transposition, but faulty searching that failed to notice how high the lead was early on? Pikachu would eventually get it down to 260 before Mega Man started building it again at the end.

This would set up another hyped match, to see what the Noble Nine's pecking order really looked like.