# Summer 2005 Character Contest

_Board 8 wiki -- CC BY-SA 3.0. Contest overview plus 66 match writeups, in match order. Converted from MediaWiki to Markdown; navigation, image embeds and footnotes stripped. See ATTRIBUTION.md._


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## Summer 2005 Contest

_source: Summer 2005 Contest (revid 71348)_

<table>
<caption><strong>Summer 2005 Contest</strong></caption>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th><p>Announced:</p></th>
<th><p>July 1, 2005?</p></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>Started:</p></td>
<td><p>July 19, 2005</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p>Ended:</p></td>
<td><p>September 22, 2005</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>Winner:</p></td>
<td><p>Regular bracket: Mario</p>
<p>Tournament of Champions: Link</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p>Contest Winner:</p></td>
<td><p>maar42 - 208 points</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>Notable matches:</p></td>
<td><p>Kefka/Vercetti, Magus/Knuckles, Ocelot/Pac-Man Master Chief/DK, Vincent/Squall, Mario/Samus, Snake/Bowser, Sonic/Mega Man</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

**Summer 2005 Contest**

**Summer 2005 Contest** was the 4th annual Summer Contest held on GameFAQs. Its official title was "The Great GameFAQs Character Battle IV." It featured a number of exciting matches and is considered by many B8ers to be the best Character Battle Ever.

<table border=1 width=100% class=genrebox>
<tr>
<td colspan=7>

Regular Bracket

</td>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 class=columncolor2>

Mushroom Division

</td>
<td rowspan=10>

Mario Samus

</td>
<td rowspan=20>

Mario Snake

</td>
<td rowspan=40>

Mario Crono

</td>
<td rowspan=40>

Mario

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(1\) Mario (8) Joanna Dark

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Mario Ness

</td>
<td rowspan=4>

Mario Zero

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(4\) Ness (5) Carl Johnson

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(3\) Zero (6) Ryu Hayabusa

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Zero Lloyd

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(2\) Lloyd Irving (7) Albert Wesker

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 class=columncolor2>

Zebes Division

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(1\) Samus (8) Yuri

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Samus Frog

</td>
<td rowspan=4>

Samus Ganondorf

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(4\) Riku (5) Frog

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(3\) Ganondorf (6) Yuna

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Ganondorf Auron

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(2\) Auron (7) Big Boss

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 class=columncolor2>

Gear Division

</td>
<td rowspan=10>

Snake Bowser

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(1\) Solid Snake (8) Manny Calavera

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Snake Zelda

</td>
<td rowspan=4>

Snake Sora

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(4\) Vivi (5) Zelda

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(3\) Kratos (God of War) (6) Alucard

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Alucard Sora

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(2\) Sora (7) Agent 47

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 class=columncolor2>

Dream Division

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(1\) Kirby (8) Cecil

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Kirby Tidus

</td>
<td rowspan=4>

Kirby Bowser

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(4\) Tidus (5) King of All Cosmos

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(3\) Bowser (6) Chun-Li

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Bowser Ryu (SF)

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(2\) Ryu (Street Fighter) (7) Rikku

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 class=columncolor2>

Flood Division

</td>
<td rowspan=10>

Crono Vincent

</td>
<td rowspan=20>

Crono Mega Man

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(1\) Master Chief (8) CATS

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

M. Chief D.K.

</td>
<td rowspan=4>

M. Chief Crono

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(4\) Donkey Kong (5) Sam Fisher

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(3\) Kefka (6) Tommy Vercetti

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

T. Vercetti Crono

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(2\) Crono (7) Zidane

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 class=columncolor2>

Devil Division

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(1\) Dante (8) Terra

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Dante Vincent

</td>
<td rowspan=4>

Vincent Squall

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(4\) Sarah Kerrigan (5) Vincent Valentine

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(3\) Magus (6) Knuckles the Echidna

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Knuckles Squall

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(2\) Squall Leonhart (7) Geno

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 class=columncolor2>

Chaos Division

</td>
<td rowspan=10>

Sonic Mega Man

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(1\) Sonic the Hedgehog (8) Jin Kazama

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Sonic Diablo

</td>
<td rowspan=4>

Sonic Tifa

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(4\) Kratos Aurion (5) Diablo

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(3\) Tifa Lockheart (6) Vyse

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Tifa Luigi

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(2\) Luigi (7) KOS-MOS

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 class=columncolor2>

20XX Division

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(1\) Mega Man (8) Conker

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Mega Man Leon

</td>
<td rowspan=4>

Mega Man Yoshi

</td>
<tr>
<td>

\(4\) Gordon Freeman (5) Leon Kennedy

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(3\) Yoshi (6) Laharl

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Yoshi Pac-Man

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

\(2\) Revolver Ocelot (7) Pac-Man

</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table border=1 width=100% class=genrebox>
<tr>
<td colspan=3 class=columncolor2>

Tournament of Champions

</td>
<tr>
<td>

Link Cloud

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Link Sephiroth

</td>
<td rowspan=2>

Link

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>

Sephiroth Mario

</td>
</tr>
</table>

## Results and Analysis

Opinions on this contest were generally favorable. While the contest had no wire-to-wire nailbiter matches, the bracket was received as being fairly well put together. The decision to place Link, Cloud, and Sephiroth in a separate bracket received mixed opinions, specifically the decision to pit Link and Cloud against one another in the first round of the ToC.

Some interesting facts about the 2005 contest:

- \- For the fourth year in a row, Gordon Freeman was placed in a match that many had him winning, and for the fourth year in a row he broke 40 percent on his opponent and still managed to lose. For the third in a row, this opponent has been a gunfighter.
- \- Had Kefka beaten Tommy Vercetti, we would have been treated to a gratuitous rematch (from 2003) between Kefka and Crono.
- \- This was the first year Knuckles the Echidna did not face Solid Snake in the second round, and accordingly it was the year he made the biggest splash in the contest, beating the heavily-favored Magus in a shocking upset before bowing out well to Squall.
- \- Thanks to this bracket, Ganondorf has now beaten all three Final Fantasy X leads (Tidus, Yuna, and Auron).
- \- This was the second tournament CATS received a face shot (the first was the previous spring's villains contest), and both contests show he did accordingly better with the face shot.
- \- Rikku was the only seven seed to get into the top half of the X stats. She also managed to beat the lead female of her game, Yuna, in the unadjusted x-stats.
- \- This was the first year Ryu did not lose to a member of the Noble Nine; oddly enough, his loss to Bowser remains his worst defeat.
- \- The Ultimate Loser™ of the Contest was KOS-MOS: KOS-MOS lost to Luigi, who lost to Tifa, who lost to Sonic, who lost to Mega Man, who lost to Crono, who lost to Mario, who lost to Sephiroth, who lost to Link. Even with the TOC, the Ultimate Loser™ stays intact!
  - \- Had Mega Man defeated Crono, the Ultimate Loser™ would have been none other than Magus. Had Mario lost in the final, the Ultimate Loser™ would have been The King of All Cosmos. If Sonic defeats Mega Man, the Ultimate Loser™ would have been Ocelot.

### Ulti's Analysis

This was the best character contest that CJayC could have possibly given us given how popular the X-Stats are. Not only did he clearly use the stats to make this contest as hard as possible, but he removed Clinkeroth from the main bracket to help make the contest more interesting, plus he removed the 9-16 seeds and made eight divisions of eight. This is exactly the twist that the contest needed, and kudos to him for taking the extra time to put it all together. I hope that all those people who whined for bracket night after night once nominations closed appreciate the time that Ceej put into making this thing, as well as the courtesy to allow all of our board jokes into the contest. Everyone knows that Manny and The King of All Cosmos don't make this thing under normal circumstances. Great contest all around, and if CJayC continues to put forth this type of effort these contests will never die. The of course rides on CJayC being willing to keep it all up, but I'm glad he went out and gave us our best contest since Spring 2004.

On that note, the standard ranking of the contests:

1.  Spring 2004
2.  Summer 2002
3.  Summer 2005
4.  Summer 2003
5.  Summer 2004
6.  Spring 2005

The only complaint I have about Summer 2005 was the lack of a true nail-biter. All the close matches were wide apart come the finish, with Vercetti/Kefka, Vincent/Squall and Sonic/Mega Man being the easy examples to cite. CJayC may not read these topics, but in case he does... nice job. Keep it up :)

### Ngamer's Analysis

After an off year, CJay was back in form for 2005, putting together a carefully-crafted bracket that was helped along by the much-needed to decision to save the best (Clinkeroth) for last. Certainly '05 was the best *bracket* of the CJay era (since '03 pretty much created itself), but did it result in the best Contest? ...perhaps! '05 had everything, including awesome 50/50 affairs between powerful opponents in Mega Man/Sonic and Vincent/Squall, a hilarious choke-fest in Master Chief/DK, maybe the coolest R1 upset ever in Knuckles \> Magus, and a very serious scare for the Noble Nine in Snake/Bowser, *plus* what was (for the board) a very unexpected upset run all the way to the Championship. Honestly, the only thing holding '05 back from a surefire \#1 position was how badly Samus let us down in her massively-hyped battle against Mario. If the Nintendo boost would have been a little less powerful, so that Samus could have been in contention and then the Mario/Crono Final could have been closer to their slugfests of '02 and '03, I bet Summer 2005 would top a ton of people's "Best Contest Ever" lists.

---

## (1)Mario vs (8)Joanna Dark 2005

_source: (1)Mario vs (8)Joanna Dark 2005 (revid 56016)_

## Results

Tuesday, July 19th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Mushroom Division
- **Match \#:** 01
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, July 19th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 61,217
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 81.11% 98 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mario - 96.53% (32,620 brackets)

The first match is almost never about who wins. We always know the answer. It's about vote totals and setting a trend more than anything else, and though Mario's expected drubbing of Joanna Dark didn't pass 100,000 votes, it was still a fairly decent increase from the vote totals we had seen since CNET's wonderful idea to redesign the site. This was likely due to the Gamespot advertisement (which caused a major stir, especially since the banner was still there on Gamespot's homepage after the contest started; people thought that Gamespot's casual bias would "ruin" our contest), but more voters is never a bad thing.

Trend-wise, one could almost make a case for Mario looking pretty damn strong after Joanna getting her ass whipped. Joanna only did 2.65% better than JC Denton did on Mario in Summer 2004, and I don't personally think that JC Denton is even in Joanna's league. As 1000 people would know what game JC Denton is from without showing them a picture. Less than 50 will be able to answer you, and showing them a picture would only net "Enter the Matrix" answers. Joanna is a fairly well-known character from the quasi sequel to Goldeneye, and her game went 50-50 with SOTN for a very large part of their match. Ngamer may have had to go through hell and high water to get Joanna into this thing, but it's not like people don't know who she is. Perfect Dark is a very accomplished N64 title that sold over a million copies; and "despite" only a million copies, most people know what the game is. Even better is that Perfect Dark will soon be moving to the Xbox, so expect possible appearances by Jo in the future.

But either way, either Mario kicked Joanna's ass legitimately, or Mario SFFd her a little bit. Either way, with Clinkeroth gone, Mario was seemingly the character with the highest number of picks winning the contest. Statheads will say that Samus was the odds-on favorite, but as you'll see once this analysis gets going, the casual bracketmaker flat-out kicked Board 8's ass time and time again.

Two small things to note about this match before moving on. One, auto updating was still around during this match. The stats topic loves long chains of zeroes, and there were thirteen posts in a row of people posting a score of 80094-18906 (= 99000 votes) within 19 seconds. Secondly, the voting technically didn't close after the match ended. Votes could still be cast in the match for a few days after it closed, and despite a few efforts to get extra votes into the match for the sake of it hitting 100,000 votes, the overall total only got an extra 50 votes or so.

Overall, not a bad start to a contest. But then again, the first day of EVERY contest is good. The true test would be later on, and whether or not this contest could stack up to the rest in GF history.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2066&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=1)

• **No Previous Match**       • **Next Match**

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## (4)Ness vs (5)Carl Johnson 2005

_source: (4)Ness vs (5)Carl Johnson 2005 (revid 88864)_

## Results

Wednesday, July 20th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Mushroom Division
- **Match \#:** 02
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 10,237
- **Oracle Expectations:** Ness - 43.28% 4 for - 94 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ness - 51.90% (17,539 brackets)

Funny that on the mere second day of the match, a firestorm broke out all across Board 8. Before this match showed up, CJ over Ness was the "obvious" pick. CJ is the lead character of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the same game that won Game of the Year on GameFAQs in 2004. And though people figured that Vercetti would perhaps be stronger than CJ or that perhaps San Andreas would cause both characters to underperform, people figured that CJ would easily take the match regardless. After all, it was the lead of San Andreas, one of the highest-selling games of all time, versus a character who gets almost all of his popularity from a series that has nothing to do with where he originally came from. I speak of Ness getting most of his recognition from SSBM and not EarthBound, of course. Even Lucid Faia, arguably the board's biggest Ness/EarthBound fan, figured that CJ was a lock to win.

But there was one argument that kept coming from those few people who openly supported Ness winning the match: appeal. CJ doesn't have it, regardless of how popular his game is. And given that people's imaginary Xst values of CJ probably weren't that much higher than Ness's to begin with, Ness had a good chance to win. For what it's worth, Giygas placed ahead of Officer Tenpenny in the Spring 2005 Xsts.

Regardless of this, few people actually thought that Ness could actually win. He hasn't done so hot in past contests, and it took a match against a 3D platformer character (a genre whose characters get NO support in these things) for Ness to finally win one. CJ was the consensus board pick, but oh man, did Ness ever go and screw that one up.

Not only did CJ bomb like all hell in the match, but CJayC forgot to put CJ in the match pic. Seriously, take a good look at the pic. That isn't Carl Johnson. Not that it mattered anyway, because CJ only had the lead for all of three seconds. After that, it was Ness/Jak all over again. Ness was up against a well-known character that was supposed to beat him with ease, yet after barely being challenged, Ness was off to the races en route to absolutely blowing CJ off of the map in the match. And despite a few people calling for the comeback for the first few hours of CJ getting whipped, Ness never bothered letting up in the match. Call this whatever you want -- this was the progenitor of the RacistFAQs meme -- but this was a Grade A ass-kicking in comparison to how easily the board picked CJ in the match. I forgot to save Slow's BOP stats, but I'm sure CJ had.... some insanely overwhelming number of brackets in his favor.

On the surface, one can easily call why this happened. As popular as San Andreas is, the thought of CJ not being as strong as Vercetti wasn't impossible. And if CJ truly did turn out to be weaker than Vercetti, CJ didn't have a whole heck of a lot of breathing room between Vercetti and Ness. He had to be almost even with Vercetti in popularity to beat Ness, and he simply wasn't.

As for WHY CJ isn't as popular as Vercetti, I pose a question instead of trying to answer that one myself.

*Is GameFAQs racist, or at the very least, does race play any part in these matches?*

It's a difficult thing to talk about in a civil manner, especially given that racism is still very much alive in America. One need only look at what happened in New Orleans to see this, and the very mention of the subject can send sparks flying all over the place.

But despite it being a touchy subject, let's look at the facts. In five character contests (and 291 character slots when you add up all of them), only eight black characters have appeared in these things: Ganondorf, Shadow the Hedgehog, Jak, Officer Tenpenny, Ansem, CJ, Vivi, and Kerrigan if you count her. Of those eight, how many would you \*truly\* consider to be black? Jak, Ansem, Shadow, and Vivi are... a stretch, to say the least.

That leaves four. Ganon, CJ, Tenpenny, and Kerrigan. Kerrigan being black is debatable, because everyone in Starcraft has the same skin tone. Ganondorf being black is also debatable, because he hails from the desert. That leaves two outright black characters to have ever graced these contests, and they're both from the same game.

But does them not being popular as characters despite their game selling over ten million copies truly reflect on the voters? One can easily argue that Grand Theft Auto in general is unfairly hated on GameFAQs, as evidenced by Vercetti's lackluster performances in these things. But there is still the issue of Vercetti being stronger than CJ despite San Andreas being more recent and more popular. Does it all really boil down to a simple issue of race and appeal?

It's quite possible that it does, though I'd like to think that race was a minor issue in CJ's match. It could easily explain Vercetti being stronger than CJ, but would CJ have really beaten Ness if he were white? It's tough to say. I can't say for myself with any clarity as to race's effect on the match, but I can say for a fact that black characters don't show up in games very often. When they do, they're portrayed as being very stereotypical. You rarely see strong, confident, well-mannered, well-spoken black characters in games. Just look at the cast of San Andreas or Barret from Final Fantasy 7, arguably the most well-known black characters in gaming. And when developers decide to go against this, you can't even tell whether or not they're black in the first place. Just look at Kerrigan, or Ganondorf, or Duran. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places or something, but I've played a LOT of games. It's hard to think of a lot of other than the San Andreas crew and Barret.

To me, that's not on gamers, but developers. Gamers are a well-rounded bunch, and I'd like to think that my caste is mature enough that a black character would be every bit as popular (and strong in these polls) as a white character if the two races were given equal exposure. But they aren't. The dominant thing you see in games are white men and white women. The fact that a good majority of the games we play are from Japan certainly doesn't help matters, given their culture.

Would this match have been different if CJ were white? Does gaming reflect the fact that there are still very deep, unsolved race issues worldwide? Possibly. I don't want to call gaming outright racist, but there is a thing in psychology called an unconscious bias.

Whatever it was that caused CJ to lose, I know two things. One, I was never happier about a loss than I was on that day. EarthBound and Ness are two things I'm a huge fan of. And two, there haven't been too many cases where I was more embarrassed to be a member of Board 8 than I was during this match. This place was absolutely sickening to look at during that match, to the point of me barely wanting to discuss it. As if egos being shattered weren't bad enough due to virtually the entire board losing their perfects on the second day of the contest after cruising through two easy contests prior, the entire board was swamped with race arguments all throughout the match. It's tough to be happy about one of your favorite characters winning a tough match when you're reading "Ness is only winning because CJ is black" every other post. You'd think people would be a bit more mature about it.

However, I do have one good thing to say about my fellow gamers as a whole before moving on to the next match of the analysis, and that is that I stand by my assumption that gamers would accept black characters every bit as much as whites if they would actually show up in games more often. If Barret were ever in one of these contests, I guarantee he would be a strong character. In the end, perhaps it was simply GameFAQs not liking Grand Theft Auto that caused CJ to lose, rather than GameFAQs not liking blacks. At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

Future Edit: As I write this in 2026, gaming has become a lot more diverse and a LOT more welcoming of characters from non-white and non-Japan spaces. I'd like to update my overall conclusion here, especially with all the contests featuring video games we've had. CJ lost because GameFAQs doesn't like Grand Theft Auto, not because of race. Look at how beloved Barret is in the FF7 remake, or Kratos in God of War, or Rashid in Street Fighter, or Resident Evil fans all asking for Sheva to come back, Or Turok. Among many, many, many other examples I could give.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2067&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=2)

• **Previous Match**       • **Next Match**

---

## (3)Zero vs (6)Ryu Hayabusa 2005

_source: (3)Zero vs (6)Ryu Hayabusa 2005 (revid 88865)_

## Results

Thursday, July 21st, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Mushroom Division
- **Match \#:** 03
- **Match Date:** Thursday, July 21st, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 23,736
- **Oracle Expectations:** Zero - 67.55% 100 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Zero - 69.09% (23,348 brackets)

After Ness/CJ got the board into a giant tizzy fit, it was nice to see a predictable, boring match come along to calm everyone down. Zero winning was a foregone conclusion despite Ryu's amazing win against Jill Valentine last year, and mostly everyone knew it.

Except for the casuals, anyway. What in the world do Mega Man characters need to do to get some respect from the bracketmakers in these things? Mega Man and crew are almost always underestimated, regardless of opponent. It's not like Mega Man X isn't the most popular Mega Man series on GameFAQs or anything.... <https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1834-which-mega-man-series-is-your-favorite>

Anyway, while Zero began this match on fire, some would argue that he eventually wound up underperforming in the match. The SFF adjusted 2004 Xsts have Ryu scoring 32.6% on Zero, and as you can see, he scored a very even 37% on him after Zero began the match by whipping Ryu's ass all over the place. There are a couple of arguments to present as the reason behind Ryu doing a tad better than people expected him to. The most popular reason is that Ryu underperformed against Sora last year due to having a horrific picture against him, while Ryu was given his Xbox Ninja Gaiden box art pic against Zero. The other popular reason is that Zero overperformed on Mega Man in 2004 by a percent or two due to rSFF and was a bit overrated in the stats. I don't know how valid that one is, but the MMX series being more popular than the original keeps it within reason.

Of course, most of this barely matters given that Zero arguably had the easiest path to call in the entire contest. He was a lock to win his fourpack, and was a lock to lose to Mario in the divisional finals. That's all there is to it, though the bad part is that for the second year in a row, there would be no real way to tell where Zero stands. It's not like 2004 20XX is worth looking at for reliable stats these days, anyway.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2068&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=3)

• **Previous Match**       • **Next Match**

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## (2)Lloyd Irving vs (7)Albert Wesker 2005

_source: (2)Lloyd Irving vs (7)Albert Wesker 2005 (revid 56022)_

## Results

Friday, July 22nd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Mushroom Division
- **Match \#:** 04
- **Match Date:** Friday, July 22nd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 7,952
- **Oracle Expectations:** Lloyd Irving - 63.62% 100 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Lloyd Irving - 53.88% (18,208 brackets)

According to the Spring 2005 Xsts, Wesker is projected to score 41.15% on Mithos. Mithos, the guy with the sister complex who looks and talks like a girl in his own right. Not Lloyd, MITHOS.

So what does Wesker do? He goes up against the main character of Tales of Symphonia and outperforms what he is supposed to score on MITHOS. Even worse for Lloyd is that after Lloyd's initial surge of bracket votes (which barely put him over 60%), Wesker managed to cut into Lloyd's percentage like mad. And Wesker managed to win updates every now and then. No matter what type of spin you try putting on this match, Lloyd pretty much bombed. Lloyd was never in any real danger of losing despite the occasional update loss, and he eventually went on to win by a fairly comfortable margin, but he bombed nevertheless.

However, being the TOS fanboy that I am, I'll try putting a positive spin on this one anyway. Not that Lloyd deserves it given how much of an idiot he is in the game, but what the hell.

The first thing to ask is what in the world happened in Kefka's fourpack in the Spring 2005 Contest? It's easy to look at the spring stats and assume they're crap, but it's hard to believe that we'd see such a massive variation among the voter opinion within all of a month or two. However, all I can think of is that Kefka underperformed against Mithos due to a horrible pic and overperformed against Wesker due to an amazing one. I know I've been an advocate of pics not making a difference of more than 1-2%, but we've seen CT characters do some very strange things when given sprites in their match pics. FF6 is only two years older than CT, and there's also the matter of seeing Kefka bomb when given a bad picture in the past.

However, I think there's another factor that few people bothered thinking of. Tales of Symphonia only sold 350,000 copies in the States. GameFAQs is an American based site. In Spring 2005, Kefka/Mithos scored a mere 72605 votes. Lloyd/Wesker, however, scored 84794 votes. When your game only sells 350k copies in the States, you're asking an awfully large percentage of those extra 12000 people to be TOS fans (that are willing to even vote for Lloyd in the first place; remember, in the game he's an absolute idiot). It's possible that Lloyd underperformed due to his game not selling all too well and there being a very large voter pool in the match. And it's not like Resident Evil characters have a way of staying consistent in these contests, either.

I'm not saying Lloyd didn't bomb, because he did. However, there are a few vague, non-insane reasons for him to bomb if you bother looking for them. Then again, him bombing didn't matter as it was a guarantee that Zero would beat him anyway. The only thing Lloyd could hope for in his upcoming match with Zero was to do well enough to place higher than Mithos, which is a strange thing to say. And even if that were to happen, it would cause a minor issue of where Wesker belongs.

Gotta love massive influxes of new voters throwing old stats for a loop, eh?

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## (1)Samus Aran vs (8)Yuri Hyuga 2005

_source: (1)Samus Aran vs (8)Yuri Hyuga 2005 (revid 88867)_

## Results

Saturday, July 23rd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Zebes Division
- **Match \#:** 05
- **Match Date:** Saturday, July 23rd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 63,680
- **Oracle Expectations:** Samus - 85.53% 102 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Samus - 96.76% (32,698 brackets)

Phazon Suit Samus, bay-bee. Her best model by far. Granted she was up against Cleavage Yuri, but that's besides the point.

Going into this contest, the most most hyped match was the inevitable Mario/Samus clash. People who favor the stats figured Samus to be the odds-on favorite to win the entire contest (and that she'd blow past Mario with ease, because after all, she is higher in the X-STATS), and argued for her as such. Others decided to go against the stats and preach the now-famous "IT'S FREAKING MARIO!" line. The main argument was that despite Samus being higher in the stats, Mario could still SFF her due to being Mr. Nintendo. However, this would amount to rSFF, something we've never definitively seen before and have no real proof of. Sure there was Mega Man/Zero (and I think RPGuy made a proof that showed Yoshi/Luigi being rSFF, as well), but no clear-cut cases of rSFF giving the "weaker" character the win in a match.

In the fifth match of the contest, it was Samus's job to come out and prove that she was still the odds-on favorite to take down Mario; and she delivered pretty easily. Yuri may have been a new character, and it may be difficult to prove someone's strength based off of new fodder, but Samus came within a few percentage points of breaking 90% in a match. 90% is very rare territory in these contests, and only the best of the best will ever be able to see such numbers. Samus started this match over 80%, and gradually blew up her percentage as the match wore on. There were occasional spots in which Samus lost a bit of percentage every now and then, but it was little to be concerned about if you were a fan of hers.

What I don't get are the people saying that this was an underwhelming performance by Samus. As someone that had Mario over Samus in his bracket, this match was a bit discouraging. I figured that Samus blowing the hell out of a cult RPG character was more impressive than Mario's possible SFFing of Joanna Dark, especially considering that Samus's score was better than Mario's. Samus also had a higher prediction percentage, for what it's worth. The only knock you could really make against Samus at this point was the fact that the girl simply isn't a good vote draw. Mario's poll did almost 15000 votes better than Samus's, though some would blame the sudden dropoff to the Character Battle IV banner no longer being over at Gamespot once this match came about.

Oh yeah, I can't mention Yuri without Kyle Bowen's rallying helping to get Yuri into the contest. Sure Yuri was one of the "just happy to be here" characters, but getting in is an accomplishment in and of itself; it's more than what we can say about Aeris. Of course, this eventually led to one of the biggest whinefests of the entire contest over on the board. Apparently Samus not having "character" makes her unworthy of beating someone as great a character as Yuri Hyuga. I can't really comment on this given that I've had the two Shadow Hearts titles sitting in my room for weeks now without playing them, but you'd think that people would stop assuming that every character has a chance to win any match. They don't. This was just one more day filled with people whining about how Samus doesn't deserve her popularity while praising Yuri to no end, and some idiot managed to ruin the ending of SH:C for me by not putting a spoiler warning.

From a board perspective, this match was horrible. Good for Samus in proving that she's a force, but not much else.

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## (4)Riku vs (5)Frog 2005

_source: (4)Riku vs (5)Frog 2005 (revid 88868)_

## Results

Sunday, July 24th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Zebes Division
- **Match \#:** 06
- **Match Date:** Sunday, July 24th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 3,149
- **Oracle Expectations:** Frog - 59.83% 104 for - 2 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Frog - 53.08% (17,937 brackets)

"How in the hell did Frog do so well last year?"

That was the main warcry all through this match, and for very obvious reasons. If you assume that Frog's 2004 Xst value is on target, then Riku's hypothetical 2004 value becomes 27.95%. This puts him ahead of everyone below Dante and has him scoring 48.3% on Sora.

Yeah, that makes sense. Though if you take a look at the unadjusted stats from this contest, it's hilarious to see how close Sora and Riku wound up being; and it's not like you can adjust for the massive bombing that Sora suffered against Snake in their match. But that's a different conversation for another time.

We all figured that Summer 2004 was a messed up contest statistically and that the 20XX Division in particular was weird, but I doubt most of us expected the characters in there to be THIS overrated. Yes Riku is new, and yes he's probably a little stronger than most of us think he is (Kingdom Hearts has a way of performing like crap based on expectations, but being just fine in the stats later), but it's still hard to imagine Riku being as strong as this match suggests. Remember, Frog is the same character that outlasted Liquid, survived Master Chief's 3000 vote turnaround, and then turned around and broke 48.5% on Solid Snake.

And then he turns around and allows a near doubling to turn into.... that. The match started off just fine for Frog. He was doing exactly what was expected of him, and was well over 70% for the first couple of minutes. His percentage leveled off a little bit afterwards, but he was still alright; Riku was still getting his ass whipped, after all. Even when Frog's percentage began to fall towards 60%, no one was very concerned for him. After all, Riku could have just been overperforming. He *is* from KH, after all.

But as the match wore on and Frog's percentage began to drop faster than Britney Spears's pants, everyone began to realize that whatever Frog managed to do in 2004 was a complete fluke. And it wasn't like Frog's percentage was falling despite him gaining in votes, either. Riku grew stronger as the match progressed, and despite Frog eventually winning by 3150 votes, Riku won several updates -- some saw Riku take in over 55% of the votes! Against Frog, the same guy who made Solid Snake, a perennial powerhouse, look like an absolute fool.

To put this in a different perspective, everyone is aware that Frog is usually very good with the second night vote. But in the final twelve hours of Frog's match with Riku, he gained a grand total of 400 votes. 400 votes. This is the same guy who erased a 600 vote defecit against Master Chief in mere hours. The same guy who stole 400 votes from Solid Snake. Yet in the final six hours against Riku, Frog did absolutely nothing but prove how unbelievably overrated he was. In 24 hours, Frog went from being a possible contender to one of the biggest frauds we'd ever seen in one of these contests, but to Frog's credit, Riku was a new character. There was a very slight possibility that Riku's strength was legitimate; of course, if you only look at the final six hours of all of Frog's matches, Riku is stronger than Liquid Snake, Master Chief, and Solid Snake.

Hell, he was even stronger than Frog at some points. You don't win updates by occasionally taking in more than 55% of the vote by accident. And while this didn't have a particularly large effect on Frog given that he was guaranteed to lose to Samus anyway, it meant a couple of other things down the line.

One, Sora/Alucard was barely debatable after this match. There was a decent case for Alucard once upon a time, but after seeing what Riku did?

Secondly, Frog's pending bombing was disappointing for CT fans but this was absolutely nothing compared to what we would see from CT's end later on in this contest.

## Match Trends

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## (3)Ganondorf vs (6)Yuna 2005

_source: (3)Ganondorf vs (6)Yuna 2005 (revid 56029)_

## Results

Monday, July 25th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Zebes Division
- **Match \#:** 07
- **Match Date:** Monday, July 25th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 23,973
- **Oracle Expectations:** Ganondorf - 64.66% 105 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ganondorf - 86.55% (29,248 brackets)

Before anything else, we need to discuss that prediction percentage. If that isn't proof of a Spring 2005 carry-over, I don't know what is. Here we had a first round 3/6 Nintendo/Square match between two strong characters, and Ganon had over 85% of people pick him? People definitely took notice of Ganon breaking 40% on Sephiroth a few months back.

Going into this match, Ganon was a lock to win. However, this wasn't about whether or not Ganon would win; it was about whether or not Ganon could take down Auron. Ganon/Auron was a hyped match thanks to people who didn't feel like buying into the Spring 2005 stats (and because it's SO OBVIOUS that Tidus/Ganon 2003 was Tidus's true strength despite him doing jack squat outside of that one match, I might add; don't you love it when people only take into account a character's best performance?), so Ganon had to go out and prove a point in this match.

Did Ganon wind up proving doubters wrong? Well, that depends. Sure he won the match with ease (and on a side note, TRE pointed out so many examples of blatant cheating coming from Yuna's direction that it got to the level of being downright hilarious; go look at the updater for this match, click on "Time" and see for yourself), but to some, Ganon underperformed. I'd argue that FFX-2 increased Yuna's hypothetical strength, but FFX-2.... isn't well-liked, to say the least. Not too many people want to believe that FFX-2 may have actually produced strong characters, but given what happened in the spring, it's a bit hard to deny. Ganon MAY be overrated a little, but I highly doubt it.

Regardless, plug Yuna into the 2004 stats using this match. You get a value of 26.94%, which isn't as far-fetched as Ganon's doubters would lead you to believe. The catch is that Yuna is pretty close to Tidus after doing that, but given that she's the lead in a recent large-scale Square title, I'm willing to buy it. It's better than assuming that Ganon underperformed for the sake of trying to make a case for Auron beating him, at least.

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## (2)Auron vs (7)Big Boss 2005

_source: (2)Auron vs (7)Big Boss 2005 (revid 88869)_

## Results

Tuesday, July 26th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Zebes Division
- **Match \#:** 08
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, July 26th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 40,639
- **Oracle Expectations:** Auron - 65.27% 105 for - 1 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Auron - 76.97% (26,010 brackets)

I love the occasional easy writeup, and this one is about as simple as it gets. Everyone knew that Auron would win, and win he did. However, this was little more than Auron's tuneup for his impending clash with Ganondorf.

If you can even call it a clash, that is. One could argue that the outcome of that match was sealed after this match (I'd argue that it was obvious before the contest started, but that's besides the point).

Let's go over all the usual categories:

Prediction Percentage? Advantage Ganon.

Total Votes? Advantage Ganon.

Recent Exposure? Advantage Ganon. Argue against TP hype all you want, but Auron was barely in FFX-2 at all. Besides, I'd count Spring 2005 as recent exposure for Ganon.

Individual vote totals? Advantage Auron, but he only managed 2000 extra votes against an opponent that is likely a lot weaker than Yuna is. I wouldn't exactly call this one good news.

Intangibles? Advantage Ganon. There was clearly a massive carry-over of support for him from the spring, so he'd likely have the necessary bracket votes to win a close match.

Of course, I will admit that this is bias speaking on some level, as I had Ganon winning that match from the start and had my assumption confirmed by this match. But even from an unbiased perspective, I can't imagine feeling good about Auron's chances against Ganon after this match. Sure he wound up overperforming based upon expectations, but look at how often are expectations wrong when discussing new characters.

Besides, even if you want to argue that Big Boss should have been strong based off of Metal Gear Solid 3, look at that match pic. I can see Big Boss doing well if he's given a Naked Snake pic, but a melting cartoon pic of a character model that doesn't appear live in any MGS title isn't going to do Big Boss any favors. I'm always an advocate of pictures not mattering too much, but this one may be an exception given the massive popularity of MGS3. Naked Snake does better against Auron than whatever the hell that thing is up there. I practically guarantee it.

Come to think of it, I'm really starting to wonder what Big Boss could do in one of these things if given a Naked Snake pic. It's not like CJayC is against completely ruining a game's biggest spoiler in a match pic or anything (Hi, Kefka/Mithos!).

## Match Trends

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## (1)Solid Snake vs (8)Manny Calavera 2005

_source: (1)Solid Snake vs (8)Manny Calavera 2005 (revid 88871)_

## Results

Wednesday, July 27th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Gear Division
- **Match \#:** 09
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, July 27th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 62,487
- **Oracle Expectations:** Solid Snake - 87.46% 105 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Solid Snake - 97.98% (33,110 brackets)

What's up with that match pic? I heard someone say that it isn't Solid Snake? o_O

Anyway, while Snake beating the hell out of Manny was a given, that wasn't really the point of this match. Shake, who has been trying to get Manny into one of these contests since 2003, finally managed to succeed by making a topic saying he'd leave the board if Manny didn't get into this contest. The board was moved by this (despite practically no one actually believing he'd leave, but who cares? =p) and nominated the hell out of Manny. Shake also e-mailed virtually every Grim Fandango site you could think of in an effort to gather support, and when all was said and done, Manny made it in. This was a moral victory in and of itself despite Manny's appearance being on par with your standard 16 seed in the NCAAs; "It's nice to make it, but reality will set in within the first ten seconds of the game after Duke starts whipping my ass".

Another wonderful effect of this match was that I think it got Heroic Mario to play Grim Fandango. I'm not 100% sure of that, but that's besides the point. HM liking a game is a good thing, especially when he decides to start giving copies of it to everyone. Dunno how this didn't happen in the three years Shake has been preaching the game's awesomeness, but ces la vie. It was funny watching some guy try to accuse Shake of only liking Grim because of HM's fanboyism, though. Truly hilarious.

As for the match itself, it was... a bit weird. Yes it was a blowout, but it was one of those blowouts where people's expectations fooled them. It all boils down to Snake spoiling us last year with his blowout of Tanner, because I think a lot of people were expecting similar numbers in this match. If you go a bit deeper, people started pulling out Guybrush Threepwood's numbers in an effort to make Snake look bad. Guybrush putting out more games than Manny was supposed to somehow prove that he was equal to or stronger than Manny, I suppose, and that Snake "only" scoring 84.09% of the vote on Manny when the 2004 adjusteds have him at 84.06% on Guybrush is supposed to somehow prove that Snake has somehow lost a step.

Because scoring almost 85% of the vote is a regular occurrence, mind you. Regardless of what you thought while this match was going on, you were spoiled by what Snake did to Tanner last year if you assume this match to be a disappointment. And not to harp on last year, but it is at all possible that Snake SFFd the hell out of Tanner? Driver and MGS both appeal to the same fanbase, I'd think.

By the way, there's this tiny matter of "appeal". Don't mess with the Grim Reaper, especially when he's got a gun.

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## (4)Vivi vs (5)Zelda 2005

_source: (4)Vivi vs (5)Zelda 2005 (revid 88874)_

## Results

Thursday, July 28th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Gear Division
- **Match \#:** 10
- **Match Date:** Thursday, July 28th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 20,023
- **Oracle Expectations:** Zelda - 53.22% 87 for - 17 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Zelda - 76.81% (25,956 brackets)

Before I even bother trying to explain why this match was obvious (to me, anyway) from the beginning, please look at this poll: [<https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2004-triforce-division-round-1-kuja-vs-master-hand>](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2004-triforce-division-round-1-kuja-vs-master-hand)

Kuja, the main villain of Final Fantasy 9, *lost to a god damn glove*.

Now with that out of the way, onto another cheap shot at the wonderful X-stats. Frankly, I don't see any other reason why people thought this would be close other than the stats, and the fact that people thought Vivi had any chance in this match is yet another in a long line of examples of X-stats and common sense not always being in line.

We'll ignore the fact that 2004 Vivi is projected to score something like 44.65% on 2003 Zelda and that Sephiroth would have had to SFF the hell out of Vivi for Vivi (whose villain was beaten by a glove) to stand any chance in the match. Because after all, for Vivi to have a shot at Zelda, he would have to be able to take down characters like Auron, Dante, and Bowser.

But it gets more hilarious than even that. Since 2003, Link has increased. by roughly 2-3%. Since 2003, Ganon was likely increased 2-3% as well. This means that assuming Zelda received a similar 2-3% boost between 2003 and now, Vivi would have to be a perennial top 15 powerhouse to hang with and beat her.

This would mean that Vivi (whose villain was defeated by a glove) is on par with the likes of Zero and Aeris, and would be expected to beat the piss out of Squall. On a completely unrelated note, Vivi's game, Final Fantasy 9, saw its villain lose to a glove in the Spring 2005 Contest. We're not even talking an actual character here, mind you. It's just the thing you fight at the end of SSB/M because Nintendo couldn't think of anything better.

Where was I, again? Oh right, Vivi. Vivi may have been hit by SFF against Sephiroth, but come on. Was it really enough to put him with the likes of Aeris in the stats?

But naturally, the match soon began and everyone (almost everyone, anyway) was beyond shocked at Zelda beginning the match well over 60%, followed by flirting with the 60% level itself for the entire match. Some expected Vivi to fight back a little to retain some respect, but he never did. Zelda began and ended the match by beating the ever-loving hell out of the little guy, and the questions started pouring in about how such a debated match turned into such a joke.

Which is why I'm here: to feed you the stuff you want to hear as if I know all the answers myself (even though I don't, I just make contest aftermaths entertaining).

First off, I think it's fairly obvious that Zelda received the Zelda Boost™ that Link and Ganon have enjoyed since 2003. Secondly, I don't think Vivi was SFFd by Sephiroth very much, if at all. Thirdly, I think Vivi pulled smoke and mirrors in his match against Donkey Kong and fooled people into thinking he was stronger than he really is. Not to say that he should have lost or anything, but Donkey Kong is Nintendo's version of Alex Rodriguez. He's good, but everyone seems to hate him. I truly think that Vivi did better than he should have in that match by a percent or two.

Add it all up, and you get Zelda whipping Vivi's ass with almost 60% of the vote. Cue the Zelda \> Snake bandwagon that I foolishly helped begin.

## Match Trends

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## (3)Kratos vs (6)Alucard 2005

_source: (3)Kratos vs (6)Alucard 2005 (revid 88873)_

## Results

Friday, July 29th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Gear Division
- **Match \#:** 11
- **Match Date:** Friday, July 29th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 10,036
- **Oracle Expectations:** Alucard - 60.75% 104 for - 1 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Alucard - 51.31% (17,339 brackets)

No, not Tales of Symphonia Kratos. This is the guy who was smart enough not to accept coffee before the sex.

After the Frog/Riku debacle, it was extremely difficult to imagine Alucard taking down Sora. It made his match with Kratos relatively pointless, though it was a chance for Kratos to show his potential in these contests. Sony may not be able to produce hardware that works (because God knows that their TVs, computers, stereos, and post-PSX gaming systems are lucky to last for two years before having problems; but hey, at least they make good CD players, and dammit, that's what matters), but when they decide to make games, they usually strike gold. ICO and God of War have received critical acclaim from all over the gaming community, and Shadow of the Colossus may do the same if they ever get the controls worked out. Counterintuitive horseback controls are beyond stupid when you're trying to traverse on something that's actively trying to throw you off of it, but I'm getting way off the subject.

The funny thing about this match is that it's the battle of characters from critically acclaimed niche masterpieces. Sure everyone knew that Alucard was going to win, but by the end of the match, Kratos would be the one with the last laugh. Beginning the match well under 40% and then using a strong day vote to bring the heavy favorite down to 55.5% tends to do that, especially when you win an update every now and then. Kratos being from a recent smash hit and going against a guy who people still can't recognize (I swear, the next person that makes a "Who is Alucard?" topic in the middle of one of his matches gets kicked in the crotch; he's beaten Tails, Duke Nukem, Kirby, Bomberman, and Kratos; PLAY HIS GAME ALREADY PEOPLE) perhaps did him some good, because when the casuals began to vote, Alucard's percentage went down. I know that most of us like Alucard and The Plan, but there are only so many Get Out of Jail Free cards you can hand out.

Yes, God of War is a recent hit. Yes, SOTN and Alucard aren't getting any younger. And yes, Kratos is an untested character who may very well have been every bit as strong as this match suggested. But Alucard/Sora was one of the most widely debated matches of the contest, and for Alucard to swing 55% on Kratos after what Riku did was nothing short of disappointing.

Though despite this, one could still make a halfway decent case for Alucard in the next round, if for no other reason than Kratos's recency causing an overperformance. Maybe. either that, or this match was a sign of Alucard finally starting to show signs of aging.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2076&num=2)
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## (2)Sora vs (7)Agent 47 2005

_source: (2)Sora vs (7)Agent 47 2005 (revid 56039)_

## Results

Saturday, July 30th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Gear Division
- **Match \#:** 12
- **Match Date:** Saturday, July 30th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 36,552
- **Oracle Expectations:** Sora - 76.49% 106 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sora - 83.68% (28,278 brackets)

One day after Alucard went out and... well, performed like Alucard (the guy just can't ever have an impressive win, can he?), Sora came out and laid an egg against Agent 47. I barely know a damn thing about the Hitman series, but it's hard to imagine its main character having any form of strength at ALL in a GameFAQs contest. This is the same genre that produced Tanner, our biggest loser ever.

Okay so maybe it's not the same genre, but you get the point. Same type of appeal. 70% may seem like a good number in most cases, but against Agent 47 (who some called Neo Tanner before the contest even began), it's a very "meh" performance.

What we were essentially left with after this match was a fourpack of rats, and the winner of Alucard/Sora would simply come down to who has lost less of their luster. It's hard to pin down who had the advantage going in given that they both went up against untested newbies, but it's hard to ignore what Riku did against Frog. It's even harder to think of Sora as being weaker than Riku, which is practically what Alucard needed to win the match.

Meet Alucard/Sora, a match in which the pre-match hype was almost resolved by a poll that took place five days before either of them took the field. Frog/Riku virtually sealed this (though many people, myself included, still argued that Alucard had a chance... blah, who were we kidding), and it essentially meant that neither this nor the previous match meant anything. It would have been nice to see one of the two characters beat someone who had been in a contest before without having to look at Frog/Riku over and over again, but you can't have everything.

## Match Trends

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## (1)Kirby vs (8)Cecil Harvey 2005

_source: (1)Kirby vs (8)Cecil Harvey 2005 (revid 88875)_

## Results

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Dream Division
- **Match \#:** 13
- **Match Date:** Sunday, July 31st, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 45,289
- **Oracle Expectations:** Kirby - 63.66% 106 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Kirby - 87.53% (29,579 brackets)

Let me point you all to a poll before discussing this match: [<https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1326-south-division-round-1-kirby-vs-ramza-beoulve>](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1326-south-division-round-1-kirby-vs-ramza-beoulve)

That's the Kirby/Ramza match from 2003, in which Ramza managed to score 42.34% on everyone's favorite pink ball.

Now fast forward to 2005, two years after that match took place. Cecil was one of many lesser-known Square characters to make the bracket thanks to CJayC getting rid of the company cap, and even though most people figured Kirby had the match in hand with ease, a lot of people figured that Cecil wouldn't be that much weaker than Ramza. After all, Ramza was a lesser-known lead character from a cult Square hit, Final Fantasy Tactics.

And then people started to mention that Nintendo seemed to be on the rise in this contest, and that Cecil may do a bit worse than the ~35-40% that people projected for him. But even then, still not too bad a performance.

Then that god-awful Amano Cecil was posted, and people virtually gave up all hope of Cecil having any form of a moral victory in the match.

But even then, not a damn person here had any clue what was about to happen to Cecil in this match. The average Oracle prediction for this match was Kirby with 63.66%. That's it.

And on a related note, special props to King Morgoth for creating this page (http://oraclechallenge.com/consensus.php) solely due to me noting that average picks were no where on the Oracle site. That's some hardcore dedication, and I... owe him one, to say the least.

Anyway, even with Cecil getting one of the worst pics we'll ever see in one of these things, people still figured that it wouldn't cost him too much. After all, Square characters don't get killed. Ever. Except in SFF matches. But when Kirby began this match by beating the absolute living crap out of Cecil, everyone quickly took notice that Kirby was perhaps a force. You don't just come close to breaking 75% on a Final Fantasy lead by accident, and Cecil did nothing in this match to prove that he did anything but bomb. Kirby just totally annihilated him.

This match was the first match in which people started to proclaim en masse that perhaps Nintendo received a boost across the board (which creativename would later dub The Boost™), because again, scoring nearly 75% on a Final Fantasy lead on GameFAQs is no joke. Final Fantasy 4 may not be the most popular game out there, but it's still a fairly well-known FF title. It's not like Kirby beat the hell out of Fighter or Bartz. However even then, a lot of people assumed that Kirby overperformed due to an unfair match pic and the recent release of Canvas Curse for the DS. This may be a fair assumption, but it's ironic given that a lot of people figured Kirby to be the most undeserving of the eight 1 seeds in the contest.

On the other side of this match, Cecil's getting killed spelled doom for Terra. The Terra \> Dante upset pick HAD a halfway decent case until Cecil went out, got killed, and made Dante \> Terra unbelievably obvious. Even if you wanted to bother thinking that Terra still had a prayer, Dante and Kirby have traditionally been more or less even in the stats in practically every contest. Assuming that they were still even, Terra would have to be able to do over 25% better than Cecil did, despite being in an ensemble cast.

....yeah, that one had a shot of happening. This match was a true shame given how awesome Terra and Cecil are as characters, but you get the feeling that they predate a good deal of GameFAQs users after you watch one of them get their face kicked in in underperforming by well over 10%.

On an unrelated side note, Final Fantasy 4 is still a masterpiece. Just had to get that one in there somewhere. \<3

## Match Trends

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## (4)Tidus vs (5)King of All Cosmos 2005

_source: (4)Tidus vs (5)King of All Cosmos 2005 (revid 88877)_

## Results

Monday, August 1st, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Dream Division
- **Match \#:** 14
- **Match Date:** Monday, August 1st, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 45,621
- **Oracle Expectations:** Tidus - 74.88% 106 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Tidus - 85.46% (28,879 brackets)

Why not? Let's all nominate the King of All Cosmos for the contest! It's not like he can cause damage or anything.

> Yeah, right. After a billion Katamari Damacy fads and BA NA NA being repeated over and over again, We had to prepare for Our match. We could have easily crushed Tidus with a flick of Our wrist, but chose instead to formulate a plan to make those who picked Tidus to defeat Kirby feel just a little embarrassed.
>
> We decided that instead of using Our full capabilities to destroy Tidus 99.9-0.1, We would rather throw the match... but We only allowed Tidus the strength to win this one match, for We proved that he was unable to defeat Kirby.
>
> Tidus's fans expected Us to start falling like crazy after receiving a good deal of the board vote -- They said that We were a joke character !! -- when We were in fact doing nothing more than proving that Tidus was overrated from the start and that he had no chance of defeating Kirby.
>
> You see, after the board vote wore off, We did indeed start to fall; but much to everyone's surprise, We stayed at 27% for the entire match despite those Earth people thinking that We would not break 20% and that Tidus was a lock to defeat Kirby from the beginning.
>
> By the time We were done playing Katamari Damacy -- A fun, action-packed game if there ever was one !! -- with Tidus, We proved that he would lose his next match. Tidus only scored 72.54% on Us, while Kirby scored 75.21% on Cecil.
>
> As for how this proved that Kirby would defeat Tidus despite Us throwing the match, that's for you to figure out.

....you get the idea. For Tidus to have any chance of defeating Kirby, he would have to not only hope that The King of All Cosmos was a good deal stronger than Cecil, but that Kirby overperformed on Cecil by quite a large amount. That's a bit too much to ask for, and this match was one more step in proving that 2003 Tidus was a complete fraud. In every other match not named Tidus/Ganon 2003, Tidus has shown that his true colors are not near what 2003 would have you believe. The next round would tell us the final answer on Tidus once and for all, but really, I have no clue how anyone could think that Tidus had a prayer after seeing him disappoint by this much against The King.

Yes, The King threw the match. But He did so with a very clear purpose in mind.

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## (3)Bowser vs (6)Chun Li 2005

_source: (3)Bowser vs (6)Chun Li 2005 (revid 88878)_

## Results

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Dream Division
- **Match \#:** 15
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 31,958
- **Oracle Expectations:** Bowser - 64.10% 106 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Bowser - 88.07% (29,761 brackets)

Before this match ever began, the big debate was not this match of Bowser's, but Bowser's second match. He was a lock to face Ryu of Street Fighter fame, and those who argued that the Spring 2005 stats were invalid or that they inflated Bowser kept noting that Ryu placed a couple of percents above Bowser in the 2004 Xstats. The problem with this is that said stats are simply Bowser being given his 2003 value due to being stuck behind Mario/Bowser SFF, and the entire Bowser/Ryu debate centered around whether or not his match with Sephiroth in Spring 2005 was legitimate. After all, it saw Bowser perform better on Sephiroth than Mario had managed against Seph.

Of course, people naturally assumed that this was a fluke just to defend their Ryu \> Bowser picks and completely dismissed the notion that Mario would likely perform better than Bowser against Sephiroth if Mario and Sephy ever had a rematch. And trust me, I'll be using a certain match in the Tournament of Champions to laugh at these people later, because really, you'd be hard-pressed to find a dumber argument than OMG BUT MARIO DID WORSE THAN BOWSER TWO YEARS AGO RYU WILL STILL WIN to defend a Ryu \> Bowser pick. But I digress.

In a nutshell, the percentage to watch for in this match was 33.92%. This is what Spring 2005 M. Bison is projected to score on Spring 2005 Bowser, and since it's pretty widely believed that the Street Fighter ladder is Ryu \> Ken \> Chun-Li \> Bison = Akuma in terms of popularity, one could easily assume that if Chun-Li were to go well over 33.92% that Bowser was in trouble next round.

And if Chun-Li happened to clear 35.05% (Ken's projected score on Bowser based off of 2003), the warning signs would have gone off all over the place.

Unfortunately, the match decided to not tell us anything useful; Chun-Li.... pretty much did what everyone expected her to do, which is fall in between what Ken and Bison would be expected to score in her place. Bowser flirted with holding Chun-Li under 30% for a little while at the beginning of the match, but after the percentages leveled off, the match stayed extremely consistent. Bowser was at just under a doubling within 45 minutes, and at the end of the match, he was.... just under a doubling =p

Consistent matches leave us with little to discuss, though if you felt like pulling at strings you could argue that if Bowser's Spring 2005 performance was legit, then Chun-Li performing "as expected" makes her look stronger than Ken. Which doesn't make sense, and makes it look like Ryu still had a good chance at beating Bowser in the next round. Or something.

Of course, it would take nothing more than one more day and the very match after this one to end all of these arguments, because Ryu decided to be nice enough to perform like absolute crap.

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## (2)Ryu vs (7)Rikku 2005

_source: (2)Ryu vs (7)Rikku 2005 (revid 88879)_

## Results

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Dream Division
- **Match \#:** 16
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 12,156
- **Oracle Expectations:** Ryu - 62.17% 102 for - 4 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ryu - 74.98% (25,338 brackets)

After Bowser spent an entire 24 hours leaving us wondering whether or not his performance in the spring was truly something special, Ryu decided to answer all of our questions for us.

For those unfamiliar with who Rikku is, she's that loud-mouthed girl in FFX that serves as a horrible form of comedy relief in the game. Really, she's got jack squat on Ultros or Gilgamesh. And then Square decided to put her in FFX-2 and show her "true personality" (which didn't change, mind you; she just wore less clothes). To this day, I have no clue how I managed to get a 100% in that game without ripping out my eyes. It's SUCH a bad video game.

Anyway, to the point. Bowser did what he was supposed to. In fact, some would argue that he did less. Ryu could have gone out there and proved that the Dream Division was his for the taking, because frankly, everyone thought that this division was going to come down to the Bowser/Ryu match.

So what does Ryu go out and do? He absolutely and completely chokes. Possible FFX-2 affects aside, the board expected Ryu to do rather well in this match (the average Oracle pick was 62.17%) and prove that we were perhaps overestimating Bowser based on the spring.

Not only did Ryu not come close to breaking expectations, but the rate that he started bombing in the match was alarming. It took less than ten minutes for a board vote that had him at nearly 70% to push him under 60%, and his percentage gradually dropped throughout the day. If you stare at the updater long enough, you'll occasionally see Rikku going 50/50 with Ryu in an update or winning an update outright every once in a long while.

Rikku. Going 50/50 in spots against Ryu, the same guy who has broken 40% against three different Noble Nine characters, the same guy who almost upset Sonic, and one of the brick walls of consistency in these contests. Some people blamed this entire thing on TJF and/or FFX-2 while still trying to justify Ryu \> Bowser, and I laughed quite hard in these cases.

For the record, even if you want to blame this match solely on FFX-2 while leaving Ryu constant, you'd have to convince yourself that Rikku was as strong or stronger than Tidus and that she had a good chance of breaking 48% on Auron. According to 2004 stats, at least.

The 2004 stats may be completely screwed up, but not even I'm willing to say they're that screwed up. Either Ryu dropped and had no chance whatsoever on Bowser, or Rikku just happens to be as strong as the two most popular characters in her game despite arguably getting the least amount of character development out of any of the cast in FFX.

Yet people actually bothered arguing Ryu \> Bowser after this. Hilarious. This whole thing eventually led into a discussion in which I asked my good pal Slowflake if I could laugh at him if Bowser won.

His response? "You can laugh at me if Bowser kills Ryu and comes close to breaking 60%, how about that?"

Paraphrased of course, but still hilarious given what was coming.

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## (1)Master Chief vs (8)CATS 2005

_source: (1)Master Chief vs (8)CATS 2005 (revid 88880)_

## Results

Thursday, August 4th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Flood Division
- **Match \#:** 17
- **Match Date:** Thursday, August 4th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 35,576
- **Oracle Expectations:** Master Chief - 76.31% 96 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Master Chief - 92.20% (31,157 brackets)

Master Chief has got to be the least transitive character ever.

On a related note, while I'm not an advocate of pictures making a difference, CATS is a different story.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg>

Watch the video, then compare how long you see Eggplant CATS as opposed to Face CATS. It's no comparison, and Face CATS is quite clearly more recognizable. Given how many times that video has been seen, I don't get how one could assume that it wouldn't make a big difference in a match here on GF.

Three times CATS has gotten an Eggplant pic, and three times the stats have seen him as complete fodder. When he got the face pic in Spring 2005, he placed in the top half of the field.

Against Master Chief, he got the face pic that everyone knows and loves. Granted this wasn't going to do something as insane as allow him to win the match, but it allowed him to overperform based on past stats for the second contest in a row. Summer 2004 has CATS scoring around 20% on Master Chief.

But Master Chief is overrated in those stats, so everyone went and looked at 2003 for more reliable numbers. According to them, CATS scores just under 26%. Makes enough sense, and the average Oracle pick of Chief with 76.31% reflects this expectation quite nicely.

And then the match started. CATS took the early lead as expected, and Chief took it back as expected. However, what people didn't expect was CATS holding strong in the upper 30% range for a good while after the board vote wore off. No big deal, right? Chief being the absolute king of the day vote would come through and help him flatten CATS despite only having 63.72% of the vote after six hours of the match were past.

Seriously, what does CATS need to do to prove that he has legitimate strength in these contests and can win a match given the right opponent? Better yet, what does he need to do to prove that the face pic makes a difference? Between hours 6 and 12 in the match, Master Chief increased his percentage to 68%. However, during the next twelve hours of the poll (the timeframe he used to KILL Frog), he was only able to increase his percentage to what you see above. And while CATS did allow Master Chief to go insane for six hours, he still performed well above where most people had him pinned. I can't wait for the day in which CATS is given a match against a character lower than him in the stats and is given a face pic in the match.

On another note, this pretty much proved that Master Chief was the weakest and/or the most undeserving 1 seed in the contest. Not only did CATS overperform on him, but this is post-Halo 2 Master Chief we're talking about here. Very disappointing match for him.

## Match Trends

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## (4)Donkey Kong vs (5)Sam Fisher 2005

_source: (4)Donkey Kong vs (5)Sam Fisher 2005 (revid 88884)_

## Results

Friday, August 5th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Flood Division
- **Match \#:** 18
- **Match Date:** Friday, August 5th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 25,725
- **Oracle Expectations:** Donkey Kong - 59.02% 91 for - 3 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Donkey Kong - 71.08% (24,020 brackets)

Can you possibly have a match any more boring than this one? I swear, this thing was like trying to watch water obil. Then again, virtually everything in the Flood Division not named Kefka/Vercetti had the same feel to it. It just wasn't a division with any luster to it at all.

As for the match itself, it was... just horribly, unbelievably boring. The only exciting part of the match was Donkey Kong performing well above expectations for the first hour or so in hovering around the 70% level. It's not that people expected Sam to put up much of a fight or anything (remember, this guy holds the record for going the longest in a match without scoring a single vote), but that Donkey Kong was only expected to score 65.77% in the match. Scoring over 70% would have been pretty decent news, but Sam Fisher put a fairly decent day vote to use to Donkey Kong a full percent under projections. This helped stem all of the OMG NINTENDO WENT UP IT'S SO UNFAIR crap for the time being, but did it really matter? It's not like Donkey Kong was going to go and give Master Chief a decent match or anything, or that this match was somehow a warning sign that his gradual loss in percentage would come back to bite him in the ass.

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## (3)Kefka vs (6)Tommy Vercetti 2005

_source: (3)Kefka vs (6)Tommy Vercetti 2005 (revid 88894)_

## Results

Saturday, August 6th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Flood Division
- **Match \#:** 19
- **Match Date:** Saturday, August 6th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 2,245
- **Oracle Expectations:** Tommy Vercetti - 50.98% 63 for - 30 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Tommy Vercetti - 37.66% (12,726 brackets)

When the bracket was first released, this match came up as being one of the hotter matches to debate before the contest began. Many people, myself included, questioned why. Kefka's Spring 2005 performance may have made him look impressive, but the fact is that Spring 2005 only has Kefka scoring an extra .24% against Base Link. Vercetti was above that by a good deal, so for Kefka to win this match, Vercetti would actually have to go down in strength. Kefka was only projected to score 43.89% on the man, after all. A widely used argument however was that Vercetti could go down due to the release of San Andreas, but detractors of this theory pointed out that it was a fairly ridiculous assumption. Cloud and Link don't go down when Square or Nintendo decides to release new games, do they?

But regardless of what you thought going into the match, it was unlikely that many thought that this would be one of the best matches of the entire contest.

Everything started off horribly for Vercetti early as Kefka roared past him early. Kefka began the poll by taking in well over 60% of the vote, and though his percentage leveled off in the 55% range within an hour, he still managed to jump out to an early lead of over 550 votes. Vercetti supporters noted that Kefka took the board vote from Knuckles and that Knux was far more beloved on the board than Vercetti was, but Kefka never managed to actually begin pulling away from Knuckles in that match. Against Vercetti, Kefka began the poll on fire and barely showed any signs of weakness, while Knuckles is an entirely different animal (Literally!) altogether. Knuckles is a posterboy for the day vote, while Vercetti hasn't ever traditionally been good with it. If Vercetti didn't start doing something to save himself, and fast, he would be well on his way to getting killed in a match that he was supposed to win going away.

Vercetti somewhat weathered Kefka's early storm, and for the next few hours, he stalled Kefka the best he could. Vercetti never made any real comeback signs, but he was constantly going 50/50 or winning small five minute updates every now and then. However despite Vercetti's best efforts, it seemed as if the best he could do was to simply cause Kefka to be slow in increasing his lead. For everything Vercetti was throwing at Kefka in an attempt to slow him down, it did little more than cause Kefka to spend five hours increasing his lead from 550 to 1100. And given that Vercetti was never anything decent with the day vote, the odds of him coming back on Kefka were slim to none at this point despite the fact that Kefka was traditionally an embarrassment during the day. Incidentally, Vercetti was doing little more than embarrassing himself. Here we had someone slated to win a match with well over 56% of the vote, yet he somehow managed to fall in strength after a different game was released in his series. Not that San Andreas has anything to do with him of course, but Vercetti's performance against Kefka speaks of the lack of staying power that Grand Theft Auto characters have in these things.

But right around this point, six hours into the poll, Kefka's horrible day vote began kicking in. It's not that Vercetti was necessarily beginning a comeback, but that Kefka himself was downright pathetic during the day. However, things started to get a bit interesting once Vercetti stopped stalling, won a few updates and pulled Kefka's lead down to 1000 votes in less than an hour. Not that most people noticed that there was even a possible comeback going on, given how slow Vercetti was in cutting votes off of Kefka's lead in the first place.

What then took place was arguably 18 of the most action-packed hours we'll ever see in a contest match. What set this match apart from other matches that have had comeback attempts in them was that this match felt more like a defensive struggle than anything else. Everyone remembers the 1993 Wild Card game between the Bills and Oilers in which the Bills came back from being down 35-3, but not many people remember low-scoring slugfests in which the losing team fights an uphill battle for seemingly the entire game before winning at the end. Last year's game in which the Dolphins beat the Patriots in those fugly orange jerseys would be a good example of that. How many people can honestly remember who caught that final TD pass without looking it up?

And that was Vercetti in his match against Kefka. He fell under a mountain early on, and had to scratch and claw his way to gain back every vote for the duration of the match. Vercetti had a way of winning a few small updates in a row, then stalling with Kefka for awhile. Then Vercetti would win a couple more small updates with a random large update thrown in for dramatic value before Kefka would recover and stall the match again.

Not that Kefka sat back and let Vercetti back into the match for no reason, mind you. After Vercetti spent two tough hours getting Kefka's lead from 1100 votes down to 900, Kefka realized that he was actually in a match again and started fighting back a little. From this point on, Kefka and Vercetti turned a potential blowout into yet another Ali/Frasier-like contest match. Every time Vercetti tried making a push to make a full comeback attempt in the match, Kefka Havoc Wing'd his ass back down into oblivion. The result of this were the two characters spending over two hours stuck between being 800-900 votes apart in the match. Every time Vercetti made the slightest hint of a push, Kefka shot it back down. When Vercetii was finally able to get the lead under 800 down into the 770 range, Kefka \*again\* managed to easily hit back.

Quite literally, Vercetti had to begin fighting the match of his life in his efforts to siphon away Kefka's lead, and he did this by winning updates in such overwhelming fashion that Kefka's attempts to hit back wouldn't cause so much damage. After what felt like hours deadlocked at a deficit of 800 votes, Vercetti took over 50 votes off of Kefka's lead in less than five minutes. This was the largest swing of votes in the match since it was a mere two hours old; and even though Vercetti was able to get the lead down to the 720 range, Kefka quickly hit back to get it back to 750.

Vercetti decided enough was enough, and cut Kefka's lead from 750 to 600 in all of 25 minutes. Kefka made a feeble attempt at preventing the inevitable, but Vercetti then spent a mere 25 minutes slicing Kefka's lead from 610 to 450. As one could imagine, the board began to absolutely lose its mind. Cheating accusations were flying all over the place, and for fairly good reason. Both characters were all over the place with their intake of votes, and how CJayC could look at this match and assume that nothing was amiss was a bit strange.

And when I say the board went crazy, that's.... an understatement. We may never have board explosions on par with 2002 or 2003 again (thanks for changing the poll starting time, Ceej), but this match was about as big an explosion as one could possibly hope for in present times. To put this in better perspective, we went through over six stats topics in one day. Granted most of the posts were nothing more than RI-style flooding, cheating accusations and various other forms of debauchery that one needn't read if they had fallen behind in their effort to catch up to where the stats topic currently was. And what was going on in the stats topic was actually very lighthearted compared to what was going on everywhere else.

To make matters even more hilarious, the two characters decided to stay stuck at a difference of between 400-500 votes for well over two hours. Much like their standoff back when the match was hovering at around an 800 vote difference, the two characters tore into each other like nothing else for seemingly forever. Whenever one character tried making any sort of a move in the match, the other was right there to keep the match at a standstill. And to make things even better, this was going on during the prime of the match; the late afternoon, in other words.

But much like their last standoff, Vercetti decided to end it himself by going nuts. After a duel that saw both characters practically kill themselves, Vercetti went on another massive push to bring Kefka's lead down from 400 to 300 in a mere 25 minutes. Kefka was able to stall Vercetti for a full hour after this, but Vercetti soon went on another massive push to bring Kefka's lead down to a mere 200 votes. Kefka tried his hardest to hold off Vercetti's massive evening push, and though Kefka stalled Vercetti quite a number of times, Vercetti's spotty periods of slicing large sections off of Kefka's lead soon tied the match.

But Kefka wasn't quite done for yet. Every single time Vercetti tried to break the tie and pull away, Kefka was right there to bring Vercetti back down, often in the form of insane vote intakes after Vercetti looked like he was about to run away with the match. Though despite a TON of cheating accusations being thrown around against Kefka, a very large part of Vercetti's comeback were large updates out of nowhere. Surely, neither character would have to resort to cheating to try and gain the edge in such a close match.

\>\_\>

As the night wore on, Kefka managed to weather Vercetti's storm of votes. After all of the effort that Vercetti put into tying the match, Kefka was able to use the second night vote to break the tie and pull away. At 11:20 PM EST, Kefka led by a mere 30 votes and was in the fight of his life. One hour later, Kefka had all but sealed away the match by extending a once-tied match into a lead of 260.

But just as everyone was throwing in the towel, Vercetti had one final push left in him. He was able to prevent Kefka from getting the lead past 260, and after he nickel and dimed his way to getting the lead down to 240, Vercetti spent all of 15 minutes getting Kefka's lead down to 140.

Everyone started going batty over Vercetti still having a shot to win this, but every time Vercetti made any sort of a push, Kefka was able to hold Vercetti at bay. Again, cheating accusations flew all over the place.

Right at around this point, CJayC signed onto AIM. He virtually never signs onto AIM unless something is wrong with the site, and given when he signed on, anyone could figure out what was coming next. In one IM window, I was listening to the grapevine about what was going on (I wasn't talking to Ceej, so don't ask for any AIM logs; not that I'd post such a log regardless). In the other, Leonhart was going nuts over Vercetti's latest comeback attempt. The contrast between the IMs was ironic in that Leonhart's side had no clue what about to happen, and I'm sure Leon wasn't the only example. Virtually everyone that was watching the match closely believed that they were watching something normal, or at the very least, believed that if cheating were going on that Ceej would have said something by now. Granted, Kefka's eventually turning a 100 vote lead into a lead of 140 within seconds certainly gave those crying cheat a good reason to wonder what in the hell was up, but more on that in a second.

At around 12:30 AM EST, CJayC implemented updates on the poll, and right in the middle of a match. This was a clear sign that something odd was going on, and a few people started calling for Vercetti's victory fanfare already. Unlike 2002/2003, the poll updates were in five minute increments rather than fifteen.

To make a long story short, CJayC caught a horribly obvious (see also: very stupid) cheater that was swinging votes in Kefka's favor via proxies and signed onto AIM to try and scare the guy; essentially, CJayC was about to announce that Vercetti had won the match due to cheating, and thanks to Ceej's being willing to tell some people this over AIM a few of us were lucky enough to hear about this before Ceej actually decided to announce it. Just for my own personal kicks, I decided to make a topic on Board 8 telling people that CJayC was about to announce Vercetti's victory (and that the reason he put poll updates back in place was so that potential future cheaters couldn't see the immediate benefits of their work and would hopefully be discouraged from cheating attempts in the future), and it was met with the expected OMG JOO KNOW NOTHING U LIAR LOLOL!11!!1!oneone nonsense. Figures as much (because really, while I do love you guys you are very predictable), but it made the following topic all the more hilarious to read:

> **Vote adjustment due to stuffing.**
>
> From: CJayC \| Posted: 8/7/2005 12:49:27 AM \| Message Detail \| \#001
>
> Kefka has lost 1800 votes due to flagrant vote stuffing. The clear majority of the stuffed votes appear to have come from user "George Romero" (who even hinted that he was doing it in his posts here, and has since been banned, although it appears he had no valid entry in the contest). While there are probably many more than 1800 votes stuffed exclusively in favor of Kefka, that's approximately how many I can confirm were done by this group, and it's more than enough to set the balance right.
>
> While there is, of course "vote stuffing" for both characters, this is a clear case where a few people have gone through extraordinary lengths to alter the vote, spending hour after hour stuffing votes. There was no vote stuffing to this order of magnitude for Tommy, so the vote totals have been adjusted accordingly, and new measures are being put in place to prevent this from happening again.
>
> As a reminder, this is covered explicitly in the rules, and again, I have absolutely no stake in whoever actually wins in each day's bracket (not counting my own entry for fun, which, of course, I picked Kefka for).

And just for kicks....

21:45 \| Kefka \| 47186 \| +123 \| 50.06% \| Vercetti \| 47065 \| +140 \| 59.94% \| Lead of 121 \| (Down 17)

21:50 \| Kefka \| **45502** \| -1684 \| 49.10% \| Vercetti \| 47179 \| 114 \| 50.90% \| Lead of 1677 \| (Up **1684**)

By the way, if anyone has a screen of that weird update that had two copies of each character and almost 200,000 total votes, feel free to post it. I forgot to save the link, for some reason.

As one could imagine, it was Board Explosion Central after CJayC decided to layeth the smacketh down on the poll. But he wasn't done yet:

> **A few extra notes on the adjustment.**
>
> From: CJayC \| Posted: 8/7/2005 1:13:12 AM \| Message Detail \| \#001
>
> In case you're wondering how bad the cheating was for Kefka, here's a sample:
>
> [<http://img205.imageshack.us/my.php?image=votes4fz.png>](http://img205.imageshack.us/my.php?image=votes4fz.png)
>
> The yellow is Kefka votes, the blue is Tommy. The number (vertical) is how many votes out of each group of 1000 (horizontal) came from a IP range from a particular ISP. Based on the user logs, this was clearly perpetrated by a single person or at most a small group of people, and as such, cannot be allowed.
>
> As I mentioned in the first post, this situation is explicitly covered by the rules: "we reserve the right intervene in the daily tally when there is a clear evidence of mass voting fraud". If that chart isn't clear evidence, well, then nothing's going to convince you. If you want to get angry at anyone, get angry at the people who caused it.

The match was essentially over, but the firestorm was only just beginning. Thanks to some idiot who thought that his opinion should matter more than the opinions of tens of thousands of other people, one of the best matches we've ever had turned into a match that was only dramatic because of vote-stuffing. All of those barrier jokes in the stats topic? Yeah, turns out that they were vote-stuffing barriers. The ironic thing is that ChichiriMuyo (and possibly even Nevest, I believe) practically pinned down what would happen through the rest of the match before it actually happened. Some people were quicker to blame cheating before others, and they were right.

However, the saddest thing in all of this was the fact that after the entire board was whining about cheating for practically the entire match, a great many people decided to turn around and act like the stuffer was someone actually worth being praised for his efforts. It was pathetic, and it only proves that any idiot can become popular on the internet if he's stupid enough (Future Edit from 2026 -- boy did THAT statement age well, huh?). When Board 8 turns around and practically idolizes someone who did nothing more than cheat in an online popularity contest after whining about the possibility of cheating for an entire match, it certainly makes for some good entertainment.

And given all of the attention from nowhere, our wonderful vote-stuffer did what was only instinctual: stretch out all of the positive attention for as long as he could possibly receive it. This soon led to him claiming cheating in virtually every close match we've ever had via AIM conversations with various people, though given how unbelievably stupid and obvious he was in a one-point match, I find it hard to believe that CJayC wouldn't have caught this guy years ago if the claims were actually true. But the board ate it up like candy and continued to think that they were dealing with some misunderstood genius, and the entire situation was nothing short of pathetic. I find it hard to believe that this guy got away with cheating in high-profile matches when he screwed up something as simple as Kefka versus Vercetti. Give me a break. Besides, I IMd the guy myself. He changed his story around with every different match I asked him about, and though I was upset about the possibility of him getting away with cheating in other matches in the past for a few minutes, this was alleviated by him being one of the dumbest liars I'd ever seen. The key to having credibility while lying is consistency, and he sucked at it.

Besides, if you read the following post, even Ceej himself subliminally laughs at M410123's claims of past cheating:

> From: CJayC \| Posted: 8/7/2005 2:37:34 AM \| Message Detail \| \#059
>
> The whole reason I had the conversation with him, of course, is so it \_would\_ get re-posted, confirming that what I did was indeed find one person voting massive amounts of times. Not really devious, but an ulterior motive. Figured this was easier than posting "Yes, AyaneLuverGuy really does know George, I can see the usermap, and he's more than likely really talking to him on the phone".
>
> As for his claims that he did this for Mario v Crono, I couldn't tell ya. From what I remember, all of the stuffing I saw was pretty much equal on both sides, so his claim that he decided it can be shared by many others.

By the way, this was posted by Ceej in a topic in which ALG was allegedly having a phone conversation in which M410123 (Romero's original account, for the curious) gave one cheating claim after the other. Dunno about everyone else, but I don't buy a single one of those claims given that the guy screwed up a one point match in which the winner was guaranteed to lose in the second round. No credibility at all, especially when Romero began using his friend's account to defend himself from the accusations of having no credibility.

This match eventually wound down to a close, but someone decided to have the match go out with a bang by vote-stuffing for Vercetti near the end. CJayC responded to the entire situation by posting this topic:

> **Oh, by the way, Tommy would have won regardless.**
>
> From: CJayC \| Posted: 8/7/2005 3:02:58 AM \| Message Detail \| \#001
>
> Given the final vote differential was 2245, and I only removed 1800 votes from Kefka...
>
> In other words, had I just not done anything at all, the same result would have occurred, minus all of the hullabaloo.
>
> There's irony for ya.

Except that had you not done anything and allowed the vote-stuffer to continue without a hitch, Kefka wins. Pretty silly post, I think.

And lastly, CJayC's response to Vercetti's being the beneficiary of vote-stuffing near the end of the match, which he posted within the "Tommy would have won regardless" topic:

(For the curious: <http://sc2k5.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2084&sort=time&type=ASC>

Check out the last ten updates or so to see the Tommy vote-stuffing.)

> From: CJayC \| Posted: 8/7/2005 3:11:54 AM \| Message Detail \| \#102
>
> Yeah, I did see the Vercetti stuff at the end of it; odd thing though, it good portion of it (half?) came from a wide variety of IPs and ISPs, in China of all places. None of the IPs were known proxies, and given that they were from multiple ISPs, it can't have been one person doing it; it looked more like the Korean ISP floods during the Best Game Ever matches with StarCraft. \*shrug\*

Translated: "Starcraft may have cheated in Spring 2004, but the IP addresses are varied enough to where I can't confirm it for sure."

Am I the only one who thinks that admitting this was a horrible idea? Assuming that my assumption is correct, Ceej could have very well admitted that Starcraft did far more potential cheat damage than in the match with SSBM. Seeing how, if ever, this plays out in future Starcraft matches will be very interesting. Or maybe Korea just knows how to rally votes at the right time, who knows.

The only real issue I have is that one of the best matches we've ever had turned into one of the worst. It wasn't just M410123 doing the vote-stuffing, either. Tombs and GFA's owner both exhausted all of their accounts on the match by using a well-known glitch that CJayC couldn't fix at the time. Tombs was put into Purgatory for publicly admitting this, while GFA's owner has since been axed (and possibly even KOSd, so he thinks) for an unrelated offense. The funny thing is that Tombs and GFA's owner were cheating for opposite characters and essentially canceled each other out. There was also a fourth vote-stuffer (who I won't name) that used the glitch to stuff 80 votes for Kefka. As for whether or not the 1800 removed votes factored in these other stuffed votes, we'll never know. The main issue with this is that Ceej can't fix the glitch without turning every match into what Pokemon/Xenogears Part 1 was.

A minor debate broke out about the validity (or lack thereof) of past stats and the affects on untouched cheating in matches, but Romero's complete lack of credibility in conjunction with the Starcraft example (take 3000 votes off of Starcraft's total against SSBM and watch how far it moves in the stats; hardly anywhere) put that to rest rather easily. In the end, we were left with new measures taken to prevent proxy cheating, poll updates were back in style, and the board was left scratching their heads with what to do next, as well as what exactly to make of what had just happened. All of this news had hit everyone in a span of just over two hours, and it took a long while for everything to fully digest and to look at the situation from a better perspective.

All over a one point match that meant next to nothing in the grand scale of things. However, this match was a return to form for the contest; we hadn't seen something this strange since Starcraft, and we wouldn't see anything quite like this for the rest of the contest. It may have only been one point, but it was something to talk about -- and in terms of things to talk about, this match delivered more than any other match would deliver through this entire contest. It's actually a shame that we didn't wind up with any true down-to-the-wire nailbiters in retrospect, because our best match wound up being a minor first round match. It was like Ryu H/Jill 2004 in that while it was entertaining, it was overall meaningless.

## Ed Bellis' Analysis

Now we’re getting into the nitty-gritty, the matches most people will remember as being definitive ones in contest history. This particular match is only so low because a certain cheater got a wee bit careless and ruined the fun for everybody, but it was still a damn amazing showdown regardless.

First off, these two were very close in the Xstats, and picking the winner of this was, for most, a tossup, so the pre-match hype was rather big. When the match actually began, there was all manner of crazy lead changes and comebacks and nobody really knew who was going to win even after halfway through the poll. Eventually the stuffer got caught and Kefka lost by a decent amount, but the excitement of the poll and the unpredictability of the updates made this one of the best matches of the whole contest.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [BARRIERS and Cheating result in one of the biggest Stats Topic explosions in history](http://thengamer.com/gamefaqs/05Summer/KefTomStatsOwnage.JPG)
- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2084&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=19)

• **Previous Match**       • **Next Match**

---

## (2)Crono vs (7)Zidane Tribal 2005

_source: (2)Crono vs (7)Zidane Tribal 2005 (revid 56055)_

## Results

Sunday, August 7th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Flood Division
- **Match \#:** 20
- **Match Date:** Sunday, August 7th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 51,944
- **Oracle Expectations:** Crono - 75.02% 95 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Crono - 89.87% (30,370 brackets)

What does Crono need to do to prove that he's worthy of a 1 seed? Lara Croft, Pac Man, Solid Snake, Sonic, Mega Man, Bowser, Kefka, Ganondorf, Kirby, Master Chief, and Dante have now all gotten 1 seeds before Crono. Good god.

After the madness that was Kefka/Vercetti, a nice simple match was needed to calm everyone down a little. Crono/Zidane did this wonderfully, because the only real question in this match was whether or not Crono would SFF Zidane. 2004 Crono would be projected to score around 66% on 2004 Vivi, while he'd be projected to score a whopping 81% on Spring 2005 Kuja. One would assume that he'd fall somewhere in between the two.

That's... about all that Crono did of any note, really. This match was amazingly consistent from start to finish; Crono had 74.81% of the vote one minute into the poll, and his range in the match was only 74.5%-79%. Consistent matches are good for gauging strength given how rare consistency is in these things, but not a whole not else. You can barely take anything from within these numbers if you believe that there was a lot of SFF in the match, no less.

My only complaint here is that a lot the new Square characters that got into this contest by CJayC ditching the cap (all of which I like) were given the shaft by being put into matches that they simply had no chance to win. Zidane, whom I absolute adore, is another in a long line of examples. Then again, FF9 isn't exactly the type of game that gets a ton of respect anyway.

There is but one true question that can be wrought from this match. Was Zidane SFFd, and if so, would he have been stronger than Vivi if he were faced against someone different? Zidane really should have been switched with Sam Fisher in this bracket.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2085&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=20)

• **Previous Match**       • **Next Match**

---

## (1)Dante vs (8)Terra Branford 2005

_source: (1)Dante vs (8)Terra Branford 2005 (revid 88895)_

## Results

Monday, August 8th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Devil Division
- **Match \#:** 21
- **Match Date:** Monday, August 8th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 41,727
- **Oracle Expectations:** Dante - 61.60% 87 for - 8 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Dante - 88.33% (29,849 brackets)

The Devil Division. If there was one division in this contest that was bound to screw everyone up, this was it. There were only three obvious matches in the entire thing, and they were all in the first round. Some would even argue that Dante/Terra or Vincent/Kerrigan weren't obvious, leaving Squall/Geno as the only true given in the entire division. Well there was also Magus/Knuckles, but.... yeah.

Dante/Terra caused a few minor debates pre-lockdown, if for no other reason than the hero:villain relationship generally not being close. In this regard, Kefka would be projected to score 41.62% on Dante according to 2004 numbers. Most hero:villain relationships are much wider than that. Another popular opinion for a Terra \> Dante upset was how strong Final Fantasy 6 was in Spring 2004.

The issue with this is that Terra isn't the prototypical main character and wasn't very likely to be able to have a wide discrepancy between her and the main villain of the game. For starters, Terra isn't like a Cloud or a Squall; she has little to no appeal among casual voters. There's also the issue of Final Fantasy 6 being an ensemble cast, which means that even though Terra is the "main" character of the game, the attention among the party is divided up relatively equally among all the characters. In the case of FF6, that's a lot of characters.

This eventually led to Terra being far weaker than she would need to be to stand any chance in this match (she would have to be pretty close to Auron to be able to beat Dante, to put it in simple terms), and come show time, it wasn't close. Dante began the poll with well over 60% of the vote and never looked back; he was over 68% within minutes, and by the end of the match he was over 71.5%. Dante was remarkably consistent (see also: boring) through the match, but given the way some people hyped Terra as the next big thing, Dante's being able to beat her to a pulp with such ease and consistency makes one wonder how badly Terra was hurt by being in an ensemble cast in a Final Fantasy game. Her game itself is a strong one, but for whatever reason, the characters themselves don't perform well in these things.

Terra was another in a long line of new Square characters that never really had a chance to do well, and not only was she up against Dante in a 1-8 match, she was up against post-DMC3 Dante in a 1-8 match. This opens up a few interesting questions about how Kefka is the only character from FF6 that ever manages to do anything in these polls, and how a villain can be this much stronger than a main character. If you plug Terra into 2004 stats after this match, she only scores 34.24% on Kefka. That... doesn't make any sense.

On a side note, creativename has said time and time again that Shadow would be the strongest FF6 character due to him having the most appeal to the casual voter. In Leon's next contest, I say we make a Shadow push to see if creative is correct.

Future Edit - Shadow never once made a contest, which is sad. Literal Shadow from F-Zero got an appearance, which makes his career snub even worse.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2086&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=21)

• **Previous Match**       • **Next Match**

---

## (4)Sarah Kerrigan vs (5)Vincent Valentine 2005

_source: (4)Sarah Kerrigan vs (5)Vincent Valentine 2005 (revid 88896)_

## Results

Tuesday, August 9th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Devil Division
- **Match \#:** 22
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 58,142
- **Oracle Expectations:** Vincent - 59.82% 91 for - 8 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Vincent - 75.77% (25,605 brackets)

Every contest sees its fair share of obvious matches that get debated to hell and back for absolutely no reason, and Kerrigan/Vincent was arguably the best microcosm of such useless debates in the Summer 2005 Contest. In one corner, we had Vincent, arguably one of the biggest snubs in these contests. People have been calling for his appearence for years, and for good reason. Vincent is the fan favorite of Final Fantasy 7, so much so that when Cloud did a cameo in Kingdom Hearts, his design was practically stolen from Vincent. It wasn't a stretch to assume that Vincent could be as strong or stronger than Aeris in these contests, or at the very worst just a tad weaker.

In the other corner, there was Kerrigan. Kerrigan was literally a board creation, thanks to how well she did in Leonhart's contest. People assumed that because Starcraft did so well in Spring 2004, that Starcraft would be able to have a strong character in these contests as well. The general consensus for that character was Kerrigan, given that she's the most popular character in the game.

But... beating Vincent? Kerrigan was another character that was overhyped and overblown beyond belief, and most people had the "I can't underestimate Blizzard again" mentality going into this match. But there's one problem with that.

Just for kicks, slap Diablo's Spring 2005 number into the 2003 stats. He scores 38.16% against Aeris, which seemed to be a good pre-contest estimation for around where Vincent should place. We'll even give Kerrigan the benefit of the doubt, assume that Vincent is weaker than Aeris and say that Vincent only scores 60% on Diablo.

This means that for Kerrigan to have a shot at Vincent, she'd have to be able to break 60% on Diablo and thus be around the level of characters like Squall, Aeris, and Bowser. Personally, I had zero belief in any of that and thought Kerrigan wouldn't even be able to defeat Diablo in one of these contests, let alone Vincent himself. Diablo's series has more sales than Starcraft, Diablo 2 is more popular in America than Starcraft, and Diablo just happens to have the same name as his game does. Before this contest, I guaranteed that Diablo would finish higher in the stats than Kerrigan and that Kerrigan would disappoint due to suffering from... well, Terra Disease. Being in a popular game is one thing, but being in an ensemble cast does not usually translate to character battles. And in Kerrigan's case, I'd go far enough to say that she's not even the main character of the game until the last campaign in Brood War. But that's a different debate for another time.

So if Kerrigan is unable to take on Diablo (and she isn't), how was she supposed to touch Vincent?

Cue the tape for the beginning of the match, in which Vincent not only beats Kerrigan, but absolutely flattens her. The match was never close, and the odd thing is that Kerrigan being just over 27.5% at the start was as good as she was going to look for the rest of the match. It began ugly for Kerrigan, and it would only get worse. By the time Vincent was done beating her into paste, he came close to breaking 80%.

Eighty. Percent. In a match that some people were afraid of, for whatever far-off reasons that they came up with in advance. To get an idea of just how bad this was for Kerrigan, the average Oracle pick was Vincent with a mere 59.82%. Kerrigan bombed, and there's really no other way to put it. Vincent just killed her.

And before someone goes and blames the picture for Kerrigan doing so badly, run the same match with the fabled Brood War loading screen pic that was supposed to save her. Are Starcraft's fans, the same fans that would vote anything Starcraft over anything else and the same fans that everyone was so scared of ahead of time, so fickle that they would cease to vote for Kerrigan just because she had a bad match pic, so blind that they wouldn't read the name "Kerrigan" as one of the poll options and remember who she is? In the words of Joe Biden, come on man.

**Final Fantasy 7 is the mascot of GameFAQs.** Tifa's Orthopedic Underwear could have probably won this match in Vincent's place, and it'll be interesting to see if Kerrigan is overestimated to the same levels next year. Assuming she even makes it in after this poor showing.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2087&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=22)

`• `**`Previous Match`**`       • `**`Next Match`**

---

## (3)Magus vs (6)Knuckles the Echidna 2005

_source: (3)Magus vs (6)Knuckles the Echidna 2005 (revid 88897)_

## Results

Wednesday, August 10th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Devil Division
- **Match \#:** 23
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, August 10th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 1,756
- **Oracle Expectations:** Knuckles - 39.23% 0 for - 98 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Knuckles - 35.08% (11,855 brackets)

Before this contest began, Magus/Knuckes was in no discussion. All of the debates were whether or not Squall would be able to rSFF Magus, and even those who argued in favor of Squall having the advantage over Magus due to Magus possibly being overrated in the stats didn't figure that Knuckles would actually be able to threaten in this match. No one in the BOP, no Oracle, and no Guru picked Knuckles to win this. The only person I even remember giving Knuckles a chance was HaRRicH, and he wasn't even taking his Knuckles \> Magus stuff seriously.

Magus was expected to win this match with ease. He was supposed to be able to take down Knuckles with around 60% of the vote en route to winning the division that was seemingly designed for him to waltz through. The man beat Ganon, who had just broken 40% on Sephiroth not too long ago. The man almost broke 35% on Link, which very few characters have the ability to do.

That giant thud you hear is arguably the single most overrated fraud we've ever had in one of these contests falling flat on his ass. In the span of 24 hours, Magus went from being compared with the likes of Sonic and being handed an entire division to being compared with the likes of Liquid Snake, Tidus, Frog, and leaving everyone questioning just how badly Magus has been overrated until this past contest.

Everything started off well enough, with Magus pulling in well over 60% of the vote as expected. But within seconds, something seemed amiss. Magus started losing some steam, and even though was still increasing his lead by quite a lot, those with Magus \> Squall in their brackets began to concede that Magus likely had no chance to win his next match. Magus needed to score near 60% to prove that he was able to take down Squall, but in the second 5 minute update, Magus's percentage dropped from over 58% to just under 56.5%. If Magus was unable to score ~60% on Knuckles during his strongest part of every match, the odds of him beating Squall were practically zero.

But within a few minutes, the absolute unthinkable began to occur. Not only was Magus proving himself unable of taking down Squall, but he was showing signs that he may not even be able to take down Knuckles. Magus's lead was not increasing at a uniform rate, and he had to rely on wild spikes in his vote intake just to increase his lead early on in this match. Knuckles was stalling Magus every now and then, and Magus would counter with very odd vote spikes. This pattern continued for quite some time, and murmurs began of how Knuckles may actually be able to put his historic day vote capabilities to good use and actually win the match. Remember, Knuckles was slated to lose this match in a blowout.

Barely an hour and a half had passed in the poll, and Magus's momentum.... completely stopped. Knuckles was able to stall Magus from gaining any more big increases, and though Magus was able to slowly get his lead up to 650, the realization of what was soon to occur began to set in. Not only did Magus have no chance at all of taking down Squall or winning the division, not only did Knuckles prove that he had a chance to win the match, but it was very possible that Knuckles would be able to use his traditionally insane day vote to absolutely flatten Magus into the ground and win the match by several thousand votes.

Knuckles shocked the world not far after Magus's increase was stalled, and Knuckles soon began to slowly chip away at Magus's lead just a couple of hours into the match. It took seemingly forever or Knuckles to gain any large updates, but Knux was able to chip away piece by piece at the lead that Magus built early on. It took seemingly forever for Knuckles to get the lead just from 650 to 400, but it didn't take much longer for the vaunted Knuckles day vote to take effect. However, around six hours into the poll, after Magus's flat-out pathetic vote intake all but cost him the match before three hours of the match were over, the vaunted Knuckles day vote began to take full swing at the overrated Prince of Zeal. Votes began pouring in for Knuckles, and what was once a mighty struggle turned into child's play for Knux.

Once Knuckles caught his day vote, he was able to use it to absolutely flatten Magus and bury him into the ground well past having any actual shot at winning the match. At 9:00 AM EST, Knuckles was trailing by just over 300 votes and was struggling to pick votes away from Magus's lead. Less than nine hours later, Knuckles was ahead by over 2700 votes.

The funniest thing about this match is that despite Magus catching the evening vote and taking off almost 1000 votes (ramblings of a possible Magus comeback appeared every time Magus went over the necessary tie quota, but Knuckles was easily able to hold him off) from Knuckles's peak of 2700, Magus would still go down as arguably the biggest choke in the history of these contests. Even ytmnds were spawned from this match, with maguslosttoknuckles.ytmnd.com being the funniest.

And it's true. In 2003, Magus was an overrated newcomer who managed to use his fresh status and existing strength to overperform in two straight matches. In 2004, we all assumed that Magus was SFFd to hell and back by Crono and simply plugged his 2003 value into the final Xsts. But in 2005, after two full years of many people saying how overrated Magus was, the true colors finally came out. Magus was an overrated fraud, and even though Leonhart had it pegged almost perfectly, not even he mentioned that Knuckles could perhaps win the match... "because of how... out of whack it seemed at the time".

In terms of true shock value, this match was the best of the contest by far. Even today, many people still say that this match made the contest interesting, all while Board 8 has put Magus as its favorite character in two straight mass votings. One could argue for Ocelot/Pac Man or Ness/CJ or even something else, but the Knuckles upset was different. People cared a great deal about both of these characters. None of the other upsets through the contest felt like they had the same luster to them as this one did. Matches like this are what keep us interested in these polls.

Anyone can look at Magus and say that he was overrated, but how in the world could he have been overrated by this much? You don't just randomly score 35% on Link by accident, and even though CT characters tend to overperform when given sprites, that's still a rather large discrepancy. I'm getting the feeling that perhaps Magus got extremely lucky against Ganondorf and overperformed against both Ganon and Link. We've seen the new character bump before and since. But even then, overperforming this much?

Know what's even funnier? Due to bracket voters perhaps pushing Magus rather hard to try and save the match for him, he may also be overrated in these stats as well. Characters that lose close matches have a tendency to do very badly in their next contest.

In conclusion, Magus = an overrated bust. He's still one of my favorite characters, but I can't exactly deny that he was overhyped and overblown to extreme levels.

Cue the Knuckles \> Squall bandwagon spearheaded by people who refused to believe that Magus wasn't an overrated bust. And Leon4, you deserve a lifetime of apologies for how I acted before this match. To quote Jon Snow, you were right the entire time.

## Match Trends

## Ed Bellis' Analysis

If you want examples of the board getting completely and utterly blindsided by a result, look no further than this, the textbook example of Board 8 falling flat on its collective face. No Guru, no BOP bracket, no Oracle called this match correctly. Such floppage hadn’t been seen since a certain green plumber fell flat on his face in 2003. But Magus managed to do the unthinkable and lose to Knuckles in Round One, despite the fact that, two years prior, he’d brooked an incredible 35% on Link.

So what happened? Were the signs always there and we just missed them? Whatever you think, it doesn’t change the outcome of this match: Magus led for a little bit before Knuckles just surged ahead and won decisively in one of the biggest upsets on the board in contest history. People (myself included) had Magus taking the entire division, and a ton of brackets went up in smoke almost at once. No character has seen such a fall from grace as poor Magus has.

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2088&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=23)

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---

## (2)Squall Leonhart vs (7)Geno 2005

_source: (2)Squall Leonhart vs (7)Geno 2005 (revid 88898)_

## Results

Thursday, August 11th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Devil Division
- **Match \#:** 24
- **Match Date:** Thursday, August 11th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 49,390
- **Oracle Expectations:** Squall - 72.90% 98 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Squall - 89.12% (30,116 brackets)

One day after Knuckles \> Magus, we... were given a match in which everyone was still only talking about Knuckles \> Magus.

Squall beating Geno was an absolute lock, and some argued that it was the only obvious match in the entire division before the contest began. The only question in the match was whether or not Squall would be able to score any decent amount of SFF in the match, and it's a question we received an answer to within seconds of the match beginning.

Geno had the lead for a few seconds, but it didn't take long for Squall to absolutely roll all over him. Geno was yet another in a long line of Square characters that made the contest with no company cap, but had absolutely no chance to do well. Personally, I would have loved to see a match between Geno and Terra.

There are two things that really get me about this match. One, if you're wondering whether or not Squall would have beaten Magus had Magus lived up to Xst expectations, I think this match proves that he would have. Squall likely SFFd Geno a little, and Geno is a side character in Super Mario RPG (released 1996). If Squall could SFF a side character from SMRPG, why couldn't he SFF a side character from Chrono Trigger. He wouldn't have needed a lot if Magus were actually what we thought he was.

Secondly, no one thought that Crono was in trouble when he failed to flat-out kill Zidane with SFF. Yet when Squall "only" triples Geno, people say that Squall has some issues. Hilarious.

Squall beating Geno set up a very interesting second round in the Devil Division. The favorite picks seemed to be Vincent \> Dante and Squall \> Knuckles, but there was some reason that Dante and Knuckles had outside chances to win; or at least, overperform based off of expectations. As for the Devil finals, it was almost impossible to call that one at this point.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2089&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=24)

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---

## (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (8)Jin Kazama 2005

_source: (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (8)Jin Kazama 2005 (revid 56072)_

## Results

Friday, August 12th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Chaos Division
- **Match \#:** 25
- **Match Date:** Friday, August 12th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 47,602
- **Oracle Expectations:** Sonic - 81.23% 92 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sonic - 92.10% (31,123 brackets)

This was one of the most boring matches of the entire contest, if for no other reason than the fact that Jin managed to make this contest despite *zero* board support. In every single nomination list posted on this board before the contest, Kazama's name did not show up one single time.

As such, given that Sonic was a lock to win, this match was about two things to watch for on the side: how Sonic would do in preparing for the inevitable clash with Mega Man, and whether or not Jin would turn out to be weaker than Terry Bogard. It was a bit tough to pin down whether or not Sonic had a chance against Mega Man based off of one match against an untested character, but it was easy enough to see how the latter issue would turn out.

Given that most people expected Jin to not be able to match Terry Bogard's 2004 percentage of 19.16%, Jin wound up being a bit stronger than expected. Even more interesting was the fact that Jin stayed pretty consistent throughout the match. Sonic made a push to get Jin under 20% early on, but Jin recovered to get himself to the range of nearly 26%. When Sonic's vaunted day vote hit, he was only able to push Jin down a mere 2%, which some said was cause for concern for Nintendo's favorite mascot.

And yes, Nintendo's favorite mascot is Sonic, much like Vince McMahon's favorite mascot is the old WCW logo \<3

As for how Jin did so much better than expected, compare the Tekken series to the King of Fighters series. To my knowledge, Tekken is much more popular and has gotten more critical acclaim. There was also the matter of Tekken 5 being released not too long before this contest began, which could have allowed Jin to get into the contest despite absolutely no board support whatsoever. And the board didn't mind a Tekken character making the contest, but all of the big Tekken fans here kept saying that the series could have put better characters into this contest.

As for whether or not this was cause for concern for Sonic's chances to get past Mega Man and make the Final Four or simply Jin doing better than expected, only time would tell.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2090&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=25)

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---

## (4)Kratos Aurion vs (5)Diablo 2005

_source: (4)Kratos Aurion vs (5)Diablo 2005 (revid 56074)_

## Results

Saturday, August 13th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Chaos Division
- **Match \#:** 26
- **Match Date:** Saturday, August 13th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 11,621
- **Oracle Expectations:** Diablo - 60.14% 90 for - 1 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Diablo - 78.74% (26,609 brackets)

This match was an interesting one, not because Kratos was necessarily a threat to win, but it would somewhat validate whether or not Diablo's Spring 2005 performance was legit, as well as help to put the TOS characters in a more accurate line. One could assume that Kratos was the strongest TOS character of the bunch, but by how far? And even if you wanted to give Kratos/Liquid Snake/Cam Clarke a chance, Mithos would only be expected to score 33.07% on the Kefka slayer. That's a whole lot of ground for Kratos to make up.

Kratos was pretty much out of the match right when it started, given that a heavy TOS board vote couldn't even keep Kratos within striking distance during Diablo's weakest part of every match. It took mere seconds for Diablo to shake off Kratos's few seconds of decency before running away with the match, however Kratos would go on to avoid being outright killed in the match. The inside joke about my standard for a killing is 57-43, after all \<\_\<

Ironically, after all the crap that Lloyd took after his bombing against Wesker, Lloyd was the only TOS character out of three to win a contest match in the 2005 season. Mithos didn't even come close, and though Kratos is probably the most popular character in the series, he was stuck going up against a Diablo who had just come off of arguably being the most impressive character this past spring. However, if there is one thing that Kratos can take from this loss, it's that he's likely so far ahead of Lloyd in popularity that even if Lloyd managed to SFF Kratos a little in a hypothetical match, Kratos would likely win with ease regardless.

Which is odd, because we've seen various examples of those "Favorite Character" polls not being the least bit accurate (though we haven't had one for TOS as of yet on our site, I don't think). Yet with TOS, it seems to be fairly accurate. Perhaps it's because of the way that the TOS battle system works, or maybe it's due to the fact that Lloyd is such an idiot in the game that he has virtually no appeal whatsoever. Either way, a match involving two among the Lloyd/Kratos/Sheena trio could be interesting. And hey, on another bright note, Kratos actually managed to win a couple of updates in the later stages of the match.

As for Diablo, he did... pretty much exactly what he was expected to do. Beat Kratos, job to Sonic, possibly return next year and give us another good run.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2091&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=26)

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---

## (3)Tifa Lockheart vs (6)Vyse 2005

_source: (3)Tifa Lockheart vs (6)Vyse 2005 (revid 56076)_

## Results

Sunday, August 14th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Chaos Division
- **Match \#:** 27
- **Match Date:** Sunday, August 14th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 54,045
- **Oracle Expectations:** Tifa - 69.87% 91 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Tifa - 89.72% (30,319 brackets)

After three contests in which Tifa was cast aside due to company limits or people nominating other Square characters, she was finally given a chance to perform. And hot damn, did she enter this contest with a bang.

The big debate involving Tifa wasn't whether or not she would do well, but it was practically a lock for her to take her fourpack before jobbing to Sonic in the divisional finals. It was where she stood within the Aeris/Tifa/Vincent triangle. Hardly anyone could agree on where to place these three, and unfortunately, Aeris was not in this contest to give us a decent comparison. Essentially, we would wind up comparing the three by comparing 2003 Aeris to how well Tifa and Vincent did in this contest.

In Vincent's first match, he performed above and beyond expectations and flat-out killed Kerrigan. However, Vyse was not Kerrigan. Vyse has been in these contests before and had actually won a match in the past. We had a fairly decent number on Vyse, and determined Vyse to be the fodder line in these contests. Most people assumed that he was consistent enough.

But like Vincent before her, Tifa came out and flat-out destroyed her first round opponent to go well above and beyond expectations. Blowing out Kerrigan is one thing, but blowing out Vyse is something else entirely. Within 5 minutes of this poll's existence, Tifa was over 77% and climbing. It looked for a few minutes as if Tifa would blow past Vyse en route to a victory well into the 80% range, but she calmed down a little and finished the match with just over 78% of the vote. But even then, what Tifa managed to do here was still impressive.

Vyse only managed to score 18.59% on Cloud. He only did 3% better against Tifa, so either Tifa was far stronger than most people expected and was on track to beat Sonic and Mega Man en route to the Final Four, or Vyse was much weaker than everyone assumed and was simply long overdue to reveal his true colors. And man, did the people who assumed a constant Vyse cause a few silly debates in the days following this match or what?

Lopen made a very good post in the stats topic recently, and it applies to Vyse possibly being overestimated. He more or less said that the only reason Vyse looked so good against Laharl is because both characters were cult favorites. Vyse had been in a contest previously, and was the top option. This makes enough sense, because when you stick two unknowns together, the human mind tends to favor the first choice. Laharl probably wouldn't have won if the seeding in that match were reversed, but he may have performed better.

Besides, Vyse's victory may have been a case of the percentages not being as big an indicator as the vote totals. Skies didn't sell all too well, and when Vyse goes up against someone of the calibur as Tifa, you're asking a very large percentage of a relatively small fanbase to be there. Vyse/Laharl was far and away the lowest vote draw of Summer 2004, and when you add in an extra 30000 votes, Vyse not being able to keep up with what his Xst value projected may not have been as big a surprise.

And yes, I'm aware that his value was based off the loss against Cloud. But Vyse doing badly because of an increase in vote totals isn't too far out of the question, and even Vyse/Cloud barely managed 91000 votes. If Lloyd can possibly bomb because of high vote totals, why can't Vyse?

Unless you actually wanted to think that Tifa was going to somehow make the Final Four based off of this match, that is. Regardless, why Vyse bombed here is an interesting little issue.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2092&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=27)

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---

## (2)Luigi vs (7)KOS-MOS 2005

_source: (2)Luigi vs (7)KOS-MOS 2005 (revid 88899)_

## Results

Monday, August 15th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** Chaos Division
- **Match \#:** 28
- **Match Date:** Monday, August 15th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 34,045
- **Oracle Expectations:** Luigi - 56.96% 89 for - 2 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Luigi - 84.57% (28,579 brackets)

One day after Tifa goes out and performs well past expectations, Luigi goes out and shows that Tifa might not be a lock to take him down after all. Except that in Luigi's case, he arguably had the quietest overperformance of the entire contest.

2003 stats have KOS-MOS scoring 45.48% on Luigi. 2004 stats have KOS-MOS scoring 49.23%. And between Summer 2004 and Summer 2005, KOS-MOS added Xenosaga II to her library. This caused a few minor debates to float around about KOS-MOS having a shot at winning the match.

So what does Luigi do? Not only does he completely blow out KOS-MOS, he completely dunks all over the stats. He came out with over 70% of the vote in the match, and even though his percentage leveled off not too far later, he still finished the match close to doubling a character that he was supposed to have a close match with.

Yet because Luigi bombed against Squall in 2003 and Yoshi in 2004 (and plenty of people had high hopes for Luigi in both of these matches), hardly anyone really seemed to care about how well Luigi did due to being done having any faith in the man. Yet to borrow a quote from RPGuy, when Tifa goes and wipes Vyse off the map, it's all Tifa. When Luigi goes and does the same to KOS-MOS, it's all KOS-MOS. Or Luigi's true strength being hidden behind Yoshi/Luigi SFF, or some other excuse to hide the fact that Luigi could have gone up this far. But when the Tifa \> Sonic bandwagon starts, everyone breaks their ankles jumping on and off of the thing.

Personally, I think this was a combination of KOS-MOS dropping, Luigi joining in on a widespread Nintendo increase, and Luigi being hidden behind SFF against Yoshi last year. This isn't to say that his 2003 match with Squall wasn't proof of how weak Luigi can be or that Luigi was going to beat Tifa, but I took two things from this match. One, Luigi was going to do well against Tifa and expose her for not being as strong as her match with Vyse suggested. Two, this was one of the first true examples we had of what creativename has dubbed The Boost™, or the widespread increase for Nintendo this contest.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2093&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=28)

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---

## (1)Mega Man vs (8)Conker 2005

_source: (1)Mega Man vs (8)Conker 2005 (revid 56080)_

## Results

Tuesday, August 16th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** 20XX Division
- **Match \#:** 29
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, August 16th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 51,894
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mega Man - 78.46% 87 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mega Man - 88.83% (30,018 brackets)

*"Conker looks like he's decomposing."* -yoblazer33

Summer 2004 was essentially the death of the new-age platformer character in these contests, as evidenced by the horrendous performances of virtually all of them. Conker only returned to the field due to Live and Reloaded being released right around nomination time, and his odds of ever returning again are slim to none assuming no future timely releases.

The only thing to really watch for in this match was 22.73%, which was Conker's expected percentage to score in the match. Essentially, this match was but a setup for the Sonic/Mega Man clash, and Mega Man performing well paired with Sonic's perceived disappointment against Jin could essentially end that far-off duel before it ever began.

Mega Man started off on a tear, and within 15 minutes had well over 80% of the votes. However, Mega Man's percentage soon began to level off and not only did Conker shave off a few percents, but he managed to get Mega Man under his projected value. The Sonic \> Mega Man bandwagon started picking up a lot of steam once this happened, especially given that Mega Man was relatively underperforming against a rotting corpse.

Seriously, look at that damned thing. All its missing are the maggots.

However, even if you wanted to believe that this match spelled trouble for Mega Man down the line, there was Conker's newfound Xbox exposure to take into account. Xbox fans will vote anything Xbox over anything else, and Conker's shaving off percentage from Mega Man falls right in line with Master Chief's best part of every poll. In fact, Conker's getting Mega Man under 76% at one point not only fell in line with Master Chief's best time, but Mega Man's recovery fell directly in line with Master Chief's collapse against Frog last year.

It may not be a full explanation for Mega Man not performing to speed, but it's not out of the question either. And it's not like we had much else to discuss during the match other than the incoming storm of GFNW jokes.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2094&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=29)

• **Previous Match**       • **Next Match**

---

## (4)Gordon Freeman vs (5)Leon Kennedy 2005

_source: (4)Gordon Freeman vs (5)Leon Kennedy 2005 (revid 56082)_

## Results

Wednesday, August 17th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** 20XX Division
- **Match \#:** 30
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, August 17th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 16,065
- **Oracle Expectations:** Leon Kennedy - 59.49% 84 for - 3 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Leon Kennedy - 43.62% (14,741 brackets)

*"Look me in the eye and tell me that Gordon Freeman will win.*

*I dare you. Bring it.*

*The day Gordon Freeman wins a match -- The day Gordon Freeman ever wins in a popularity contest on GameFAQs is my final day on GameFAQs."* -Amazing Telephone

Everyone knows the joke. GFNW.

And it's not like this year was going to be any different. Gordon Freeman, the man who lost to Tina Armstrong, Max Payne and Sam Fisher, was not about to beat Leon Kennedy in the year that Resident Evil 4 (which essentially revived the series) was released. Another year, another predetermined loss suffered by Gordon Freeman at the hands of a generic human character.

It's gotten so bad for ol' Gordon that he's actually begun winning the board vote due to how much of a joke he's become. Not that people on this board actually root for him to win mind you (the universe implodes if the man wins, which may explain why he tries his best to lose despite CJayC setting him up against generic opponents every single year); they simply vote for him just to see how badly he'll choke in yet another contest. We all nominate him, we all root for him to get an easy match, we all vote for him, yet we all enjoy seeing him lose.

Welcome to Gordon Freeman's world.

He took the early lead against Leon on the backbone of joke votes alone, but a lot of people expected Leon to eventually run away with the match en route to putting up Jill Valentine-esque numbers (roughly 68%). It didn't happen. Gordon Freeman kept his amazing streak of breaking 40% in every match he's ever been in in tact in holding off Leon from ever getting close to the magical 60% mark.

I could try to explain this with logic and say that Gordon had Half-Life 2 and the brackets behind him, but this is a Gordon Freeman match. Logic does not exist, especially when Leon Kennedy does 10% worse than what 2004 Jill Valentine (who is underestimated by 2004 stats) would be projected to do.

Gordon Freeman Always Breaks Forty Percent And Always Increases In The Extrapolated Stats, But Never Wins.

GFABFPAAIITESBNW

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2095&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=30)

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---

## (3)Yoshi vs (6)Laharl 2005

_source: (3)Yoshi vs (6)Laharl 2005 (revid 88900)_

## Results

Thursday, August 18th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** 20XX Division
- **Match \#:** 31
- **Match Date:** Thursday, August 18th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 46,614
- **Oracle Expectations:** Yoshi - 72.36% 88 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Yoshi - 92.16% (31,144 brackets)

This match was like Donkey Kong/Sam Fisher in that it was comparable to watching flies fly in terms of excitement, with the only difference being that I myself am a rather big fan of the two characters in the poll. DK and Sam... not so much. This really was just another poll in which a Nintendo character was given the chance to flex some muscle against fodder.

Laharl was projected to score 28.24% in the match. Yoshi began the poll with over 75%, stayed extremely consistent (see also: boring), and ended the poll by doing better than the stats suggested by 2%. Given that Yoshi was a lock to win his fourpack before jobbing to Mega Man, there really isn't much else to say about this match. The only surprise as far as I can tell is that Laharl made it back into this contest in the first place. I figured that the Disgaea cult wouldn't be able to get Laharl in a second time after seeing how badly he did the first time around.

Maybe Laharl can get in next year and face someone really weak from a game that sold like three copies, who knows. As for Yoshi, he was.... well on his way to winning his fourpack before jobbing to Mega Man. Stunning.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2096&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=31)

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## (2)Revolver Ocelot vs (7)Pac-Man 2005

_source: (2)Revolver Ocelot vs (7)Pac-Man 2005 (revid 88901)_

## Results

Friday, August 19th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Division:** 20XX Division
- **Match \#:** 32
- **Match Date:** Friday, August 19th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 2,268
- **Oracle Expectations:** Pac-Man - 41.61% 1 for - 87 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Pac-Man - 38.36% (12,963 brackets)

More people had Pac Man \> Ocelot than they did Knuckles \> Magus. What in the world.

It took a long time before we saw the final match of the first round end round 1 itself going out with a bang. In 2002, the final first round match was Crash Bandicoot vs Ulala. In 2003, we were stuck with Mega Man vs Mr. Resetti. Spring 2004 saw a decent match in SSBM/MGS2, but the only stunner there was the prediction percentage. And Summer 2004? Samus vs Lara Croft. Puke.

It took until 2005 for the first round not to have that "get this the hell over with" effect, and it was all thanks to Kuja getting his ass whipped by a glove. But most people figured that this was a one-shot luck deal and that we'd go back to seeing our standard fodder killing as the final match of the first round. In Summer 2005, that match was Ocelot/Pac Man, and virtually everyone simply picked Ocelot without even considering otherwise. This wasn't like Magus/Knuckles in which Knuckles had a couple of people actually suggesting that an upset could happen; virtually no one figured that Pac Man would do anything other than lose in this match, and that this was possibly Pac Man's final match in his contest career. His seed has gradually slipped with each contest (he'd be a 14 if you prorate this bracket to four divisions of 16), and he was nearing his end.

The only person I even remember considering the possibility was RPGuy in the stats topic, and his post was more of a "look at how you can manipulate the stats into saying whatever you want them to" situation. And to my knowledge, no one even bothered responding to the post because they didn't consider the possibility of Pac Man actually winning the match.

However, as the match drew closer, some people began to theorize that Ocelot would underperform; not lose, but that he would get in a close match and win by less than 52%. But even then, no one figured that Pac Man would win this match. Pac Man is the same character that got killed by Luigi, lost to Lettuce Kefka and was one of two 1 seeds that bombed in 2002. Ocelot meanwhile won two tough matches against (what we thought were) two tough opponents before respectfully bowing out against Bowser in Spring 2005 not two months before this match took place. Surely, Pac Man had no chance.

Yet for whatever reason, as the minutes wore on and the match drew closer, there was... a very odd air about this match. Yes Pac performed like crap in three contests leading up to this and had yet to win a match of any note, but there was a feeling on the board that maybe Pac did have a chance after all. The obvious reason is Ocelot not even being a percent above Kefka in the Spring 2005 stats. Pac Man almost beat Kefka, so hey, what's to say that he couldn't almost beat Ocelot?

Though Pac Man almost beat lettuce Kefka, so that theory was quickly dismissed. And because Pac Man was likely behind SFF in the stats in both 2003 and 2004, it was a bit difficult to give him an accurate rating based on either contest.

The match would eventually begin, and the odd feeling that everyone had about this match possibly being close was soon realized. During the board vote, which was easily Ocelot's strongest time in all three of his Spring 2005 matches, Pac Man managed to take a slim early lead. He didn't exactly run away with the match in those first few minutes, but many a Board 8 poster called the match once the first poll update was logged in. Pac Man was up by 29 votes, and if Ocelot was doing this badly during his best time, most people figured he was pretty much screwed.

And he was. Sure Ocelot spent the next two hours giving himself a lead of 250, but Ocelot is historically known for tanking with the day vote. And no sooner did Ocelot get his lead of 250 did Pac Man quickly stall Ocelot from gaining any more votes. Pac then began shaving votes off of Ocelot's lead, and despite a few recovery attempts by Ocelot while this was going on, the reality that Pac Man would soon pull off one of the most hilarious upsets of all time soon set in.

All that was left at this point was for Pac Man to catch the morning vote and seal it for good (and pretty much everyone expected him to even though Ocelot was still periodically stalling votes; he was that bad during the day in all three Spring matches); the morning vote came, Pac Man expectedly caught it, then proceeded to slowly build a lead of 2500 votes before midnight.

This wasn't like Magus/Knuckles in that the heavy favorite (Magus) turned out to be a board-hyped bust that shocked people when he lost. Ocelot was the heavy favorite, but when he himself proved to be a board-hyped bust, most people weren't really surprised or upset. The upset was simply too funny and Pac Man himself too overdue for a big win for people to get up in arms about Ocelot tanking worse than the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.

Actually, I take that back. No one could ever tank worse than the Tanks (because the Yankees tanked, lol get it?) in the 2004 ALCS.

The truly funny thing was that despite the reactions being vastly different, Magus and Ocelot had a lot in common. No Oracle picked either of them to lose. No Guru picked either of them to lose. The BOP however had a discrepancy, but not a large one: no one picked Magus to lose, while a vast three people picked Ocelot to lose. Even the prediction percentages were similar. Hell, Ocelot even made a "last stand" in which he cut off votes from Pac Man's lead but would go down as an overrated bust regardless. Granted Magus cut 1000 votes from Knuckles to Ocelot's paltry 250, but it's the principle.

The difference came in the board's reaction to each loss. Magus/Knuckles was just ugly all around. However when Pac Man finally got his big win, most people found the match to be hilarious and celebrated as such. This may have also had a lot to do with Ocelot only being worth one point and Magus seven, but that's a minor technicality \<\_\<

On a more serious note however, both Magus and Ocelot still have potential in these contests. Everyone knows what Magus's deal is, though Ocelot is a tad different. I'm always an advocate of pictures not making a difference of more than 1-2%, but this match falls right into the grey area of pictures perhaps making the difference between a win and a loss for Ocelot.

In one corner, we had Pac Man, who seemingly has the picture advantage hardcore over every character he faces in a contest match. In the other corner, we has Jolly Saint Ocelot. The man literally looked like Santa Claus in the match pic, and it was only a matter of time before one of those blasted faded melting cartoon pics did in a Metal Gear Solid character in one of these contests. One could even go as far as to say that Liquid Snake could have beaten Frog with a better picture.

If Ocelot gets an in-game pic from MGS 2 or 3, I'm willing to bet that he wins this same match fairly comfortably. Unfortunately, we don't know the match pics in advance and can't factor in their wild card affect when filling out our brackets. I'd petition for CJayC to release all first round match pics with the release of each bracket (or at the very least, to make each picture as even as possible), but he's probably too busy with a little-known thing called real life and a career. Sucks to be the rest of us.

With this match's conclusion, the first round had come to an end. It was the best first round we had had since Spring 2004, complete with upsets, controversy, board explosions, and our first-ever bracket in which someone did not have a perfect bracket at the end of the first round. This was a true testament to how awesome a job CJayC did in constructing this thing, as well as him finally using the stats, ditching the company caps and making the bracket as strong as possible while still taking the time to allow in the board-heavy characters (Manny Calavera) and to make the matches as difficult to call as possible. And in some cases, he came up with glorious upsets by accident. Truly, the Pac Man upset was a microcosm of the first round of this contest.

## Match Trends

## Ed Bellis' Analysis

Before this match, the end of Round One, the number of perfects left filled up the entire leaderboard. After this match, none remained.

This result still baffles me. Ocelot's impressive showing in the Villain's Contest, the good performances of Metal Gear Solid characters that year; none of it mattered. Say what you will about pictures making a difference, but Ocelot's blurry old-man-watercolors couldn't stand up to Pac-Man's Technicolor charms. A narrow win put the Pac back on the map to give him his first win in three years, and easily his most impressive one of his contest career.

And it bears mentioning that only DNEA managed to call this one in the Oracle.

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2097&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=32)

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---

## (1)Mario vs (4)Ness 2005

_source: (1)Mario vs (4)Ness 2005 (revid 88902)_

## Results

Saturday, August 20th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Mushroom Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 33
- **Match Date:** Saturday, August 20th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 59,870
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 78.39% 82 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mario - 88.74% (29,988 brackets)

For those of us who expected a mere doubling by Mario in today's match before the contest started, do keep in mind something important: *CJ lost*. Once Ness pulled the big board upset, everyone changed their minds and looked towards a huge SFF-spree by the King of Nintendo himself. Afterall, Bowser SFF'd Ness to a large degree in 2k3; what would keep somebody from thinking Mario couldn't do the same? Ness has only been in three games in all of his existence while Mario puts out, what, three Mario games a year? It doesn't hurt Mario that he's in the two most popular games Ness is in, either.

So the match begins... and Ness is obliterated early. In a time where Ness has a shot of holding the lead for a brief few seconds, he never stands a chance; in the quickest score-update caught by users in the Contest Stats and Discussion topics, Mario was already leading 13-5 (kudos, yoblazer). It only gets worse, too, as Ness finishes with 17.2%. Mario obviously SFF'd Ness, but even then, the SFF was very strong. If you were to compare Mario and Ness in 2k3, Ness would still be expected to get 20.22% (which is when he was SFF'd by Bowser). If you were to compare Mario and Ness in 2k4, Ness would still be expected to get 27.52% (which is when he was indirectly SFF'd by Auron/Sephiroth). Point being, Mario stomped Ness noticeably worse than two previously-SFF'd Ness's have predicted, so Mario came to impress. This goes to show that SFF and stats simply don't mix...though, by all means, we should know this after last year's bracket.

With a win like this for Mario, he's aiming to please the majority of the casual bracket-makers (that is, if the Top Fifty's general consensus is a sign of anything). Ness, who made the GameFAQs 2005 Game of the Year's leading character look worse than Jak (and Ness had starmen.net linking to Ness/Jak, whereas he didn't in Ness/CJ), now looks worse than Joanna Dark and Servbot. To add to it, Mario SFF'd Ness more than Mario SFF'd Donkey Kong in 2k2 (DK had 18.03% against Mario). It's hard to gauge Mario just yet though; afterall, he faced one new-comer and SFF'd somebody who we have nothing but shaky readings on. Mario now moves on to face the winner of Zero/Lloyd next round, making it one round closer to the Mario match we've all been waiting for.

As a fun little note, this might be the second time in a row that a GTA:SA character ranks at the last position possible in the x-stats. There is no doubt that Board 8 rejoices over the idea of such.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2098&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=33)

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---

## (3)Zero vs (2)Lloyd Irving 2005

_source: (3)Zero vs (2)Lloyd Irving 2005 (revid 88903)_

## Results

Sunday, August 21st, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Mushroom Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 34
- **Match Date:** Sunday, August 21st, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 41,619
- **Oracle Expectations:** Zero - 66.79% 80 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Zero - 54.18% (18,309 brackets)

The result of the match between Zero and Lloyd was never in question, as the fate of both characters was already predetermined at the release of the bracket with Lloyd beating Wesker before bowing out to Zero, and Zero destined to easily dispatch Ryu Hayabusa and Lloyd Irving before losing to Mario. The match was more about answering questions.

Zero had to answer questions about his strength, as he was in 2k4’s controversial 20XX division and many people questioned whether he, along with the rest of his division, should have been adjusted due to Mega Man’s flopping against Link. Many people suggested that the adjustment shouldn’t have been made due to many members of the division not doing as well as they should have this year. Liquid Snake bombed in the Spring Contest against Sephiroth, and Master Chief and Frog both didn’t live up to expectations in their first round matchups. However, Knuckles was able to take down Magus, and Mega Man was able to exceed his projections against Conker, even with Conker having a new release. As for Zero, he seemed to slightly underperform against Ryu Hayabusa, but Ryu also was able to get his more recognizable ninja form as opposed to his Dead or Alive character model.

As for Lloyd, he also had to answer questions about his strength. After Wesker’s bombing to Kefka in the Spring Contest, he was made to look weaker than Mithos. Mithos was actually projected to get 58.87% on Wesker. So when Lloyd’s match came along and he only managed to get 54.69% on Wesker, people sounded the alarm. How can Lloyd, the protagonist of Tales of Symphonia, be weaker than his obscure villain counterpart? Most people pegged it on Wesker doing worse on Kefka due to Kefka getting his angel sprite, or the converse of Mithos overperforming on Kefka due to Kefka getting his ugly clown FMV picture.

Still, when the day of the match came, Lloyd supporters were optimistic about Lloyd being able to break 35% on Zero. Using the 2k4 stats, Mithos was projected to get 24.38% on Zero, so that was the number Lloyd had to shoot for to rank higher than Mithos. In a boring match, Lloyd was able to get 26.75% on Zero. Lloyd was able to rank higher than Mithos, although it wasn’t by much. Other than a Mithos overperformance on Kefka, one conclusion that was drawn was that since Tales of Symphonia isn’t a widely known game, its fanbase equally supports all of its characters. Nonetheless, Lloyd proved that he didn’t pose much of a threat in a contest setting, as Zero decimated him. He played his role by beating Wesker before bowing out to Zero. The only question left was to see how Zero would fare in his upcoming match with Mario.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2099&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=34)

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---

## (1)Samus Aran vs (5)Frog 2005

_source: (1)Samus Aran vs (5)Frog 2005 (revid 88904)_

## Results

Monday, August 22nd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Zebes Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 35
- **Match Date:** Monday, August 22nd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 38,994
- **Oracle Expectations:** Samus - 67.05% 82 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Samus - 85.98% (29,055 brackets)

Like a walk in the park, the majority of the board already knew what was going to be seen in Samus/Frog. Samus had already had the majority of her road set before the contest even started: destroy fodder, hammer down on Frog, and SFF Ganon before the huge encounter with Mario (where most casuals had her lose and most board-members had her win the main bracket). Samus successfully made Yuri into mince meat, so she was one round further down her road. Frog also had a road set out before the contest started: take out Riku, then proceed to avoid the doubling by Samus. While Frog *technically* took Riku out, Riku certainly made him fight for it; in a match that had few/no picks from the BOP/Guru/Oracle, Riku made it Frog's fourth match in a row that was decided 52-48 or closer. Granted, Riku was new so it was hard to tell how legit he was...but look at the other three Frog has such close matches with: Liquid Snake, Master Chief, and Solid Snake. Between now having a close match with Riku, Liquid Snake bombing against Sephiroth, and Master Chief not exactly impressing against CATS, Frog was lookin' to be a fraud much like his CT-counterpart Magus.

This didn't stop a lot of people from believing that Frog could still break 45% though; after all, he kept it so close against Solid Snake and has never had a match that wasn't close, so Frog had the chance to be a big green anomaly...until Samus/Frog.

Frog had dominated the board vote against Liquid, MC, and Riku (and he still had the edge against Solid Snake)... but Samus had Frog doubled after the first minute. Let me rephrase this: before Samus/Frog, Frog has only been under 47% for about 4 1/2 hours TOTAL in his four matches and had never been below 46%, and Samus already had him at 33.33% one minute into the match. Since I mentioned the board vote, if you look at the poll updater, you'll see that he DID "win" the board vote since he had eventually sunk to nearly 29% at one point. Now, to be fair, he got himself back up to being just short of 30%, but this was hardly any consolation to Frog fans. Samus not only (wo)man-handled Frog, but did it in a VERY boring fashion. Frog had only had attention-getting matches before this (2k4 had him only involved in classics, even), yet there was nothing to see here once you voted. Samus took everything Frog was known for and destroyed him with an interest-lacking ease comparable to Crono/Vercetti later this round.

So Frog got to the end of his road that the board had set for him, though with more scrapes and bruises than one would hope for. He may have been the final nail in the coffin that it wasn't the 20XX-Division of 2k4 that needed adjusting so much as it was Frog's four-pack though, so he wasn't wasted to those who follow the stats. Meanwhile, Samus's road had more distance to go; she was looking good to comfortably beat Ganon (and probably SFF him) and was looking great for her match against Mario afterwards. Already being the board favorite, it seemed there was next-to-nothing that was going to stop Samus this contest.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2100&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=35)

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---

## (3)Ganondorf vs (2)Auron 2005

_source: (3)Ganondorf vs (2)Auron 2005 (revid 88911)_

## Results

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Zebes Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 36
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 8,141
- **Oracle Expectations:** Ganondorf - 52.54% 68 for - 17 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ganondorf - 67.25% (22,726 brackets)

This is it; for those who remember the pre-contest hype, this match was the beginning of what was supposed to be a terrific string of matches, "The Gauntlet." With Ganondorf/Auron, Solid Snake/Zelda, Alucard/Sora, Kirby/Tidus, and Bowser/Ryu, this was supposed to be the greatest string of matches since 2k2 (where we got Sonic/Samus, Sephiroth/Mega Man, and Mario/Cloud...Crono/Solid, too, if you fancy). While the BOP heavily favored Ganon, many agreed the match was going to stay close, and some who didn't changed their minds when they didn't see Ganon impress against another FFX-member, Yuna, in the first round. Seeing Auron decimate Big Boss didn't exactly boost confidence amongst Ganon-supporters, either.

However, once the match started, it got out of hand early; five minutes into the match, Ganon already had nearly 66% of the votes. Many people expected Auron to take the board vote, or at least go even with Ganondorf...but he took it and ran with it (like nearly all the other Nintendo characters did; I think only Tifa/Luigi and Sephiroth/Mario didn't in all of Nintendo's matches). Now, of course, Auron naturally brought it down to a much more realistic percentage (at one point, Auron had 47.77%), but he ultimately failed to bring the kahunas to back up the hype. He showed he had good strength behind him (as could anybody who can understand Cloud/Auron in 2k3 and Auron/Sephiroth in 2k4 had SFF), but it wasn't as much as many of us once thought. At least there is now a more solid number on him than what we had the past two years, though Ganon is always controversial; whether it's being in Magus's four-pack in 2k3, the infamous Link/Ganon annihilation, the validity of the Villain Contest, or facing a potential SFF'er in Samus right before Mario/Samus, it's entirely too difficult to get a true consistent number on Ganon.

In a sense, it's good news for fans of both of them; Auron proves he's got true strength, and Ganon gets his first Sweet Sixteen appearance (though, with better placement, he could have arguably gotten as far as the Final Four). With Samus next in line though, he had nowhere further to go. He has enough to be proud of though; thanks to his second-place run in the Villain Contest, this earned him a LOT of bracket-support. 67.25% of the brackets didn't think Yuna, Auron, or Big Boss would beat Ganon, which only continued to show that people paid attention to the Villain Contest...not that people didn't already know him or think he was strong, mind you, but this spring made a lot of people into believers. This would show again in the next round with the drop-off in Samus's prediction-percentage, too.

As a fun little note, Ganon had beaten down three FFX members (Tidus, Yuna, and Auron)...and his three matches, by themselves, would lead you to believe that Tidus \> Auron \> Yuna. Ganon was 1,918 votes away from getting to beat Sin, too, if you check the Villain Contest close enough.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2101&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=36)

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---

## (1)Solid Snake vs (5)Zelda 2005

_source: (1)Solid Snake vs (5)Zelda 2005 (revid 88912)_

## Results

Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Gear Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 37
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 9,480
- **Oracle Expectations:** Solid Snake - 54.35% 68 for - 15 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Solid Snake - 72.06% (24,351 brackets)

Oh, yeah. Snake vs. Zelda. Remember when it seemed like Zelda had a chance of winning this? Well, that all ended about ten seconds into this match. Zelda pretty much fell over and died immediately, and the final poll was not indicative of how this hyped match was anything but.

Anyway, let's go over why we all got this match wrong and overhyped it.

Let's go back to Round 1. Snake flattens Manny Calavera with eighty-something percent.

But wait, Manny who?

Exactly. Manny Calavera is a nobody, even though the few people who have played Grim Fandango swear by the game.

Anyway, we all thought that eighty-something percent meant that Snake was underperforming. Note: we're dumb sometimes.

The next day, the heavily debated match, Vivi vs. Zelda, was upon us. Why this match was ever debated is beyond me. In the spring, Kuja did about as well as a jar of peanut butter. Wait, that's too kind. I like peanut butter.

Yet people were still surprised when Zelda kicked Vivi's ass. Over 60%. Sure, you can spew out BS about Vivi being so strong because of the "Black Mage Factor" or something like that, but he's from FFIX. And from what some people on Board 8 will tell you, the good points of FFIX begin and end with taking the disc out and playing another game. I wouldn't know, seeing as I love FFIX to death. But that's a story for a different day.

So, anyway, Zelda kicking Vivi's ass should have been no surprise. What victories does Vivi have under his belt? He struggled to edge out Donkey frickin' Kong? Whoamg, powerhouse right there, folks.

Fast forward to Round 2. People discover that using Zelda's 2003 value against Snake's adjusted 2004 value makes Zelda almost beat Snake. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

1\. People are using values from different years to compare characters. This, of course, is absurdly inaccurate.

2\. The adjusted 2004 stats are worthless. Magus at \#9? lolz

But that's not quite it! Compounding our statistical delusions was the match pic, which caused an uproar all over Board 8:

Okay, we've got a cute Zelda pic, here, but where's Snake? All I see on the left is a vaguely-human looking figure with no face. Oh damn, that's Snake. I guess the "Acid" in Metal Gear Acid is really referring to the part where battery acid is poured all over Snake's facial features. Honestly, "Solid Shit" is a really good nickname because Snake has had some BAD match pictures over the years. As you might expect, this caused many more people to jump on the Zelda bandwagon, because apparently the average GameFAQs user is more inclined to vote for a ten year-old girl than whatever that Snake pic was.

The match rolls around, and... you know the story. A pity...all those petitions to get Ceej to change the pic went to waste and it ultimately didn't matter anyway.

Boring match, in the end. And we never saw it coming, because we fall for bandwagons a lot.

Future Edit: It took a LONG time, but Zelda got her revenge and proved the hype was not undeserved. It just took a boost from Breath of the Wild for us to see her at her full power: <https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7362-finals-bracket-round-1-snake-vs-zelda>

Yes, the vote totals are very low, but I have little doubt Zelda wins that match with normal tallies. She was on fire that year.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2102&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=37)

• **Previous Match**       • **Next Match**

---

## (6)Alucard vs (2)Sora 2005

_source: (6)Alucard vs (2)Sora 2005 (revid 88913)_

## Results

Thursday, August 25th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Gear Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 38
- **Match Date:** Thursday, August 25th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 10,318
- **Oracle Expectations:** Sora - 51.54% 55 for - 28 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sora - 35.13% (11,871 brackets)

When the Summer 2005 bracket was released to the board, this match-up was probably one of the most debated matches in the entire contest. Especially to the supporters of the x-stats. Alucard is ranked above Sora in the x-stats and was expected to beat Sora with 51.38% of the votes. Alucard would have to be the favorite in a match-up with Sora right? I mean, who really cares about the goofy clown-shoed kid from Kingdom Hearts? I mean sure Sora performed well in 2k4, handily taking care of Ryu Hayabusa before bowing out respectfully to Samus. But there’s a huge difference between performing well on Samus and defeating Alucard, right? Besides, with Alucard’s plan in effect, there’s no possible way that he could lose to Sora, right?

Yeah. Right. Like the many close matches by x-stats standards that we’ve seen before, you couldn’t possibly have relied on the x-stats to call this match. Like Vivi/Zelda, Luigi/KOS-MOS, and Ganon/Auron before it, this match completely ripped apart the established x-stats. There was no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Sora was going to take this match with ease.

Alucard has performed pretty respectably in these contests, having wins over the likes of Tails and Kirby, and bowing out to the likes of Cloud, Sephiroth, and Ganondorf. Sora doesn’t have as much contest experience as Alucard, but he did have a nice 2k4 as mentioned before. HOWEVER, when it came to a direct match-up between the two, the writing was on the wall for who would be winning this match.

First of all, you have to look at the games that the characters come from, and the popularity trends of said games. Alucard hails from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Now SOTN is a very popular game on the Playstation, and is widely heralded. But the game isn’t getting any more popular as time marches on. And Alucard hasn’t done squat since his appearance in SOTN besides a cameo in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow on the GBA. And he wasn’t even referred to as Alucard in that game.

Kingdom Hearts, on the other hand, is on an upswing in popularity. Not only did Sora have a GBA appearance with KH: Chain of Memories, but there is also much anticipation for Kingdom Hearts 2. PLUS, Sora had a new redesigned look that is much more appealing than his KH look. Plus you have to add to the fact that Kingdom Hearts pretty much IS Final Fantasy XI as far as popularity goes. Seriously, place 16-year-old Sora next to Cloud, Squall, Zidane, and Tidus. Doesn’t he fit right in as your typical FF protagonist?

So we finally get down to the match, and what happens? Alucard jumps to an early 53% lead with the board vote, but he was only able to build his lead to a peak of a whopping 68 votes before Sora began to slice into the lead. And as we all know, Alucard’s best time is with the night vote as he is absolutely horrible with the day vote. It must be the vampire blood within him. We all knew what would happen once the day vote came. With Sora already taking a 1000 vote lead throughout the night, he absolutely EXPLODED upon the arrival of the morning vote and ultimately ended up beating Alucard by more than 10000 votes.

Now, you could have only looked at the previous results of this contest and known that Sora was going to take the match. Sora performed respectably against Agent 47, even though many people considered him to be Neo-Tanner. However, that was just due to his looks. Hitman is a very popular series, and Agent 47 is much more appealing than Tanner. However, Alucard absolutely CHOKED in his match against Kratos, of God of War fame. If Alucard was having trouble with Kratos, there’s no way he should have been able to handle Sora, right?

As far as the low prediction percentage? Sora had over 80% of the brackets getting him to his matchup with the Alucard/Kratos winner. So it appears that many people took Alucard and possibly Kratos over Sora. The reason for that? “And all the people say LOL X-STATS! And all my ladies say LOL X-STATS! And all the fellas say LOL X-STATS!” Plus it seems that Sora doesn’t get much respect on GameFAQs. And judging by his match-up with Snake and the horrendous picture disadvantage that he got, it seems like that trend continues. Of course, that could just be chalked up to Alucard’s plan.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2103&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=38)

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## (1)Kirby vs (4)Tidus 2005

_source: (1)Kirby vs (4)Tidus 2005 (revid 56100)_

## Results

Friday, August 26th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Dream Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 39
- **Match Date:** Friday, August 26th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 15,610
- **Oracle Expectations:** Kirby - 48.81% 23 for - 60 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Kirby - 54.53% (18,427 brackets)

Before this contest began, Tidus was considered to be the overwhelming favorite by the board to win this match. To give you an idea of this, Slowflake’s Board Odds Project had 127 brackets picking Tidus to win, as compared with only 24 brackets with Kirby. However, their first round matches put this “foregone conclusion” into doubt. Kirby tripled Final Fantasy IV hero Cecil. In spite of the completely unrecognizable picture Cecil got, this was very impressive. Tidus followed that up with a mediocre performance against the King of All Cosmos, netting only around 72% in that match. People began to acknowledge that Kirby definitely had a fighting chance of winning this match, but that still did not prepare us for what would happen.

The match started and Kirby jumped out to a big lead right off the bat. He had a 100 vote lead in merely two minutes and had over 59% at the first poll freeze. Tidus managed to bring the percentage down a bit during the night, but once morning hit, Kirby absolutely exploded, pulling in nearly 60% on a regular basis. Another match in the vaunted “gauntlet” had turned into a blowout of Ultimaterializeresque proportions.

After pulling in 49% against Ganondorf, Tidus has been in a huge downward spiral. He got obliterated by Mega Man in 2004, and this match added to that “legacy.” If you want an idea of just how pathetic this performance was, just take a look at this poll:

[<http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1326>](http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1326)

Tidus only did .01% better against Kirby than Ramza Beoulve, the lead of Final Fantasy Tactics. This also turned out to be a match where the casual bracket makers owned the board, as well over 50% had Kirby advancing to the finals of his division. This match also threw another strike against the so-called “20XX Factor” from 2004, as the stats predicted the match against an unadjusted Tidus within half of a percent.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2104&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=39)

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---

## (3)Bowser vs (2)Ryu 2005

_source: (3)Bowser vs (2)Ryu 2005 (revid 67792)_

## Results

Saturday, August 27th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Dream Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 40
- **Match Date:** Saturday, August 27th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 16,428
- **Oracle Expectations:** Bowser - 54.45% 72 for - 12 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Bowser - 64.04% (21,641 brackets)

When the bracket was first released, Bowser vs. Ryu looked like it could shape up to be an excellent match. These two characters were ranked right next to each other in the SC2K3 x-stats, and possibly in the SC2K4 x-stats. (Bowser's position in 2K4 is difficult to gauge due to the SFF beating he received at the hands of his arch-nemesis, Mario.) despite being ranked slightly lower than Bowser in 2K3, Ryu has also held his own against the elite characters; scoring 42.2% on Samus in 2K2, 42.74% on Snake in 2K3, and 44.46% on Sonic in 2K4. in fact, Ryu even stayed dead even with Sonic for the first 2.5 hours of their match. however, Bowser really impressed in this past Spring's Villains Contest when he managed to break 40% on Sephiroth - no small feat.

After a few days of debating, though, interest in this match kind of fizzled out as the majority of the board admitted that Ryu had a chance of beating Bowser, but the majority decided they were going to stick with Bowser. This resulted in Bowser being the BOP favorite with 124 picks to Ryu's 28 and the Guru Contest favorite with 107 picks to Ryu's 16.

In the day leading up to the match, very little was discussed about the match, even though it's supposed to be the fifth consecutive match of the infamous Gauntlet, which wasn't really living up to its hype. the main discussion in the Stats Topic that was relevant to the Bowser vs. Ryu match was whether or not Kirby's impressive performance against Tidus was further proof of a site-wide Nintendo boost. many in the topic figured that it was, and most agreed that Bowser would continue Nintendo's string of dominance. in fact, not one of Moltar's analysist crew members went with Ryu and only 2 of the 7 predicted Bowser to finish under 54.5%. the general consensus prediction seemed to be that Bowser would take the initial board vote, followed by Ryu pulling even or taking a slight lead with the late night vote, only to have Bowser pull far away with the typical Nintendo morning and day vote.

Would the match live up to its pre-contest hype, or be over within the first hour, just like the preceding 4 matches of the Gauntlet?

The board vote began and to the surprise of no one, Bowser shot out to an early lead. Ryu managed to increase his percentage by a few points to stabilize the match at 56/44 after about an hour, but the infamous Street Fighter 2 early morning vote never arrived. once again, the match was over immediately after it started. as the underwhelmed residents of Board 8 trickled off to bed, many of them hypothesized about whether or not this match was ANOTHER piece of evidence towards a site-wide Nintendo boost. without coming to a definitive conclusion yet, many people throughout hoped that MC vs. DK would wind up closer than the matches of the Gauntlet.

Bowser began increasing his lead throughout the anti-climatic day, just like he was expected to. *yawn*- towards the middle of the match, though, Bowser came close to breaking 61%, raising the level of confidence of the minority who chose Bowser to upset Snake. after the uneventful day, Ryu did manage to bring Bowser's percentage down to 59%, even winning a handful of updates.

But, hey, at least Ryu was able to remain in that select group of star performers who have been in all 4 summer contests and scored above 40% in every single one of their matches:

Link, Cloud, Sephiroth, (if you count the ToC), Ryu, and Gordon Freeman.

What a group of winners.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2105&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=40)

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---

## (1)Master Chief vs (4)Donkey Kong 2005

_source: (1)Master Chief vs (4)Donkey Kong 2005 (revid 88914)_

## Results

Sunday, August 28th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Flood Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 41
- **Match Date:** Sunday, August 28th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 1,561
- **Oracle Expectations:** Master Chief - 53.59% 66 for - 10 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Master Chief - 71.04% (24,007 brackets)

When this contest first began, the Flood Division was arguably the most boring of them all. There was one match that was expected to be interesting, and that was little more than a one point first round match that barely mattered in the grand scheme of things.

Yet the very day after the fabled gauntlet proved to be a gigantic string of overhyped matches, we were treated to arguably the best type of close match there is: the unexpected.

People joked around constantly about how Donkey Kong beating Master Chief would be hilarious, and even though some people expected Donkey Kong to perhaps take the early lead in the match, few thought that he had any chance of actually winning. I mean, it's..... Donkey Kong. He's the master of having close matches that never should have been close. He almost lost to Aya Brea. His game almost lost to Duck Hunt after being up by 3400 votes. And against Tommy Vercetti (a match in which he was actually the underdog), after falling behind early and coming all the way back to tie, Donkey Kong choked under the pressure of bracket voting at the end of the match. And let's not forget how Donkey Kong was completely pasted by Vivi despite arguably being the favorite going in and having 70% of brackets behind him.

So how was Donkey Kong, effectively little more than a giant (Literally!) choke artist, supposed to hang with Master Chief in the year of Halo 2's release?

"*But that's... why they play the games.*" -Chris Berman

A lot of people figured that Donkey Kong would take a slim early lead on Master Chief, and that he did. He jumped out early, and after a small Chief rally got the match within ten votes, Donkey Kong had a lead of 36 at the first poll freeze. This was fairly expected, but what wasn't expected was that DK would continue to increase his lead with minimal resistance. As update after update rolled in, Donkey Kong's lead increased by more and more, to the point where some people actually began giving Donkey Kong a chance at winning the match.

By this, I mean that in most cases, a character getting a lead of 2050 votes in 8 hours means the end of the match. However, the track record of these two characters would indicate otherwise. Most of the people rooting for Donkey Kong to actually pull this off knew that he needed a very large lead, because one, Donkey Kong is historically known for choking. Two, Master Chief came back from being down 2400 votes against Frog, and Frog is arguably a stronger character than Donkey Kong is. And Chief had Halo 2 to draw from.

And most people knew all of this already, so when Donkey Kong's lead stalled at 2050 and began to rapidly go into a downward spiral afterwards most people had already begun calling the match in Master Chief's favor despite the comeback just beginning. One could argue that such mainstream knowledge of past poll results killed much of the luster that Chief's incoming assault had, though it was still fun to watch. Even if we "knew it was coming", a 2000 vote comeback is still neat.

As many people expected, Donkey Kong's lead being stalled was the beginning of the end for him, and in true 1993 Houston Oilers fashion, Donkey Kong began ripping apart at the seams and his lead deteriorated almost as fast as it had formed. Few people actually believed that Donkey Kong's lead would hold, but the rate that he was losing votes come the afternoon really made him look like a joke. For all the work that DK put into getting that lead over the heavy favorite and for all the work he put into holding off Master Chief's onslaught until the afternoon, the historic Xbox day vote absolutely killed him. DK began losing nearly 100 votes per five minutes at some points, and by the time the evening vote came, Master Chief had caught DK and proceeded to blow past him without a hitch.

And while Frog was able to hold off Master Chief and eventually come back to win, Donkey Kong didn't have a great night vote to fall back on. The end result was the realization of DK screwing up yet again, and Master Chief was able to add votes to his lead all the way until the end of the match. It got so bad for DK that Master Chief would only come 500 votes short of DK's biggest lead come the end of the match. Not only had Master Chief pulled off the biggest comeback we'd ever seen in one of these polls, but his 3500 vote swing is the largest turnaround on record. Granted a character almost has to face Donkey Kong to be able to pull something like this off, but the fact remains that Chief set a couple of records on this day.

The main issue that people had with this match is how DK got so close to Master Chief in the first place. In the year of Halo 2's release, Master Chief not only came close to losing to DK, but managed to underperform against CATS by a fairly wide margin as well. One could assume that this was DK's legitimate strength finally showing through, but this assumption also places Donkey Kong ahead of Vivi in strength. I'm not buying it.

I think the most likely explanation for Master Chief is that he's the least transitive character we have in these contests. The Halo series is absolutely hated on this site, yet enough of the game's fans come here to religiously vote for Master Chief over all else. Not only does this cause us to virtually never have an accurate reading on where Master Chief stands, and not only can it constantly cause Master Chief to be overestimated come Xst time, but it has caused over half of Master Chief's opponents to overperform against him.

Look at the list. Felix, Aeris, Crash Bandicoot, Frog, CATS, and Donkey Kong have all faced Master Chief. We'll even throw Crono in there. That's seven opponents for the Chief.

Felix has yet to see another contest despite finishing in the top half of the field in 2003. Aeris has yet to see another contest despite finishing in the top 15 in 2003. Crash has yet to see another contest, though Master Chief killed him with ease. Frog went on to score 30% on Samus despite being projected to score 38%. CATS... who knows where in the hell CATS lies. I doubt anyone will take DK's placement seriously next year, and Crono's case involves being pathetic with the day vote versus facing a character who is arguably the best with it.

Two things. Master Chief may not be well-liked, but you can't deny that his matches are entertaining. A battle between him and DK was poetic irony at its finest, because you may never see another battle between such choke artists ever again.

Secondly, a good division of eight just dawned on me:

(1)Master Chief

(8)Alucard

(4)Donkey Kong

(5)Frog

(3)Magus

(6)Shadow the Hedgehog

(2)Knuckles the Echidna

(7)Tidus

There's seven matches that could be decided by a combined 5000 votes or less, highlighted by Master Chief himself.

## Match Trends

## Ed Bellis' Analysis

Of all Master Chief’s many guffaws over the years, this has got to be the silliest. In 2005 there was a string of matches that many stats folks were dubbing “the Gauntlet,” given that they were all semi-debatable and potentially huge upsets. Well, all five of them sucked and were boring and predictable. Whoops.

Then we get this. Nobody had any doubt that the Chief could make it out of Round Two here, and once again we got burned for putting our faith in him! Friggin’ Donkey Kong managed to pull out to a decent lead repeatedly in this match before he choked it away and let Chief come back and win. It doesn’t get much more hilariously embarrassing than this.

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2106&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=41)

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---

## (6)Tommy Vercetti vs (2)Crono 2005

_source: (6)Tommy Vercetti vs (2)Crono 2005 (revid 88915)_

## Results

Monday, August 29th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Flood Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 42
- **Match Date:** Monday, August 29th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 41,739
- **Oracle Expectations:** Crono - 70.27% 78 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Crono - 61.09% (20,644 brackets)

After Master Chief pulled off the most boring comeback ever (even the comebacks in this division are boring), the Flood Division went back to being... the Flood Division.

Kefka/Vercetti was a classic, but the winner had to face Crono. Really, all of that drama was over one point. It was an exciting match and all, but what you see here is the end result of all the work Kefka and Vercetti put into beating the hell out of one another.

This match was little more than a test to see whether or not Crono was still an elite character capable of the numbers he had put up in the past, and it took all of five seconds to confirm that he was. Crono was over 80% at the beginning of the poll, and though he would eventually drop down to being just over 70%, Crono was only expected to get 67.5%. However, Vercetti had likely dropped between 2004 and 2005. How much had remained to be seen, but the only real assumption that could be drawn from this match is that Crono did exactly what was expected of him. Of course one could assume that Crono had lost a step if Vercetti had dropped a good amount, but we wouldn't know that until the stats were released and we saw where Vercetti would end up in comparison to last year.

And man, do I love easy writeups. I hate boring matches when they're actually going on, but it evens out come PCA time because the occasional break is nice.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2107&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=42)

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---

## (1)Dante vs (5)Vincent Valentine 2005

_source: (1)Dante vs (5)Vincent Valentine 2005 (revid 88916)_

## Results

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Devil Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 43
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 7,989
- **Oracle Expectations:** Vincent - 56.42% 70 for - 9 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Vincent - 25.14% (8,496 brackets)

What was once a match in which Vincent was a *lock* to beat Dante all over the poll turned into one of the funnier matches of the contest. After Vincent/Kerrigan, a ton of people kept overestimating Vincent. Some even gave him a chance against Crono, all because he managed to beat up an overhyped character that had never seen in these contests before. And those who bothered saying that Dante would expose Vincent were.... treated rather badly, to say the least. We were very callous on Board 8 back then.

Not only did Dante come out and prove all of this overestimation wrong, but he put quite the scare into Vincent early on in the match. Much to everyone's shock, Dante took the fight to Vincent and come the first poll freeze, had a lead of 50 votes. Vincent was able to recover rather easily en route to one of the more consistent close matches we've ever had, but that first five minutes confirmed what a brave few men had been preaching for weeks; Vincent was not elite material, regardless of how badly everyone wanted him to be.

Vincent would eventually go on to hit 54% in remarkably consistent fashion, but even during Vincent's strongest times in the poll Dante was still finding himself winning spotty updates. Vincent may have won the match, but this was a moral victory for Dante through and through.

There are a couple of obvious reasons for Dante performing better than expected (or Vincent doing worse than expected; however you want to look at it), but I think none is more obvious than Devil May Cry 3. Critics say that DMC3 was a return to form for the series, and Dante rode a wave of new strength all the way to being a 1 seed come nomination time. Casual bracketmakers love their high seeds, as evidenced by Vincent being a bracket-buster despite most experts feeling that Vincent was a lock to win the fourpack.

Not only did this match throw Vincent's strength into question, but one could argue that Squall had a good chance at taking Vincent down come the divisional finals. Regardless of how you viewed that match, based on the numbers Squall needed to hope that Dante increased by at least a percent or two in order to have a decent chance against Vincent later. I know it makes no sense, but I promise it was true. And Vincent needed to hope that he would be able to either get around SFF, be the beneficiary of it, or that SFF would not exist against Squall in the first place.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2108&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=43)

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## (6)Knuckles the Echidna vs (2)Squall Leonhart 2005

_source: (6)Knuckles the Echidna vs (2)Squall Leonhart 2005 (revid 56110)_

## Results

Wednesday, August 31st, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Devil Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 44
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, August 31st, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 7,530
- **Oracle Expectations:** Squall - 52.38% 61 for - 17 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Squall - 43.98% (14,862 brackets)

After the historic Knuckles upset, a large Knuckles \> Squall bandwagon began to take form. These bandwagons always form after upsets, and they always form for the same reason every time: people don't want to believe that the character they put so much faith in was as weak as their loss suggested. The Master Hand \> Robotnik bandwagon was another great example, because a ton of people on Board 8 had Kuja winning the fourpack.

The interesting thing about the Knuckles \> Squall bandwagon however was that Knuckles actually had a decent chance of winning. All he had to do was hope that Magus was actually as strong as the stats suggested.

However, this... was put to rest rather quickly. The "bandwagon" votes put Knuckles ahead by a few votes early on, but Squall was quickly able to recover and begin building a lead. He actually soared over 57% at one point, and though the famous Knuckles day vote kicked in at the expected time, it did not deter Squall from increasing his lead. He had built a lead of almost 2000 votes come 8:00 AM EST, and though Knuckles was able to cut into Squall's percentage come showtime, Squall was easily able to increase his lead and stem any talk of a Knuckles comeback. Knuckles' percentage slice was impressive in that he was able to bring Squall down from being over 57% to what you see above, but he did very little about Squall's lead increase. The best Knuckles was able to do was to either go 50-50 with Squall or win a few small updates every now and then. By the end of the match, Squall would end up winning by over 7500 votes. Pretty impressive, given that some expected the upset.

The first thing that this meant was that Magus was absolutely confirmed to be an overrated bust. If the 2003/2004 stats were accurate on Magus, Knuckles would have won this match. Instead, he lost by over 7500 votes. All the people that somehow felt that Magus was fluked out of winning that first round match... pretty much had to shut up by this point.

Secondly, Squall meant business in the Devil Division. Unfortunately, given how remarkably consistent Vincent had been in his first two matches, the clear advantage went to him in the divisional finals. Compare and contrast the second round matches between Vincent and Squall:

Dante - 46%

Vincent - 54%

Knuckles - 46.2%

Squall - 53.8%

And given that Dante has traditionally been stronger than Knuckles in these contests, one would have to assume that Squall was at a disadvantage going into the Devil finals. If Dante \> Knuckles, yet Squall scored a lower percentage against the weaker character....

Squall's only real chance against Vincent was to hope to be the beneficiary of the SFF and the bracket votes. He likely had the bracket votes going in, but even if it was FF8 Lead versus FF7 Optional, FF7 vs FF8 never turns out well for FF8.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2109&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=44)

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## (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (5)Diablo 2005

_source: (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (5)Diablo 2005 (revid 88917)_

## Results

Thursday, September 1st, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Chaos Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 45
- **Match Date:** Thursday, September 1st, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 34,150
- **Oracle Expectations:** Sonic - 65.31% 78 for - 1 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sonic - 69.44% (23,466 brackets)

With most of the entertainment out of the way for the second round, we entered a string of boring matches that essentially only existed to help the round come to a relaxing close. In fact, we weren't going to have another interesting match outright until Kirby/Bowser. Everything up until then were setups and placement bouts that solely exist to cut the weeds out of the bracket.

One such weed is Diablo, who could make a great case for being the fodder line these days. It's not like we can use Vyse with any accuracy, after all.

In terms of Sonic/Diablo the match, Sonic was a lock to win. No debate necessary. The only thing we could really look for in this match was for Diablo to validate his Spring 2005 strength, as well as to see where Sonic stood assuming a constant Diablo between then and now. Chaos and 20XX were horribly boring divisions, and virtually every match in them was either a lock, a contest to see who would get crushed by Sonic or Mega, or fodder/fodder duels. The only interesting match we would see in either division in the entire contest would be Ocelot/Pac Man.

And this match was about as boring as could be. The only thing of any note is that for a rather long while in the match, Diablo was given no link to the poll over on Diabloii.net. There was a stark contrast in how Diablo performed before and after the link was finally posted, and it validates what we knew all along; Diabloii.net was a part of Diabo's strength in the Spring 2005 X-Stats, and one must factor in a potential link should Diablo see bracket placement in the future. For what it's worth, another interesting fact of this poll is that Sonic didn't completely kill Diablo come the day vote; in fact, Sonic was remarkably consistent throughout the poll until the D2 link was posted. This caused Sonic to lose around a full percent of the vote.

However, the other part to this poll was whether or not Sonic's chances against Mega Man were good, and given that Spring 2005 Diablo was expected to score 34.79% against 2004 Sonic, it would be foolish to deny that Sonic had an extremely good chance at Mega Man when the time came. Diablo underperformed by a full 3%, and the margin is wider if the D2 link never happens. I don't believe that this performance vaulted Sonic 2004 over what Mega Man would be projected to score, but anything can happen in a match that's close enough. All we needed to do now was to sit through more boring matches in the two divisions until their fated winners clashed.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2110&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=45)

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## (3)Tifa Lockheart vs (2)Luigi 2005

_source: (3)Tifa Lockheart vs (2)Luigi 2005 (revid 88918)_

## Results

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Chaos Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 46
- **Match Date:** Friday, September 2nd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 6,883
- **Oracle Expectations:** Tifa - 56.91% 74 for - 5 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Tifa - 41.18% (13,916 brackets)

Remember all the Vincent hype leading up to his match with Dante and how overrated Vincent turned out to be? Not that he wasn't a strong character, but some people felt that Vincent was a threat to beat Crono after his match with Kerrigan. Dante would eventually expose him as not being quite that tough.

Tifa/Luigi was more of the same, except that this time around, people had a character who had been in a contest before (Vyse) to base their overestimations off of. And because of this, those who supported that Luigi would expose Tifa were not quite as plentiful as those who said the same for Dante. In fact, the only truly vocal advocant I saw for Luigi underestimation was RPGuy, who actually bet his account that Luigi would break 45% in the match. No one took the bet. Which I find to be surprising, because if the X-Stats were as valid as everyone assumes, Tifa breaking 55% on Uigi should have been a lock. She almost performed as well on Vyse as Cloud did, or something.

When the match first began, Luigi found himself able to hang with Tifa for awhile. It didn't take long for Tifa to do him in and essentially seal the match, but she wasn't able to completely kill him like many expected her to. She managed to go over 57% for a brief time in those first two hours (which is seemingly Tifa's strongest time for some odd reason; the other FF7 characters are weak at the start and kill during the day), but before long Luigi was able to cut into her percentage at a consistent rate. He didn't make any real push at winning other than a minor scare in which he brought Tifa's lead down from 2175 to 2110 early in the morning, but Luigi's spending the rest of the match getting Tifa down to nearly 52.5% (after Tifa was well over 57% early on) before Tifa was able to get over 53% against with the second night vote helped confirm two things.

One, and I'm stealing a quote from Lopen here, Board 8 (and especially the stats topic) is filled with Xst and FF7 marks that overestimate the characters based on one match. They also have a wonderful habit of projecting (and changing projections) based off of the first two seconds of every match.

Two, for whatever reason Vyse bombed so badly that the sky was the only thing he saw come the end of his match against Tifa. One could call RPG SFF in that match, but it's a shady theory at best. Though if I ever get around to making my own set of stats, I may slap an SFF adjustment on Vyse and give him his 2004 value just to see what happens.

Much like Dante, Luigi may have lost the match, but the moral victory goes entirely to him. 60% was the sexy value for Tifa on this match, given that most people expected her to perform better than Squall did in 2003. Either Tifa bombed (which is somewhat difficult for an FF7 character to do), or Luigi boosted. Given how well Nintendo was performing in this contest, people saw this match as more proof of The Boost™.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2111&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=46)

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## (1)Mega Man vs (5)Leon Kennedy 2005

_source: (1)Mega Man vs (5)Leon Kennedy 2005 (revid 56116)_

## Results

Saturday, September 3rd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** 20XX Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 47
- **Match Date:** Saturday, September 3rd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 27,237
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mega Man - 71.01% 80 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mega Man - 72.40% (24,466 brackets)

Who the...? What the...?

Not only did Leon Kennedy go out and do better than what Jill 2004 would be expected to do, he did so by a whopping 8%. If that isn't proof that Jill was completely screwed by the 2004 stats, I don't know what is.

Granted I'm writing the conclusion before the hypothesis, but come on, this match was consistent. And consistency in a contest match = boring. The only thing of any note in the match itself is that Mega Man began the poll over 70%, then slowly fell to hovering over the 64% level. For the entire second half of the match, Mega Man stayed between 64.53% and 64.7%. There isn't a whole heck of a lot to dissect with those numbers other than Leon doing better than many people expected him to.

Though given how sporadic Resident Evil characters tend to be, who knows what's going on with Leon. He will likely wind up staying consistent due to being in the most critically acclaimed Resident Evil of all time (and he'll be getting onto the Playstation 2 very soon), but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he went up against a character next year that he'd be expected to crush, yet choke. RE characters do that from time to time.

And because Black Turtle demands it, Gordon Freeman would be expected to score 29.36% on Mega Man based upon this match as opposed to 13.18% based upon the 2002 stats.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2112&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=47)

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---

## (3)Yoshi vs (7)Pac-Man 2005

_source: (3)Yoshi vs (7)Pac-Man 2005 (revid 88919)_

## Results

Sunday, September 4th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** 20XX Division Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 48
- **Match Date:** Sunday, September 4th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 38,484
- **Oracle Expectations:** Yoshi - 66.05% 80 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Yoshi - 47.07% (15,906 brackets)

One barely needs to analyse this match to assume why it happened the way it did. The only thing Yoshi really needed to worry about to avoid being embarrassed was to outdo Luigi's performance on Pac Man last year, and some people were actually fearing that Yoshi would not be able to pull it off for whatever reason. Something about Luigi's true strength having always been hidden and Yoshi rSFFing him in 2004 or some such nonsense. On another note, this was one of the most consistent (see also: boring) matches of all time. Yoshi's highest percentage caught by the updater was 73.26%, and his lowest 69.77%. I'm not sure if this small range is a record, but maybe a living calculator like TRE feels like wasting the free time to confirm. No shade intended, brother. You're the best.

I do however wonder about the casual bracketmaker sometimes. There are cases where they embarrass the board (Tidus/Shadow, Magus/Knuckles, and Mario's 2005 run just to name a few good cases), yet there are matches like this in which you just have to scratch your head. Yoshi was a lock to win this fourpack, yet despite him likely being the bracket favorite less than half had him advancing this far. It doesn't make any sense, and I only have two assumptions to explain it.

While the X-Stats may be more mainstream than we think, casuals love to pick based on seeding. The ultimate example of this is Halo, though I'm sure there are plenty of others. Ridley, Kuja, and virtually every 3 seed bust are perfect examples of casual overestimation, and it's funny given how good they are at exposing the board every now and then. Kirby \> Tidus is another great example.

After Pac Man's hilarious upset of Ocelot, his reward was to prove that Yoshi was in fact stronger than Luigi and that there was no rSFF in the 2004 match between the two. And if there was, it did little more than cause Luigi to overperform. Though if you glance over at the stats for this contest, look who is ahead of who. Hmmm.

Maybe there was indeed rSFF in that match, who knows.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2113&num=2)
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---

## (1)Mario vs (3)Zero 2005

_source: (1)Mario vs (3)Zero 2005 (revid 88920)_

## Results

Monday, September 5th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Mushroom Division Final
- **Match \#:** 49
- **Match Date:** Monday, September 5th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 27,596
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 58.53% 69 for - 3 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mario - 80.06% (27,055 brackets)

First and foremost, I have to say that that is one of CJayC's all-time greatest pieces of artwork. What many of us thought would be the sprite round became the polygon round, and it looked like CJayC was taking the extra effort to make up for what many people thought was a very lackluster second round of pics (most of the match pics were simply the first round character portraits zoomed in).

As for the actual match, there was minor hype going into it involving how well Zero could potentially do. LordOfDabu even had Zero winning, IIRC.

The main case for Zero is that this was finally his big chance to validate his strength. He had done very well on Sonic in 2003, but was hidden behind the insane 20XX Division in 2004. Here in 2005, he was up against Mario and was expected to get around 45%. Some even felt that Zero would surpass 45% en route to possibly even giving Mario a scare.

Mario put all of this to rest within literally seconds, as he turned a mildly debated match into an SFF beatdown immediately after the poll's opening. There were only three ways to look at this. Either Zero was overestimated, Mario was underestimated, or this was a case of Zero getting hit by the SFF bug.

Those hoping that either Samus or Crono would be able to take down Mario were given a ton of doubt after this match. It was clear that both Mario and all the casual brackets supporting him meant business in this contest, and it looked more and more that both Mario and Nintendo as a whole was on the rise. And if Mario was seemingly able to SFF Zero with ease, Samus had all of one day to go out and prove that she could SFF Ganondorf. If she couldn't, she was in for a world of hurt come the fated Elite 8 matchup with Mario. Either that, or Zero was simply overrated to such epic proportions that this match was simply his true colors finally coming out.

Just like Magus!

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2114&num=2)
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## (1)Samus Aran vs (3)Ganondorf 2005

_source: (1)Samus Aran vs (3)Ganondorf 2005 (revid 88921)_

## Results

Tuesday, September 6th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Zebes Division Final
- **Match \#:** 50
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, September 6th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 17,413
- **Oracle Expectations:** Samus - 62.43% 71 for - 1 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Samus - 49.86% (16,849 brackets)

It was an absolute given that Samus would win this match, but the underlying story was how she would stack up to Mario's impressive performance on Zero not one day prior. Either Mario increased, Mario SFFd Zero, or Zero somehow was overrated. Regardless of which, if Samus failed to impress against Ganon in this match she was in for a world of hurt come the next round.

Unfortunately for Samus, after bracket and board votes had her over 70% for a few seconds, Ganon was quickly able to level off her percentage and get her down into the low 60s. It grew even worse for Samus as the match progressed, because not only was Ganon able to get her under 60% before the end, but the vote totals in this match were downright sad. And while one could note that vote totals are almost always low in SFF matches, Mario/Zero brought in over 107,000 votes in the very match prior to this. And if SFF matches always have low vote totals, would this not mean that there was likely very little SFF in Mario/Zero in the first place?

Even worse for Samus is that she herself was only barely able to SFF Ganon in the match. 2004 Ganon would be expected to score 41% on 2004 Samus, and all Samus really did in this match was score enough SFF to cancel out the 2-3% Zelda boost that has showed up since last year.

How anyone could compare this match to Mario/Zero and still assume that Samus had any chance of beating Mario was absolutely beyond me, but that didn't stop a whole lot of people from bringing up the stats for days on end. Yes, Samus is expected to score 56% on Mario based on stats. We know. But all the signs were there leading up to the match -- Mario looked better all contest, some stats were just outright wrong and were proven as such this year, and this match all but confirmed Mario was winning.

It was nonsense, but thankfully it was nonsense that we Mario fans would only have to deal with for one more week before the big duel happened.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2115&num=2)
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## (1)Solid Snake vs (2)Sora 2005

_source: (1)Solid Snake vs (2)Sora 2005 (revid 88922)_

## Results

Wednesday, September 7th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Gear Division Final
- **Match \#:** 51
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, September 7th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 29,777
- **Oracle Expectations:** Solid Snake - 57.42% 74 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Solid Snake - 58.76% (19,857 brackets)

I seriously dare anyone to find a better match pic from this entire contest.

After Snake's first two matches, he was somewhat reeling and relatively underestimated. Some people felt that Snake underperformed on Manny and that Zelda perhaps had a chance to defeat Snake. After Snake took care of Zelda with relative ease despite a horrendous match picture, it was on to Sora in the divisional final. Snake had something to prove, and he finally went all-out and showed what he was capable of come this match.

Sora was projected to score almost 44% in this match. It was clear that he would get nowhere close within the first five minutes of the match. Snake was close to 70% at this time, and no Kingdom Hearts morning or after-school vote was going to save Sora from the beating that Snake would lay on him all throughout this match. Granted Sora did recover a tad to bring Snake down to the percentage you see above, but the fact remains that Sora underperformed by almost 10% in the match. Not only did Snake win, but he went berserk. This was the contest equivalent of Packers \> Saints 52-3.

A couple of people brought up this being traditional SFF (KH and MGS2/3 are all on the Playstation 2), and while I completely disagree with this I think a more distant SFF reared its head in this match.

Every match has a degree of SFF in it. With tens of thousands of people voting, it's a guarantee that at least one voter is familiar with both poll options. In the case of Kingdom Hearts, the game sold 4 million copies in one year worldwide. Plenty of people are familiar with the game, but how many of these people feel strongly enough about the game to truly care for it when it or its characters go up against other games and characters?

For the most part, Kingdom Hearts has been lackluster in these contests. In 2003, Sora was in one match and was blown out by Aeris. In Spring 2004, the game "bombed" against Soul Calibur before suffering a respectable loss to the game that would end up being an absolute beast, Starcraft. In essence, Kingdom Hearts retained respectability in that contest.

Come 2004, Sora blows out HK-47 and favored Ryu Hayabusa before a respectable loss to Samus that helped prove that Samus was not nearly as strong as the first round of that contest would have people believe. Then in this contest, Sora blows out Agent 47 and Alucard before being absolutely pasted by Solid Snake on Snake's home turf.

Literally! They're sitting right there on one of the struts from MGS2, complete with the exclamation point over Sora's head. And if this match is any indicator, Sora got his tail whipped when he went to investigate.

Anyway, my point is that Kingdom Hearts is similar to Resident Evil characters and Master Chief in that you never know what you'll get from them. One contest will see the game's villain require the morning vote to hold off CATS, while the next will see the main rival turn a doubling into a near-win over Frog, a character that looked quite strong after the summer of 2004. Predicting matches involving any of these characters (or the game itself, should the time arise again) is a chore, because hardly anyone knows where many of them truly stand.

Though Sora and company do have Kingdom Hearts 2 on the way, so that should help everyone out a bit.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2116&num=2)
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## (1)Kirby vs (3)Bowser 2005

_source: (1)Kirby vs (3)Bowser 2005 (revid 88923)_

## Results

Thursday, September 8th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Dream Division Final
- **Match \#:** 52
- **Match Date:** Thursday, September 8th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 3,535
- **Oracle Expectations:** Bowser - 58.25% 70 for - 4 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Bowser - 38.18% (12,902 brackets)

After Solid Snake's trouncing of Sora, Snake was once again looking to be the favorite to make the Final Four from among the Gear/Dream divisions. However, both Bowser and Kirby had aspirations of taking Snake down and claiming said Final Four slot for their own; Bowser moreso, because his Spring 2005 performance gave him an excellent shot at beating Snake if he were able to repeat it.

But first, Bowser had Kirby to deal with, and Kirby was no slouch in this contest. He blew Cecil out completely before making Tidus look as weak as Ramza, both of which are extremely impressive tasks given that Tidus was the favorite to win the fourpack. And while Bowser was still the board favorite to win the match, Kirby had a very real chance at winning this thing.

Early on in the match, it seemed as if Kirby's 1 seed bracket advantage would allow him to pull of the stunning upset. Bowser caught most of the board vote, Kirby the bracket vote, and Kirby found himself tied with Bowser for the first few minutes. But Bowser was soon able to shake Kirby off, and after the next few updates was ahead by a few hundred votes.

Kirby still had a decent chance at coming back to win at this point given that it looked as if he was stalling Bowser's lead increase, but Bowser hung tough before catching just enough momentum with the morning vote to put Kirby away. Bowser didn't blow Kirby out of the water, but he slowly and methodically built his lead to 3700 votes by the time the afternoon vote was over. It was at this point that Kirby stalled Bowser for good and took off 400 votes from Bowser's lead before Bowser was able to recover to win the match by just over 3500 votes.

One could look at this match in two ways. If you were like me and picked Bowser to beat Snake, this match caused all sorts of problems when compared to how badly Sora just got his face kicked in by Snake one day before this match. On the other hand, one could claim rSFF in this match. Kirby was the 1 seed, likely had much of the bracket support from casuals, and recent starred in Canvas Curse as the main character. Kirby has also been the main character in his own little platformer series for years, while Bowser is simply Mario's villain. It's possible that Kirby stole a few percentage points from Bowser based off of all of this, and even if Bowser would go on to lose to Snake rSFF was still a viable factor to blame his underperformance on. The issue naturally is that characters looking to upend the Noble Nine shouldn't be subject to rSFF in the first place.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2117&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=52)

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## (1)Master Chief vs (2)Crono 2005

_source: (1)Master Chief vs (2)Crono 2005 (revid 88924)_

## Results

Friday, September 9th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Flood Division Final
- **Match \#:** 53
- **Match Date:** Friday, September 9th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 22,175
- **Oracle Expectations:** Crono - 65.04% 71 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Crono - 38.42% (12,983 brackets)

After the Flood Division turned out to be relatively surprising in that it gave us two of the most exciting matches all contest, it was time for Crono to go out and take the division in what was seemingly a predetermined final. We all knew Crono would win handily, but this match was more about Master Chief validating his strength than anything else. He may have been underrated in 2003, but overrated in 2004.

And while this match may not pin down Chief to an exact value, it did prove that Chief is one of the least transitive characters in this contest. Some people will vote against him regardless of who he faces, while others will vote for him regardless of who he faces. This poll was a great example of this. Here was Master Chief up against one of the characters heavily favored to win the entire contest, and he did the same thing that he has been doing for two years now.

At the beginning of the poll, Crono was near having 70% of the vote and flying pretty high with his intake. But not only are Chrono Trigger characters bad during the day, Xbox characters thrive during this same time frame. And though Master Chief had no chance of winning this match whatsoever, he put on quite the show once his fans showed up. Come Chief's historic day vote, Chief pulled Crono down from being near 70% all the way down to what you see in the poll result. Crono never managed to recover with the second night vote either, as Chief's slice into Crono's percentage was quick and constant throughout most of the latter stages of the poll. And while Chief didn't win any updates in the match, he came close on a number of occasions, oft scoring updates in the 48% range. It was quite a show by Chief, and almost a moral victory.

It was also a victory for statheads, because assuming Chief stays relatively consistent with this pattern it's possible that his final value for this contest would be far more accurate than what we've had on Chief in the past. Chief may have overperformed based on seeding, but it's doubtful given CT's popularity on the site.

The only question that remained was whether or not this match showed that Crono was in trouble in this contest. One would have to assume that he would get past the winner of Vincent/Squall with relative ease, but would Sonic, Mega Man or especially Mario perform this badly on Master Chief? It's difficult to say, but it was tough to imagine Crono winning the entire contest after watching this match.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2118&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=53)

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## (5)Vincent Valentine vs (2)Squall Leonhart 2005

_source: (5)Vincent Valentine vs (2)Squall Leonhart 2005 (revid 88925)_

## Results

Saturday, September 10th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Dream Division Final
- **Match \#:** 54
- **Match Date:** Saturday, September 10th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 1,149
- **Oracle Expectations:** Vincent - 50.25% 38 for - 34 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Vincent - 12.47% (4,214 brackets)

Take a good look at that prediction percentage, because it would be the lowest we had all contest and the lowest outright since the late round matches in Spring 2004 involving Starcraft and SSBM. Only Diablo \> Kefka really came close to this match in terms of bracket busters in that time frame.

Though it's somewhat difficult to figure out why. Either people overestimated characters like Magus and Dante (and thus had them winning this match), or those who were smart enough to pick a Vincent/Squall match had Squall winning. I suppose this was feasible, given that Squall was a main character and that Vincent was optional in FF7. But on GameFAQs, when has FF7 vs FF8 ever turned out well for FF8? Worse yet for Squall is that Vincent was the clear favorite to win this match through extrapolation of Dante and Knuckles. One could assume that for Squall to win this that he would have to net a degree of rSFF on a Final Fantasy 7 character, which made his hopes look quite dim.

And when the poll opened, it looked like Vincent was going to roll all over Squall in the match. Not necessarily because he was building a large lead, but because Vincent was up by nearly 200 votes after an hour and (to my knowledge) a comeback has never occurred in an SFF duel.

But Squall soon went out and proved all of his doubters wrong in a very, very big way. Not only was he able to stall Vincent after that first hour, but he was able to start taking votes back. After the two characters were stuck in gridlock for another two and half hours fighting over Vincent's ~150 vote lead, the fight was on. As obvious a favorite as Vincent was in this thing, Squall wasn't about to let Vincent run away with this match quietly into the night regardless of how crappy his match pic was.

Look ma, I'm floating!!

After the two characters were stuck between 100-200 votes all morning long, the morning vote hit. And Squall caught it big time. Not only was he finally able to get Vincent under 100 votes, but the match was tied just over 30 minutes later. Squall then began using his morning vote powers to begin building a slight lead on Vincent despite all of Vincent's best attempts at keeping Squall down, and for awhile it seemed as if Squall would catch the full force of the morning vote and put the match away. But this would only last for a split second, because Vincent would soon stall Squall's advance. After nearly an hour of seeing Squall stuck with a lead of between 50-80 votes, Vincent took all of it away and regained the lead in a mere ten minutes. The two characters remained deadlocked for almost another hour before two more spikes in Vincent's vote intake put him up by over 100 votes. Squall tried his absolute hardest to hold Vincent off from pulling away, but Vincent was able to extend his lead to over 200 after a long and epic struggle. Then another epic followed that saw Vincent expend everything he had into getting the lead over 300.

Squall somewhat gave up at this point, as Vincent was able to get the lead from 300 to 400 in a matter of 15 minutes. But Squall had one final stand in him, yet the best he was able to do was to hold Vincent around the range of 400 before Vincent took flight with the second night vote to win by 1150.

Do not let the relatively wide margin of victory fool you, because this was arguably the closest and best match of the entire contest. Vincent was the clear favorite, yet Squall gave absolutely everything he had out there. He simply fell just short under the weight of all that was against him. Not only was Squall going up against FF7 in an FF7/FF8 clash, he was up against his own demons as well. Squall gets anti-voted in every match he's in (future edit: this contest was back in 2005, back when FF8 got anti-voted and Squall wasn't universally loved like he is now), and this was the first case in which said anti-votes probably managed to cost Squall a match. And while virtually any factor can be postulated and validated in a close match, I think that a slight touch of SFF and the anti-votes are what held Squall back the most from winning this one. But regardless of Squall's loss, validated his strength in this contest, plus he'll have Kingdom Hearts 2 to work off of next year.

As for Vincent, this was a Pyrrhic Victory if there ever was one. He won the battle, but lost the war by a grand amount. As if his underperformance on Dante wasn't enough to prove his overestimation, this all but sealed it; if Vincent weren't able to gain a large degree of SFF on an FF8 character awhile being the fan favorite from FF7, his chances of beating Crono were absolutely zero. But despite all this, one can't deny that these two characters gave us arguably the best match of the entire contest. It's a pity it didn't go down to the wire, because a lack of photo finishes was the one thing this contest was lacking in.

## Match Trends

## Ed Bellis's Analysis

It’s so funny how almost everybody underestimated Vincent. Magus was seen as the lock to get out of the aptly-named Devil Division, and some people had faith in Squall or Dante to get the job done instead. But apart from an unusually correct Heroic Mario, few had confidence in the future Noble Nine breaker to make it out of the division alive (and some even had him losing to Sarah Kerrigan in Round One! My, how delicious hindsight is).

But Vincent proved all his haters wrong in this tight match, one of the closest of the whole 2005 contest. These two Final Fantasy fan favorites (try saying that three times fast) gave it all they had in a very good, intense match, and in the end Vincent walked away the winner, with one of the lowest prediction percentages in contest history.

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2119&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=54)

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## (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (3)Tifa Lockheart 2005

_source: (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (3)Tifa Lockheart 2005 (revid 88926)_

## Results

Sunday, September 11th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Chaos Division Final
- **Match \#:** 55
- **Match Date:** Sunday, September 11th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 13,548
- **Oracle Expectations:** Sonic the Hedgehog - 55.33% 71 for - 2 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sonic the Hedgehog - 48.65% (16,440 brackets)

After Tifa's beatdown of Vyse, this was hyped up to be an interesting match. After Tifa's stumble against Luigi, it was fairly obvious that Tifa wasn't going to be the first character to break the Noble Nine any time soon; though some insisted that using a constant KOS-MOS gave Tifa a good chance.

Because using a constant KOS-MOS makes sense.

For the first hour or so, this match was relatively interesting. Sonic was only able to get a lead of a couple hundred votes, while Tifa was able to win a few small updates every now and then before the vaunted SEGA morning vote blew her the hell away. That's around when the match stopped being interesting, and the only thing to worry about from this point on was how good Sonic looked in preparation for his upcoming duel with Mega Man. Unfortunately, the only character we could really base Sonic's chances off of was Diablo; Jin was new, and Vyse, Tifa, Luigi and KOS-MOS were all erratic.

A big-time match in which we had no real idea who would win, which is awesome. In a perfect world, every big match would have this much uncertainty going in.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2120&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=55)

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## (1)Mega Man vs (3)Yoshi 2005

_source: (1)Mega Man vs (3)Yoshi 2005 (revid 88927)_

## Results

Monday, September 12th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** 20XX Division Final
- **Match \#:** 56
- **Match Date:** Monday, September 12th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 33,676
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mega Man - 57.76% 72 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mega Man - 54.38% (18,377 brackets)

Sonic vs Mega Man: *A big-time match in which we had no real idea who would win, save for those people who like to predict everything based off outdated stats. In a perfect world, every big match would have this much uncertainty going in.* ~ Ulti

And that paragraph would turn out to be valid for all of one day.

Mega Man/Yoshi is barely a match worth analysing, because everyone knew that the divisional final would be Mega Man \> Yoshi. The issue is that Yoshi was projected to score 35% in the match, but only pulled in 32%. Mega Man may not "officially" be known as a Nintendo character, but all of his most popular games were on the NES/SNES and one could easily blame SFF for Yoshi's underperformance. Incidentally, the only reason it wasn't worse was perhaps due to Mega Man not "officially" being Nintendo. But this match made it obvious that at least some of the voters view him this way, and after two lackluster wins this is the exact match that Mega Man needed going into his next opponent.

The main argument from Sonic \> Mega fans was that Mega Man was not SFFd by Link in 2004. Yet Mega Man SFFing Yoshi but not being SFFd by Link makes absolutely no sense, and thus Mega's 2004 adjusted value is valid. The only chance Sonic had of beating Mega in the next round was to either hope for a boost, to hope that Mega didn't boost or isn't viewed as Nintendo, or that Mega's match with Yoshi was a fluke -- all of which are very bad things to rely on, and Mega even had the bracket advantage going in. Sonic was in for an uphill climb, and there's no other way of looking at it.

Oh yeah, this match concluded our divisional final round, and from here on in it we had nothing more than the Elite 8 and Tournament of Champions.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2121&num=2)
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## (1)Mario vs (1)Samus Aran 2005

_source: (1)Mario vs (1)Samus Aran 2005 (revid 88929)_

## Results

Tuesday, September 13th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament Quarter Final
- **Match \#:** 57
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, September 13th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 19,089
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 50.37% 35 for - 33 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mario - 54.23% (18,326 brackets)

*Future Edit -- Of all the writeups I've ever done, this one is my biggest shame. I've made some bad writeups over the years, but the vitriol in this one was just uncalled for, being a sore winner, and generally me overall acting like a jerk in the mid to late 2000s. I won't make any excuses or offer any explanations here, because even then this writeup was and still is garbage. No one deserved any of this, no matter how callous a lot of us acted back then.*

*I was originally going to edit this up and rewrite it, but I'm leaving it alone as a reminder of how NOT to treat people. Also notable here is it took over a decade, but the Samus backers were eventually proven right in 2018. These two had a 50/50 match that Samus would have won without a last update rally by Mario. So their logic did end up being sound, but it was just Mario's year in 2005 because he was on some serious steroids.*

When the bracket was released, this was the debated match of the contest. Everyone knew that Mario and Samus would blast their respective divisions to bits and that they were in for a match come the tournament quarterfinals. And so, it came down to two simple viewpoints.

On Mario's end, he was Mr. Nintendo. He's done more for that franchise and for gaming than any other character of all time. Mario fans figured that regardless of whatever the stats said that Mario would be able to SFF the hell out of Samus and win the match with ease. And for good reason. Not only was Mario the clear choice among the Nintendo faithful, but the Metroid series is fairly niche. It's only popular in North America, while the Mario series is popular the world over. If you don't believe me, go take a look at what happened to every last one of the Metroid games in the Spring 2004 Contest. All three of her entries were owned to hell and back come time to face a Mario or Zelda title. Mario winning the match was fairly obvious to a lot of people, if for no other reason than the fact that Samus being able to SFF Mario at all was absolutely asinine. We'll slap the "IT'S FREAKING MARIO!" tag on the general Mario supporters for this one.

On the other end, you had a bunch of statheads who supported Samus solely because their beloved, outdated extrapolated standings had Samus projected to win the match with 56% of the vote. And why not? Let's all collectively avoid any spec of common sense or reason with regards to where the SFF would fall in this match and call it solely based on what the stats said. Let's completely ignore the fact that it was beyond obvious what Mario would be the benefactor of a ton of SFF in this match and simply go with Samus to win the tournament solely due to being the statistical favorite. It's not like the stats have ever been wrong before, especially in SFF situations. Regardless of who Mario was, the stats projected Samus to win with 56%!! Why, this means that the result was obvious. Samus was going to win!

And for most of this contest, we Mario supporters had to listen to some of the dumbest arguments ever crafted, solely because Samus was higher in the 2004 stats. Never mind that Samus vastly disappointed against Ganon while Mario destroyed Zero. That was only a fluke! Match after match, pathetic stat fanboy post after pathetic stat fanboy post, blinded-to-reason-due-to this-board-clinging-to-their-stats-like-the-bible Samus supporters had but one thing to fall back on whenever anyone bothered telling them that Mario could very well win the match with ease: SAMUS WAS PROJECTED TO WIN BY 56%!!1 oh noes LOL

Needless to say, stat fanboys were in for a much-deserved kick in the teeth when this match finally started. Not only did Mario begin the match in the lead, but he absolutely beat the ever-loving hell out of Samus right from the beginning. What was once the most debated match of the contest soon turned into an SFF beating of epic proportions, and a match that saw every stat fanboy and vehement Samus supporter fall flat on their faces. Not only was Mario beating the crap out of Samus, Samus was never in the match. This thing would go on to be a 60-40 SFF trouncing in favor of Mario, like virtually everyone with any grip on the gaming world (see: the people not blinded by the stats in every match who actually bother using sense once in awhile) foresaw in advance.

This was not only a day for Mario supporters to celebrate, but it was a day to round up every stat nut and zealous Samus supporter and take all the feces that they had slung at everyone for two months, and launch it all back tenfold. Not a single one of them liked it, but I doubt that most of the Mario supporters doing it really gave a crap after all the garbage that they had been dealing with for the two months prior to this match. Every. Single. Time a Mario supporter brought up the fact that Mario could SFF the hell out of Samus and win with ease, they were fed stats and were essentially treated like idiots. Isn't it nice that this whole situation was given a drastic turnaround come match time? I don't know about anyone else, but this was one of my favorite matches of the contest for this reason alone. The people who had been mudslinging at the Mario supporters for two months had to lie in the bed that they had made for themselves, and it was hilarious to watch. There are few things that please me more than stat zealots having to try and explain their religion failing and generally becoming embarrassed to all hell whenever something goes wrong. And there was no other point in this contest where it went quite as wrong as this.

Yet despite this, those same people will all forget that this ever happened and continue to cling to their religion like a cult. And like in many cases of the past, they'll simply ignore all the cries of lol, X-Stats and continue to make up every factor under the sun to explain any inconsistency in the system, all because the stats have blinded a lot of people to common sense.

FACT: If Mario/Samus takes place before the stats exist, hardly anyone here picks Samus and those few who do would all be laughed at. But because of the stats, everyone ignored the obvious and second-guessed the inevitable, all the way down to one of the biggest collective self-ownings we'll ever see around here.

lol, X-Stats. lol X-Stats, indeed.

## Match Trends

## Ngamer's Analysis

Samus \> Mario wasn't the pick because "lol we worship x-stats they could never fail baaaa we're sheep." It was the pick because Samus was *legitimately the stronger character* prior to 2005, by all indications. (Which is to say, not indications based on year over year x-stat strengths, but indications based on *actual match results*.)

- Samus outperformed Mario in direct matchups against Link (62.06% compared to the 62.53% Mario allowed)
- Samus had just defeated Sonic with 57.51% of the vote the previous year. Mario only managed 55.10%... against *Shadow*
- Samus had just held Cloud to a respectable 59.01%. Mario got destroyed, allowing 61.60%... to *Sephiroth*

Yes, he was always Mario, but he had never been "Freaking. *Mario*." until the Nintendo Boost sent him through the roof in 2005. We're talking about a character that had failed to triple Servbot, barely doubled Morrigan Aensland, needed the biggest miracle in history to top Cloud, needed the second biggest miracle ever to top Crono, who was embarrassed by Shadow and got pounded into the ground by post-KHF Sephy.

Have you forgotten that after 2004 Samus was generally considered a favorite to beat Crono? Have you forgotten that Mario had just lost to Crono... allowing *53.24%*?

This idea that Samus was OBVIOUSLY going to get crushed by SFF against the King of Nintendo is ridiculous as well. As I just got done saying, she held up better against Nintendo competition against the true king of SFF, Link.

Heading into 2005 past results, past stats, everything we'd seen from these two pointed to a Samus win. I shouldn't even be arguing this point, as I was one of the minority on the board who did correctly call the Mario upset, but I just get upset when I hear people acting as if that result was a forgone conclusion.

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2122&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=57)

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---

## (1)Solid Snake vs (3)Bowser 2005

_source: (1)Solid Snake vs (3)Bowser 2005 (revid 88930)_

## Results

Wednesday, September 14th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament Quarter Final
- **Match \#:** 58
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, September 14th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 1,196
- **Oracle Expectations:** Solid Snake - 53.08% 59 for - 8 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Solid Snake - 45.57% (15,399 brackets)

After Bowser broke 40% on Sephiroth in Spring 2005, a hot upset pick was Bowser over Solid Snake in this very match. And given the way that every Metal Gear Solid character has seemingly disappointed since Snake's peak in 2003, it wasn't too far-fetched. If you went by stats in comparing Bowser 2005 to Snake 2004, you saw extremely alarming numbers in favor of Bowser. But for the second day in a row, the stat fanboy pick fell flat on its face, and let me tell you from a personal perspective that it really sucked being on the right end of the Mario "upset" but on the wrong side of this one. The Mario buzz lasted all of one day.

But on the bright side, the match actually turned out to be one of the best of the entire contest. Before it even began, for what had to have been about the 100th time, Snake was on the wrong end of the match pic. He got his sprite from, uh.... some NES game I assume, while Bowser got his Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga sprite. Bowser was recognizable and was therefore given a mass advantage. For the third time this contest, you could barely make out who Snake was.

But that didn't stop Snake from kicking some ass early, and after shaking off Bowser's early fight he jumped out to having over 55% of the vote. As the match progressed Snake was easily able to extend his lead, though his overall percentage gradually went down hair by hair as the morning vote hit. Bowser was able to win an update every now and then and even had a few long stalls, but for the most part Snake was given little resistance from increasing his lead and moving on to what seemed like a fairly easy victory. The most stunning thing of all is that despite being the technical statistical underdog and being given a pic disadvantage that we hadn't seen since Solid Shit, Snake was kicking ass when put into perspective.

Once the afternoon vote rolled around however Snake saw his lead cap out at just over 2100. This wasn't a big deal given that the match was almost halfway over and a comeback for Bowser seemed impossible, but it didn't take long for Bowser to give Snake the scare of his life. After Bowser stopped Snake from gaining any more votes, he went on a huge tear into Snake's lead. Most people thought nothing of it given how far in the lead Snake was, but people took notice when Bowser began taking in votes at a rate that would have put Bowser in the lead before the night vote began.

At 3 PM EST, Snake's lead was 2100 and Bowser had already begun ripping into the lead that Snake worked so hard to build. In the late afternoon and early evening, Bowser tore into Snake's lead so badly that he managed to have it down to 930 at 9 PM EST. Had Bowser kept up this rate he could have easily won by a few hundred votes, but Bowser's historical struggles with the second night vote came back to haunt him and he just... barely.... ran out of gas. He managed to continue cutting into Snake's lead until it was down to 750, but Snake recovered with the second night vote quite nicely and was able to take 450 of the votes back before all was finished. It was a fairly anticlimactic ending to a match that had all of us going nuts for well over six hours.

Personally, if this same match takes place assuming the nonexistence of Metal Gear Solid 3, I still think that Bowser could have won relatively easily. I don't think that the underperformances of Ocelot, Liquid, and even 2004 Snake were all a fluke. Though with that said, this match took place after MGS3 and despite a little bit of a struggle, Snake won fairly easily. I say fairly easily because I'm one of the many that now thinks that Snake wins by a wider margin if he isn't (for once) screwed by his match pic. His match with Sora was the one time he had a pic that did him justice, and look at how well he did with it. As it stood, Snake finally was able to earn the Final Four spot that had eluded him for three contests prior to this.

As for Bowser, while he somewhat validated the strength that he showed in Spring 2005, he still underperformed based on statistical expectations and those of us who picked Bowser based on how well he did in the spring looked like idiots after this match. Ahem.

With this in mind, a small poll question: If Snake and Ganondorf met in a match after Twilight Princess, but before Metal Gear Solid 4, who do you go with?

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2123&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=58)

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---

## (2)Crono vs (5)Vincent Valentine 2005

_source: (2)Crono vs (5)Vincent Valentine 2005 (revid 56140)_

## Results

Thursday, September 15th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament Quarter Final
- **Match \#:** 59
- **Match Date:** Thursday, September 15th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 10,268
- **Oracle Expectations:** Crono - 57.67% 67 for - 2 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Crono - 31.17% (10,533 brackets)

Of the four matches that took place in this round, this match was the only one that wasn't interesting in build-up. But once the match got going, a couple of things went on that at least raised a couple of eyebrows.

In the 2004 stats, Squall is projected to get something like 40% on Crono. Yet in this match, despite Vincent being for all intents and purposes even with Squall, Vincent went over Squall's projection by 5%. Not that Crono did so badly early on, because as the match began he had well over 65% of the vote. Unfortunately, once the bracket/board voting died down Crono's percentage began to spiral downward. Crono going down in percentage is typical of pretty much every match involving Chrono Trigger, but the catch in this match was that Vincent put Crono down to having just over 55% of the vote within three and a half hours. From that point on, Vincent found himself involved in another freakishly consistent match that saw he and Crono stuck on virtually the same percentage for the latter 20 hours of the match.

While Crono winning seemed like a lock, it's tough to deny that Vincent overperformed here. Either he scored a lot of rSFF due to the whole New Square:Old Square theory, or Advent Children made a huge difference for Vincent between his match with Squall and his match with Crono. It's not like Vincent overperformed on just anyone, either; this was sprite Crono, and for whatever reason CT characters all go SSJ when given sprites in match pictures.

So either rSFF due to New-Old or Advent Children taking its course. I think that's fairly reasonable, especially given how well Cloud and Sephy would do later on. The issue that this caused however was a large debate on how to adjust the Devil Division in the final stats (or at all), because as we all know the stats have to look as perfect as possible.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2124&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=59)

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---

## (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (1)Mega Man 2005

_source: (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (1)Mega Man 2005 (revid 88931)_

## Results

Friday, September 16th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament Quarter Final
- **Match \#:** 60
- **Match Date:** Friday, September 16th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 742
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mega Man - 52.14% 54 for - 13 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mega Man - 31.25% (10,560 brackets)

Are there any two characters more fitting of a match than these two? Both characters were amazing to begin their gaming careers, yet both are now masters of putting out one rehash after the other to what has become a standing audience. The two are no longer capable of gaining new fans.

Do their companies realize this? Of course not. And it's at its absolute worst in Mega Man's case due to having over 100 titles but only averaging out at around 200,000 sales per. Sonic, as low as he's gotten, hasn't quite yet become what Mega Man is. Yes Sonic has put out a game on the N-Gage of all systems, and yes he's begun putting out collections, greatest hits and rehashes, but at the very least Sonic still puts out a new game with an original idea or formula every once in awhile. Mega Man however has ridden the same tired formula since Mega Man 2, released in 1989. Let it go, Capcom.

As for the actual match, I felt that this was a case where the two characters were close enough for the stats not to matter very much. Both characters have been on a gradual decline since their glory days in the Summer 2002 Contest, and it was simply a matter of which character had fallen farther or faster -- a true example of year to year volatility making all the difference in a match, perhaps.

All the standard debates took place, though the stats argument was weak this time around given how close the characters were. The buildup was really just fan and anti-fans arguing like hell about which character was worse. And thankfully above all else, the match picture didn't screw either of the characters over.

When the match finally began, it almost didn't live up to all the hype. Mega Man jumped out to an extremely fast early lead of a few hundred votes, and by the time Sonic began to stall Mega Man he was down by almost 400 votes two hours in. But Sonic was able to recover, and after a little bit of stalling the traditional Sega morning vote kicked in and gave Sonic a push for the lead. It took Sonic a long while to erase those 400 votes as Mega Man was no slouch, but after about two and a half hours of scratching Sonic was able to tie Mega Man before taking the lead for himself. It looked as if that morning vote would allow Sonic to take off like a bullet after Sonic's lead went from 19 to 72 a mere ten minutes after taking the lead, but Mega Man was somehow able to recover during Sonic's best time in the poll. Mega Man was able to completely stall Sonic and stay deadlocked during a time in the poll in which everyone figured that Sonic was about to go on a killing spree, and much to everyone's shock Mega Man was finally able to recover and take back the lead for himself. After Sonic tried his best to stall Mega Man from doing anything, Mega Man took off and increased his lead from the teens to the hundreds within two updates.

This left Sonic absolutely stunned and deflated, because he choked away a golden opportunity to end the match. During his best time, he was unable to put away Mega Man, whom many Sonic fans rank ahead of Mario in terms of most hated characters in gaming. Deus and Smurf are two good examples of Sonic fans who respect Mario despite not liking him very much, but absolutely detesting everything that Mega Man stands for.

Not only did Sonic choke away his best opportunity, but Mega Man jumped all over it. After Mega Man held off Sonic's morning push and took a lead of over 100, it only took Mega Man another five hours to get his lead over 1000 votes. It wasn't until this point that Sonic decided to wake up a little and fight back, but was it too late for Sonic to make a real push at winning?

After Mega Man pushed his lead to over 1000 votes, Sonic was able to stop him from increasing his lead much afterwards. Soon thereafter Sonic proved that he had one last push left in him, and proceeded to go on a massive late afternoon surge in his effort to win the match.

Mega Man's lead topped out at 1085. It took Sonic an hour and a half to get this to under 900, but from then on the floodgates were wide open. Sonic went on a massive push and began to easily erase most of the work that Mega Man had done earlier in the day with relative ease -- after Sonic got the lead under 900, he began to slice off 50 votes or more per update with Mega Man making vain attempts at holding Sonic back. Sonic was soon easily able to get Mega Man's lead under 300, but for whatever reason Sonic ran out of momentum.

There Sonic was, on the brink of a huge comeback and perhaps finally getting rid of the Samus 2002 ghost that has haunted him, yet he couldn't seem to get over the hump. The evening vote was dead even for both characters, and they remained deadlocked at a difference of around 300 for hours. The longer the stalemate dragged on, the better it was for Mega Man's chances to pull this thing out. This was confirmed by the second night vote which Mega Man, not Sonic, used to break the deadlock and pull away once and for all.

For the second time in 12 hours, Sonic had a golden opportunity to blow Mega Man away, but choked. You had the feeling that this match would come down to whichever character choked last, and in this case Sonic literally handed Mega Man the match on a silver platter. And what was arguably the best match of the entire contest turned rather anticlimactic; the final margin of 742 was the closest we had all contest, which is my big complaint with this contest. There were no true nailbiters, and all the close matches ended.... not close.

For now, at least on GameFAQs, Sonic has fallen farther than Mega Man. However this is a rivalry that has good potential, because like I said earlier Sonic still manages to put out something new every once in awhile; Mega Man has simply released the same game 100 times. And though Sonic technically overperformed in this match, he literally had this match won (Twice!) and gave it away. A very disappointing performance, especially given the track record in gaming of the guy that Sonic lost to.

With this said, this match could easily go the other way if you stick these two in the same division but give Sonic the 1 seed. This is one of those matches that fell within the gray area that bracket voting can affect, and this swing could easily go the other way and give us an even closer match if given the proper spin.

## Match Trends

## Ed Bellis' Analysis

This match really could have gone either way for these two gaming icons – and, in fact, it did. Hype, similarities, and overall choking jobs (mostly from Sonic) made this one particularly memorable, as did the fact that it solidified – for the time being – who was the lowest rung on the Noble Nine chain. Not much else to say here, really; just a solid match with two very good competitors of almost equal strength. Those may not be as exciting as, say, a match where the lead changes every other update, but they have a certain charm all their own. Often stillness can be more tense than action.

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2125&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=60)

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---

## (1)Mario vs (1)Solid Snake 2005

_source: (1)Mario vs (1)Solid Snake 2005 (revid 88932)_

## Results

Saturday, September 17th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 61
- **Match Date:** Saturday, September 17th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 14,980
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 57.35% 66 for - 0 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mario - 42.04% (14,207 brackets)

After Sonic was done handing Mega Man a free win, our contest's stretch run was upon us. Most of the matches from here on in are typically predictable, though this year we had the Mario/Crono/Mega Man trio to look forward to on top of a possible Link/Cloud epic.

But first it was Solid Snake's long-awaited first trip to the Final Four. Everyone knew that Mario was going to win, and Snake's fans simply wanted a moral victory.

See: Snake not getting completely killed and perhaps even winning a few updates. And in this regard, Snake delivered. Snake didn't get rolled up too terribly early on, and Snake managed to win an update less than two hours into the match. It didn't really matter that Snake would go on to lose, because the fans had seen what they wished for.

Better yet, if you go through the updater you'll see that Snake won 15 five minute updates through the match. And yes he was held in the lower 40% range in most of the others, but who's counting? =p

Both sides of this match got what they asked for. Snake got some time in the sun, while Mario easily won the match en route to a finals match that seemed like it could be an epic. All he had left to do was to wait to see who he would face.

As a final quick note, here are Snake's three projections against Mario:

- 2002: 47.41%
- 2003: 47.01%
- 2004: 44.33%

Moral victory or not, either Snake went down or Mario went up. Mario broke 57% on post-MGS3 Solid Snake and would eventually give Snake his weakest Xst value; and if this wasn't an indication that Mario was easily going to win this contest I don't know what is. The winner of Crono/Mega Man had to flat-out kill the loser if they wanted any chance at this.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2126&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=61)

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---

## (2)Crono vs (1)Mega Man 2005

_source: (2)Crono vs (1)Mega Man 2005 (revid 71350)_

## Results

Sunday, September 18th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 62
- **Match Date:** Sunday, September 18th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 2,804
- **Oracle Expectations:** Crono - 51.22% 47 for - 19 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Crono - 24.49% (8,276 brackets)

Seven pics, and CJayC sure did his absolute best to try and keep us from seeing X.

Given Crono and Mega Man's performances in this contest, it looked like Mega Man had a very good chance at winning this match. Crono looked less than stellar against Master Chief and Vincent, and though Mega Man didn't look like a powerhouse in his own right it would only take a small drop in Crono's strength for Mega Man to be able to win this.

Early on in the match, Mega Man fought like hell to do so. However Crono would soon turn out to be the stronger character and build up a lead relatively easily, and though Mega Man would make minor pushes throughout the match they were little more than 50-50 spurts that were no real threat to the inevitable: Mario/Crono IV.

Unfortunately, Mario/Crono IV was given far too much hype through Crono's beating of Mega Man. Mario was clearly stronger this contest, while Crono and Mega Man were not. Earlier I said that the winner of this match had to flat-out kill the loser to stand any chance against Mario, and winning by less than 3000 votes does not accomplish this. One could easily argue that Mario won the contest back when he beat the hell out of Samus, but the only thing left to do from here on in was to actually hold the final and see what happened. Crono still had a relative chance to win, but it was not a good one.

One final note. For all the Xst bashing that has been done in this contest, I do have to give them a tiny bit of credit. In two very tough matches -- Sonic/Mega Man and Crono/Mega Man, respectively -- going with the stats gave you a win. Can't say much more than that, really.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2127&num=2)
- [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k5&type=match&match=62)

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---

## (1)Mario vs (2)Crono 2005

_source: (1)Mario vs (2)Crono 2005 (revid 56148)_

## Results

Monday, September 19th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament Final
- **Match \#:** 63
- **Match Date:** Monday, September 19th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 7,977
- **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 52.15% 53 for - 13 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Mario - 26.17% (8,844 brackets)

That pic sure does give a microcosm to the rivalry that these two have, because even when on opposite sides of the bracket they seem to always be on a crash course for one another.

You all know the story by now. In 2002, Crono goes in as the huge underdog against a hated Mario, comes back from down 1000 and has 400 votes taken from him by CJayC in the final minutes. In 2003, Mario comes back from down 850 in the final two hours. In Spring 2004, Chrono Trigger beats the hell out of Mario RPG, Mario World and Mario 3. In Summer 2004, Crono gets his revenge by finally beating Mario in a match with ease. The final margin of victory was over 6000 votes.

In the overhyped Mario/Crono IV, however, there would be no CPR finishes. In fact, the match was over within minutes. Mario struggled a bit early on and was only able to lead by a few hundred votes, but once the morning vote hit he flat-out murdered Crono en route to winning by almost 8000 votes with minimal resistance. In the span of one year, Mario turned a 6000 vote loss into an 8000 vote win, and given that Crono isn't getting a game any time soon it seems as if this little rivalry is closed once and for all; Crono has no real way to increase outside of a CT remake, while Mario is still putting out games.

And that's what this contest was all about -- a celebration of Mario's greatness. Not only did Mario win this contest, but he did so with extreme ease. Like Link, Mario is still putting out games and increasing in strength. Not one character that stood against him came close to beating him, and this contest was over the second he beat Samus as far as I'm concerned. Yes Mario is a paper champion who only won because Clinkeroth wasn't in the main bracket, but who's counting? \<\_\<

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2128&num=2)
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---

## Link vs Cloud Strife 2005

_source: Link vs Cloud Strife 2005 (revid 54628)_

## Results

Tuesday, September 20th, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament of Champions Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 64
- **Match Date:** Tuesday, September 20th, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 5,817
- **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 52.79% 54 for - 3 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Link - 63.77% (21,550 brackets)

Everyone who was here in 2003 remembers the single biggest upset of all time in one of these contests. Link was riding high after his dominance in the Summer 2002 Contest, and virtually everyone had Link winning in 2003 -- so much so that the pre-contest hype was all about predictable and disappointing 2003 would be.

Everyone knows what happens next, as Cloud went on to flatten Link in the Final Four that year. But Link would get his revenge in 2004 as he and Cloud were placed on opposite sides of the path for a predetermined meeting in the final.

It was hardly ever close. Link took off early on, and after a push by Cloud to come back in the poll Link used the morning vote to take off like a bullet en route to avenging his 2003 loss.

So along comes 2005, and CJayC finally concedes that perhaps Clink should be removed from the bracket to make it more fun. He even set up Spring 2005 just so that he could take out Sephiroth as well, and the end result was the post-Summer 2005 Tournament of Champions, the tournament in which the heavy hitters would all get their time in the sun despite not being in the main bracket. CJayC even decided to have every match be worth 8 points just so that it would matter come the final standings.

Though no seedings were given in the TOC, everyone is aware that this is probably what it looks like on paper:

(1)Link

(2)Cloud

(3)Sephiroth

(4)Mario

I'd have gone the standard 1-4 2-3 route to avoid the TOC final being the very first match, but to each his own. What it gave us was a Link/Cloud duel in the very first match, and despite this essentially being the TOC final this didn't mean that it was a good match on paper. Before this contest started and before we were all made aware of Nintendo going SSJ during this contest, Advent Children was the big wild card. Yes Link won in 2004, but a timely release of the movie could have propelled Cloud over the top had Link stayed constant.

Unfortunately for Cloud, Link did not stay constant. However, Cloud still performed better than many thought he would.

The expected happened early on, as Link jumped out to the early lead. But the same thing happened in 2004, and much like in 2004 Cloud weathered the early surge and made a push for his own. 2005 however saw Cloud do more than simply pull the lead to under 50 before bombing. Much to the shock of everyone who felt that Link would completely blow Cloud away on the backbone of the Nintendo increase, Cloud withstood Link's early lead of 100 votes to make a push at the match in his own right. After a minor struggle with the Hero of Time, Cloud found himself on a major push that saw him take a lead of just under 200 votes three hours into the match.

Had Cloud done it? Would Advent Children push him to an upset that was arguably bigger than what we saw in 2003?

...No. Link laughed off Cloud's 200 vote lead once the morning vote hit, and he went absolutely nuclear from then on. It was the same pattern we saw in 2004, only this time Link's surge was almost twice as damaging to Cloud. Much like what Link did with the morning and day votes in 2004, Link used the morning and day votes to absolutely explode and leave Cloud in the dust, and what was once a close match turned into another showcase of Link's dominance en route to Link capping his lead at just over 6350 votes before the second night vote hit.

The second night vote was slightly damaging to Link as it saw Cloud take over 500 votes off of the lead that Link worked so hard to build, but it served as nothing more than Cloud's final push at respectability in the match. To this end, I actually do believe that Cloud succeeded despite suffering his worst loss on paper to date.

After all, Mario and others proved that Nintendo and The Boost™ ran wild all over the main bracket, and Nintendo dominated Square throughout the contest. This could have easily translated into Link blowing Cloud the hell out of this match, but Cloud actually performed quite well given the circumstances.

However, one must wonder how badly Cloud gets beaten if Advent Children doesn't exist. This is the one factor I feel causes Cloud to not get completely blown out, and in effect those who argued that AC would make a huge difference were right. It was simply impossible to see how much Nintendo would increase between 2004 and now, which may be the big reason that Cloud lost.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2129&num=2)
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## Sephiroth vs Mario 2005

_source: Sephiroth vs Mario 2005 (revid 88933)_

## Results

Wednesday, September 21st, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament of Champions Semi Final
- **Match \#:** 65
- **Match Date:** Wednesday, September 21st, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 13,972
- **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 51.96% 46 for - 10 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sephiroth - 78.20% (26,426 brackets)

Personally, Alucard has nothing on Sephiroth when it comes to odd performances, throwing matches and plans.

Mario spent two months owning the hell out of the main bracket and many debates took place about whether or not the winner could beat Sephiroth. And given that it looked like Samus had a great shot at it should she have made it this far, why couldn't Mario? After all, Nintendo boosted a TON in this contest.

But Sephiroth shut all of these theories up within minutes, because after Mario took the typical early lead on Sephiroth, Sephy proceeded to completely dominate the match. It wasn't just any owning either, because for a long time Mario was doing worse than what Bowser did in the Spring. In fact Mario had to rely on the morning vote to keep himself from falling below Bowser's percentage, and even though Mario made a percentage recovery he would go on to get the crap beaten out of him in a match that many felt he had a good chance at winning.

To put this in perspective, Mario won a total of ONE five minute update throughout the match. In this update, he took a grand total of four votes off of Sephiroth's lead. He also tied Sephiroth in another update. Mario did better during the standard Nintendo votes than he did at others, but all this match was was an extended beatdown that was slightly slower at parts.

All after Nintendo boosted like crazy, and if this match doesn't convince everyone that Advent Children made a difference nothing will. During this match, RPGuy noted that ~150,000 torrents of AC were on record as downloaded. And that's just torrents; other, more simple P2P programs were likely used to download the movie to hundreds of thousands of other people by the time this match came around as well.

But while AC made a clear difference for Cloud and Sephiroth (and possibly even Vincent), how many increases does the FF7 crew have left outside of a remake of FF7 itself? Time is running out, and an FF7 character needs to bring home another of these contests before the window of opportunity is closed for good.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2130&num=2)
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---

## Link vs Sephiroth 2005

_source: Link vs Sephiroth 2005 (revid 88934)_

## Results

Thursday, September 22nd, 2005

## Ulti's Analysis

- **Round:** Tournament of Champions Final
- **Match \#:** 66
- **Match Date:** Thursday, September 22nd, 2005
- **Vote difference:** 11,769
- **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 56.12% 60 for - 1 against
- **GameFAQs Prediction:** Link - 44.70% (15,105 brackets)

Someone smarter than me once said something about how the more things change....

[<https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1001-tournament-semifinal-link-vs-sephiroth>](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1001-tournament-semifinal-link-vs-sephiroth)

Look familiar?

Everyone knew that the TOC final was a foregone conclusion and that it should have been Cloud/Link, but Link/Sephy wasn't so bad a match. It played out almost exactly like Link/Cloud in terms of when Sephiroth had his momentum, but like Cloud, Sephiroth never came close to winning the match and his minor struggle to stay close fell under once Link took off with his standard, unbeatable morning/afternoon vote. And for the curious, the spot where Cloud was eventually able to take 500 votes from Link only saw Sephiroth take off 200.

This match proved two rather simple things. One, there is a clear difference between the popularity levels of Cloud and Sephiroth; they performed differently on Link in a time span of three days. Secondly, and more obvious was that Advent Children made a clear difference. Granted none of us truly knew where Sephy stood in relation to Link especially after the crazy Nintendo boost, but I think most of us can agree that Cloud and Sephy did better on Link than we may have previously thought and that we downplayed Advent Children's possible effects a little too much during the pre-contest hype phase. Yes Link won with ease, but at least in my eyes Sephy and Cloud did better on him than they would have if AC doesn't exist. I never dreamed Sephy would break 45% on Link, especially given that it seemed as if FF7 was weakening. But like I said, AC made a difference and perhaps a remake of FF7 could help Cloud or Seph win another contest before the game milks itself dry once and for all around these parts.

## Match Trends

## External Links

- [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2131&num=2)
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