# Spring 2005 Character Contest _Board 8 wiki -- CC BY-SA 3.0. Contest overview plus 31 match writeups, in match order. Converted from MediaWiki to Markdown; navigation, image embeds and footnotes stripped. See ATTRIBUTION.md._ --- ## Spring 2005 Contest _source: Spring 2005 Contest (revid 83993)_
Spring 2005 Contest

Announced:

April 7, 2005

Started:

May 3, 2005

Ended:

June 2, 2005

Winner:

Sephiroth

Contest Winner:

mankvill - 79 points

Notable matches:

Ridley/Diablo, Ansem/CATS, Robotnik/Sin

Kuja/Master Hand, Bowser/Seph, Ganon/Seph
**Spring 2005 Contest** **Spring 2005 Contest** was the 2nd Spring Contest held on GameFAQs. Its official title was "**Got Villains?**" and is generally considered one of the worse Contests as it was filled with fodder and the winner was never in doubt. (However it did serve an important purpose in allowing Sephiroth to be removed from the main bracket of the 2005 Character Battle.) ### See Also - 2005 Spring Contest Matches - detailed write-ups on every '05 Villains poll ## The Bracket
Mushroom Division Bowser Sephiroth Sephiroth Ganondorf Sephiroth
\(1\) Bowser (8) Pyramid Head Bowser Sigma Bowser Ocelot
\(4\) Sigma (5) Andross
\(3\) Revolver Ocelot (6) Nemesis Ocelot Dr. Wily
\(2\) Dr. Wily (7) Ultros
Jenova Division
\(1\) Sephiroth (8) Ramirez Sephiroth Vergil Sephiroth L. Snake
\(4\) Vergil (5) Ghaleon
\(3\) Lavos (6) Mother Brain Lavos L. Snake
\(2\) Liquid Snake (7) Officer Tenpenny
Ruin Division Diablo Ganondorf
\(1\) Kefka (8) Mithos Kefka Wesker Kefka Diablo
\(4\) Luca Blight (5) Wesker
\(3\) Albedo (6) M. Bison M. Bison Diablo
\(2\) Ridley (7) Diablo
Triforce Division
\(1\) Ganondorf (8) Giygas Ganondorf Ansem Ganondorf Robotnik
\(4\) Ansem (5) CATS
\(3\) Dr. Robotnik (6) Sin Robotnik M. Hand
\(2\) Kuja (7) Master Hand
## Results and Analysis ### Interesting Facts - The Ultimate Loser was Luca Blight. Luca lost to Wesker, who lost to Kefka, who lost to Diablo, who lost to Ganondorf, who lost to Sephiroth. - 18 of the 32 villains in this contest haven't appeared in a character battle since. ### Ulti's Analysis As the months of February and March came to pass, anticipation for a new Spring Contest grew. After all, Spring 2004 was arguably the second best contest we've ever had on the site, and another such contest with games lumped into a gigantic mess instead of separated by era would have the potential to be even better. Unfortunately, as the days and weeks began to pass with no announcement of anything new, it became clear that we weren't getting anything new, and that the Spring Contest may have simply been a one-time affair. But CJayC, ever the one to be fashionably late, slapped up a "Got Villains?" topic out of nowhere in early April. The standard frenzy commenced, and within a few hours, a bracket was posted. The contest was to be a bracket with 32 villains in it, and the entire thing would take place in the month of May. It was a short contest with a rather predictable bracket, but it's better than no contest at all. In the end it wasn't quite as exciting as it could have been, but this was not the fault of CJayC or the bracket. The bracket was actually put together pretty well. The problem is that most of the entrants in this contest were weak bastards. You have Ganon, Sephiroth, Bowser, then a huge dropoff before you reach the strength of anyone else. Weak characters mean weak vote draws, and I also think that the fact that this was a bracket of 32 instead of 64 had a lot to do with the lack of excitement as well. And let's not forget the lack of any true close matches. Robotnik/Sin was the closest we got, and that one wasn't close at all. Hopefully the Summer Contest kicks ass and is either 64 characters or 64 games. No silly gimmicks like females, heroes, 32 entrants, threesomes or tag teams. CJayC did an awesome job in trying to mix things up a little in this contest, but it not working out to its full potential isn't his fault. Weak characters simply make for weak vote totals in most cases. ### Ngamer's Analysis Spring '05 gets dumped on all the time, but I'm here to tell you... oh, who am I kidding, Villains deserves all the heat. I will say though that I feel bad for all the hate CJay gets for this Contest, because honestly, the guy did about the best he could do. All he had to work with was fodder, two mid-carders, and an Elite way out of everyone's league; really his only mistake was not putting Bowser and Ganon on the same side of the bracket, so we'd at least get *one* memorable result between decent opponents. Mostly though CJay was just unlucky... you think if you put together enough matches between two people no one cares about, eventually people would not-care to the tune of 50/50 in one of them, but no, GameFAQs kept not-caring one character to 60/40 wins, and so nothing ever became interesting. Master Hand and CATS were cool in an embarrassing sort of way, but afraid those two alone can't keep this Contest off the garbage heap. --- ## (1)Bowser vs (8)Pyramid Head 2005 _source: (1)Bowser vs (8)Pyramid Head 2005 (revid 88843)_ ## Results Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Mushroom Division - **Match \#:** 01 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 52,993 - **Oracle Expectations:** Bowser - 83.80% 86 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Bowser - 96.13% (23,790 brackets) The first matchup of this entire thing was Bowser versus Pyramid Head, the Silent Hill 2 villain that got into this contest solely on the backbone of Inviso's massive support. Unfortunately for PH, the first match in any contest isn't usually about whether or not the 1 seed will win, but by how much. Mario, Link, Mario 3, and Link again all got their turns to kill some scrub in the first match of the contest, and Bowser followed suit by turning Pyramid Head into one of the all-time weakest characters we have ever seen in one of these things. It was a complete killing from start to finish, and Bowser even went so far as to make Pyramid Head look worse than *Guybrush Threepwood*: [](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1724-hyrule-division-round-1-bowser-vs-guybrush-threepwood) That has to sting a little if you're a Silent Hill fan. The only thing that could really be taken from this match is that Bowser looked to be as strong as ever before; ideas of new voting patterns taking place in this contest as opposed to any other were floating around, but they had yet to actually be confirmed. It would take quite awhile before these ideas were given more sufficient proof. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1989&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=1) • **No Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (4)Sigma vs (5)Andross 2005 _source: (4)Sigma vs (5)Andross 2005 (revid 88844)_ ## Results Wednesday, May 4th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Mushroom Division - **Match \#:** 02 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, May 4th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 4,762 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sigma - 60.45% 83 for - 5 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sigma - 57.77% (14,297 brackets) Bowser/Pyramid Head may have gotten us going, but this match was the first truly interesting match of the contest. Before reading anything else, take a quick look at Zero's past performances. In 2003, he killed Scorpion and made a close game of his match against Sonic. In fact, Zero's match against Sonic in 2003 marked the end of the perfect brackets. In 2004, Zero was given a seed proper to his strength and flourished. He destroyed Protoman, took out Tommy Vercetti with little trouble, and would wind up giving Mega Man himself a damned good fight before going down. Zero may have only scored 44% in the match, but he only lost by 10000 votes and won multiple updates throughout the day. This is practically unheard of in a late-round SFF match in which one of the competitors barely had any bracket support behind them. Secondly, look at this poll: The moral of the story is that Zero is strong, and the Mega Man X series is the favorite Mega Man series on GameFAQs; transversely, one would expect the main villain of the series to be decently strong as well. Most people who filled out their brackets remembered all of this, coupled with Fox's disappointments in past contests. Many people expected Sigma to roll over Andross and possibly even give Bowser a run for his money as well. It took all of one match to put an end to these thoughts. Sigma did as expected early in the match, but after a few minutes, his percentage began dropping like a rock. Sigma never wound up being in any actual danger of losing the match, but this wound up being a Pyrrhic Victory if there ever was one. Andross won a few updates throughout the day, and though he never put Sigma in any danger of actually losing the match, Sigma's struggle with Andross only meant one of two things. Either Andross was a lot stronger than expected, or Sigma was a hell of a lot weaker. There was little evidence of the former, and Sigma was clearly in a ton of trouble come the second round. You don't struggle with Andross and then turn around and expect to give Bowser any sort of problems. The other thing that this match proved was what would grow to be a rather alarming trend: low vote totals. Here we had a relatively close match, and the vote total failed to break 70000. Either interest in these contests has clearly fallen off the cliff since 2003, or people truly do only care about matches featuring heavy hitters. And unfortunately for this contest, most of the characters in the bracket were already known to be weak bastards. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1990&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=2) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (3)Revolver Ocelot vs (6)Nemesis 2005 _source: (3)Revolver Ocelot vs (6)Nemesis 2005 (revid 55944)_ ## Results Thursday, May 5th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Mushroom Division - **Match \#:** 03 - **Match Date:** Thursday, May 5th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 7,211 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ocelot - 68.19% 87 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ocelot - 65.11% (16,113 brackets) The very day after Sigma completely craps out against Andross, we see another match that puts a heavy board favorite into question. In Slowflake's Board Odds Project, absolutely no one picked Nemesis to win this match. It was foregone conclusion to most people that Ocelot would not only beat Nemesis, but steamroll over the winner of Wily/Ultros as well. A few people even believed that Ocelot could give Bowser himself a run for his money. After all, everyone remembers how well Liquid performed in the Summer 2004 Contest, and if Ocelot is at all comparable to Liquid, he should be able to win his fourpack (possibly even his division) with ease. When the match began, everything was going perfectly for Ocelot. He had 70% of the vote early on, and though Nemesis quickly managed to bring this down to 65%, one could easily blame early percentage fluctuations for this due to a small voter pool. However, Ocelot gave his supporters much cause for concern as the board vote began to wear off, because his percentage continued to drop. It was similar to Sigma's struggle in that Ocelot was never in any real danger of actually losing the match, but Ocelot's failure to completely obliterate someone that he should have easily destroyed brought up a massive amount of questions about not only him, but everyone surrounding the two characters in the match. One, there was the whole Nemesis/Wesker debate. Every Resident Evil fan who was watching Ocelot's match unfold absolutely refused to believe that Nemesis could be stronger than Wesker, and gave multiple proofs of this from the Resident Evil plot itself. Essentially, a lot of people were trying to prove that Wesker was going to take down Kefka in a match that was hotly debated from day one. After all, if Nemesis was strong, Wesker had to be stronger. Two, there was the Ocelot/Wily debates that started ravaging the board almost from the second that Ocelot began to have problems in the match. Everywhere you looked, you saw a topic made from an Ocelot supporter wishing that they had picked Wily to win the fourpack instead of Ocelot, because even the Ocelot supporters refused to believe that Nemesis was stronger than Wesker, nor did they believe that Dr. Wily was at all weak. These debates would rage on for quite a long time, and they set the stats topic on fire as a result. Everywhere you looked, the faith in Revolver Ocelot was dying all due to this one match, and even the people who still had faith in Ocelot winning his match with Wily believed that the situation looked grim. Regardless, everyone on both sides believed that Ocelot/Wily would be a barnburner, and were absolutely shocked with Ocelot's weakness/Nemesis's strength in this match. Knowing what we know now, is it at all possible that this match was hit with what we're now calling "The Spring 2005 voting trend" (ie, a voting pattern that makes absolutely no sense when compared to any other contest)? Or maybe it's the fact that there is a Resident Evil entitled Resident Evil 3: **Nemesis**. Or maybe, just maybe, the massive overlap among the MGS/RE fanbases allowed Nemesis to give Ocelot a large shot of Reverse SFF. After all, if you look at the boss fights involving these two characters, there is little debate as to which character gives the more difficult fight. Gamers typically remember that sort of thing above most others when discussing villains, though it probably made little difference. All we know for a fact is that Ocelot was clearly at a disadvantage going into the next round. He had to hope and pray that Wily was weak as hell, which is a bad thing to hope for when trying to win a tough match. It's much better to believe in your own strength rather than another's weakness in a fight. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1991&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=3) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (2)Dr. Wily vs (7)Ultros 2005 _source: (2)Dr. Wily vs (7)Ultros 2005 (revid 88845)_ ## Results Friday, May 6th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Mushroom Division - **Match \#:** 04 - **Match Date:** Friday, May 6th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 20,214 - **Oracle Expectations:** Dr Wily - 62.63% 85 for - 2 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Dr Wily - 71.73% (17,752 brackets) Coming into this match, it wasn't a question of whether or not Wily would win, but whether or not Ocelot truly was in trouble come the second round. And unfortunately for Ocelot, Wily began the match on fire and never looked back. Ultros fought to try and get Wily under 60% early on in the match, but Wily eventually recovered to gradually increase his lead to just over 64% as the day progressed. Ultros made a valiant attempt to keep Wily under 64% very late in the poll, but failed. UncleUlty has tried valiantly to get Ultros in one of these contests ever since 2002, and in Ultros's first shot at one of these things, he doesn't completely bomb, but he still fails to do anything of note. Naturally, hardly anyone was actually looking at the match at hand. It was all about Ocelot/Wily at this point, and it was looking rather bad for Ocelot after this match. The only thing Ocelot had going for him once this match reached its conclusion were the vote totals. Ocelot's poll managed 5000 more votes than Wily's, which means that one or more characters in Ocelot's poll were stronger than one or both characters in Wily's poll; thus, Ocelot's poll was a better vote draw. Unfortunately, this ultimately leads to Ocelot having to hope that Ultros is nothing more than an absolute joke for him to have a chance of taking down Wily in the next round. Believing in one's own strength rather than another's weakness is the way to go when entering a fight, and Ocelot was hoping for the latter. This almost always leads to bad news, but the possibility of Ultros being an absolute joke still existed. After all, in Final Fantasy 6, he's little more than a recurring, gimmick boss fight. You fight him four times, and in all four battles, the fight either ends with a really stupid joke (see: the battle in the Magic Cave or whatever it's called... you know, the Relm portrait scene) or is a really stupid joke (see: the final battle where you see Chupon for the first time). The only battle with Ultros that is even difficult is the first one, and that's only if you're too stupid to stick Banon in the back row. But even still, Ultros a joke or not, Wily had almost every advantage you need going into a good match. The only thing left was to actually watch the match take place. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1992&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=4) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Sephiroth vs (8)Ramirez 2005 _source: (1)Sephiroth vs (8)Ramirez 2005 (revid 88846)_ ## Results Saturday, May 7th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Jenova Division - **Match \#:** 05 - **Match Date:** Saturday, May 7th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 56,738 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 85.81% 89 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sephiroth - 97.41% (24,107 brackets) So, who remembers that guy who made that "I want Ramirez to go up against Sephiroth" topic? I wish I would have archived that one, because it was the ultimate "be careful what you wish for topic" of the entire contest. The topic hit 500 posts, CJayC noticed it and set this match up in jest. Anyway, Ramirez had absolutely no chance whatsoever in this match, and he would wind up being so weak that he was completely unable to benefit from the "Let's all vote against Sephiroth because we know he's going to win anyway" votes that all of Sephiroth's other opponents were able to enjoy at the beginning of their matches against him. Ramirez got his ass kicked early and often in this match, and it eventually grew so bad that he was unable to outdo Vyse's percentage against Cloud in the Summer 2004 Contest: [](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1758-midgar-division-round-2-cloud-strife-vs-vyse) For anyone hoping that Sephiroth would somehow be off of his game in this contest, this match was a bad sign. Sephiroth was easily the strongest character coming into this contest, and nothing short of an act of God was going to prevent him from winning this contest. On the other side of the equation, all of the "Ramirez is a far better villain then Sephiroth" topics were fun to read at least. It's always neat having entertainment during blowouts. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1993&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=5) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (4)Vergil vs (5)Ghaleon 2005 _source: (4)Vergil vs (5)Ghaleon 2005 (revid 55951)_ ## Results Sunday, May 8th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Jenova Division - **Match \#:** 06 - **Match Date:** Sunday, May 8th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 18,469 - **Oracle Expectations:** Vergil - 57.95% 77 for - 10 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Vergil - 70.15% (17,361 brackets) For whatever reason that I can't explain, this match started becoming extremely debated as it drew closer, specifically from Ghaleon's side of things. Many Ghaleon supporters argued that Ghaleon actually had a chance at this match, and that those who argued that the RPG rule only applied to Square were sorely mistaken about dismissing Ghaleon or Lunar despite their cult status. The problem with this is that the "all RPG characters have potential" rule does only apply to Square. Non-Square RPG characters being the least bit strong is an extremely rare sight to see, and there is a long line of non-Square RPG characters and games that help support this, and this mainly includes the discussion of the most popular characters within a game. When you start talking about villains, the vast majority of which are not the most popular character within their own game, the massive popularity dropoff that occurs after Square is even more evident. This is a theme that came up again and again throughout the Spring 2005 contest, and Vergil/Ghaleon was the beginning of the trend. Even if you felt that Ghaleon had a chance, go look at that match picture. It's Calender Vergil versus Immodium Ghaleon, and any chance that Ghaleon had of doing damage in this match went out the window the second that match pic was posted. It's almost as if CJayC went out of his way to find the worst Ghaleon picture he could, and though the majority had Ghaleon losing, seeing him go out like that was a pity. Still, the match eventually went underway, and as expected, the massive, multi-million sales mainstream appeal in Vergil's corner almost singlehandedly carried him over Ghaleon's cult support with relative ease. There is some form of moral victory in Ghaleon not getting doubled, but not much. Non-Square cult RPG characters are going to have a hard time doing much of anything in these contests, and there are even a couple of examples from Square itself that being cult is bad news, period. Vergil's reward for easily winning such a debated match? Sephiroth. Congratulations. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1994&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=6) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (3)Lavos vs (6)Mother Brain 2005 _source: (3)Lavos vs (6)Mother Brain 2005 (revid 55953)_ ## Results Monday, May 9th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Jenova Division - **Match \#:** 07 - **Match Date:** Monday, May 9th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 8,241 - **Oracle Expectations:** Lavos - 59.52% 85 for - 2 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Lavos - 62.11% (15,371 brackets) When the bracket was first released, this match looked to be a candidate for the lowest vote total of the contest, simply because both characters are little more than characterless boss fights. Mother Brain is little more than the final boss at the end of a couple of Metroid games, and while Lavos has a little more going for him in the way of being prominent in his own game, he too is little more than the boss at the end of Chrono Trigger. This was a match that few would care about, though it was a fairly obvious match in that it would likely come down to franchise voting. Chrono Trigger is far more popular than any Metroid title here on GameFAQs, so when you have a character from each game that few care about, picking the one associated with Chrono Trigger is probably the way to go. The match played out as expected, save for Mother Brain doing a lot better than many expected she would. This didn't matter much in the long run, given that the entire board expected Lavos to win this match before jobbing to Liquid Snake in round two, though it did add to a lot of building theories about this contest. Despite the fact that Chrono Trigger would likely wipe any Metroid game off of any poll, Mother Brain did a lot better than most people thought. Remember, Mother Brain is hardly anything more than a faceless final boss fight in three Metroid games. For her to almost get 45% of the vote against a clearly stronger Lavos is an impressive feat given the circumstances, unless you believe that Captain N truly did make that much of a difference. The true meaning behind this match was to preview the looming Diablo/Ridley affair, and if Mother Brain could do this well against Lavos, one would have to assume that Ridley was in pretty good shape. After all, there was no way that Mother Brain could be stronger than Ridley, right? \>\_\> Overall, it was a fairly boring match with hardly anything to talk about throughout save for the somewhat surprising closeness of it all, though everyone got a nice laugh when the stats were released after this match. CJayC, our famous leader, lost his perfect bracket to Mother Brain and did not appear on the leaderboard for the rest of the contest. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1995&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=7) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (2)Liquid Snake vs (7)Officer Tenpenny 2005 _source: (2)Liquid Snake vs (7)Officer Tenpenny 2005 (revid 55955)_ ## Results Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Jenova Division - **Match \#:** 08 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 43,853 - **Oracle Expectations:** Liquid Snake - 71.76% 87 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Liquid Snake - 87.08% (21,551 brackets) In the Summer 2004 Contest, few new characters made as good a showing as Liquid Snake. His only match was a loss, but he left an everlasting impression on everyone who remembers the Summer 2004 Contest well. He was an 11 seed, and was stuck facing Frog in the first round. Frog was a heavy board favorite, and managed to jump out to a fast lead of 450 votes. However, Liquid Snake refused to go down quietly and soon managed to stall Frog. He then began coming back, albeit very slowly. However even if Liquid's push was slow, it was constant. Liquid would eventually pull even with Frog in the evening and take part in a duel reminiscent of CT/LTTP before finally falling behind by 200 votes late in the match. Liquid made a valiant effort to come back, but fell just short. When the stats came out after the Summer 2004 Contest, Liquid Snake was ranked extremely high, perhaps too high. Liquid ranked ahead of even Bowser, and major things were expected out of him in this contest. Unfortunately, he got stuck in the same division as Sephiroth. If Liquid and Ocelot were in opposite places, perhaps the top half of this entire bracket wouldn't have been such a lock. But as it stood, Liquid was a virtual lock to win his fourpack before jobbing to Sephiroth in the Jenova finals. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. As the match began, you would never be able to guess as the contest progressed; Liquid beat the hell out of Officer Tenpenny far worse than most people expected him to, and for a short while, it looked like Liquid would be able to break 85% on the San Andreas villain. Liquid eventually calmed down a little and fell under 80%, but this doesn't take away from the fact that Liquid managed one of the biggest blowouts of the contest. For all the speculation that Liquid's 2004 value may have been overestimated, he showed no signs of being undeserving in this match at all. ~80% of the vote is no easy task, and even though Liquid was destined to lose to Sephiroth later on, a powerful win is a powerful win nonetheless. There was no indication at all of what would eventually happen to Liquid, and as we watched this match unfold, we began to realize more and more that we needed something exciting to happen... ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1996&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=8) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Kefka vs (8)Mithos 2005 _source: (1)Kefka vs (8)Mithos 2005 (revid 55957)_ ## Results Wednesday, May 11th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Ruin Division - **Match \#:** 09 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, May 11th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 20,303 - **Oracle Expectations:** Kefka - 70.28% 72 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Kefka - 88.17% (21,820 brackets) CJayC has quite the sense of humor. It was widely believed that this division would be the one to take down most brackets, and he aptly named it the Ruin Division. What a punny guy. The first major issue with the Ruin Division was Kefka being a 1 seed. In 2003, Kefka was one of the most hyped newcomers coming into the contest. He responds to the hype by almost losing to Pac Man in the first round before being completely destroyed by Crono in the second. Granted Kefka was given one of the single worst match pics ever and he beat Pac Man on the backbone of his name alone, but still, a struggle is a struggle. In 2004, Kefka is slapped right in the middle of the infamous Snake-Knuckles duo as a 7 seed. To the shock of everyone, Kefka takes it to Knuckles early and often to build a lead of around 200. Kefka was eventually buried with the day vote, but a hint of strength was there. Now, in the Spring 2005 Contest, a character whose only win was a struggle against Pac Man is given a 1 seed. Sir Bormun was about the only person to see this coming, and everyone was naturally weary about how good a 1 seed Kefka would make. Plenty of people doubted whether or not he would even make it out of the second round, and even less people believed that he could actually win his division given the heavy hitters looming at the bottom of it. His match against Mithos was barely an issue, but it would likely be a telling sign of whether or not Kefka was truly in this thing for the long haul. Even better was that the match picture clearly favored Kefka. He may have gotten the strawberry FFA look, but Mithos looked like Colette in her (his?) picture. Of all the villains in this contest, Mithos looked the least villainous of them all, and Kefka had the added bonus of Mithos not being prominent in his game until the tail end of it. For all intents and purposes, Kefka should have destroyed Mithos in this match. (We'll ignore the fact that CJayC really screwed this match up and should have put a certain.... other form of Mithos in her (his?) place; way to ruin one of the best spoilers in gaming for everyone who had yet to play Tales of Symphonia, Ceej) Despite the fact that most people knew Kefka would win, how strong he would wind up being in this match would be a telling sign of how he would do later. Kefka's big concern was getting rid of the stigma that his percentage will always drop during the day regardless of who he's facing, and when the match got underway, Kefka was very strong early on. He had 75% of the votes early, and was looking like he would dominate the match the way a 1 seed was supposed to. But sure enough, Kefka's percentage began to gradually drop as the match progressed, and though Kefka made minor pushes to get his percentage climbing again, the entire thing essentially dropped like a rock all throughout the match with nothing but minor stalls from Kefka every so often to make himself look respectable. Mithos is a character in Tales of Symphonia that you barely see until the end of the game, is a character with a gigantic sister complex, is a character whose gender cannot possibly be determined with 100% certainty, yet is a character who completely embarrassed Kefka in this match. She (he?) may have had no chance of winning nor did she (he?) even come close, but taking over 10% off of a 1 seed's initial percentage as the match wore on is something to be proud of. I wonder how that certain... *other* character who should have been in Mithos's place would have fared. We may not have seen any other Ruin Division character perform yet, but if Kefka struggled with an effeminate villain that you hardly ever see, it would be tough to imagine him truly holding his own come the divisional finals, and many people felt that Kefka's clock was ticking come the second round. Wesker over Kefka was a popular debate during this match, and from looking at these results, it's tough to say that the Wesker fans didn't have some good ground to stand on. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1997&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=9) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (4)Luca Blight vs (5)Albert Wesker 2005 _source: (4)Luca Blight vs (5)Albert Wesker 2005 (revid 88847)_ ## Results Thursday, May 12th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Ruin Division - **Match \#:** 10 - **Match Date:** Thursday, May 12th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 11,926 - **Oracle Expectations:** Wesker - 60.56% 68 for - 5 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Wesker - 55.91% (13,837 brackets) The very day after Kefka opens the door for plenty of other people in the Ruin Division to take a stab at winning it, we got to see whether or not the Wesker faithful knew what they were talking about. 2004 stats project Kefka to score over 70% on Luca Blight, and though those stats aren't always accurate, it's a safe assumption that Wesker blowing out Luca Blight would mean bad news for Kefka regardless of the hard numbers surrounding the match. So what does Wesker do? He comes out and absolutely bombs. Screw scoring 70% on Luca Blight, because after the first few seconds of the poll, Wesker found his percentage hovering well under 60%. At one point, Wesker's percentage fell under 56%. Wesker managed to recover a little with the day vote, but every time it looked as if Wesker was going to make a huge push to get his percentage climbing, Luca Blight was there to smack him back down to earth. Wesker was able to break 60% for a short while after putting up a massive fight to do so, but Luca Blight made sure that it didn't last until the end of the poll. Wesker won the match, but the fact that he needed to score 70% in the match and wound up failing to even break 60% was the dominant story of the match. Wesker went from being a possible threat to Kefka to being one of the laughingstocks of the contest in the span of 24 hours. Kefka may have looked like crap in his first round match against Mithos, but it was clear that he had a bye straight to the divisional finals after this joke of a performance by his supposed second round threat. I've done some research on Luca Blight's character, and from the looks of it, he's a very well written villain. However, his game only selling 92,000 copies makes it impossible for him to be little more than a contest joke, and Luca Blight was the latest cult RPG character to drop out of this contest in the very first round. However, his performance opened the door for a few other characters. No longer was Kefka in any danger of losing his second round match, and more importantly, the Ocelot supporters arguing that Wesker could very well be much weaker than Nemesis were no longer as insane as they first looked. Wesker completely crapped out in this match, and this made HoratioQHornblower look like more of a genius than nearly everyone else. *"Every time someone mentions that Wesker was in Resident Evil 4, someone always asks 'Really?!' within three posts. Wesker isn't going to beat Kefka, and you're a fool if you think otherwise."* ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1998&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=10) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (3)Albedo vs (6)M. Bison 2005 _source: (3)Albedo vs (6)M. Bison 2005 (revid 88849)_ ## Results Friday, May 13th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Ruin Division - **Match \#:** 11 - **Match Date:** Friday, May 13th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 24,927 - **Oracle Expectations:** M. Bison - 55.97% 65 for - 7 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** M. Bison - 66.45% (16,445 brackets) Albedo vs M. Bison was Vergil vs Ghaleon all over again in that as the match drew close, meaningless hype began to take over. The winner of this match was clear as day, especially if you're a fan of using old polls as a guide: [](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1743-chaos-division-round-1-kos-mos-vs-ryu) M. Bison may not be nearly as strong as Ryu, but asking Albedo to make up a difference of nearly 25% when he's weaker than KOS-MOS is absolutely ludicrous. Furthermore, though Albedo clearly has a dedicated fanbase behind him, they are a very small fanbase. Xenosaga's sales aren't too impressive, and through the first 15 hours of the game, you see Albedo how many times? Twice? And all he does is laugh manically, then walk away. You have to suffer through quite a lot of boring gameplay before ever actually seeing Albedo do something noteworthy, and there aren't enough of these people out there for Albedo to even have a chance against Bison, let alone beat him. Albedo is another example of a cultish non-Square RPG character with expectations beyond his ability, and had absolutely no chance of winning this match. You have to go pretty far down the Street Fighter ladder before finding someone that Albedo can actually beat. But Albedo fans chose to ignore the obvious, and were up for quite a shock when the poll began. Not only did M. Bison begin the match on fire, but he absolutely kicked Albedo's face in. Most people with any degree of common sense expected Bison to win the match, but hardly anyone expected Bison to flat-out kill Albedo in the process. At one point, Bison looked like he had the potential to break 75%, and his performance was so amazing that it drew out the best night of fads that this contest had to offer. **PSYCHO CRUSHER!** **AIR COMBO!** [bison.ytmnd.com](http://bison.ytmnd.com) [psychocrusher.ytmnd.com](http://psychocrusher.ytmnd.com) This stuff was posted all over the place, and I do mean *all over the place*. It was arguably the most fun we had during the entire contest. Of course, Albedo did wind up getting the last laugh in this match. Few people bothered to notice during the day of fads, but M. Bison went from pushing 75% in this poll to gradually losing percentage throughout the day to the final result you see above you. Few people thought that this would make much of a difference and proclaimed that Bison was a very real threat to win the division, but the percentage loss that Bison suffered in this match would come back to bite him in the ass later on in this contest. Not that it made his match against Albedo any less fun, mind you. PSYCHOOOO CRUSHAAAAA!!!!11! ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1999&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=11) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (2)Ridley vs (7)Diablo 2005 _source: (2)Ridley vs (7)Diablo 2005 (revid 88850)_ ## Results Saturday, May 14th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Ruin Division - **Match \#:** 12 - **Match Date:** Saturday, May 14th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 11,358 - **Oracle Expectations:** Diablo - 50.14% 37 for - 36 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Diablo - 48.32% (11,958 brackets) When the bracket was first released, this was viewed as the most important match of the entire contest. The seedings were completely meaningless in this matchup, and though this match had its fair share of disagreements, nearly everyone at least agreed on that point. This match was not widely debated simply because it was difficult to predict, but the fact that the winner of the Bison/Ridley/Diablo trio had an excellent chance to take down Kefka in the divisional finals. Kefka showed no signs on being worthy of the win in his match against Mithos, and it only made this match mean that much more. The premise was simple. No one allowed themselves to forget about the amazing run that Starcraft had in the Spring 2004 Contest, and though games are generally not equal to characters, denying that games play a large part in character strength is foolish. And in Diablo's case, he hails from a series that is more popular than Starcraft in America. It is extremely rare that you'll see more games of Starcraft being played on Battle.net than you will Diablo II, and this is no accident. Neither Diablo nor his games are weak by any means, and when you factor in that Diablo the character and Diablo the game share the same name, Diablo's chances of being a powerhouse in his division were that much better. Another good point for Diablo is that the Metroid series isn't exactly the type of series that lends itself to massive mainstream appeal. It's not a cult series by any means, but it's likely pretty niche. Many people in Europe and Japan haven't even heard of Metroid, Samus, or Ridley, and Metroid's main source of popularity is in America, the same country that prefers Diablo 2 to Starcraft. It's also very likely that there is a massive dropoff in the popularity of Metroid characters after Samus, simply because the games aren't about character or character development; they're about Samus beating the living hell out of anything stupid enough to move. Diablo may be little more than the character that you fight at the end of the Diablo games, but he is extremely prominent in the game's story as you play through it. The same cannot be said of Ridley, who is little more than a recurring, oft nameless mid-boss in a few Metroid games. He's mentioned by name twice in the entire series as of this writing, and I'm willing to bet that a good number of people who have played Metroid don't know that Ridley is the leader of the Space Pirates. He's simply not very prominent in his games, whereas Diablo is. And if these character contests have taught us anything, it's that you almost have to be prominent in your game to be a strong character in these contests. I'm sure there are a couple of exceptions, but not many. Diablo as a series is more popular than Metroid as a series, Diablo's sales to release ratio flattens Metroid's sales to release ratio, Diablo is far more a factor in the story of the Diablo games than Ridley is in the Metroid games, and Diablo had other advantages going into this match as well. He had the mainstream advantage, series popularity advantage, and name advantage ("Diablo" is much more well-known a name among the gaming community than "Ridley"). By the time the match started, Diablo had the picture advantage. Only one good picture of Ridley exists, and CJayC didn't use it. Diablo also had the advantage in the intangibles department. Diabloii.net and its 2000 hits per day could be all the difference in a close match, assuming you believed that Diablo needed outside help to win this in the first place. The only things Ridley had going for him were his seeding and company affiliation. Diablo had everything else. The only thing left to do was to start the match, and once things got going, Ridley found himself in the lead for all of 60 seconds. Ridley managed a minor early lead thanks to a small advantage in board/bracket voting, but Diablo quickly recovered to even things up and take the lead in the match. Ridley tried to recover, but the best he was able to manage was to stall Diablo. Diablo took all of Ridley's early heat, fought through it, and slowly began building a lead in the poll. Within 15 minutes, Diablo had a 100 vote lead. From there, this pattern continued. Ridley managed to constantly stall Diablo, but that was the best he was able to manage. Every time Ridley tried to make a move in the match, Diablo persevered, hung tough, and continued building upon his lead after Ridley was worn down. Before long, Ridley finally ran out of gas, and failed to stall Diablo for much longer. Diablo caught fire after the first few hours of the poll, and Ridley was unable to keep the match close. Diablo turned a close match into having over 56% of the vote and a lead of well over 1000. At around 8 in the morning, Diabloii.net caught sight of what was going on and posted a link on their site, effectively ending any chance Ridley had of winning. Ridley fought valiantly early on, and made a good effort to keep the poll from turning into a complete joke, but Diablo would have the last laugh as he cruised to a victory of over 11000 votes and over 57.5% of the total vote share. What began as a match that lived up to its hype turned into an absolute killing of Ridley, and in an odd turn of events, it turned out that Diablo didn't need outside support to win. He had over 56% of the vote before diabloii.net linked to the poll, and by the end of the poll, Diablo had 57.5% of the vote. That isn't a large difference, and while it's understandable for Ridley backers to be upset about a rally, the match was decided long before diabloii.net showed up. Next up for Diablo was a very intriguing match with M. Bison. Bison looked prime to win the entire division early in his match with Albedo, but his percentage drop throughout that particular poll made their round two matchup anyone's game; at least, it looked like it was anyone's game. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2000&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=12) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Ganondorf vs (8)Giygas 2005 _source: (1)Ganondorf vs (8)Giygas 2005 (revid 88851)_ ## Results Sunday, May 15th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Triforce Division - **Match \#:** 13 - **Match Date:** Sunday, May 15th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 55,749 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ganondorf - 84.88% 72 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ganondorf - 97.23% (24,062 brackets) This match was quite similar to Sephiroth/Ramirez in that there was barely a point in actually holding the match. Ganon, like Sephiroth, was a pre-contest lock for the finals, and the only reason Giygas is even in this thing is because the very loyal Earthbound fanbase needed something to nominate. Unfortunately, it was somewhat obvious that Giygas would be a contender for weakest character of the contest before the contest ever began, and he went and proved it in this match. The Earthbound faithful prevented Giygas from being a complete joke (see: Tanner), but they were unable to give Giygas a respectable showing in the match. Ganon squashed Giygas like an ant from start to finish and never looked back, and that's about all there is to say. Only Pyramid Head has a chance of being weaker in the extrapolated standings than Giygas. There is, of course, one bright side to all of this: [giygas.ytmnd.com](http://giygas.ytmnd.com) Freaky music... ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2001&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=13) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (4)Ansem vs (5)CATS 2005 _source: (4)Ansem vs (5)CATS 2005 (revid 73544)_ ## Results Monday, May 16th, 2005 - **Division:** Triforce Division - **Match \#:** 14 - **Match Date:** Monday, May 16th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 5,484 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ansem - 65.52% 71 for - 2 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ansem - 55.93% (13,842 brackets) ## Ulti's Analysis *"People need to get over the psychological barrier that CATS can't win a match."* -creativename *"I can't believe we're going to lose a perfect bracket to CATS."* -Ngamer64 Coming into this match, the standard CATS discussion was taking place. Most people on the board planned on voting and rooting for CATS, but next to no one actually believed that CATS could actually win a match. He had had three matches prior to this, and in all of them, he was flat-out killed. Some people have been led to believe that there is a ceiling for the number of votes that CATS could receive in a match. If this match proved anything, it's that nearly any character can do damage given the right opponent. Even CATS. Ansem may be from the 4 million+ sales phenomenon known as Kingdom Hearts, but he is not prominent in the game. Until the tail end of the game when he reveals himself, the only thing you know about Ansem is that he was doing some research on the Heartless and left behind some of his work for you to read. Essentially, the only thing Ansem is is the final boss fight of the game, and he has little to no story leading up to the fight with him at all. It was somewhat expected that Ansem may struggle in the match, but even the most devout follower of CATStholocism believed deep down that even if CATS were to grab a lead early on in the match, he would likely screw up later on. And as is in accordance with the prophecy, CATS managed to grab the early lead against Ansem. But when the seconds turned into minutes, then the minutes into lead increases, the board began to experience an explosion. This was not some mere fluke. CATS truly was building a lead on the heavily-favored Ansem in the match. Ansem tried his damndest to follow in the footsteps of all of CATS's other opponents to quickly grab the lead after falling behind early against CATS, but he was unable to do so. Every time Ansem tried to gain his footing, CATS..... **CATS**... managed to kick him back down en route to holding the lead in the match for its first hour. By this point, the board went in an absolute tizzy. Everyone expected CATS to perform somewhat well given that this may very well be the easiest match he'll ever have, but hardly anyone expected him to hold and build a lead in the match. And it would only get even better for the CATS faithful. Throughout CATS's entire miracle push, a ton of people expected CATS to die off the map at any second. It never happened. Ansem eventually managed to recover and slowly cut into CATS's slim lead, but not before CATS was the first of the two characters to 1000 votes. Ansem managed to eventually recover and take the lead from CATS, but not before CATS held the lead for the first two hours of the poll. Ansem tried to shake off CATS on his own, but CATS was able to hang tough and stay dead even in the match. For all of Ansem's efforts to take control of the match for good, CATS refused to stay more than one step behind him. Every time Ansem tried to pull away, CATS fought back. It got so bad for Ansem that *he needed to rely on the morning vote to save him from CATS*! CATS stayed dead even with Ansem for the first five hours of the poll and well over 10,000 votes, and it took over six hours for Ansem to finally catch the momentum of the morning vote to put CATS away for good. This is the same CATS whom no one believes can actually win a match. Even now, with preliminary Xsts being put out almost by the hour, everyone refuses to take CATS's positioning seriously. Ansem eventually went on to win the match, but no one will ever remember this match for Ansem's historic flop; this entire match was all about a character whose fanbase almost entirely consists of people who have never played or seen his game. So how could something like this have possibly happened? For starters, in every match CATS is in, CATS is the beneficiary of the board vote more than any other character in these polls. Board 8 loves the little guy, and no matter who he's going up against, you'd be hard-pressed to find people voting against him. There's also the aforementioned fact that Ansem is not the least bit prominent in his game. He suffers from the "I'm just the guy you fight at the end of the game and I'm here for little to no reason" disease. Lastly, CATS is strong enough to win a match or do damage given the right opponent; he isn't Tanner, and nearly everyone on the board was unaware of how large an impact their "joke votes" would have when added to the strength that he already possesses. Go back and read the quote from creativename, because it's true. CATS is not a complete contest joke like many would believe, and he has no vote ceiling. If you put a weak character in front of CATS, he won't roll over and die. CATS is not an auto-loss when in a bracket, and despite the fact that no one takes him seriously, he's going to shock the world and win a match in one of these things sooner or later. Oh, and there's also the fact that CATS got the pic of him that everyone knows rather than the eggplant mug that he's been stuck with three years in a row. That likely made a huge difference. I have one final point to make, and then I'm moving on to the next match. - Andross: 31732 - Mother Brain: 31468 - Ridley: 31438 - CATS: 31153 ## Ed Bellis' Analysis CATS, everyone’s favorite perennial joke character, was put in probably the easiest match of his entire contest career, and the amazing thing is that he almost won it. CATS led Ansem for damn near the entire morning before the Kingdom Hearts day vote swept the villain to victory. This wasn’t just a board vote giving CATS the edge in the first five minutes or so (as normally happens) – this was CATS actually having a prayer at looking semi-respectable. Heck, in the X-stats for his division, CATS got ranked third, above even Robotnik! Sadly, CATS has never been put in such a winnable situation again, even in 2007, when he couldn’t even muster up enough strength to get past Peach and Meta Knight. But for one brief, glorious morning… it almost happened. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Ngamer's Match Update Topic](http://www.thengamer.com/gamefaqs/05Spring/05CatsTopic.html) - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2002&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=14) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (3)Dr. Robotnik vs (6)Sin 2005 _source: (3)Dr. Robotnik vs (6)Sin 2005 (revid 88852)_ ## Results Tuesday, May 17th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Triforce Division - **Match \#:** 15 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, May 17th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 1,918 - **Oracle Expectations:** Dr Robotnik - 53.23% 57 for - 16 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Dr Robotnik - 55.51% (13,738 brackets) So, who remembers this post? From: Tai \| Posted: 5/12/2005 8:18:12 PM \| Message Detail I say Sin. He comes from the mighty series that is Final Fantasy. People argue Dr. Robotnik is simply more recognizeable, so he should win. What about Pac-Man? Scorpion? Donkey Kong? Didn't they..all..like..get creamed by Square characters? Man, that must suck. :-( Also, think Crono and Mario. Mario has been in so many more games than Crono that EVERYONE must know who he is. Hell, Mario went to the Finals last year. But, Crono? I've heard he doesn't even talk. I guess all the girls like his hair because it looks like Goku's a little, right? Yet, somehow, he rivals to Mario. If that can happen, any "ugly" character can beat a popular one. Also, Sin comes from the game, FFX, which features Tidus, who beat Shadow last summer. So, what can a mere fat loser do against this Final Fantasy character? People think Sin will be crushed because he's a whale. Well, I guess this means the fat scientist will be CHEW'D UP AND SPIT'D. In this topic, it's simple. Vote for a villian. This was one of the many Tai topics leading up to that match, and virtually all of them were written with the same degree of analytical skill as the one you see here. But we'll get to that in a minute. The ironic thing is that there actually was a good reason for thinking that Sin was going to win this match before this contest started. The weakest Sonic character in the 2003 stats is Tails, and the weakest FFX character is Yuna. Tails made a minor jump in popularity between 2003 and 2004, but even then, if Sin and Dr. Robotnik were at all comparable to Tails and Yuna, one could argue that Sin had the advantage despite Robotnik obviously having a bracket advantage going into the match. There was also the matter of Wily/Ultros. Assuming Robotnik was somewhat even with Wily in strength, asking Sin to be 15% stronger than Ultros wasn't that much of a stretch. I myself thought that this match would be close, but it would be Tidus/Shadow close in Sin's favor. Of course, knowing that Sin was already up for a tough road in the match, all hope of him actually winning went down the drain when the match picture came out and we saw Robotnik in all his glory versus a dorsal fin. Not that this took away from the fact that the entire board was in a win-win situation, because thanks to Tai's wonderful little spam topics every other day with insane predictions of Sin with 58% of the vote, even those who had Sin winning the match ended up rooting against him because no one wanted to be associated with an annoying spammer that not only spammed the board, but also kept botting AIM chats and mass marking people with alt accounts. When the match finally started, Robotnik flew out of the gate for 65% of the vote early, and though Sin eventually regained some of his footing, he did little to nothing to prevent Robotnik from steadily increasing his lead. Robotnik's percentage was slowly falling from the 65% he had initially, but he managed to build a lead of 2700 votes through the first 15 hours of the poll. Of course, this caused Tai to absolutely lose his mind. Not only did he attempt to rally votes from other websites singlehandedly (which is a fair strategy in these contests and is to be expected, so no shame there), but he took his loss this match in a worse way than virtually anyone else ever has. When most people make vocal picks that are wrong, they sit around and laugh with everyone else when the time comes to have their picks thrown back in their face. It's all part of the fun. I ate my crow with Magus's choke job in 2005 with a smile on my face, because that's just how these things go. The most famous example was Squall getting his flowers over Luigi in 2003. But not Tai, oh no. There is no having fun with this user. Rather than simply taking a joke lightheartedly, he decided to mark everyone's messages on a bunch of alts, then keep track of the messages that weren't deleted so he could archive them and run off to MBH and Message Detail 2 and spam the site mods personally. It was arguably the worst case of bad sportsmanship we have ever seen, and users like this are a large reason why back end moderation was reworked on GameFAQs. Marking messages with alts no longer boosts priority, and you'll actually get shadow banned from marking people if you try it these days (you can use the form, but it will never show up in the mod queue). And for the record, Tai and maplejet are and always were the exact same human being and he was *always* a troll. Site mods aren't allowed to reveal things like that, but I'm not a site mod. You're welcome. Lost in all of this was the fact that Sin truly did make this a Tidus/Shadow affair. He had little chance of coming back and winning, but he did turn a 2700 vote defect into a respectable 1900 vote loss. It makes you wonder what might have happened if Sin didn't have the worst picture of the contest, because knowing what we know now, all those people who had Sin winning the fourpack may very well have been screwed by one of the worst match pics we'd ever seen. Future Edit: On top of Sin getting screwed by his match picture despite having some very cool images in-game, Magic the Gathering made a Final Fantasy set in 2025 and official sources of art are allowed in match pictures. In an alternate timeline where this match was taken place after he appeared on Magic cards, Sin very likely gets a *much* better picture. ## Match Trends ## That Match Pic After the match pic came online and Ngamer realized that CJay had just killed his bracket, Ng took advantage of the general uproar on the board and created this image, calling it an alternative poster for *Sin City*. No one liked it, but *he* thought it was hilarious, so he didn't care! ### Other Nonsense The awful pic also resulted in one of the better topics of the season, when The Real Truth put up a thread called **Sin the Fin for the Win**. The original topic can be viewed at - "[Sin the Fin for the Win](http://thengamer.com/gamefaqs/05Spring/05SinTheFin.html)" Some of the better replies: Yeah, let's toss Robotnik in the bin! \*kicks you in the shin\* Now, that's an interesting spin... Now I need some jin :(. This topic makes me grin. Robotnik has a weak chin. What % are you expecting for Sin? I bet 51% is his min. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2003&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=15) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (2)Kuja vs (7)Master Hand 2005 _source: (2)Kuja vs (7)Master Hand 2005 (revid 88853)_ ## Results Wednesday, May 18th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** Triforce Division - **Match \#:** 16 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, May 18th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 5,526 - **Oracle Expectations:** Master Hand - 41.38% 5 for - 68 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Master Hand - 39.11% (9,679 brackets) This match was supposed to be easy. This match was supposed to be an *obvious given*. Games are not supposed to = characters. Yet seemingly from day one, there were two people, HaRRicH and MasterMage119, who actually had vocal faith in Master Hand. Everyone said that they were insane. Everyone reminded them of Ness, the fact that Master Hand could not possibly be stronger than Ness, and of how powerful Vivi was. No way could one of the most well-developed villains of all time possibly be so weak as to lose to a glove, even if he was from the underappreciated Final Fantasy 9. One could even argue that Kuja would obviously be weaker than Kefka; after all, they're both clown lookalikes, yet Kefka is from the more popular game. It's more than possible that Kuja would be weak, but not weak enough to lose to a glove, not weak enough to lose to a character whose sole purpose is to being a faceless boss fight at the end of the two Smash Brothers games. And who in the hell plays Smash Brothers for the single player anymore? This poll came out ([](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1988-which-underdog-would-you-most-like-to-see-pull-off-a-major)) and no one bothered paying attention to it. We said that the voting pool was too small, that Master Hand only had 12000 votes, that the poll didn't matter. You feel that sharp pain right on your Achilles? That's what a snake bite feels like. When the poll started, Master Hand did a little better than most expected of him early, but not by much. Many people expected Master Hand to get killed, but he fought to stay above 45% early on. Still, it mattered little en route to Kuja building a lead of 440 votes through the first three and a half hours of the poll. Master Hand made these minor stalls at Kuja as he increased his lead, almost to remind Kuja that he was still there, but Kuja managed to do just fine despite his percentage dropping under 53%. But then, to everyone's shock, Master Hand caught the morning vote. It wasn't a tidal wave, but it was enough for Master Hand to begin slowly coming back in the poll. As the morning hours wore on, Master Hand took off a few votes here, a few votes there, and though Kuja made every effort in the world to regain control of the poll with minor pushes that looked like he would shake off Master Hand like a bad case of the fleas, Master Hand refused to go away. This pattern continued for a little while longer, but Kuja was unable to stave off Master Hand's inevitable push toward tying the match at the turn of its seventh hour. But even at this point, no one actually expected Kuja to lose. This was just SSBM carryover, a steroid-induced right hand that was simply benefiting from the morning vote more than anyone expected him to. So long as Kuja was able to continue what he was doing and keep the match within a few hundred, the Square evening/night vote would save him later on. It happened for a multitude of other Square characters, so why not Kuja? But despite all of this, Master Hand and Kuja engaged in what went down as arguably the best string of events in the entire contest. After tying the match, Master Hand's momentum died down a little. Kuja wasn't about to let a glove run away with the poll, and he quickly recovered. But like every other attempt Kuja made to run away with this match, Master Hand spanked the monkey away and continued his match forward. Master Hand then slowly built a lead of over 100 votes, and at this point, Kuja threw everything he had into the poll. Unfortunately, the best that Kuja was able to manage was to split the vote 50-50 with Master Hand, and couldn't truly make a real push in coming back in the match. Master Hand noticed this, and continued building a lead whenever he could. Kuja tried his damndest to do what he could, and his efforts were so good that it took two hours for Master Hand to increase his lead from 100 to 200 and keep it there. However, Kuja was slowly running out of steam, and Master Hand was able to up the pace of his push. It took a mere half hour to tack another 100 votes onto his lead, and though Kuja did everything in his power to prevent what was about to happen to him, Master Hand was eventually able to increase his lead to 400 despite all of Kuja's efforts to prevent it. But then, the absolutely unthinkable happened. Even when Kuja was down by 400 votes, everyone still refused to believe that he would actually lose the match. No one believed that Master Hand would be able to keep this up, and absolutely no one could possibly fathom what was about to happen to this poll. When the after school vote began, the voters didn't just side against Kuja, they absolutely buried him. What began as a poll that was virtually even for 12 hours soon turned into Kuja's funeral. Master Hand turned a lead of 400 into a lead of 1000 within an hour, and it would only grow worse as the afternoon vote wore on. It took Master Hand all of an hour to turn the match into a 2000 vote lead in his favor, and it didn't take much longer for him to turn the match into a complete joke. For all the trouble Master Hand had in adding 100 votes to his lead after first taking the lead in the poll, he was soon able to pull in almost 100 votes every five minutes. The only thing the Kuja supporters could do was stare at the results in disbelief and wonder what in the hell just happened. This was the one and only true board explosion we had in the entire contest, and it couldn't have come at a better time: the tail end of round one, when we still had a bunch of people vying for perfect brackets and zero brackets. It got so bad for Kuja that he wasn't able to slow Master Hand down until he was losing by 5600 votes, and at that point he spent the next two and a half hours shaving off a grand total of 100 votes from the lead. However, it wasn't enough to save face. Kuja went from being a possible favorite in his fourpack to the joke of the contest in a span of 24 hours, and he couldn't make any excuses. Games may not equal characters, but there are clearly enough people who seem to think otherwise. A 40% prediction percentage for a 7 over 2 upset is no joke, nor are the voting patterns. However, this match wasn't as much about Master Hand's strength so much as the fact that Kuja turned out to be an absolute joke. Square villain or not, you need to be prominent in your game to be able to do well in polls. Kuja doesn't make his first appearance until the end of disc one, and in a love it or hate it game like Final Fantasy 9, something like that can clearly have an effect. As for trying to explain how Kuja could be such a joke after seeing Vivi kick DK's face in, Vivi is a black mage with one of the best pic factors in gaming history. You're fooling yourself if you think that that didn't help him out, plus there's the fact that Vivi is a character in FF9 that even haters of the game like. There are many possible reasons for Kuja's complete bombing, and at this point, nearly anything you or I could come up with could be a viable answer. All we know is that Kuja got his face kicked in regardless of how you look at it, and that the cursed seed in this contest was not the 3, but the 2. This was a good way to conclude an otherwise boring first round of this contest. Low vote totals and fodder versus fodder matches were the norm in this thing, and other than Ridley/Diablo, Robotnik/Sin, and the aforementioned Kuja/Master Hand, there wasn't a whole lot going on in the way of excitement. However this wasn't CJayC or the bracket's fault, but merely the nature of weak contestants in polls. There simply won't be as much interest in a 32 character bracket as opposed to a 64, especially when nearly all of the entrants are very weak. This would grow to be an unfortunate trend in this contest, as we would eventually have no matches that were close down to the wire, and the only match with any hope of breaking 100,000 votes would wind up being the final. ## Ed Bellis' Analysis There are weird results that kinda make sense after the fact, when taking other factors into account. There are weird results that people can hypothesize about, but nobody can really figure out. And then there are weird results that may or may not make sense, but it doesn’t matter, because the result is so preposterous that it defies all logic. Apart from a few vocal folks, practically everyone figured this match was an easy point: it’s a Final Fantasy villain against a giant hand. But said giant hand is from the flagship of Nintendo fan service, and said Final Fantasy villain is from one of the least popular installments. I don’t need to tell you what happened – Master “Kobe” Hand won convincingly and embarrassed the living hell out of poor Kuja. This match tends to show up on a lot of people’s “worst matches of all time” list because of the result (IT’S A FRAGGIN GLOVE and whatnot), but I think it’s one of the greatest just because the result is so head-scratchingly silly that it transcends any possible indignity and becomes fun. At least it does for me. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2004&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=16) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Bowser vs (4)Sigma 2005 _source: (1)Bowser vs (4)Sigma 2005 (revid 55975)_ ## Results Thursday, May 19th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Mushroom Division Semi Final - **Match \#:** 17 - **Match Date:** Thursday, May 19th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 41,367 - **Oracle Expectations:** Bowser - 69.88% 55 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Bowser - 89.79% (22,221 brackets) It feels really weird calling a match a divisional semifinal when it's actually the second round. Anyway, this was one of the first matches that started causing people to believe that this contest may have slightly different voting trends than past contests. Now granted, we didn't have any solid data on Sigma before this contest started, but when the main villain of the Mega Man X series gets his face beaten in this badly, you have to wonder what in the world was going on from the other side of the poll. Was it conceivable to think that Bowser may somehow be stronger in this contest as opposed to any other, or does Sigma just suck that much? We didn't get many definitive answers to this, and even knowing what we know now, we still don't have any definitive answers. It's easy to blame this being a "gimmick" contest on the different voting trends that we saw by the end of the contest, though discrediting fluctuations in character strength may be a bad idea. It's more than possible that Bowser grew stronger between Summer 2003 and this contest, and we don't have any true value for his performance in 2004 due to him being on the ass end of an SFF match against Mario. Of course, the possibility of Sigma simply being that much of a weak bastard wasn't necessarily out of the question, and this match helped explain why he did so badly against Andross. After Mega Man and Zero, there is likely a huge dropoff in character popularity before you reach anyone else, and watching this match made you wonder whether or not Wily truly did have the advantage in his upcoming duel with Revolver Ocelot. Wily was likely stronger than Sigma, but if Sigma was this pathetic, you wonder if Wily was strong enough to be able to handle Ocelot. Ocelot may have had his problems with Nemesis, but Ocelot/Wily looked more like a battle of which character was weaker rather than which character was stronger after seeing Sigma get beaten like this. Sigma managed to save face in preventing himself from falling under 20%, and he managed to gain back a percentage point or two as the day wore on, but a first class ass kicking is a first class ass kicking no matter how you look at it. Sigma was undoubtedly one of the biggest disappointments of the contest. On a side note, you can't help but love the round where the match pics are sprites. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2005&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=17) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (3)Revolver Ocelot vs (2)Dr. Wily 2005 _source: (3)Revolver Ocelot vs (2)Dr. Wily 2005 (revid 55977)_ ## Results Friday, May 20th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Mushroom Division Semi Final - **Match \#:** 18 - **Match Date:** Friday, May 20th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 5,908 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ocelot - 51.04% 35 for - 22 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ocelot - 45.92% (11,364 brackets) Truth be told, and I say this as a Mega Man fan, Zero has been the only Mega Man character worth watching in any contest since 2002. Mega Man took us for an amazing ride in 2002, but ever since then, only Zero has been able to exit these contests with any sort of dignity. In 2003, after Mega Man walked through the weakest division of the contest, he got blasted to hell and back by a steroid-induced Sephiroth after giving him the fight of his life just one year prior. Mega Man/Sephiroth 2003 got over 25,000 more votes than Mega Man/Sephiroth 2002, yet Mega Man only managed to enjoy 28 of those votes. Zero's killing of Scorpion and subsequent close loss to Sonic arguably made more noise. It got even worse in Spring 2004. Of the top ten characters in the 2003 Xsts, only Mega Man failed to get a game into the Spring 2004 Contest. Then in the Summer 2004 Contest, Mega Man walked through yet another easy division before getting absolutely killed by Link in the Final Four. Zero's 10000 vote loss to Mega Man was arguably more impressive than any of Mega Man's wins, which is pretty damned sad. Mega Man had essentially bombed three contests in a row, and now, with a chance for the series to redeem itself in the Spring 2005 contest, Mega Man had bombed to hell once again. It was bad enough when Sigma decided to struggle with Andross before completely bombing against Bowser, but hardly anyone expected Sigma to come out of his fourpack. Wily, however, was quite clearly expected to come out of his fourpack after a quick glimpse at the prediction percentages. Yet Wily, like every other Mega Man character sans Zero since 2003, completely bombed. Ocelot took a fast lead in the match, and though his percentage followed the exact same pattern seen in his match against Nemesis, Wily was never in the match at all. Ocelot put him away early, and for the majority of the match, few people were talking about how strong Ocelot was, but that fact that Wily was virtually equal to Nemesis in strength. No one at all expected this to happen before the contest, and though Wily lost in a respectable manner, the fact is that he had every sign pointing in his favor and still lost the match with ease. There is a slight possibility that Ocelot's MGS match picture helped him out a little, but not to the point of winning this match with such ease. Wily crapped out in this match, and there's little else to say. It was yet another hyped Spring 2005 match that ended in a dud due to one of the characters not bothering to show up, and next up for Ocelot was Bowser. There was a slight possibility that Ocelot had a chance in this match if he were at all stronger than Liquid Snake, though the chances of it actually happening were slim to none. Bowser meant business in this contest. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2006&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=18) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Sephiroth vs (4)Vergil 2005 _source: (1)Sephiroth vs (4)Vergil 2005 (revid 88854)_ ## Results Saturday, May 21st, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Jenova Division Semi Final - **Match \#:** 19 - **Match Date:** Saturday, May 21st, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 47,003 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 77.50% 59 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sephiroth - 95.37% (23,602 brackets) This is one of the all-time easiest writeups ever. Vergil's purpose was to defeat Ghaleon before jobbing to Sephiroth, and he completely fufilled his purpose. He defeated Ghaleon with ease, and after enjoying the lead in this match for a couple of seconds, Sephiroth buried him. There was no rhyme or reason to this battle other than the fact that characters had to be on the other side of Sephiroth in his matches, and due to the fact he was a lock to win, it was all about how badly he beat his opponents. We may know about his later struggles, but there was no indication that that would happen judging from this match alone. Overall, an extremely boring, pointless match with nothing to really examine. The bright side is that this post gets to be short. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2007&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=19) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (3)Lavos vs (2)Liquid Snake 2005 _source: (3)Lavos vs (2)Liquid Snake 2005 (revid 88855)_ ## Results Sunday, May 22nd, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Jenova Division Semi Final - **Match \#:** 20 - **Match Date:** Sunday, May 22nd, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 8,530 - **Oracle Expectations:** Liquid Snake - 65.21% 57 for - 1 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Liquid Snake - 53.12% (13,146 brackets) Finally, a match worth actually saying something about. After the Summer 2004 Contest, the Extrapolated Standings looked beyond screwed. Everyone already knew about the blatant SFF adjustments, but there was a less known anomaly early in the stats evolution after that contest. Due to Mega Man's bombing against Link, Solid Snake was ranked far lower than he should have been, lower than even Ryu. The only logical adjustment that could be made was to assume that Mega Man suffered SFF against Link, so that Solid Snake could rank above Ryu where he belongs. The problem is that it caused some other characters to make very large jumps based off of Mega Man and Snake's adjustments; namely, the Frog/Master Chief/Liquid Snake trio. It's somewhat difficult to imagine Liquid truly being as high as the the 2004 stats would suggest after one match, simply because he hadn't really been tested yet. Liquid Snake is ranked above even Bowser in those stats. Liquid's match against Tenpenny made Liquid seem like a beast, but you would think that Liquid would have followed it up by demolishing Lavos, the characterless villain of Chrono Trigger, in embarrassing fashion. Instead, Liquid failed to cream Lavos early on, and soon saw his percentage actually dropping. He made a minor recovery in percentage in an effort to get it back over 60%, but it Lavos eventually caused it to start dropping again to the value you see now. Lavos, the villain who is just sort of.... there, wound up breaking 44% on Liquid Snake. This was either a very impressive performance by Lavos, a bombing by Liquid, or both. There are few explanations for such an embarrassment on Liquid's behalf, and through his match picture sucked, there's probably more to it than that. True, it's possible that the Chrono Trigger fanbase will vote for anything that appears in the game, but Liquid's prediction percentage leads me to believe that the 2004 stats massively overestimate him. One would think that a character stronger than Bowser should have more than 53.12% of brackets picking him to make it out of such an unbelievably easy fourpack, yet instead over 46% of people picked either Tenpenny, Lavos, or Mother Brain to beat him. SHENANIGANS. It's possible that both Liquid and Lavos are strong, but I personally find it hard to believe that one could think that Liquid could be anything but overestimated after seeing this match against Lavos. If you do some quick math and plug Lavos into the 2004 Xsts, you get a value of 26.57% for him. This puts Lavos between Kirby and Dante, ahead of such characters as Dante, Tidus, Yoshi, Shadow, and Knuckles. I don't know about you guys, but I think that Lavos being ahead of a lot of characters that he has no chance against is a little strange. Personally, I think Liquid is proof that transitivity does not always exist within the Xsts. It's more than possible, for example, that Liquid's adjusted 2004 value is way off, while other adjusted 2004 values are correct. Frog and Master Chief, for instance. Multiple close matches in a row can cause some strange things, and Lavos's amazing performance quickly shot down any form of elite strength that Liquid allegedly possesses. There's no way in hell that Ryu or Bowser would struggle with Lavos this badly. Most of you have played Chrono Trigger, yes? He gives such a piss-poor fight and has little to no real story other than what your characters say before you fight him. It's possible that Lavos truly was that strong and that Liquid would turn around and perform just fine against Sephiroth, but the odds were extremely small. The 2004 stats are just screwed. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2008&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=20) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Kefka vs (5)Albert Wesker 2005 _source: (1)Kefka vs (5)Albert Wesker 2005 (revid 55983)_ ## Results Monday, May 23rd, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Ruin Division Semi Final - **Match \#:** 21 - **Match Date:** Monday, May 23rd, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 31,628 - **Oracle Expectations:** Kefka - 58.83% 52 for - 2 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Kefka - 73.34% (18,150 brackets) Before the contest, Wesker over Kefka was supposed to be a reasonable upset pick. After Kefka vs Mithos, Wesker looked like he had the match locked down. After Luca Blight vs Wesker, Wesker went from looking like a possible contender for the division to an absolute joke, and when the time finally came for his match against Kefka, it was officially confirmed. For all the meaningless hype given to this match, Wesker didn't even bother showing up. Kefka flew past 70% of the vote when the poll started, and after Wesker made a minor push to get Kefka under 70%, Kefka recovered, got back over 70%, and proceeded to beat Wesker pillar to post for the rest of the match. Against nearly any other opponent, Kefka's percentage drops throughout the match. Against Wesker, Kefka started above 70% and stayed there. Let me say this again, because even I don't believe it yet. **Kefka** scored *over 70% in a match*. The greatest picture Kefka could have ever gotten may be partly to blame for this, but Wesker being an absolute joke before this match ever took place was a large factor as well. Mithos, the effeminate villain of Tales of Symphonia, would be projected to defeat the main villain of the Resident Evil series if you solely look at their performances against Kefka. That's nothing short of pathetic if you're Wesker, and this match was arguably one of the best performances of the contest. Kefka took a hyped match and made a complete joke out of it almost before the match even began. All of Kefka's other opponents won the day vote on him, but not Wesker. Sad. Next up for Kefka was the winner of Bison/Diablo, and Kefka getting to the divisional finals largely by default was a bit of an issue for him. His fourpack was nothing short of a joke, and his next match would prove whether or not he truly did have any strength. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2009&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=21) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (6)M. Bison vs (7)Diablo 2005 _source: (6)M. Bison vs (7)Diablo 2005 (revid 88857)_ ## Results Tuesday, May 24th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Ruin Division Semi Final - **Match \#:** 22 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, May 24th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 4,866 - **Oracle Expectations:** Diablo - 53.05% 41 for - 14 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Diablo - 30.13% (7,457 brackets) After Albedo/Bison and Ridley/Diablo, the board essentially made Bison their chosen son. Plenty of people around here are fighting game fanatics, and plenty of people were still somewhat bitter over Ridley's loss. Many people had Ridley in the Final Four, and this soon translated into Bison being guaranteed the board vote against Diablo in the match. That's one advantage. Two, there was the match pic. During sprite rounds with video game backgrounds, CJayC gives "home field advantage" to the higher seed. Bison was the higher seed, and thus, we saw a match pic with a Street Fighter 2 background, an Alpha Bison, and a Diablo randomly plugged in out of nowhere. That's another advantage for Bison. Lastly, and most importantly, it was extremely difficult to think that Bison would be weaker than Ridley. It was obvious that Bison would give Diablo a good match, and aside from consolefreak's proof, it was almost impossible to know which way the match would go. You were either rooting for M. Bison or Diablo, and gave random reasons why you thought each character would win; however, it was impossible to know for sure what would happen. When the match first began, Bison got the board vote as expected and started off on fire. However, Diablo quickly recovered and prevented Bison from ever having a vote lead above double digits. Bison tried to break 100 many times in the first hour, and even managed to stave off a massive comeback push from Diablo in the process, but the two characters were essentially deadlocked early on. After the first hour of the poll ended, Bison had a mere lead of 100 votes, but due to what Diablo was able to do against Ridley as well as the wild card known as diabloii.net, it was still anybody's match. Bison made a push soon after this to extend his lead to 150, but that's the best lead he was able to manage throughout the entire match. Diablo began to come back in the match practically the second after Bison took a lead of 150, and though Bison tried his damndest to hold Diablo off in those early morning hours, Diablo was able to catch the morning vote, then tie the match and begin building a lead of his own. Bison tried his best to stall Diablo many times, but the best he was able to manage during the morning vote was just that: stalling. He was never able to truly cut into Diablo's lead, and though Diablo was stalled many times as the morning hours wore on, Diablo was still able to slowly build his lead up to the 1000 vote barrier. However, Bison was not quite done yet. When the morning vote began, it was Bison, not Diablo, that was the beneficiary. He began to come back extremely slowly at first, and it was so subtle that practically no one noticed what was going on. However, when Bison was able to trim Diablo's lead down to 900 with relative speed and momentum behind him, everyone started taking notice of the fact that we finally had a match on our hands. It only took Bison just under 25 minutes to bring Diabo's lead from 1000 to 900, and he wasn't done yet. He continued his Psycho Crusher assault of Diablo, but like the true devil that Diablo is, he wasn't going to simply let Bison have his way. Bison continued cutting into Diablo's lead, however Diablo began to make it far harder on Bison than when Bison first began his comeback efforts. The two characters seemed to be stuck at around the 850 vote barrier forever, until Bison finally went on a massive push to bring the lead to under 800 votes. Diablo seemed to be out of gas at this point, because as soon as his lead was taken down to the 800 mark, it barely took Bison any time at all to slice another 100 votes off of the lead. Bison mania began taking over the board, while there was clear concern coming from Diablo's corner. As if possessed by the Soul Stone itself, Bison continued beating the hell out of Diablo with a relentless assault, and in no time flat, the lead was all the way down to 660. However, as amazing and fast as Bison's comeback attempt was, Diablo's recovery was even better. Diablo began to receive votes as if every Diablo fan on the planet knew he was in trouble, and within a few minutes, Diablo began to turn the tables in the match. If you blinked, you probably missed how fast the turnaround truly was. Diablo, much like Master Hand not too far before him, absolutely caught fire when the after school vote began. At one point before the after school vote, Diablo's lead was 660. One hour later, after the after school vote fully decided who to favor, Diablo's lead was over *twelve. hundred. votes*. It's as if Diablo was toying with Bison before sending him down into the flames of hell, and before long, the match got completely out of hand. Diablo began beating the absolute hell out of Bison, and it wasn't until Diablo's lead was well over 4700 votes did Bison decide to make any sort of attempt at saving face. By by then, it was too little, too late, and even that push was quickly slapped aside by the Satan spinoff. It was yet another close match that turned into a laughingstock, and it made consolefreak look like an absolute genius. There's little to no proof of how or why Diablo was able to catch fire so quickly right in the middle of a heated poll, so I won't even bother trying to explain it. Moving on. #### Interesting Facts - This is one of only three matches in contest history to this point, the other two appearing in the 4x16 format, to occur between two lower seeds. ## Match Trends ## Ed Bellis' Analysis They didn’t call it the Ruin Division for nothing. The villains bracket’s most crazy division featured Kefka as a weak 1-seed and an early matchup between Ridley and Diablo, with a second-round matchup between the winner of that and M. Bison (or, if you were me and stupid, Albedo). Diablo beating Ridley was a huge upset in and of itself, but his match with Bison in Round 2 was even more heated. This match saw lots of lead changes and crazy voting patterns, and after a tough showdown Diablo eventually took home the gold, making Blizzard 2 for 2 on crazy Cinderella runs (Starcraft being the first in the games contest). The only satisfying bit of this for the majority of the board (who had either Ridley or Bison advancing) was watching a troll named Fedor lose his perfect bracket after bragging every which way about it. Hochiminh, take notes. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2010&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=22) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Ganondorf vs (4)Ansem 2005 _source: (1)Ganondorf vs (4)Ansem 2005 (revid 55987)_ ## Results Wednesday, May 25th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Triforce Division Semi Final - **Match \#:** 23 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, May 25th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 38,290 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ganondorf - 78.43% 55 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ganondorf - 88.27% (21,845 brackets) *"Someone with a perfect bracket had Ansem beating Ganondorf. A perfect had*Ansem*beating*Ganondorf*. A **PERFECT** had **ANSEM**-- you get the point."* -Team Rocket Elite And besides that little tidbit, it's RANT TIME. The character in the match picture was not Ganondorf; it was Ganon. If two different forms of the same character are allowed to be in match pictures for said character (Sephiroth, Link, and Cloud are other examples of this), then there is no reason whatsoever that Mega Man should be devoid of a Mega Man X picture in one of these things. After all, CJayC has already said that all forms of the Blue Bomber are essentially the same thing. I know you're reading this topic, Ceej. Use a Mega Man X picture once in awhile. Okay, so you're probably not reading the topic at all. Use a Mega Man X picture every once in awhile, anyway. (Whether or not you believe the above parts of this analysis to be filler in an attempt to put some meat into an otherwise boring match analysis due to the match being pathetic and predictable is entirely up to you.) Anyway, the match. After Ansem defeated CATS, albeit in dramatic fashion, Ansem was expected to clearly defeat Ganondorf. Ansem's victory over CATS plugged into the 2004 stats projected Ansem to defeat Ganondorf with 54.31% of the vote. However, when the match started, we were all shocked to see Ansem getting killed! SHENANIGANS. Oh right, wrong 2004 stats. Anyway, aside from that one guy with the perfect who picked Ansem to win (what in the holy blue oblivion is a perfect doing picking Ansem?), everyone pretty much figured that Ganondorf was going to be a killer in this match, and a killer he was. The only thing you could really draw from this is Ganon doing worse than expected (everyone believed that Ganon would score at least 80% after seeing Ansem's struggle against CATS), but everyone was content blaming his underperformance on the pig pic and waiting for a different match to get excited about. That's.... pretty much it, really. Analyses involving pre-contest locks for the finals doing what they're supposed to tend to suck, but such is life. Work with me, people. Help me help you. *Help me, help you*. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2011&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=23) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (3)Dr. Robotnik vs (7)Master Hand 2005 _source: (3)Dr. Robotnik vs (7)Master Hand 2005 (revid 55989)_ ## Results Thursday, May 26th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Triforce Division Semi Final - **Match \#:** 24 - **Match Date:** Thursday, May 26th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 14,675 - **Oracle Expectations:** Dr Robotnik - 49.19% 22 for - 33 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Dr Robotnik - 35.33% (8,743 brackets) After Master Hand's shocking victory over Kuja, paired with Robotnik's struggle against Sin, a good deal of the board thought it would be hilarious to see Master Hand in the divisional finals. After all, most people had picked Kuja to beat Bastard Hand and were already out of the contest anyway. Why not cause some chaos? It seemed like such a thing would be possible, because there weren't yet any true answers about the strength of any member of this fourpack. Unfortunately, the entire ordeal all turned out to be little more than a pipe dream. When the poll began, despite the board's best efforts to give Master Hand a push for the win, Glove was under 40% within minutes. Robotnik was absolutely killing him, and it was yet another fun match turned fast, boring blowout. At one point early on, Robotnik looked like he would double Master Hand, and the only thing worth talking about in the match was how pathetic this match made Kuja look. Robotnik was proving that Master Hand was barely anything more than a joke entrant, yet that joke entrant managed to take down a 2-seed PSX era Final Fantasy villain. As the match wore on into its final hours, Master Hand made a massive percentage push to get over 40% by the time the poll was said and done, and though this did absolutely nothing in terms of making him (or Kuja) look like any less of a joke, it did allow Master Hand to both save face and to prove that Robotnik was likely far weaker than his first two matches would suggest. You simply don't lose 7% to a joke character throughout a match and expect to get anywhere. As if Robotnik's prediction percentage in his fourpack weren't enough of a tell that he was in for some trouble, this match pretty such sounded his death knell against Ganondorf before the match even started. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2012&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=24) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Bowser vs (3)Revolver Ocelot 2005 _source: (1)Bowser vs (3)Revolver Ocelot 2005 (revid 55991)_ ## Results Friday, May 27th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Mushroom Division Final - **Match \#:** 25 - **Match Date:** Friday, May 27th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 26,221 - **Oracle Expectations:** Bowser - 63.31% 50 for - 1 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Bowser - 69.54% (17,210 brackets) As good as this match looked on paper before the contest started, Bowser turned it into an absolute joke within seconds. Revolver Ocelot was never in this thing, and for a possible pre-contest upset, a 66-34 result was somewhat disappointing. The only real thing of note about the match was the theme for the match picture: head shots of the characters with sprites of their heroes in the background. There isn't much to say about this match besides what's already on the surface, but Ocelot's getting killed raises a few questions here and there. One, Bowser completely rolled through his first three opponents en route to a very easy division victory, but his first two opponents were mere jokes; Ocelot is not. Ocelot may have won his fourpack by default, but this match gives the impression that Bowser may have perhaps been stronger in this contest than in contests past. We have no real 2004 data on Bowser, and a large increase between Summer 2003 and Spring 2005 was not out of the question. Bowser has been in a few good games in that timeframe. There's also the Ocelot/Liquid question, which we wouldn't have to wait long to see answered. Before this contest, the stronger character between Ocelot and Liquid was a good debate, and given Ocelot's bombing in this contest, all Liquid needed to do to both prove his 2004 value and his superiority over Ocelot was to have a good showing against Sephiroth. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility, though we were clearly in for a Bowser/Sephiroth Final Four match, and the question of whether or not Bowser truly did increase would soon be answered. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2013&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=25) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Sephiroth vs (2)Liquid Snake 2005 _source: (1)Sephiroth vs (2)Liquid Snake 2005 (revid 55993)_ ## Results Saturday, May 28th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Jenova Division Final - **Match \#:** 26 - **Match Date:** Saturday, May 28th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 47,522 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 69.39% 52 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sephiroth - 90.90% (22,496 brackets) This is one of those rare matches in which there is a blowout with plenty to talk about. Liquid got killed, and anyone can see this. The problem is that 2004 stats suggest that Liquid should have scored 35% in this match. He quite obviously didn't come anywhere close, despite actually having the lead in the match early on. The "Sephiroth will win anyway so I'm voting against him for the hell of it" vote allowed Liquid to hold a slim lead early, and though everyone knew Sephiroth would have no problems winning, no one expected that Seph would dominate quite like this. Remember all the Ocelot defenders who said that Ocelot could beat Bowser if he were stronger than Liquid? There's true irony in the fact that Ocelot got killed despite very well being stronger than Liquid. Unless Sephiroth absolutely killed Bowser in the Final Four, Liquid would wind up being the weaker of the two. THIS SITUATION SUCKS AND IT IS NOW ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. The obvious problem with Liquid's complete tanking (which many were weary of after his struggle against Lavos) are the adjustments made to the 20XX Division. The only thing I can think of is that Mega Man, Solid Snake, Shadow and Tidus should be adjusted as if there were Link/Mega Man SFF, and the Frog/Liquid/Chief trio left alone. It's tough to imagine Frog and Chief as being where they belong when Liquid is so closely related yet bombs so badly against a character that everyone loves to hate. Something realy strange happened in the lower half of the 20XX Division in Summer 2004, and if I were a betting man I'd say that Frog is to blame. I feel that he vastly overperformed against Solid Snake, but I have nothing to actually back this up other than Snake's crappy match picture. Your guess on what the hell went down in there is as good as mine. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2014&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=26) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Kefka vs (7)Diablo 2005 _source: (1)Kefka vs (7)Diablo 2005 (revid 55995)_ ## Results Sunday, May 29th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Ruin Division Final - **Match \#:** 27 - **Match Date:** Sunday, May 29th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 6,887 - **Oracle Expectations:** Diablo - 50.37% 27 for - 25 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Diablo - 14.76% (3,653 brackets) **ATTN**: All people who thought Diablo couldn't make a Starcraft-like run in this contest. /ban With that out of the way, this match was actually pretty good early on. The problem is that even though Kefka was able to quickly jump out to an early lead of nearly 300 votes, practically no one on the board throught that he would hold on for the win. Diablo smashed both Ridley and M. Bison with the day vote, and given that Kefka was quickly stalled by Diablo after the board vote wore off, practically everyone knew what was coming next; sure enough, Diablo was able to stall Kefka and begin cutting into his lead. Kefka tried his best to hold Diablo off, but attempting to postpone the inevitable rarely works. Diablo caught up to Kefka at 8 AM, and Kefka barely made any effort to prevent Diablo from running away with the poll. This would have been somewhat unexpected had we not seen Diablo do the exact same thing to Bison one match prior, and by the time the match was over, a close match early became a laugher late. And since Ganondorf was a lock for the Final Four already, we had some interesting info regarding Diablo. With the exception of Mega Man, Diablo is the only non-Square, non-Nintendo character to ever make the Final Four. The prediction percentage of 14.76% is also the lowest we've seen since Starcraft vs SSBM in Spring 2004. Diablo may have had little chance against Ganondorf in his next match, but he made quite the run in this contest en route to stealing his division away from everyone else in it. The only question remaining was whether or not Diablo was the strongest character in a group of rats, or the strongest character in a group of legitimately strong characters. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2015&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=27) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Ganondorf vs (3)Dr. Robotnik 2005 _source: (1)Ganondorf vs (3)Dr. Robotnik 2005 (revid 88858)_ ## Results Monday, May 30th, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Triforce Division Final - **Match \#:** 28 - **Match Date:** Monday, May 30th, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 46,370 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ganondorf - 64.05% 51 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ganondorf - 76.78% (19,002 brackets) Earlier in this analysis I bashed Mega Man for constantly flopping. Sonic's turn to be in the sun, because after seeing Robotnik's performance in this match, one could argue that the only Sonic character to actually impress in these contests is Shadow the Hedgehog. Yes Robotnik won twice, but getting killed against real competition does not mean he impressed overall. In 2002, three Sonic characters made the contest: Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Tails was up against Alucard in the very first round, and at the time, no one knew who the hell Alucard even was. Tails responds by losing in a match that he was never in, though it was close by 2002 standards. Knuckles was next, and though he managed the first 80% blowout we'd ever seen, he turned around and proceeded to get killed by Solid Snake. It wouldn't be the last time, either. That left Sonic, a massive board favorite to make the finals in a duel against Mario, as the only character in the field to give any sort of respect to the Sonic series. He responds by winning his first two matches easily before one of the most shocking meltdowns we've ever seen in one of these contests. Sonic struggled. Against Samus. Sonic was supposed to be a character capable of taking down Mario, yet he struggles with *Samus*. Not only that, but he lost a lead of 1500 votes within the final three hours. Enter Summer 2003. Tails once again loses in the first round, and Knuckles is once again stuck in the same fourpack as Solid Snake. Knuckles is stuck facing Yuna first, and after the poll was deadlocked at a lead of 1000 votes for Knuckles for a few hours, Knuckles caught the day vote and won with ease. Again, he gets killed by Snake in the second round. This once again leaves Sonic as the one character who could possibly bring respect to the series, but before we get to him, there was a newcomer to the contest field, Shadow the Hedgehog, who had to see some action. Plenty of people expected Wario to beat Shadow in that contest with ease due to the release of Wario World, yet Shadow completely maimed him en route to a second round match against Mario in which he not only refused to get killed, but nearly broke 45%. What does Sonic do? He lands a good win over Ken in a 2-15 match, struggles with Zero, struggles with Aeris, and gets murdered by Cloud. Absolutely destroyed. They're still trying to pick up the pieces of Sonic that Cloud left behind in that match, and the only Sonic character to go out on a high note in 2003 was Shadow. Enter Spring 2004. Only one Sonic game got into the contest, and instead of making its second round match against Mario World interesting, Sonic 2 decided to perform like absolute crap en route to a 70-30 loss. It took Tails until Summer 2004 to get his first contest win, and it was a close one against Viewtiful Joe in the first round. It took until Summer 2004 for Knuckles to actually break 40% on Solid Snake, and this was after losing the early part of his first round match to Lettuce Kefka and needing the morning vote to beat him. Oh yeah, Sonic. He decided to split the early part of his poll with Ryu 50-50, then in a rematch against Samus, Sonic completely choked. Again. Except this time he wasn't actually in the match and decided to simply roll over and kill himself. Once again, the only Sonic character to go out on a high note was Shadow. He lost his first round match by a mere 1400 votes, though some would argue that a loss to "Tee-dus" isn't exactly a high note. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, so instead of wasting time ranting about how Robotnik completely laid an egg (hardy har har) in his match against Ganondorf, I'll simply slap up the "proper" Triforce Division seeding as per the Triforce results and let you draw your own conclusions. (1)Ganondrf (8)Giygas (4)Dr. Robotnik (5)Sin (3)CATS (6)Master Hand (2)Ansem (7)Kuja Oh screw it, I'm trashing him anyway. Robotnik, like many a Sonic character before him, completely embarrassed himself by the time he exited the contest. Not that anyone actually expected him to beat Ganon in the first place, but Robotnik lost so badly that CATS... *CATS*... looks stronger in the Spring 2005 Contest than he does. That's nothing short of pathetic, and congrats to Ganon for making the rest of his division look like mere ants in his presence. By killing Robotnik the way he did, not only did we get to see yet another Sonic character look like a complete loser, but he made the rest of his division look like an absolute joke in comparison. And he did this with his ugly Wind Waker mug. I shudder to think how pathetic Robotnik would have looked (assuming he could have actually looked worse in the first place) had we seen SSBM Ganondorf in the match pic. It takes a true talent to make CATS look like the third strongest character in a division. Congratulations, Dr. Robotnik, for making this happen and bringing further embarrassment to your once-iconic-now-niche series. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2016&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=28) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Bowser vs (1)Sephiroth 2005 _source: (1)Bowser vs (1)Sephiroth 2005 (revid 88859)_ ## Results Tuesday, May 31st, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Tournament Semi Final - **Match \#:** 29 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, May 31st, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 18,593 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 66.58% 48 for - 0 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sephiroth - 85.03% (21,043 brackets) There are few things to actually note about this match, since Sephiroth wasn't going to actually lose it. Thankfully, this match treated us to arguably the best thing we'll ever see in one of these contests. Bowser took the early lead on Sephiroth, but unlike the typical Sephiroth opponent, Bowser was actually able to hold on for a few minutes. It eventually led to this piece of perfection in the stats topic: From: Heroic Mario \| Posted: 5/31/2005 8:09:21 AM \| Message Detail Bowser 50% 500 Sephiroth 50% 500 TOTAL VOTES 1000 Hot damn! There were about 10 of these posts, all within a second or two of each other, all with the exact same content. It was the stuff of legend. Everyone was well aware that it wouldn't last and that Sephiroth would eventually pull away for an easy win, but it didn't actually matter much. The only thing to really draw from this match outside of the crazy 1000 vote sample and the awesome match pic was this poll: [](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1363-south-division-final-mario-vs-sephiroth) Either Bowser increased between 2003 and this contest, Sephiroth was the direct benefit of the Mario/Crono 2003 after effect, or there was a massive anti-voting of Sephiroth in this match that made Bowser look stronger than he really was. As for which are valid, your guess is as good as mine. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2017&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=29) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (7)Diablo vs (1)Ganondorf 2005 _source: (7)Diablo vs (1)Ganondorf 2005 (revid 56001)_ ## Results Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Tournament Semi Final - **Match \#:** 30 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 26,503 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ganondorf - 60.34% 46 for - 4 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Ganondorf - 56.56% (13,997 brackets) Diablo made quite the run in this contest, but he came to a complete brick wall in the Final Four. This was the point in the contest where everyone pretty much started packing their bags and accepting the fact that the excitement was over. Diablo was out of this match within seconds, and despite a minor push in the middle of the match that brought Ganondorf from 65% to 63%, it was nothing legendary and we all knew that we were up for the predetermined final that we all knew would happen all along: Sephy over Ganon. The only things I can even think to say about this match aside from the obvious fact that Ganon won was how dominant Ganon was in his matches. None of his matches were even close, and though he had little chance in the final, it was likely that he would do a little better with early Sephy anti-voting than Bowser. But only 56.56% of people picked Ganon to make the finals? The hell? ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2018&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=30) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## (1)Sephiroth vs (1)Ganondorf 2005 _source: (1)Sephiroth vs (1)Ganondorf 2005 (revid 56003)_ ## Results Thursday, June 2nd, 2005 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Tournament Final - **Match \#:** 31 - **Match Date:** Thursday, June 2nd, 2005 - **Vote difference:** 16,907 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 57.28% 48 for - 3 against - **GameFAQs Prediction:** Sephiroth - 76.51% (18,935 brackets) It all came down to this, and thankfully, we got to see a decent show early. Ganon took the early lead, and though he lost it after a few minutes, we at least got to see something decent in the finals. Ganon even made a minor comeback attempt before finally falling under for good. The only thing left to do from there was to see whether or not Ganon would outperform Bowser, whether or not the match would hit 100,000 votes (which would be the only 100k match in the contest), and to see how the final Xsts would go down. I'd go into long detail about how the match broke 100,000 votes and how Ganon outperformed Bowser, but you can see that for yourselves =p The only thing this match truly did help prove is that there was something amiss in this contest's voting trend, and I only hope it carries over into the summer. In Sephiroth's first three matches, he absolutely dominated; just ask Liquid whether or not Seph was having any problems dominating this contest. But come Bowser and Ganondorf, Sephiroth fails to break even 60%. Anti-voting can be blamed somewhat for this, but not that much. I think that this contest's voting trend was packed with franchise voting, which would help explain Ganon and Bowser's surge. But then you look at Ocelot and Liquid and wonder if this is the truly the case. Then again, Bowser and Ganon are main villains in mainstream GameFAQs series, so it's tough to call either way. It's an effect that we all know exists, but can't quite explain yet. Hopefully we'll get some answers over the summer. Post-contest poll: **Is Sephiroth truly the greatest video game villain of all time?** Yep, there's nobody badder 44.61% 36655 No way, Ganondorf was much worse 24.31% 19977 Yeah right, Diablo's where it's at 7.07% 5808 Hardly, Kefka should have won it 11.54% 9485 All my base are belong to **CATS 12.46%** 10235 TOTAL VOTES 82160 I'd sure as hell love to know why Kefka was in that poll and not Bowser. Did CJayC completely forget about Bowser making it into the Final Four? And judging by Bowser's spot on the bracket, I can only assume he got more nominations than anyone else. One of these days, CJayC will crack and show us the results of the nominations. Hopefully. ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=2019&num=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k5&type=match&match=31) • **Previous Match**       • **No Next Match**