# Character Battle VII (2008) _Board 8 wiki -- CC BY-SA 3.0. Contest overview plus 64 match writeups, in match order. Converted from MediaWiki to Markdown; navigation, image embeds and footnotes stripped. See ATTRIBUTION.md._ --- ## Fall 2008 Contest _source: Fall 2008 Contest (revid 85867)_ *This was named Article of the Week in September of 2008.* | Announced: | August 8, 2008 | |------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Started: | September 18, 2008 | | Ended: | November 19, 2008 | | Winner: | Winner: Link Runner-up: Solid Snake | | Contest Winner: | Strykr017 - 624 points | | Notable matches: | Marth/Duke/Niko/Kefka Squall/Sora/Yoshi/Fox Crono/Pikachu/L-Block/Alucard Snake/Cube/Mega Man/Zero Samus/Crono/Vincent/Pikachu Sephiroth/Kirby/Sonic/Dante Snake/Cloud/Kirby/Sephiroth Link/Snake/Cloud/Crono | **Summer 2008 Contest** **Fall 2008 Contest** was the seventh GameFAQs character tournament held on GameFAQs. However, many veteran members of Board 8 still call it the **Summer 2008 Contest**. ## Ulti's Pre-Contest Analysis For the wiki readers, this PCA is going to seem very odd. The reason for that is because I'm writing this over a decade after the fact, in 2020 of all years, because I was so disgusted at the thought of another LOL 4-ways contest that I almost quit doing this for good. The results are fun, but I detested the format. I actually did quit for awhile, but the games contest brought me back in. If the contest following this one didn't involve video games themselves instead of characters, I probably would have quit for good. Shows you how much I prefer games themselves over characters for me to bother with a PCA for another 4-way after this one, but I digress. 12 years later, I finally have the time and the motivation to do this thing. It won't be perfect and it'll have some strange references, not to mention it'll be missing some of the usual live anecdotes, but it's better than just having this gaping hole missing in the data. I wish I had found the will to do this earlier, but hey. It happens. There are multiple matches for 2008 that have no writeups, and as much as I hated the 4-ways, in skimming back over the contest a lot of the matches are fun enough to write about. So I figured what the heck, LFG(!) and do this thing. You wouldn't know it to read Board 8 in 2020, but believe it or not, the people here used to have something called a "sense of humor". You know how most people here are feverishly against rallies and joke characters nowadays? Well back in the mid 2000s, most of the same people were all on board. You had the occasional stick in the mud like red13n or Leonhart4 whining about rallies and jokesters even back then, but by and large Board 8 used to love this stuff. It showed in the nominations and final bracket. Ngamer was nice enough to tally it all up for us: I mean look at this list. It's absurd to peek back on. 16 nominations for Tim from Braid. 33 for L-Block, even with a bunch of people rooting for it to lose later on once things got going. A bunch of other stuff that is just so out of place that it made 2008 "the fad contest". The bracket had the typical heavy hitters spread out everywhere, but the big story going into this thing was the utterly insane number of joke characters, fodder, and off-the-wall nonsense. The entire internet got in on the L-Block joke in 2007, and it felt like the internet wanted to keep the laughs going a year later. And why not? L-Block's run was the stuff of legends, because it happened back before the days of social media bandwagons and easy rallies. That thing slowly built momentum, and then exploded at just the right time. We've had rallies since then, some of which I'm in love with, but none quite like L-Block. Only Undertale's run is really comparable to what L-Block did. If you read all this and find it ridiculous, go look at the vote totals and site traffic data from back then and compare it to now. I was proven right long term, and frankly it was easy to see coming. Rallies are better for contests. End of story. I will always call those who say otherwise a bunch of liars, because I refuse to believe anyone actually enjoys contests that struggle to hit 30,000 votes in a poll. Back in 2008, every poll broke at least 121,000 votes. Most did even better. Compare that to the most recent contest that happened before I felt like writing this all up. Here is a semifinal match that was hyped up all contest long: 26,000 votes. That is an embarrassment. That's part of what drove me to get this done. That and having a missing PCA. In the interest of full disclosure, I was originally going to go on a huge rant about hopeful 20-somethings on the board being really idealistic and happy a decade ago, and then growing up to be unsuccessful 30-somethings stuck in the mire of joyless, liberal, woke identity politics and parlay that into why all the same people went from enjoying rallies and jokes to now hating them all. It was going to be really mean and obnoxious, but a friend of mine dying of covid last night put some perspective on things. I just don't have it in me to do that stuff anymore. I debated not including this paragraph at all, but hey, PCAs always have random nonsense in them ;) There will be rants though, no worries, just not those kinds of rants. Life is too short to spend it being miserable. The other major story of this contest was Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and the utterly insane effect it had on the bracket this year. I'm saving a lot of that for the actual matches involved, but trust me, if you weren't there for the obscene amounts of hype that game got before release, there is no possible way to quantify it. "You had to be there" is overused, but it applies here. It's like trying to describe the hype for Infinity War or Endgame. There is just no way. You had to be there. ## Ulti's Post-Contest Analysis Post-Contest I hinted at it many times in these writeups, but this format SUCKS! It killed so much of the fun, it caused so many weird upsets that would have been far better as 1v1s, and it just sucked so much air out of the room. I know people will look at the vote totals then and now and think we're having first world problems, but this contest could have been sooooo much better. I mean come on people, it took me 12 years to sit down and write all this up. Me, the guy who lives to write PCAs every year, even for contests that are legendarily awful like Years and Rivalry Rumble. Contest ranking up until this disaster: Spring 2004 (Games) Summer 2002 (Characters) Summer 2003 (Characters) Summer 2005 (Characters) Summer 2007 (4-way Characters) Summer 2006 (Female Bracket) Spring 2006 (Series) Summer 2008 (4-way Characters) Summer 2004 (Characters) Spring 2005 (Villains) No ultimate loser with this 4way junk. Sorry it took so long to write this! ## 2008 Contest Detailed Stat Listings - Board 8's 2008 Nominations - Summer 2008 Total Nominations - Board 8's 2008 Match Pics \| R2 and following - Most Surprising Results of 2008 - Most Impressive Performances of 2008 - Most Disappointing Performances of 2008 - Summer 2008 Match Trends - Summer 2008 X-Stats ### See Also - 2008 Contest Matches - detailed write-ups on every '08 Contest poll - Board 8 on the 2008 Summer Leaderboard - final Top 50 standings with info on what users are from B8 - Summer 2008 1v1 Bracket
Contest Bracket
Division 1 Link Zack Mario Mega Man X Link Mario Samus Crono Link Crono Snake Cloud Link Snake
Cecil Harvey Jade Curtiss Wario Zack Fair Zack Wario Link Zidane Link Zack Duke Altair
Link Luke fon Fabre Shadow the Hedgehog Zidane Tribal
Duke Nukem Kefka Marth Niko Bellic Marth Duke Nukem Altair Lucario
Altair Guybrush Threepwood Isaac Lucario
Division 2
Liquid Snake Luigi Roxas Sho Minamimoto Luigi Liquid Snake Bowser Phoenix Liquid Snake Luigi Mario Mega Man X
Bowser Deckard Cain Geno Phoenix Wright
Fei Fong Wong Knuckles the Echidna Mario Zelda Mario Zelda Mega Man X Mudkip
Lloyd Irving Mudkip Tom Nook Mega Man X
Division 3 Samus Vincent Crono Pikachu
Crash Bandicoot Nightmare Raz Samus Aran Samus Nightmare Ganondorf Frog Samus Ganondorf Vincent Gordon
Frog Ganondorf KOS-MOS Neku Sakuraba
Falco Lombardi GlaDOS Vincent Valentine Wander Vincent Falco Scorpion Gordon
Balthier Bunansa Big Daddy Gordon Freeman Scorpion
Division 4
Amaterasu Crono Frank West Kaim Argonar Crono Amaterasu L-Block Ryu SF Crono L-Block Pikachu Alucard
L-Block Meta Knight Ryu (Street Fighter) The Dog
Alucard Captain Falcon Diddy Kong Kratos Aurion Alucard Falcon Pikachu Arthas
Arthas Menethil Ike Pikachu Spy
Division 5 Snake Cube Cloud Mewtwo Cloud Snake Sephiroth Kirby
Donkey Kong Miles 'Tails' Prower Tidus Weighted Companion Cube Cube Tidus Mega Man Nero Mega Man Cube Snake Zero
Banjo Captain Olimar Mega Man Nero
King Dedede Pit Ryu Hayabusa Zero Ryu H Zero Solid Snake Vivi
Albert Wesker Sackboy Solid Snake Vivi Ornitier
Division 6
Chris Redfield Fox McCloud Sora Tim Sora Fox Squall Yoshi Squall Sora Cloud Mewtwo
CATS Nathan Drake Squall Leonhart Yoshi
Axel Steel Cloud Strife Midna Miles Edgeworth Cloud Midna Mewtwo Pac-Man
Mewtwo Ness Pac-Man Travis Touchdown
Division 7 Kirby Dante Sephiroth Sonic
Big Boss Jinjo Kirby Lucas Big Boss Kirby Master Chief Raiden Kirby Master Chief Dante Leon
Kain Highwind Master Chief Professor Layton Raiden
Captain MacMillan Leon Kennedy Riku Siegfried Schtauffen Leon Kennedy Riku Dante Hogger
Dante Hogger Laharl Ramza Beoulve
Division 8
Commander Shepard Magus Sandbag Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic Sandbag Auron Sub Zero Auron Sonic Sephiroth Kratos
Auron Marcus Fenix Rydia Sub-Zero
Nana Ratchet Sephiroth Tifa Lockheart Sephiroth Tifa Kratos Jill
Heavy Jill Valentine Kratos Revolver Ocelot
--- ## Cecil Harvey vs Jade Curtiss vs Wario vs Zack Fair 2008 _source: Cecil Harvey vs Jade Curtiss vs Wario vs Zack Fair 2008 (revid 85759)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, September 18th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 1 - **Match \#:** 1 - **Match Date:** Thursday, September 18th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Wario - 35.12% Zack Fair - 32.94% Cecil Harvey - 22.14% Jade Curtiss - 9.81% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Zack first place (2pts) - 23.36% Zack second place (1pt) - 32.72% Wario second place (2pts) - 31.59% Wario first place (1pt) - 43.97% - **Advancing Prediction:** Zack - 56.08% (24,060) Wario - 75.56% (32,418) To this day I don't know or care whether or not Tales of the Abyss is any good, despite actually owning the game. At some point I should log all the games I own that I haven't played yet, but to the point. This match had two major stories in it. One was how utterly goofy it was as a first match for a contest. In every contest leading up to this one, the first match winner, in order: Mario, Link, Mario 3, Link, Bowser, Mario, The Legend of Zelda's series, Samus, and Yoshi. Yoshi is a clear oddball in that bunch, and then this match happened. Cecil, Jade, Wario, and Zack isn't exactly the murderer's row that is LinkMarioSamus, yet here they were in all their glory setting the tone for the entire contest. And set the tone they did. That is a ridiculous vote total. Jade getting blown out is who cares, but I did a little homework here. If you plop Cecil's 22142 votes into the 2020 games contest, only Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey have any individual performances that are better. Isn't it nuts how far we ended up falling? A little falloff is okay, but looking back on the old polls really makes it eye-opening. The other story was Wario and Zack. Board 8 is a smart bunch, and after an entire contest where we all screwed up our fourway picks by underestimating overlapping fanbases, we all adjusted accordingly. Most of us saw Cecil and Zack in a poll together with Wario sticking out like a sore thumb, we had all played Brawl for the entire year, and we penned in Wario \> Zack and moved on. A few people didn't think Cecil would hurt Zack at all and got rewarded for it big time. This poll was close for a couple minutes, but then Zack just annihilated these clowns. We would see in later rounds it was no fluke, either, but more on that when it comes time for ZackFAQs. As of this match, there wasn't much evidence that this wasn't just Zack strutting all over a bunch of garbage. It's not like Cecil and Wario have ever been worth much. Wario may have gotten second place here and advanced in the contest, but this was just an embarrassing performance by him. I know people who have played those WarioWare games defend them to death, but let's not pretend the vast majority of his popularity doesn't come from Smash -- and given Brawl plus the massive Nintendo boost, Wario should have handled his business. Let's not pretend Crisis Core was any good, either. Zack is an amazing character, but his game is garbage. I will never be convinced otherwise. Crisis Core was so bad I can't even bothered to review it, and that's WITH abusing Costly Punch to speed through it. This was just the start. The real king was coming in match \#2. ## Stats and Analysis - Zack overperformed by **+11.70%**, the **\#3**most impressive performance of 2008 - Cecil underperformed by **-5.79%**, the **\#8** most disappointing performance of 2008 - Jade underperformed by **-3.89%**, the **\#25** most disappointing performance of 2008 Last year's Round 1 was only a warmup. THIS was the most debated match of any contest's Round 1, ever. In all honesty, it will probably always will be. It was easily debated more than ANY other potential match, period - other than the natural continuation of it NEXT round. And of course, it was all due to one character - Mr. Buster Sword, Black-Haired Cloud, the TRUE hero of Final Fantasy VII - ZACK FAIR. (aka Zack UNfair, Zack Attack, aka "I'll Crisis your Core"). This one character, given all of about five minutes of screentime in FF7 - most of it in optional, out of the way sequences - and his own game on that juggernaut of portable systems, the PSP. ...okay. So with any other character, Zack being uber-fodder would have been a given. But because he had the FF7 pedigree, because he's the spitting image of Cloud and bore his sword, and because Random Piece of Final Fantasy VII furniture would probably have won the contest this year, he was given all the consideration in the world, and then some. There were some that warned of him being the next Balthier, or worse - some had Zack so low as to fall to Cecil. Most had him losing to Wario here, and Zack vs Shadow was considered THE match of Division 1. Get it right, and you get who got out of the division correct. Well, after enough discussion that even thinking about it now still brings on a migraine, the match was at hand. And upon looking at the picture, Zack had everything going his way - not only did he have the Buster Sword prominently displayed in his picture, it's probably more accurate to say his picture WAS more the Buster Sword. Zack had zero excuses. ...and he didn't need them, because he started off the match on fire and didn't let up. Wario, who advanced to Round 2 last year behind Fox and getting his debut in SSBB, got absolutely CURBSTOMPED en route to a routing, and the first big conventional wisdom in the contest - BrawlFEAR - was suddenly in terrible doubt (funny how since I popularized that term, none of its subjects have really warranted the terror, huh?). Zack, despite Cecil in the match, looked better than even his most ardent supporters had expected - and that luster would only glow brighter once the rest of the field started performing. But that would be seen later. Wario, for his part, had no excuse - no matter how strong Zack was, the only Nintendo option in the match should look somewhat good, right? The last thing to note about this match was how Cecil did - absolutely pitifully. This was perhaps to be expected considering what he did last time, but between FF4 DS and him having a more recognizable picture this time, it was perhaps not unwarranted to expect more. And after what the rest of FF4 did this contest, I have to postulate that Zack had a pretty fair (oh I slay myself) amount of overlap with Cecil here. That was downright scary. The rumblings began - could he make it into the semifinals? Against Mario and Mega Man X? Time would only tell. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Wario's a chump, and everyone knows it. But he has a few things going for him here... he's out of those suspenders and into his (slightly) cooler biker gear, he's been in Brawl since we've last seen him, and most importantly he sticks out like a sore thumb against all these long haired efeminine J-RPG leads. When you're Nintendo, there's nothing better than being able to stand out in a crowd! Weird to predict Zack for second, as he's going to ride Link's wake all the way through to the final of this division according to my bracket, but as I explained, he's bound to be held back by having so many other Final Fantasy/RPG options in the lineup. So even though I think his Buster Sword and Looks Like Cloud advantage should be enough to easily defeat Cecil, Wario should have just what it takes to edge him. As for Jade, pffffffffffffffft. There's never been a character in history we needed to see less than Jade. We're talking about a guy who managed less than 8 and a half percent against Balthier, Ada, and Frank West, a guy who is quite possibly the weakest entrant we've experienced since Tanner Himself. Why anyone would expect him to score more than 8% here is beyond me. So with those points in mind, these percents pretty much create themselves! - Wario - 35.55% - Zack Fair - 34.75% - Cecil - 22.56% - Jade Curtiss - 7.14% And there you have it. Looking forward to another exciting season! Ngamer Says: **Wario \> Zack** ### Next Day Review Ouch, Crew season is only just underway and already we've made a mistake! Well, I think our readers had better get used to it- even assuming the joke characters don't rise up and sting us, this is an extremely tricky bracket that I think will be full of surprises right down to the wire. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3244&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=1) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=1) • **(No Previous Match)**       • **Next Match** • **(No Previous Round)**       • **Next Round** --- ## Link vs Luke fon Fabre vs Shadow the Hedgehog vs Zidane Tribal 2008 _source: Link vs Luke fon Fabre vs Shadow the Hedgehog vs Zidane Tribal 2008 (revid 85763)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, September 19th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 1 - **Match \#:** 2 - **Match Date:** Friday, September 19th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 60.75% Shadow the Hedgehog - 18.75% Zidane Tribal - 14.90% Luke fon Fabre - 5.83% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Link first place (2pts) - 94.68% Link second place (1pt) - 3.14% Zidane second place (2pts) - 36.34% Zidane first place (1pt) - 1.92% - **Advancing Prediction:** Link - 97.82% (41,968) Zidane - 38.26% (16,415) Whenever Link loses a contest, and his loss in 2007 was the stuff of legends, he comes out next time in total eff you mode. Spoilers, if we combine him and his series of games, there are only two spots where he failed to be a champ twice in a row. Once was back during the Summer 2003 - Spring 2004 era. The other was the Fall 2013 - Fall 2015 era. I'll let you decide which of those is more "legitimate", but the point is Link came out this year on some Patriots 2007 noise, only he didn't have the 18-1 choke job looming. Link was winning this match. He was going to win this contest outside of a miracle. We all knew that. The real story was Shadow the Hedgehog's choke job. Most gurus have "their worst pick ever", and mine is probably picking Shadow to get through three rounds. I wasn't alone in doing it, but given what we know now it just sticks out as particularly egregious. But back in 2008, it was totally defensible. I swear! Remember, back then we only had this to work with: We also had Zidane stinking up the joint in 2007, and Final Fantasy 9 didn't even make the field in the 2004 games contest. There was a lot of doubt as to whether he was more popular than Tidus, who went 50-50 with our friend here. So for those who look back and see the silly guru number of 92% picking Shadow, I swear it made perfect sense. I'll also point out that I knew a weird run was coming from this part of the bracket; I just picked the wrong character to do it! :) When this match started and Zidane started to easily run away with second place, there was a lot of shock and awe setting in, but it was a pleasant shock. Board 8 loves Final Fantasy 9, so seeing a game we stan for pulling a huge upset was awesome. He built up a 2000 vote lead by morning, and once the morning vote hit and nothing happened, all fear of him being a choking dog like Magus drifted away -- and just wait until we get to that debacle later. Shadow would at least go out fighting. He was down by 3700 when the after school vote hit, and would end up only losing by 3000. Which was great and all, but it would still end up going down as one of the all-time contest choke jobs. Shadow would never recover from this, either. As of this writing, in the years following this all-time choke, Shadow's one and only contest win would end up being against something named Kat and some useless trash from Persona 4 in a 3-way match. Beyond that it's just a lot of nothing, and it all started right here. And for the love of all things, can we PLEASE stop putting Fails of in every contest? The games are fun and all, but Black Turtle is not wrong on this. The entire series is a waste of contest space outside of Tales of Symphonia getting like 5 minutes of run. Enough is enough. ## Stats and Analysis - Zidane advancing was the **\#5** most surprising result of Round 1 I was so caught up in the whirlwind of ZackFAQs in the last writeup that I forgot to mention Jade Curtiss, the TotA fan-favorite that despite his absolutely wretched performance last year... somehow made it in AGAIN this year. His performance was simply ghastly, and now we came to the main character making an appearance in this match... with LINK. With Jade being the logical Kratos to Jade's Lloyd (seriously, Jade made it in last year when Luke didn't), it was easy to assume that Luke would be made into the next Neo-Tanner. Unfortunately, we neglected to take TSF into account - yes, The Sword Factor. With a big ol' slashy thing held up high and his mouth agape, Luke was a FAR more appealing option to the casual gamer than Jade's standing around and looking smug. And who knows, he might actually be more appealing in his own game, Crono/Magus style. I find it hard to believe that Xenogears' Citan is more popular than Fei, too. Anyway, Luke only performed like bad fodder here, instead of, well, Jade-level fodder. Oh, there was something else here, wasn't there? Oh yeah - SHADOW. This was supposed to be easy for Shadow. This was a formality, a measure of how well Shadow would beat up on high-end fodder before his confrontation with Zack. And he was going to have to pull out the stops today after what Zack did, but still - this was Zidane. Shadow had nearly beaten TIDUS back in 2004, and the unbeloved main character of FFX trumps the unbeloved main character of FFIX no question, right? So aside from the occasional upset rumbling that Link might affect Shadow and that Sonic Team sucks in the format from a select few people (ie yours truly!), this was going to be another Alucard/Liquid/Ness/Zidane. That was probably Zidane's best shot to advance in a match, and he couldn't pull it off. Well, it all fell apart here. After the bracket vote wore off - very quickly, this board hates Shadow - Zidane was in control. BIG control. And he rode it to a very easy, very anti-climactic win to make the showdown... Zack vs Zidane? There were some that argued Zidane had a chance here - and really, after this upset, you couldn't put it 100% out of reach - but it was hard to reason. FF7 vs any other FF rarely works out well for the other FF. Zidane would have to hope Zack not having his Buster Sword prominently displayed and some fan-favoritism would push him over the top, but even that was pushing it. As for Shadow, pretty much everything that was postulated came to pass... Sonic Team really WAS that bad in this format, and Sonic characters were basically Nintendo characters at this point. Because there was no way that Sonic Team was really just THAT BAD... right? ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Moltar isn't breathing down my neck tonight, so I'm going to deliver a true treat (and one that I didn't really get to do last night despite my promise): my full Oracle thought process! We begin with Last Known Values - Link - 59.90% (2007) - Luke - Unknown - Shadow - 25.05% (2007) - Zidane - 15.71% (2007) This is Luke's first rodeo, but since he's Tales and super niche and we've already seen Jade drop the ball with one of the worst showings in history, I'm going to just go ahead and assign him Jade's awful value from last year of 5.44. Now Link's value in '07 ended up being a guesstimate due to L-Block weirdness, but oh well, we know he's well over 50 and will be decimating this crowd regardless, so let's just leave it. Shadow's value seems a touch high... but now that I look at it, he DID best Pyramid Head by over 10%, so I guess that's about right for him in R1. However he totally collapsed once the tougher competition arrived in R2, and Link's a one man tough competition group, so when you add in the Nintendo/Sonic Team crossover factor I don't see Shadow performing too far above the fodder line here. Zidane's 16 is based off that really disappointing performance he had against Alucard/Lake/Ness. I guess you can forgive part of that since he was against two other PSX characters, but honestly, I think that was a pretty good indication that the guy is high end fodder, in this or any other format. Still though I'll give him a slight boost because Square always brings its A game against big Nintendo. So we take that all into consideration, adjust the values accordingly, throw it into the pot and after a few minutes of stirring we see... - Link - 61.39% - Shadow the Hedgehog - 19.05% - Zidane Tribal - 14.13% - Luke fon Fabre - 5.44% Lookin' good! Ngamer Says: **Link \> Shadow** ### Next Day Review Oh wow... Wario and Zack I could have seen going either way, but I was so confident in Shadow that I nearly called that result a lock in my Impressions topic a week back or so. Quite the surprise, and it leaves the Crew 0 for 2 heading into... the most unpredictable poll of the entire first round! Uh oh! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3245&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=2) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=2) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** • **(No Previous Round)**       • **Next Round** --- ## Duke Nukem vs Kefka vs Marth vs Niko Bellic 2008 _source: Duke Nukem vs Kefka vs Marth vs Niko Bellic 2008 (revid 85765)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, September 20th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 1 - **Match \#:** 3 - **Match Date:** Saturday, September 20th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Marth - 28.56% Niko Bellic - 25.41% Kefka - 24.28% Duke Nukem - 21.84% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Marth first place (2pts) - 19.83% Marth second place (1pt) - 29.09% Duke second place (2pts) - 21.04% Duke first place (1pt) - 30.68% - **Advancing Prediction:** Marth - 48.92% (20,988) Duke - 51.72% (22,189) This is one of the weirdest matches to look back on in 2020, and I legit feel like my eyes are lying to me. Marth winning a debated match? Kefka in last place behind a GTA character without being portrayed as a vegetable? Duke Nukem pulling whatever the hell he pulled here? This was just all kinds of wild, and the match itself was also borderline ridiculous. This thing would be mentioned with the titans of contest lore if it had any meaning beyond round 1 fun. First, the pre-hype. I remember how heavily debated this match was pre-contest, which always tends to happen with these weird round one fodder matches for some reason. Marth was the runaway consensus favorite thanks to BrawlFEAR, which in and of itself was the precursor to the not yet seen PokeFEAR (skip to 2010 for more on that). The real fun came in trying to figure out who would win second place. There was a lot of arguing about whether or not it would be Kefka or Niko Bellic. Niko was an untested GTA character, and the last time people had faith in one of those, well.... RacistFAQs was born. But fine, a lot of people just figured RacistFAQs was real and went back to 2003, when Tommy Vercetti made his debut. Vercetti wasn't some amazing character or anything, but he won a couple matches and went even with Donkey Kong. He also had that all-timer against Kefka in 2005, which to this day is one of the most flagrant examples of Smurf's vote stuffing we'd ever seen: Well Vercetti beat Kefka there, and Niko's game (GTA4) is a lot more popular than Vice City, so it stands to reason Niko should have been stronger than him. It's not like Kefka had done much of anything to instill confidence to this point, but you could go either way. What next to no one expected however was Duke Nukem going totally insane from out of literally nowhere. And I mean literally no where. Duke Nukem Forever's development cycle was so long and became such a meme that CJayC put him on a milk carton in his 2004 match picture against Cloud. Duke's entire contest history leading to this match was a fodder win over Iori Yagami (who?), a fluke victory over perennial contest choke artists Ike and Gordon Freeman, and whole lot of getting his ass whipped. Unless you bought into the 2007 result proving Duke is some hidden 4way star, there was zero indication this was coming. None. The early parts of this match were all kinds of nutty, but Marth pulled away for his expected first place finish. Past him, it was a bloodbath. Kefka and Niko fought it out close, as we sort of expected, but you also had Duke Nukem of all people right in the match for second place. After a couple updates, Niko was the first to fall off, proving yet again that Grand Theft Auto on this site would never be worth a bucket of piss. The users here just don't like that series. But then in the shocker of all shockers, Duke Nukem started putting Kefka away and destroying him overnight. It was not long before Duke caught and passed Kefka for good, only about an hour in, and that was that. Kefka and Niko never made a push for second after that, but Duke was not done there! Remember Marth running away with it at the beginning of the poll? He had a 700 vote lead on everyone two hours in, and no one thought much of it when Duke started stalling the lead. Overnight and leading into the morning, he started coming back to make a push for first place outright. While all this was going on, Niko was coming back on Kefka to push for third place, but third means nothing in these fourways so who really cares. Spoilers, Niko erased an 800 vote lead to win third place (whatever that's worth) and hand Kefka his latest embarrassment. By the time the morning vote hit, Duke had erased Marth's entire lead. This was in the face of BrawlFEAR, an absurd amount of Nintendo hype, and again, Duke Nukem doing NOTHING in gaming for nearly a decade. Nothing. It was one of the most random, nutty performances we'd ever seen, and had Duke pulled this off it would have been such a legendary choke job by Marth. Thankfully for him Marth caught the morning vote and put Duke down for good, but Duke was easily able to hold on to second place. I legitimately don't have the answer as to why Duke was such a random breakout star in these fourway polls. My best guess, legit, is this video: It came out in 2007, and back then Ventrilo harassment was all the rage. In a contest loaded with joke entrants and people trying to get in on various jokes, who knows. Maybe this is why Duke did so well. I can't think of anything else. You got me, Duke. I got nothin'. If anyone else has a better guess, I'm all ears! (And yes I am aware going up against low midcard fodder helps.) "Three matches in and everyone's bracket was in shambles. I'm pretty sure a large portion of the board had yet to get full points." -Charmander6000 ## Stats and Analysis - Duke overperformed by **+4.51%**, the **\#19** most impressive performance of 2008 - Marth advancing was the **\#9** most surprising result of Round 1 Now, there are some that will disagree with me and assert that THIS was the most debated match of Round 1 (to those people I say you clearly haven't gotten your daily dosage of GameZACKS today). And while it's true that it was a doozy, most felt it was really only for second rather than first place. Marth was BrawlFEAR after all, and certainly more proven even in his loss to DK than these three chumps. But then again, Niko was untested - even though untested GTA is never a good sign - and Kefka always has his fair share of supporters each match. Who knows, anything could happen, right? And so it did - while very few took the pick, and even though the writing was on the wall after what happened last year with Duke and Gordon Freeman, Duke Nukem shocked the world by scoring the second upset of his career. And while he would eventually go on to take an easy second place to Marth, overnight he actually took the lead from him. Remember, this is the same guy that we put on a milk box as a 16 seed to Cloud, who hasn't had a new game in FOREVER (you're gonna get a lot of these terrible references with these writeups, just warning you now). Meanwhile, Kefka, with even more levels of fail in his picture than usual, ended up in dead last even to a pretty big disappointment in Niko. Yeah, you didn't exactly need to be much to beat these two chumps, but let's at least give credit where credit is due, right? And at any rate, Duke looked like a heavy favorite to advance next round now as well. Lucario, the board favorite, was going to have to pull some serious magic to keep himself in contention to advance next round. #### Interesting Facts - With 7.98%, this match marked the smallest gap between 1st and 4th place of any four-way contest match. - Kefka's 21.51% was the largest percentage received by any 4th place entrant in a four-way contest match. - Both of these records were broken during the Spring 2009 Contest by Diablo II vs Halo vs Knights of the Old Republic vs Grand Theft Auto III, only to be broken again two days later. - Out of the 24 possible permutations for the characters' order, 16 occur at some point during the match (assuming ties can count either way.) ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction This four pack is just a mess no matter which way you look at it. Let's try to make at least some sense of this probable disaster by reviewing some base stats. Last Known Values - Marth - 17.12% (2007) - Kefka - 19.07% (2007) - Duke - 20.87% (2007) - Niko - unknown Poor Marth got the short end of the stick- he got stuck in a match with Donkey Kong, and those two hurt each other pretty badly while allowing Kratos to scamper off to an undeserved blowout. I give Marth the benefit of the doubt in this pack because he at least showed us something- after trailing big early, he made a huge SSB-fueled after school comeback and beat DK outright for a few hours. Yeah it was just DK, but even so, I wouldn't pick anyone else in this group to be able to do the same. Kefka's 19 is probably just about accurate. After a great start he had one of the worst collapses ever against Marcus Fenix to throw that match away with the ASV. But, we know he's going to do well in the early going, we know Square has been looking great so far this year, and does Niko really have the kind of mini-Master Chief ASV potential that Marcus showed us? Speaking of Niko, he's of course a first-timer without a Contest history, so let's assign him the 16.25% that Vercetti earned last year in R1. Probably Tommy got casual-SFFed somewhat by MC and deserves higher, but on the other hand, why would anyone believe Niko is even in Tommy's league, SFFed or not? I remember when GTA3 became the big thing years back and shot to the top of the FAQ charts. Then VC was launched, and it was almost always the \#1 FAQ page on the site for a year and a half. Then SA came out, exact same thing. GTA4 did the same... for a couple months, but look where it sits now. 26th place. Scroll a little further down the list and... there's GTA:SA, in 33rd. It's September 2008, and yet there are nearly as many people playing and needing help with the GTA game that launched in 2004 as there are for the one from earlier this year. Sorry, but if that isn't the definition of a lack of staying power I don't know what is! And then there's Duke. I've got to admit that with the rest of this group so up in the air, I gave serious thought to picking him for second if he was going to get his Duke Milk'em picture. As is though, he pulled down a value of around 21 in that opening match, which is probably about accurate. But then he completely collapsed as soon as decent competition arrived in R2. The rest of this group isn't exactly "decent", but they're at least a step up from what he saw in '07, so I can't see him picking up those "meh at least I recognize this guy" votes he used back then. In summary, Duke seems like a reliable choice for around 20% but not much more, Marth seems a reliable choice to ride the SSB ASV to around 30, Kefka seems reliable to hang with Marth or lead outright early before collapsing back to the mid 20s during the Day, and Niko... is totally unreliable, and could do anything from jobbing horribly into the teens to giving Marth a serious run. But when I throw my best guesstimates into the pot, here's what I come up with for these guys: - Marth - 32.74% - Kefka - 24.18% - Niko Bellic - 22.08% - Duke Nukem - 21.00% I don't like it, but with Niko involved I probably wouldn't like anything! Ngamer Says: **Marth \> Kefka** ### Next Day Review Haha! Well after that 0/2 start I was pretty much sure we'd be moving to 0/3, given how nutzo that last 4 pack was. And for the first time all Contest I was right! The good news is, now we're moving on to one of the 11 R1 matches that I did go ahead and call a lock in my initial bracket analysis. Does that really mean anything though, with how badly these results have been making us all (I mean Guru, Oracle, BOP, AND Crew) look like fools? ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3246&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=3) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=3) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Altair vs Guybrush Threepwood vs Isaac vs Lucario 2008 _source: Altair vs Guybrush Threepwood vs Isaac vs Lucario 2008 (revid 85766)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, September 21st, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 1 - **Match \#:** 4 - **Match Date:** Sunday, September 21st, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Lucario - 37.10% Altair - 29.47% Isaac - 21.15% Guybrush Threepwood - 12.23% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Altair first place (2pts) - 52.09% Altair second place (1pt) - 19.89% Lucario second place (2pts) - 41.51% Lucario first place (1pt) - 21.00% - **Advancing Prediction:** Altair - 71.98% (30,882) Lucario - 62.51% (26,819) True fact - this is the only contest Lucario ever appeared in, because his performance was such an embarrassment compared to other Pokemon that no one will invite him back. More on that in a second. The story of this match, and the guru nomination for this contest, was Altair of Assassin's Creed who was making his contest debut this year. With no seedings it was difficult to gauge where he was at relative to the field, but typically guru nominations are a random midcarder that the board loves. Who knew that Altair would be such a beast? Whenever anyone talks about this match, they talk about Lucario flopping around like a fish and almost pulling off one of the great choke jobs in contest history. They should honestly give Altair more credit, but that's how these things go. This Lucario dude was hyped beyond hype this year, especially given how Pokemon looked in 2007 and him having a Brawl appearance. Pikachu looked good. Mewtwo... sucked, but he wasn't turbo fodder or anything. Mudkip and Bidoof caught some joke love, proving that Pokemon past \#151 could maybe get some contest traction going. There was always NintendoFAQs. All that given, the overwhelming consensus for this match was Lucario \> Altair without a second thought. Yeah, whoops. It's a good thing you still advance for getting second place, because if Altair vs Lucario was a 1 on 1 deal this would have gone down as an all-time dud. Maybe not Magus levels of dud, but it would have been in the conversation. Altair dominated this match and got first place with the utmost of ease. It would get so much worse for Lucario, too. If you look at the poll result, you see Lucario only beating Isaac by 1800 votes. This doesn't really tell the actual story, because Lucario came dangerously close to outright losing to Isaac. After initial bracket vote power hour stuff where Lucario choked away his predicted first place finish, he started falling off. Badly. He sat there going dead even with Isaac overnight, and needed the Pokemon morning vote to bail him out of one of the most embarrassing upsets ever. The funniest thing about Isaac almost beating Lucario is he had no actual advantage Lucario didn't already have other than Golden Sun. Brawl? Isaac is only an assist trophy. Nintendo? Please. Hell even Golden Sun being a JRPG darling is dwarfed by Pokemon itself, so that's out. I know Golden Sun has a cult fanbase, but it still feels like Isaac getting this close should have been impossible. If you pretend Isaac/Lucario was a 1 on 1 match, Lucario would have only won with 51.5% of the vote based on these numbers. If 2008 was a 1v1 contest, would any Oracle have picked that? I doubt it. I'd love to give Isaac a bunch of credit here, but there was proof of him being garbage fodder even before we had 20 years of data. Altair was simply underestimated and Lucario is overhyped gutter trash. That's about all there is to it. Pokemon after \#151 are only good if they joke votes, otherwise they're... well, Lucario. Thanks for playing, buddy. It was one of the worst "wins" (if you can call it that) we've ever had, and he would never be seen again after the inevitable round 2 pasting. Not gonna lie, seeing a character beloved by furries and perverts get destroyed... this does put a smile on my face. ## Stats and Analysis - Altair overperformed by **+13.63%**, the **\#1** most impressive performance of 2008 - Lucario underperformed by **-14.89%**, the **\#1**most disappointing performance of 2008 Shadow's epic bombing got all of one day afterward to bask in its glow, because two days later we were treated to THIS debacle. You want to talk about pathetic? Lucario is a Pokemon. Not just a Pokemon - arguably THE Pokemon of the latest generation. Ever since Pokemon nearly beat Metroid and Nidoran F stood up like a champ to Samus, Pokemon have looked like gold in these contests, and doubly so in this format. Pikachu, Mewtwo, Mudkip, Bidoof - the pedigree is enormous, and Lucario had the games, his own movie, and BRAWL to help him out. And all he had to do to get to Link was beat an overhyped Prince of Persia reject, an effective SSB-only character who lost to DK, and a washed-up has-been who probably gets a good part of his strength from the hilarity of his game still not being released. Heck, if Zack bombed there was a good argument for Lucario escaping the division - if Bidoof could hold up against Link, why couldn't Lucario? So what does he do with it? Go out and nearly lose to ISAAC, that's what. A holdover from Summer Contest 2003 whose most notable achievement was seemingly resisting SFF from Samus, all the Golden Sun protagonist has had since then is an appearance as an Assist Trophy in SSB. Y'know... the same game in which LUCARIO IS A PLAYABLE CHARACTER. Lucario has a good argument for being the biggest bomb of the whole damn contest, even looking ahead to the latest of latest bombs. In the end, it was utterly pathetic. Lucario nearly got doubled by Altair, who used his excellent design and enormous game sales to devastating effect, leaving the Pokemon in a stupor of needing the ASV to fight off an Assist Trophy. At this point, BrawlFEAR had been utterly dismantled in the space of two matches, and suddenly every character from the game looked like it was in jeopardy, especially since a good deal of them were in SFF situations. Duke also looked like he had a fight on his hands again, although at this point no one was confident in saying anything. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Last Known Values - Lucario - new - Altair - new - Isaac - 14.20% (2007) - Guybrush - 9.12% (2007) First of all, congrats to the Gurus for banding together and earning Altair such a winnable bracket positioning. That being said... I have almost 0 faith in the guy's actual popularity. Sure, he looks cool in the match pic, but people moved on from AC so quickly after those strong initial sales that I can't see any character having much of a lasting impact. I gave some serious thought to the Isaac upset here, but then I thought that maybe Pikachu hurt him with the Nintendo RPG handheld vote in '07, and if so, Lucario ought to be able to hold him back in a similar way here. Speaking of Lucario, boy, what an unknown. I hear some people saying he's like the face of the new Pokemon generation, but then others say he can't compare to Mewtwo in terms of being the "ultimate Pokemon" or whatever. And in any case I didn't hear people going too wild when he was announced for Brawl- the only reaction I remember was people upset that Mewtwo had been booted. But look, we're talking GameFAQs 4-ways, where even Bidoof is somehow worth 21% on BL- unless I'm 100% off about Altair, Luc's not going to need to be worth much of anything to run away with this. Isaac was worth 14 last season, but as I mentioned that might be unfair... the poor guy was on the bottom of a 4-way RPG totem pole, plus Pikachu potentially hurt him by being a Nintendo handheld draw. He's probably a good bit closer to the fodder line than that performance indicated. As for Guybrush, well, it seems pretty certain that he really IS that weak, and the only question is why 200 people continue to nominate a guy who's proven himself to be 10% on BL three times now. Seriously, we can do better! In summary I still feel this one is a lock, but only because I have an enormous lack of respect for Altair, and just barely enough respect for Lucario's Nintendo presence to keep Isaac out of the running. So if we assign Luc a midrange Pokemon value and Altair something a bit under Marcus from last year, we can stir the pot and find... - Lucario - 36.41% - Altair - 27.90% - Isaac - 24.00% - Guybrush Threepwood - 11.69% Hm... seems just about right. Ngamer Says: **Lucario \> Altair** ### Next Day Review Well now, that was just an old-fashioned kick in the face. The Zack win I could see, Zidane was weird but I could at least blame Link, Duke was crazy but I guess you should never trust Kefka. But Lucario, being this weak, after everything we saw from Mewtwo and Pikachu and even Bidoof for crap's sake? I'm still reeling. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3247&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=4) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=4) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Liquid Snake vs Luigi vs Roxas vs Sho Minamimoto 2008 _source: Liquid Snake vs Luigi vs Roxas vs Sho Minamimoto 2008 (revid 85767)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, September 22nd, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 2 - **Match \#:** 5 - **Match Date:** Monday, September 22nd, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Luigi - 39.31% Liquid Snake - 29.27% Roxas - 21.59% Sho Minamimoto - 9.89% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Luigi first place (2pts) - 41.44% Luigi second place (1pt) - 36.51% Liquid second place (2pts) - 32.13% Liquid first place (1pt) - 48.04% - **Advancing Prediction:** Luigi - 77.95% (33,443) Liquid - 80.17% (34,395) After a wild first round in the first division, it was nice to have a nice, boring, predictable 40-30-20-10 style of match that went exactly as everyone expected. Everyone picked Luigi to get first. Everyone picked Liquid to get second. People don't really care about the other two as characters and both are known for being in games that range from "okay" to absolute garbage. You will never get me to defend The World Ends With You. It's trash. There was a minor bit of worry over Luigi given how nuts the contest was to this point, but that was put to bed pretty quickly. He got first place easily, despite a small scare from Liquid overnight. The one takeaway from this match was Liquid doing rather well for himself, because his contest history to this point was merely "okay". It was nothing special, despite starring in two of the best matches we've ever had: The issue there is they were round 1 fun, not matches with any actual consequences, so it's not like Liquid was thought of as being worth much. So his performance here was a surprise, though it wasn't expected to mean much until people actually looked at the bracket. If everything went to plan, the next round was going to be Liquid, Bowser, Luigi, and Phoenix Wright. That match could potentially allow Liquid to take advantage of LFF all over the place. From there, could Liquid Snake of all people catch a bandwagon run? Nah. But it was fun to think about at the time! ## Stats and Analysis Finally out of Division 1, where we had just endured FOUR upsets in a row, tensions were high among board users (to say nothing of their poor, poor brackets). People even began to start hushed Chicken-Littleing \*this\* match. Though not for the reasons you might think, looking at the final score - the character being doubted this time was Liquid Snake. And with good reason - Liquid has come out looking suspect in every contest he's ever been in. Yes, he went toe-to-toe with Frog when no one on the board expected him to back in 2004 - but thanks to the toady's shenanigans against Solid in Round 3, it was impossible to tell where Liquid stood. He had a good blowout in the Villains Contest, but then showed stunning weakness against Lavos and got killed beyond all comprehension against Sephiroth. And then there was the strangest performance of all, 2007. Liquid, in one of the most exciting finishes in the contests, managed to use some of that MGS final update magic (read: "cheating") to upset Alucard in a match most expected him not even to place in. So what does he do to celebrate? Gets KILLED by Alucard the very next round. Meanwhile, Roxas was behind SFF thanks to Riku last year and, due to the nature of his role in KH2, had reasons to function as a protagonist-proxy of sorts and shock the world here. And few dared quell the sentiment. Which was fine, because when the match began Solid's twin did that all on his own. It looks like Roxas really was that weak (which made Ryu H's performance last year even more puzzling... little did we know), because Liquid just tore him down worse than most anyone expected. But what was REALLY shocking was how close he got to Luigi. Take Roxas and Sho (by the way - WHO????????) out of the match, and Luigi wasn't even getting 55% on Liquid Snake. The same Luigi that easily beat Zero, Kirby, and Bacondorf. The same Liquid Snake that lost to Fraud Frog and ended up below RIDLEY in the Villains Contest X-Stats. And at the end of it all we had another Nintendo character disappointing, Roxas ending up less close to Liquid than a random piece of fodder I couldn't name if you had a gun to my head, and an MGS character impressing more than most thought possible. The board was able to heave a sigh of relief - overperformance or not, at least we had avoided yet ANOTHER upset - but the fears were soon doubled with what was to come. Suddenly with Bowser in the mix, you had to call Liquid the prohibitive favorite to WIN next round. Rumblings of an MGS4 boost were also in the air, but if you played the game, you had to stop and ask yourself - really? Were GameFAQs voters so easily fooled as to give Liquid a boost from THAT? (in retrospect, it really should have been obvious \<\_\<) ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Last Known Values - Luigi - 29.78% (2007) - Liquid Snake - 21.08% (2007) - Roxas - 17.10% (2007) - Sho - new After a good showing in '06, Luigi once against looked like a stud last year. He advanced ahead of Ganon (pig pic or no) and would have had a great shot at downing Dante if not for Pikachu messing things up. He's got a strong picture here, no Nintendo characters to hold him back, and has no excuse to not perform around that same 30 value. L. Snake on the other hand is something of a wildcard... if he acts like his R1 Alucard-beating self he'll have no problem advancing, but why did he collapse so badly in his second showing? You've got to think he'll be looking more like the former than the latter though, what with MGS4 having been so well-received on the site. Roxas is something of an unknown as well... Riku had a nice showing as soon as KH LFF was taken out of the picture, and of course Sora held up well against Squall, so I'd imagine that 17 is something of an underestimation. But then there's a THIRD wildcard thrown into the mix as well, in the form of Sho. Considering TWEWY was developed by the same team responsible for Kingdom Hearts, and with the characters having similar anime designs, you'd have to image there's a healthy bit of fanbase overlap here. I'd expect Sho to look pretty bad as a result, so we'll probably have to wait until Neku's match to see if TWEWY is worth anything in these Contests. In summary, Roxas is probably a pretty good match for Lake, but between MGS4 and Rox getting held back a little by Sho, he should still be able to get by without too much drama. But heck, I've said this before! Throwing those numbers into the pot with a little bit of mix 'n matching gives us... - Luigi - 39.75% - Liquid Snake - 26.58% - Roxas - 21.67% - Sho Minamimoto - 11.99% Liquid seems a touch low... but with the way things have been going, Roxas is going to take him down outright, so what the hey! Ngamer Says: **Luigi \> Liquid Snake** ### Next Day Review Whew, a little normalcy back in the Contest feels good after that wild and wacky Division One. Although Liquid somehow surviving the Day Vote to continue hanging this close with Luigi has certainly cost me some confidence in my Luigi \> Bowser selection, I must admit... The Koopa King is going to need to put on a powerhouse performance in the upcoming 24 hours if that confidence is to be restored. Fortunately he's going to have an excellent opportunity to do just that! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3248&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=5) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=5) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Bowser vs Deckard Cain vs Geno vs Phoenix Wright 2008 _source: Bowser vs Deckard Cain vs Geno vs Phoenix Wright 2008 (revid 85768)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 2 - **Match \#:** 6 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Bowser - 45.49% Phoenix Wright - 22.80% Geno - 17.07% Deckard Cain - 14.64% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Bowser first place (2pts) - 72.76% Bowser second place (1pt) - 15.49% Phoenix second place (2pts) - 42.25% Phoenix first place (1pt) - 10.83% - **Advancing Prediction:** Bowser - 88.25% (37,862) Phoenix - 53.08% (22,773) Stay awhile, and listen. When you're a heavy favorite and you're up against trash, your job is to go out there and take care of business. Bowser did just that, and in about 5 seconds he and Phoenix Wright teamed up for their predictable 1-2 finish to settle things down for the day. I guess if you wanted to go full throttle for the EPIC DUEL we were seeing the third place here you could, but why bother? There are more important things to worry about. Seeing Phoenix Wright advance in any contest is always fun with him being the Board 8 mascot, but the main thing to watch here was whether or not Bowser had a shot against Luigi next round. That was a meaningful match, because with those two splitting all the Nintendo votes, there was a very real threat Liquid would scoot by them both, resulting in only one advancing. If you take the 2007 stats seriously, Luigi was a 55-45 favorite. Based on round 1 in this contest.... who really knows? They both did about what we expected, though one could maybe argue Luigi disappointed a bit. Only actually seeing the match in round 2 would give us any answers. On a personal note, Deckard Cain and Geno are characters I just love, from games I love even more. It's rare to get a 4way poll where you adore everyone involved, so it was nice to see. I'm still holding out hope against hope Geno will be playable in Smash one day. No one ever actually said spirits deconfirm someone! And screw everyone involved in the writing of Cain's character in Diablo 3. "Stay awhile and listen was annoying" my ass. Piss off, Jay Wilson. You ruined the Diablo franchise, and your company is the worst in the history of video games. It's so nice that people are finally seeing what I've always known about Activision-Blizzard. They are trash. Oh, sorry, we're time traveling to the future in 2020 again. Back to 2008! :) ## Stats and Analysis After the prior day's more or less expected result - in placement, if not percentages - things had pretty much calmed down on Board 8. Facilitating this normalcy was, of all things, a Phoenix Wright match. Phoenix is best known for being three things - firstly, arguably the most beloved character on Board 8. Secondly, for being the character that finally ended GFNW (and man, Gordon's looked impressive since then). And thirdly, he gave us one HELL of a show in taking down a washed-up, third tier icon in Bomberman. But hey, that's an icon nonetheless! With his jokey trends there was some chatter that Geno had a shot... but as good as Geno is in SMRPG, one character arguably stole the show even more than he and he was in the SAME MATCH. Meanwhile, Deckard Cain was yet another random piece of fodder that I'm told is from Diablo. And if you're a Blizzard character that isn't in the title of one of their games, then well... Bowser dominated as expected, and the fact that he didn't fall flat on his face was a welcome relief for his fans that have had to cringe at every one of his matches ever since his near-upset of Solid Snake. Bowser certainly couldn't be written off against Luigi, especially considering how vulnerable Liquid had made him look, but theirs certainly appeared now to be a fight for survival than bragging rights. Phoenix actually held up quite well, and Geno ended up having to hold off a scare from Deckard. The only real surprise is how far Phoenix had come since 2007 - whether it was the flurry of his games or his upsets spreading his notoriety around a la Chrono Trigger, he was less joke and more natural, legitimate trends. Yes, that's right - Phoenix Wright was looking LEGIT this year. This contest making no sense was confirmed tenfold. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Last Known Values - Bowser - 26.32% (2007) - Phoenix - 17.64% (2007) - Geno - 15.17% (2007) - Deckard - new Bowser's number in the first round was a total crapshoot, what with Mewtwo and Toad doing heaven knows what with the Nintendo support. This number is based on his R2 showing, and it's probably pretty accurate- the guy has still got some legitimate strength, and his loss was more a matter of Auron and Ryu being perfect characters for this 4-way format. I'd expect him to perform at around that 26 level tonight, or perhaps even a little higher because... Phoenix Wright is a character that I don't think holds up very well against Nintendo's upper tier. We've seen him cave badly in the face of Mario, and Edgeworth got blown away worse than we expected by Link, so although Bowser's not nearly at the same level of SFF-ability, I'm still not expecting PW to look his best here. And then poor Geno got about the worst placement possible- as someone who just finished up a Virtual Console playthrough of Mario RPG, I can safely say that despite how cool Geno was throughout, Bowser consistently stole the show in that party. I DO feel he was held back somewhat by Squall and Aeris last time around (no way would I pick Akuma to beat him that badly 1v1), and sadly he probably won't have much chance to improve on that 15 here in '08. Then there's Deckard who... nay, sorry, just can't muster up any excitement about his upset abilities. To be a successful "joke" character in this format you have to make it very clear that you LOOK like a joke to the casual voter, IMO. L-Block just looks ridiculous to everyone, and that grabs people's attention and swings votes his way, whereas Cain just looks like any other old man from an RPG, so I can't see him picking up many votes outside of the DII fanbase. That being said, with the rest of this group swinging so heavily Nintendo, he SHOULD have an opportunity to at least look somewhat decent. And by that I mean... better than Kerrigan. Maybe. Let's turn those thoughts into numbers, turn up the heat for 90 minutes, and we come out of the pot with... - Bowser - 43.73% - Phoenix Wright - 23.44% - Geno - 17.68% - Deckard Cain - 15.51% I don't like it, I love it! Ngamer Says: **Bowser \> Phoenix** ### Next Day Review After two fairly standard results in a row, you just know that the bracket must have another surprise in store soon. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3249&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=6) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=6) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Fei Fong Wong vs Knuckles the Echidna vs Mario vs Zelda 2008 _source: Fei Fong Wong vs Knuckles the Echidna vs Mario vs Zelda 2008 (revid 85770)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 2 - **Match \#:** 7 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 45.19% Zelda - 22.30% Knuckles the Echidna - 21.92% Fei Fong Wong - 10.62% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Mario first place (2pts) - 74.45% Mario second place (1pt) - 18.84% Zelda second place (2pts) - 59.43% Zelda first place (1pt) - 8.79% - **Advancing Prediction:** Mario - 93.29% (40,024) Zelda - 68.22% (29,268) I know I promised not to time travel too much when doing the 2008 wayback machine stuff, but I can't help it with this one. Look at this poll result from 2008, then look at this: Too good. Anyway, the debate for this match was very simple. Mario was going to win the poll. Everyone knew this already. Everyone also already knew that Zelda was a stronger character than Knuckles. The fun part was whether or not Mario could hold Zelda back hard enough for Knuckles to squeeze into second place. It seems preposterous to think about by 2020 standards, but back in 2008 a lot of people felt like Mario could SFF Zelda, even with the knowledge that the Zelda series is higher in the hierarchy. It wasn't unreasonable at the time, even though I was one of the ones who felt like Mario SFFing Zelda was impossible. You guys need to realize how insane Mario looked from 2005 through 2007, how nuts that Mario \> Samus beating in 2005 was, and how utterly monstrous he looked before Sephiroth and Link showed up in 2007. Remember, this was before Breath of the Wild happened. Back in 2008, Zelda was little more than a Smash character and the wrong name for Link. If you thought Mario would SFF her, I get it. It wasn't dumb to pick Knuckles here at all. It didn't take long for this match to be decided, and it went the way of Mario \> Zelda in a hurry. There was little to no real SFF or LFF or whatever else, and the end result was Knuckles suffering his one and only first round loss in the history of contests -- a record that stands to the time of this writing in 2020. He's only ever lost in round 1 one time, and it took the combined efforts of Mario and Zelda to do it. And he still only lost by just under 5000 votes. That's about as impressive as it gets for a third place finish. Looking forward, Mario and Zelda both performed well here, and this spot of the bracket needed strong characters to hold back an incredibly dangerous, hilarious challenge. ## Stats and Analysis - Mario underperformed by **-4.72%**, the **\#19**most disappointing performance of 2008 It's hard to believe it now, but despite the epic Sonic bombing last year - which consisted of Sonic nearly losing to Squall twice, Tails losing to The Boss, and Knuckles needing VAAN to hold off Rikku - Knuckles was actually a tentative favorite to advance with Mario in this match. And even though Shadow had brought Sonic Team failure to new levels of epic, the tight Oracle spread between Knuckles and Zelda reveals how much the board still believed in him. The question, of course, was... why? Because IT'S FREAKING MARIO! was in the match, of course. This was Mario, who had beat down Samus more brutally than Link had - and Samus was supposed to be a character that was much STRONGER than the plumber. Mario, a character powerful enough to look like he was SFFing characters like Zero, a character that could actually stand up to Link and make Sephiroth look good with the board vote against him. Meanwhile, Zelda was a name-driven character that no one but the biggest of the 'drones actually LIKED, and even the majority of those would fold in the face of IT'S FREAKING MARIO! Sure, there was Zelda's power performance on Samus in 2k6 to think about, but that was the (lol) female bracket at work... and besides, that was Samus, Queen of SFFailure. She couldn't significantly SFF the leech Ganondorf, so obviously Zelda was going to fare better. Yeah, uh huh. Like so many other debated matches, it wasn't even close. Zelda was making not one, but TWO characters look pitiful from the get-go. Yes, there was Knuckles, who even his most ardent supporters had been half-expecting to fail. But then there was MARIO, who couldn't seem to score any significant SFF on Zelda either! Based on 2005 stats, which should be even more favorable to Zelda seeing as how she had to go out against an even more dreadful looking Snake than usual, Mario gets 61% on the princess. So what does he go and do in this match? Barely get 62%. What the...? Make no mistake - if Mario had actually gone and, y'know, SFFED Zelda like he was supposed to, this could have been a match. And while you can partially chalk this up to Zelda's resilience even in the face of overpowering strength - seriously, LoZ's 43%+ on SMB3 is a damn tragedy - I hold that this was the first sign we had that this Mario of new was not the Mario of old. Can you imagine Mario 2k5 scoring barely more on Zelda than SAMUS? And ironically, Knuckles would probably be the Sonic character to come out looking best in all of this after the later rounds - 4% away from Zelda when you're probably being SFFed too, if not even worse, ain't too shabby, though you've got to figure some bracket support figures into that. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Today should be a great opportunity to see something surprising- from the moment the bracket was released this was one of the polls that drew the most attention, and even weeks later we've yet to draw any true consensus. 111 Gurus picked Knuckles, but on the other hand a full 100 went with Zelda... a ton of brackets will be taking a hit here, but which ones? WHICH? Maybe the numbers can help us decide! Last Known Values - Mario - 42.07% (2007) - Zelda - 30.74% (2007) - Knuckles - 27.41% (2007) - Fei Fong Wong - new First off, let's assign Fei a 15ish or something so we can forget he exists. The guy's far from the worst character to have made the bracket, but the rest of this poll is just too interesting to dwell on his presence. Mario really impressed me last season- he held up much better than expected against Link, and even managed to look fairly decent against Sephiroth, despite Fox being there to hold him back by over 5%. Obviously he won't need to show up at his full 42 percent strength tonight to walk away with a win, but how strong he is SHOULD have a pretty big impact on the end result regardless. That's because... Zelda disappointed pretty badly in '07. She came in hot off a great showing on Samus back in 2006 and should have been performing at peak strength, what with TP recently released and Brawl hype continuing to mount. That why many people, myself included, went out on a limb and took her to upset Vincent in the first round- boy did that backfire! What she proved instead was that plenty of her support comes from her name and her Nintendo flagship affiliation, and when you give people other options they'll abandon her at a moment's notice. And then the second round proved that she gets in especially big trouble as soon as you introduce someone higher on the N totem pole into her group. Which should make the second place result in this one obvious here, right? But wait a minute! To be frank, Knuckles didn't exactly set the world on fire last Summer either. Despite having no excuse to not perform at full strength in R1, he was never in contention against Yoshi and furthermore would almost certainly have been knocked out of the Contest by Rikku if not for Vaan holding her back. Seriously, Rikku? That's pretty embarrassing for a guy who only a couple years before had nearly gone toe to toe with Squall! Clearly Sonic Team loses a step when moving to the four way format. When you add to that how badly Link destroyed Shadow just a few days back, it seems hard to deny that Mario's going to be holding Knuckles down in this one. But will he be able to hurt Knux more than he does Zelda? My answer there is... no, Zelda probably gets hurt a little worse. Fortunately, she's also a little bit stronger naturally; I'm banking on that slight advantage being enough to see her through in what should be the closest 2/3 result of the season so far! I don't do so with a ton of confidence, but heck, this one is basically a coin flip in my eyes, and when it comes down to a coin flip you never bet on Tails. ...or Shadow. Or Knuckles. Let's throw these all into the pot, flip in a few coins, stir well, and... - Mario - 41.66% - Zelda - 23.11% - Knuckles the Echidna - 22.32% - Fei Fong Wong - 12.91% Looks tasty! Ngamer Says: **Mario \> Zelda** ### Next Day Review Whoops! Guess this won't be the closest \#2 vs \#3 result so far... or even all that close. I guess that's in line with Link hurting Shadow so badly, but at this point you've really got to start calling Sonic Team as a whole into question. I know this much- certainly feeling better about that Master Chief \> Sonic upset than I was a week back! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3250&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=7) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=7) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Lloyd Irving vs Mudkip vs Tom Nook vs Mega Man X 2008 _source: Lloyd Irving vs Mudkip vs Tom Nook vs Mega Man X 2008 (revid 85777)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, September 25th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 2 - **Match \#:** 8 - **Match Date:** Thursday, September 25th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Mega Man X - 45.36% Mudkip - 25.56% Lloyd Irving - 16.73% Tom Nook - 12.34% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Mega Man X first place (2pts) - 48.92% Mega Man X second place (1pt) - 37.24% Mudkip second place (2pts) - 25.41% Mudkip first place (1pt) - 30.65% - **Advancing Prediction:** Mega Man X - 86.16% (36,965) Mudkip - 56.06% (24,051) Pre-contest, Mudkip was pegged by many as the next potential L-Block. He had all the makings of it, too. A well-known meme, total joke status, he comes from a mega-popular franchise, and perhaps most importantly, people were actually rooting for him to go off and smash this bracket in half. The issue there is round 2 would end up featuring Mudkip in a match against Mega Man X, Mario, and Zelda. There was zero chance of a contest run unless Mudkip had some hidden Draven in him right from the jump, and he... didn't. This is not to say he wasn't super impressive here, but the bracket placement meant he wasn't able to get the bandwagon effect going. Beyond Mudkip himself, the first major factor was there; his first match featured two garbage cans. No one likes Tom Nook, and Fails of is one of the most historically inept-yet-always-nominated entities we've ever seen. The board consensus of Mega Man X \> Mudkip was practically on lock. Unfortunately, you also need good bracket placement for a run like that, which simply didn't happen. More on that in round 2. The other big debut to launch in this match was Mega Man X, who is a character many thought could be just as strong as Mega Man himself (if not stronger), so it was important for X to get started on the right foot. And oh my goodness did he ever. This was a beating, and I'll just spoil you on the stats and let you know this is every bit the number Mega Man himself would have put up. It's an actual crime we've yet to see Mega Man vs X, because that match would be nuts, but it is what it is. We've yet to get a true Sonic vs Mario, either, though that match would be like 70-30 in Mario's favor these days. This all added up to very impressive performances by our two winners, and it became very obvious very quickly that had Mudkip drawn better, he could have won this contest. But even L-Block 2007 couldn't have gotten past Zelda, Mario, and X in round 2. There's just no way. Only Draven or maybe Undertale could have done that. ## Stats and Analysis - Mudkip overperformed by **+4.70%**, the **\#16** most impressive performance of 2008 On paper, this was a pretty boring match. In practice, it pretty much confirmed those preconceptions. But the implications of what all this meant was fun to munch on, at least for statheads. The order of this match was as big a lock as the format would allow - Mega Man is a noble niner, despite his disappointments, and Mega Man X wasn't going to be far enough off from him to fall to Mudkip, who couldn't beat the fanbase split Luigi and Ganondorf. Meanwhile, Mudkip wasn't going to ever be in danger of losing to Lloyd, who barely beat Albert Wesker and who just got done blowing the ASV and immortalizing the phrase "pulling a Lloyd" against HK-47 last year. And in the end, most of our expectations were vindicated, even though there wasn't much to go on - and what was scared the hell out of the board. Mudkip didn't falter in the slightest, breaking 40% on Mega Man X (remember when Zelda couldn't do that against MM?), who in turn was putting 45% on the whole pack. Sure, I've already discussed Lloyd's hilarious failings and no one knows who Tom Nook is, but still, it was hard to assert that Mega Man X was anything less than MM, and could easily be a bit more. yoblazer's hilarious analysis of their pictures and dissecting the badassery of the letter X only strengthened this sentiment. There wasn't too much to say for the moment, though next round seemed damn scary. With Mario faltering, a Zelda that looked like she could stand up to anyone, a potentially stronger Mega Man, and MUDKIP... did we have the potential for something horrifying going down? This was to say nothing of what implications that would mean for L-BLOCK. If there's anything the board bet against en masse this year, it was jokes, and Mudkip's success was making already mangled brackets set for another wail. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction For today we're looking at quite the intriguing matchup. That seems weird to say, given that the \#1 spot isn't going to be in question at all, and neither should the \#2, really. What lends this match its appeal is the long-awaited Contest debut of Mega Man X... firstly because we've never seen him in action before and its hard to say how close to the original MM he's going to perform, and secondly because we'll be getting our first taste of how Mega Man 9 will impact this Contest. Talk about exciting! Let's see if the numbers hold any answers for us. Last Known Values - Mega Man X - new - Mudkip - 21.53% (2007) - Lloyd - 19.97% (2007) - Tom Nook - 12.61% (2007) Original MM looked pretty darn solid in this format last season, scoring a value of around 39 while doing even more than was expected of him, including seriously contending for the win against Samus (sure he was benefited by the sprite round, but STILL). My best guess is that MMX is going to be a touch weaker than MM in these polls. "But wait! MMX beat MM straight up in that 'what's your favorite version of Mega Man' poll a couple months back!" Well yes, he did, but we've seen how far you can trust favorite character in the series polls as they relate to real Contest strength, and MMX \> MM feels like one of those Yoshi \> Mario situations to me. Still, it should be fairly close. What really has me pumped is to see what kind of impact MM9 is going to have here- with the Wii release on Monday and the PS3 and 360 versions also arriving this week, you couldn't have asked for a better time for the game to drop. People seem to be genuinely excited about the Mega Man series for the first time in many years, and IMO that's bound to do wonders for everything connected to the games, including MMX and Zero. But we'll see if I'm right about that. What else do we have going on... oh, there's Mudkip. Even though I don't like Mudkipz, I've got to give the guy some credit, as he held up remarkably well against Luigi and some other decent Nintendo competition last time around. I doubt the fad has died off much, so he might even look better than the 22 value he posted in '07 for this one. But golly, I certainly hope not! Lloyd is just... ew. Couldn't we please just use Kratos A as the pinnacle of what Tales is worth in these polls and stop noming everyone else? Actually I could see Mudkip starting fadilly strong before losing ground to Lloyd overnight. Then Lloyd would get all our hopes up like he did last season before allowing Mudkip to easily skate away from him with the ASV, just like HK-47 did. Ugh. Oh and I guess Tom Nook is involved in this as well. Hate to break it to the little guy, but last year was probably about the best performance he could have expected... with Mudkip in the way to steal his Nintendo joke fans, and other decent Nintendo options also present, he could very well have trouble being worth more than 10% in these stats when all is said and done. Sooo, factoring what should be a good MM showing with what we saw from these last time, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes of stirring the pot to find: - Mega Man X - 48.14% - Mudkip - 24.08% - Lloyd Irving - 18.42% - Tom Nook - 9.36% Yes sir... Realistically, that looks pretty good. Would be so pleased to see MMX perform way above that and Mudkip way below, though! Ngamer Says: **Mega Man X \> Mudkip** ### Next Day Review ...dang it all, Mudkip! IMO today's result gives us one answer (the kipper is fueled by "the kiddies", not 4chan, aside from a couple hundred votes in the first half hour) and leaves us with one question (what in the crap is wrong with Lucario? seriously, how can you have D/P, AND Brawl, and still be this far back of 'kip?). Certainly appears as though Zelda is going to be in for some trouble next round; but might even MMX be at risk as well? I shudder to consider it! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3251&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=8) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=8) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Crash Bandicoot vs Nightmare vs Raz vs Samus Aran 2008 _source: Crash Bandicoot vs Nightmare vs Raz vs Samus Aran 2008 (revid 85773)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, September 26th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 3 - **Match \#:** 9 - **Match Date:** Friday, September 26th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Samus Aran - 52.64% Nightmare - 23.25% Crash Bandicoot - 15.29% Raz - 8.79% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Samus first place (2pts) - 66.60% Samus second place (1pt) - 28.70% Nightmare second place (2pts) - 36.41% Zidane first place (1pt) - 17.48% - **Advancing Prediction:** Samus - 95.30% (40,887) Nightmare - 53.89% (23,120) If you put this match in a time machine and redid it, Crash might actually get second place. It took a looooooong time, but he and his series actually got relevant again: Just look at the time line. See the huge white space on it where nothing happened? Gamers lost their minds when he starred in anything at all, let alone something really good. It was awesome to see! Meanwhile, Soul Calibur is.... Soul Calibur. People can try to sell me on 3D fighters all day long, but I'll always see Soul Calibur as "Tekken with huge weapons". They're good games and I see why they used to be a huge deal, don't get me wrong, but they're just not for me. They seem to have fallen off over the years, too. Thankfully this match happened in 2008, and it was one of the most predictable, boring matches of the entire first round. Everyone knew Samus was going to faceroll this match, and faceroll she did. Breaking 50% in a fourway poll is not easy to do, but Samus made it look simple. Beyond that, there was zero drama whatsoever. We all knew Nightmare would win an easy, yet distant second place en route to getting destroyed in round 2. For those playing the home game, this was his same exact path in 2007. By the way, when I was digging up stuff for this match, I noticed people saying Nightmare is the most popular character in the series. You guys do remember Link made an appearance, right? And even beyond the sardonic answer, I would be shocked if Talim or Taki wasn't \#1. Not that we'll ever get to find out in a contest setting, but hey. ## Stats and Analysis The contest gods willing, this was going to be another easy match to start off Division 3. Samus was in the upper echelon of the Noble Nine, and has looked golden in every match where she hasn't had to run into Nintendo or take off her clothes. Her only debatable match this year looked to be escaping an upset from Vincent when Ganondorf was in the poll in Round 3, but other than that she just had to look good and cruise - at least, until L-Block potentially came along in the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, everything else in this match seemed to be set. Nightmare may only be from the third most popular fighting game on GameFAQs, but he's easily the most popular character from it and can hold his own for the most part, even with his ridiculous pictures. Crash Bandicoot's days are long gone, and the fact that we could get impressed by him coming back on Bomberman and Phoenix Wright last year says it all there. And Raz was another random piece of fodder, albeit one that I'm vaguely familiar with (woo Psychonauts, thanks Mercs!). The only really interesting thing in this match is that Samus actually met expectations, as pretty much every Ninty character up to now had faltered in some way. Granted, the expectations had been calibrated due to those failures, but still. Nightmare had a hiccup or two against Crash some updates, but comfortably beat him down all day. Raz spent all day fighting to stay over 8%. Samus looked good for next round, and Nightmare didn't do nearly enough to justify a potential upset against Ganondorf. Other than that, there was nothing notable about this match other than the poor votals that Samus always seems to drag in with her. Hmm... sigh. Could we bring back Division 1 now? ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction This is, unfortunately, one of the least interesting matches of R1. Psychonaughts may be great, but that still doesn't make Raz one of the more intriguing newcomers of the season, and we've already got a pretty decent bead on Crash and Nightmare's strength from last year. I guess something to watch for might be that this is Nintendo's first true chance to shine so far this season- sure Link and Mario have already come through, but there were serious LFF questions in those matches making it impossible to say if they underperformed. Samus is top tier for the company and shouldn't be facing anyone who can hurt her here, so a strong showing could go a long ways toward reassuring those currently fearing an '08 Nintendo drop. Let's start by seeing where these characters would have dropped from, shall we? Last Known Values - Samus - 41.23% - Nightmare - 24.35% - Crash - 16.07% - Raz - new Samus was one of the top performers of last season, though no one remembers it because her path was so predictable. She never showed any signs of weakness (aside from that one sprite match with MM, but come on, she looked like a toilet) and actually beat out Sephiroth pretty handily in her final match. With no other Nintendo option to limit her appeal here, I'm expecting a big time performance from the bracket's top female. Nightmare's a bit of an oddball. He held up impressively well against Snake in R1, but then fell off the face of the earth when Ryu H and Riku were introduced to the equation the next time around. He must be one of those guys with enough recognizability to draw in the apathy votes, but who few people actually like enough to support when given other options. Between that and SC4's release still being pretty fresh in people's minds, I'd except him to look more like his R1 self tomorrow. Crash actually looked fairly decent in his last match, but any semblance of strength people might be gleaning from that result is a mirage, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, he tore it up with the after-school vote, but that was purely a product of Bomberman, Phoenix Wright, and Magus being some of the worst ASV candidates these Contests has ever produced. I'd be shocked if this washed up Bandicoot was able to make similar noise against decent options like Samus and Nightmare. And as for Raz, well... sorry to those who love the game, but we've seen these kind of super-niche characters in action before, and they're almost always "worth" about 10 on BL- not seeing any reason for Raz to be an exception to that rule. With those numbers in the pot, slightly tweaked, and stirred to perfection, we get... - Samus Aran - 52.93% - Nightmare - 23.49% - Crash Bandicoot - 13.99% - Raz - 9.59% Delicious! Ngamer Says: **Samus \> Nightmare** ### Next Day Review Nothing wrong with the occasional slight breather like today provided, but still, it's good to be back into the realm of debatable matches! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3252&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=9) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=9) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Frog vs Ganondorf vs KOS-MOS vs Neku Sakuraba 2008 _source: Frog vs Ganondorf vs KOS-MOS vs Neku Sakuraba 2008 (revid 85775)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, September 27th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 3 - **Match \#:** 10 - **Match Date:** Saturday, September 27th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ganondorf - 41.78% Frog - 24.94% KOS-MOS - 22.48% Neku Sakuraba - 10.87% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Ganondorf first place (2pts) - 70.79% Ganondorf second place (1pt) - 20.39% Frog second place (2pts) - 34.33% Frog first place (1pt) - 17.87% - **Advancing Prediction:** Ganondorf - 91.18% (39,119) Frog - 52.20% (22,395) The World Ends With You is dog shit garbage. Have I mentioned that yet? The game is absolute gutter trash. Neku getting his ass whipped in his debut is well deserved, as is his 0-4 record as of this writing. What a terrible character. Anyway, this match was nothing to write home about. We all knew Ganon was winning, and most people knew Frog was taking second place. There was some debate about KOS-MOS potentially pulling an upset based on Frog struggling with some low tier Kingdom Hearts characters in recent contests, but it didn't take some massive deep dive to see Frog as the favorite here. Other than Diablo and Arthas splitting votes in 2007, KOS-MOS came into this year with two contest wins. One was against Crash Bandicoot all the way back in 2003, and the other was against something named Amy Rose. Meanwhile, Frog was coming in with wins over Liquid Snake, Master Chief, Riku, Axel, and he had that incredible close loss to Solid Snake in 2004. I know the stats say it was supposed to be close, but KOS-MOS just didn't have the resume Frog had regardless of recent struggles. When the match started, there was no picture. So the one advantage KOS-MOS actually had wasn't even there, which gave Frog even more of an advantage in the actual match. Nice job running your first contest there, Allen. There was eventually a picture for the match, but what little suspense may have existed was long gone by then. Frog built up a lead that KOS-MOS was never going to catch, and that was that. There wasn't even the typical Chrono Trigger day vote collapse that we'd come to expect, either, largely because trends will dissipate against weak competition. KOS-MOS didn't exactly have the strength to take advantage of Frog's weaknesses, like, say, a Sonic or Kingdom Hearts character would have. All in all, it added up to another predictable result in a long run of predictable round 1 results. Division 1 was nutty, but as you all can see, things settled down after that as we started getting rid of all the trash. Like Neku Sakuraba. Who starred in a game that was terrible. ## Stats and Analysis THIS match actually had some upset potential, and it's one of the few that I was actually on board with. After all, Frog had managed to drop an unprecedented advantage AGAIN to Axel, had to rely on massive cheating just to advance in the next round, and promptly got his toady rump squished by Scorpion. KOS-MOS, for her part, had looked pretty good in the previous contests - a big overperformance on Aeris and a solid finish last year among them. Big-breasted android girl over the talking Frog seemed like a pretty good upset pick (especially for those who were tired of being burned by Kossy \<\_\<). Still, there were some warning signs. Had it not been for Blizzard splitting between Diablo and Arthas, either one would have likely beaten KOS-MOS last year. And really, who wanted to pick against Frog in a close match AGAIN? Well, the match started, and everything was going according to perceptions save for one thing - the picture. There was NO picture in the match, and with it the whole of KOSland cried foul. This wasn't fair, stripping KOS-MOS of her biggest asset - both figuratively and literally! Well, a lot of complaining and "CURSE YOU BACON"s later, the picture went up, and everyone held their breath. And for one update, it looked like the KOS-MOS adherents would be vindicated - she surged Frog to a stall. But after that it was back to business as usual, with the only competitor who even appeared to be performing marginally better being the random piece of fodder in this match. Uh... good pic for him/her/it, I guess. Frog and KOS-MOS seemed to be benefiting equally, with the only character actually hurt being our laughing stock of near-elites Ganondorf. This match ended up with only a few notable things left from it. Firstly, Ganondorf actually did well for himself relative to match expectations, even with his post-picture drop he was able to wallop these day chumps when the sun rose. (good thing for him, because that was the last we'd be seeing Ganondorf look anything remotely close to "good" this contest) Secondly, KOS-MOS's best days were clearly behind her, and even though I was more hoping that she was going to get a picture more along the lines of what she got against Aeris in 2k6 (shameless [1](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=8&pos=38) plug), she'd almost have certainly lost regardless, and she didn't do too shabby in the overall scheme of the match. The interesting thing to see was Frog - the day vote, his bane against Master Chief, Axel, and even Liquid Snake didn't really do much harm to him. KOS-MOS isn't exactly a day champ, but to see her do NOTHING against Frog when the sun rose was very odd. It was the first sign that CT had perhaps slowed, stalled, or even perhaps reversed that downward slide we had seen from it over the past three years. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction For tonight we've got one heavy hitter, almost-fodders, and one mid-ranger fodder (most likely). There's plenty to be excited about here IMO, so let's hop right to it! When we last saw our heroes... Last Known Values: - Ganon - 31.88% (2007) - Frog - 20.25% (2007) - KOS-MOS - 19.28% (2007) - Neku - new To start, Ganon's head and heels above the competition and shouldn't be challenged here. Even so, how he does could be another of those pretty good barometers for where Nintendo stands currently, much like Samus provided today. It won't be quite as pure since I think Frog works at least somewhat like a Nintendo character himself, but is still something to watch out for. Neku should also be worth keeping an eye on- we've already seen one TWEWY character in action, but he got about the worst draw this side of Geno in having to contend with a Kingdom Hearts character all day long, so I wouldn't put much faith in his final value; today should give us a much more accurate estimate of whether or not TWEWY is worth anything in these Contests. But of course the real heart of the meat is Frog/KOS. As I see it, Frog has two things working for him and two working against him. The two against him are that Neku is a fellow Square RPG character (this probably won't matter too much in the long run through- they're separated by so many years and console generations that I can't see there being a huge overlap like there apparently was with KH) and, much more importantly, he always seems to play down to the level of his competition. As much as we love to glorify Frog and blast his Theme as he pulls out close matches, I think we tend to forget that those matches were only close due to him choking relative to expectations. Axel, Master Chief, Liquid Snake... well alright, so he did rise to a challenge once against Snake, but between Solid \*^&\$ and rally power and whatever other crazy stuff was going on at the time, I don't know how much stock we should put in it. So, its entirely possible that he allows KM to hang in this match much longer than he ought to. The two points in Frog's favor here, however, easily outweigh those two negatives in my estimation. The first is that if you're going to beat Frog, you need to have a very strong Day Vote and/or ASV. KOS-MOS is unfortunately lined up perfectly the opposite in her trends- she's good at the start of matches and through the overnight, but wilts when the sun rises and doesn't do any ASV damage. With Chrono Trigger being such a powerhouse in the first three hours, I'm having trouble seeing her be able to take the lead at any point during this poll. And the second point is of course that Frog doesn't lose close matches. If you want to come away with the win you better have built up a 500 vote lead by the final half hour, because otherwise this Board will do everything in their power to keep the comeback tradition alive. Oh, and I guess there's two other points worth noting as well. In Frog's favor: Chrono Trigger DS. Maybe it hasn't had any kind of impact yet, but even so, it could only mean good things for him as the release date approaches. And in KM's favor: she's going to look really good in this match pic (at least if SB uses the picture Zen submitted for her, and he'd be crazy not to!). So although I think Frog should be able to survive and advance in this one, I don't exactly see him doing so in style. With that in mind, the numbers in the pot, and after a bit of stirring, we find... - Ganondorf - 43.89% - Frog - 21.82% - KOS-MOS - 20.72% - Neku Sakuraba - 13.55% I love it! Ngamer Says: **Ganon \> Frog** ### Next Day Review Can't help but be impressed with Frog today. CT another year older, Ganon having SNES appeal, Neku having Square RPG appeal, KOS looking smokin' in the picture, and yet he was never in danger of losing and \*gasp\* didn't even lay a total egg with the ASV! Has CT:DS made the game somewhat relevant again, or was this just Xenosaga having run out of gas? Hopefully the upcoming Magus match will help clear the picture. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3253&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=10) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=10) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Falco Lombardi vs GLaDOS vs Vincent Valentine vs Wander 2008 _source: Falco Lombardi vs GLaDOS vs Vincent Valentine vs Wander 2008 (revid 85776)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, September 28th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 3 - **Match \#:** 11 - **Match Date:** Sunday, September 28th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Vincent Valentine - 47.51% Falco Lombardi - 25.53% GLaDOS - 17.08% Wander - 10.18% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Vincent first place (2pts) - 49.37% Vincent second place (1pt) - 35.89% Falco second place (2pts) - 36.94% Falco first place (1pt) - 26.57% - **Advancing Prediction:** Vincent - 85.26% (36,579) Falco - 63.51% (27,248) One day after seeing Neku get destroyed, I got to watch another garbage can get squished. Good stuff. Wander and his game are both terrible. Beyond that, this was yet another in a pretty long line of super predictable matches. Everyone knew Vincent would cruise to first place in this one, because he had beaten Crono in 2007. I'll spare people the rundown of moronic arguments everyone had about the Noble Nine when that happened, because everyone involved was acting like children over something completely meaningless. Vincent's job this contest was to kick names, take ass, and get ready for the potential Crono rematch down the line that we all wanted. Could he have performed better here? Maybe, but I've been doing this so long that I don't fret over some percentage fluctuations in early rounds anymore. I don't care. Whether Vincent scored 45% or 48% or 50% or whatever does not matter to me. The second place choice was also very predictable, though when I checked the wayback machine, I was surprised to see some people thinking GLaDOS could beat Falco here. Maaaaaaaaybe if you did this match during the apex of Portal fandom and Brawl didn't exist, sure, but in a BrawlFEAR world? No chance. Falco was always going to get an easy second place here. Brawl was that relevant to people's predictions back then. This actually helped set up a really fun round 2 match, which we'll get to when the time comes. ## Stats and Analysis Okay, so the order of the winners was never in question. Vincent Valentine had beaten Crono in the previous year, while Falco was Brawl character \#4827. As much as BrawlFEAR had the capacity to succeed it was never going to put Falco over Vincent, and as much as it had the potential to fail there were two pieces of fodder beneath them. Or so we thought. The end result here is a match where aside from one character, they ALL looked bad. Vincent didn't get nearly the number that some though he could score (thus putting him as the next in a long line of underperfoming obvious winners this round), Wander sucked to an even greater degree than people thought possible, and while one might be tempted to commend Falco's performance, there was a little problem there... ...specifically, letting GlaDOS get 43% on you. what GlaDOS was fodder. FODDER. Portal was a beloved, but niche addition to The Orange Box. And honestly, with the joke and Portal fanboyism votes, we could have easily seen a performance like this come from Weighted Companion Cube. But GlaDOS? I'm stunned that 20% of GameFAQs even knew her name, which isn't given in the course of the whole game. More than that, her picture is wholly unrecognizable, there's virtually no context clues there... honestly, this might be the most befuddling result of the whole contest to me. How does GlaDOS win updates against Falco? What does Portal do in a contest if this is legit? One thing was pretty certain - Tidus and DK were in for a whole world of hurt after this. A stronger entry from Portal powered up with joke votes was a deadly force indeed. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Not an awful match, but don't see it being all that intense either. I never bought into the hype for GlaDOS being anything more than fun fodder that it would be worth a laugh to see in an official match pic (and there's certainly going to be plenty laughing tonight, it looks like!), so I'd be shocked if Falco is ever challenged beyond the first five minutes. Probably the best thing to keep an eye on here will be Vincent- he took down Crono without too much trouble last season, but with CT back on the upswing (maybe?) and there not being "a Link in the way" this time around, he still needs to put up solid numbers these first two rounds to cement his favorite status for that rematch. Speaking of '07, just how good DID he look? Well... Last Known Values - Vincent - 36.25% (2007) - Falco - new - GlaDOS - new - Wander - 10.04% (2007) Wander looked awful in the match pic, performed awfully during the entire 24 hours of the poll, and finished up in an awful position on the final x-stats. Mario/Boss/Pac had no reason to LFF Wander; he's just legitimately one of the weakest characters we've even seen in a poll. And yet we brought him back? \*shakes head sadly\* I'm pretty excited to see what Falco will be capable of here. SF didn't make the Game or Series Contests and Fox always gets placed in unwinnable positions, so this will pretty much be our first chance to see what the series is worth when given a fair shot. I think he's going to surprise some people by looking decent here, which would do wonders for me in terms of creating confidence in that crazy Fox \> Sora upset I took in my bracket! GlaDOS... meh. I have a ton of respect for Portal and love Still Alive as much as anyone, but I knew she was going to look "like THAT" in the match pic which made my Falco pick an easy decision. Really happy to see her given a shot, but sadly it seems a given that WCC's going to be outdoing her by a healthy margin this season. As for Vincent, I think he's in much the same position as Samus and Ganon the last two days. Obviously isn't going to be in any way threatened, but how he ends up could still be a strong indication as to where Square/Final Fantasy will be sitting here in 2008. Zack and Zidane seemed to point to something of a FF boost, but then Kefka bombed out and left us wondering. A big time performance for VV here would set alot of fears at rest in the Square camp, I'd have to think. Soooo basically Vincent and Falco should be able to perform at full strength, while GlaDOS and Wander should be able to prove they have no strength. Throw THAT in your pot and... stir it! And you get: - Vincent Valentine - 51.03% - Falco Lombardi - 22.89% - GlaDOS - 15.91% - Wander - 10.16% Mmm... if that were a cake, it'd be both delicious and truthful! Ngamer Says: **Vincent \> Falco** ### Next Day Review ...holy smokes! Maybe it's unfair to call this a true "bombing" for Vincent, since even though I expected 50% from him some of that can be explained by GlaDOS eating up more percentage than we thought. But there's no way to discount what a great showing Falco is having here- I always thought he and Fox would have some serious power if they could stop drawing Nintendo opponents. Bring on Sora v Fox! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3254&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=11) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=11) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Balthier Bunansa vs Big Daddy vs Gordon Freeman vs Scorpion 2008 _source: Balthier Bunansa vs Big Daddy vs Gordon Freeman vs Scorpion 2008 (revid 85778)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, September 29th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 3 - **Match \#:** 12 - **Match Date:** Monday, September 29th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Scorpion - 35.06% Gordon Freeman - 27.54% Balthier Bunansa - 21.78% Big Daddy - 15.53% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Scorpion first place (2pts) - 28.78% Scorpion second place (1pt) - 36.79% Gordon second place (2pts) - 29.62% Gordon first place (1pt) - 34.23% - **Advancing Prediction:** Scorpion - 65.57% (28,131) Gordon - 63.85% (27,394) If you hop in the wayback machine and only look at the guru picks and such, you'd think this was some predictable match that we could all just talk about for 30 seconds and move on. And on the surface, that's true. Balthier totally crapped the bed in 2007 when everyone expected him to get first place over Ada Wong of all people -- just a total choke job -- and people also knew that Big Daddy would be weak. GameFAQs, by and large, does not care about FPS characters. Of course I say that with Gordon Freeman of Gordon Freeman Never Wins lore in the same match. Gordon, year after year, managed to keep choking away winnable matches. This dude lost to Tina Armstrong, who most people can't remember without Googling. This dude lost to Max Payne. This dude lost to Sam Fisher. Leon Kennedy was a predictable loss, but still. It took Phoenix Wright for Gordon to finally get off the schneid, and miraculously, Board 8 didn't hate the guy despite getting his first win on our mascot. He then repeated his winning ways in 2007, in a very debatable 4way match against Ike and Duke Nukem. He actually managed to not choke that year! But then The Orange Box happened in October of 2007, and it gave everything involved a boost. We saw a little bit of a hint of this with GLaDOS doing okay in round one of this contest, but it was Gordon himself who really proved that it mattered. I also maintain that if 2008 was a 1v1 games contest and Portal had a good draw, Portal would have gotten a bandwagon and won the entire thing outright. We've seen new games catch fire and so off in these things over the years. To the point. Everyone picked Scorpion \> Gordon Freeman \> the field in this match. We have the template from 2007; Sub-Zero \> Gordon. But that was pre-Orange Box. Memes + good games = "uh oh" in the early parts of a contest poll, when the board vote rules. Gordon caught a bunch of early votes, and had an early lead in the match. Balthier and that thing from Bioshock stunk up the place, as expected, and we all figured Scorpion would handle his business once the board vote died down. And he did. The first place spot was tied 15 minutes in, and we all figured Scorpion would cruise to this contest having yet another predictable result. "NOT SO FAST, my friend!" I'm just saying this while looking at creativename's updater 12 years later. I remember this one very well. When Gordon Freeman won the next update to go by 100 votes, all hell broke loose on Board 8. You wouldn't know it to look at our board or our vote totals now, but people used to live and die by every 15 minute update in crazy matches. This one, despite being a round 1 fun match, had people going wild. GORDON FREEMAN was doing this? The same dude that lost to Tina Armstrong? THAT guy?! Yeah, that guy. Orange Box love was real, and it's not like Mortal Kombat was sitting here doing much of anything. Those few updates where it looked like Gordon was going to shock the world were a total madhouse, and while I hate to rely on "you had to be there" analysis, it's the truth. For those of us who love these things, Gordon Freeman Never Wins felt like family. To see him go from that to this was amazing. It didn't stop there, either. This dude actually held his lead overnight. He didn't build a lead or anything, but he held strong at 100-150 all night long. If he managed to catch the morning vote, he was legitimately going to pull off an impossible feat and actually get first place in this match. You know the rest. Scorpion caught the morning vote, and that was that. It took a little while in the am hours before Scorpion fully controlled things, but fully control things he did. A fun match turned into Scorpion winning by 2200 votes fairly quickly, but no one talks about that part when they bring this match up. They talk about people losing their absolute shit for 7 hours. Conventional wisdom held that this would be Gordon's one and only moment this contest, as Vincent \> Scorpion in round 2 looked like the most predictable result ever. Yeah if you thought people lost their minds in this match, just wait. ## Stats and Analysis - Scorpion underperformed by **-4.95%**, the **\#15** most disappointing performance of 2008 What a difference a year makes, huh? Last year the big debate would've been between Balthier and Scorpion for first, with a few gung-ho Valvers chiming in for some Gordon Freeman upsets. Well, one Balthier bomb and Scorpion impressing later, and we end up with an easy Scorpion \> Gordon pick, with pretty much zero chance of an upset on any side of the table. Well, it didn't really end up that way. Gordon jumped out with his usual awesome board vote (seriously, we're so used to voting for the lovable loser we've forgotten how not to)... but he wasn't losing it. An update later Scorpion cut him, and the next he was ahead by 1 vote, and it looked like gravity was taking over despite the board's love of Mr. Freeman. Then Gordon jumped out to an 84 vote lead, and all hell broke loose. Somehow, some way, Gordon, who had lost as the favorite to DUKE NUKEM and nearly lost to pre-Brawl IKE, was giving Scorpion the fight of his life. For one glorious night vote Gordon was able to nurse a small lead until the day vote took hold... at which point he ended up losing by barely over 2000 votes. The universe saved for the moment (seriously every time Gordon comes in first it's destroyed and a new one is created, ask TRE), the inevitable showdown for next round looked ROUGH for Scorpion, especially if the showdown went down anything like Duke/Gordon II last year. Plus, there was Falco to think about in that whole mess. Suddenly Vincent/Falco/Scorpion/Gordon was one of the big matches of next round. In this midst of this awesome whirlwind were Balthier and Big Daddy's performances. For the former, you really had to give it to Balthier for at least minimally exceeding expectations, although he's got a long way to go before he's even talked about in the same breath as the Zidanes of the world. And Big Daddy did well enough for me to conclude that Gordon probably wins this match outright if he's not here. C'mon Orange Box/Bioshock SFF you know you want some !! ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Today we should be in for another good one. Three characters that are at least somewhat comparable in strength plus a newcomer who should have a pretty wide range. Let's jump right into it! Last Known Values - Scorpion - 26.73% (2007) - Gordon - 19.89% (2007) - Balthier - 17.09% (2007) - Big Daddy - new I'd never bought into Mortal Kombat too much in these Contests, but between that upset of Master Chief and how good both Subby and Scorp looked last season, they've made a believer. Actually pretty much everything connected with fighting games had solid showings in '07, and I don't see any reason for that to change this time around, so even though I don't think he's going to run away with this group as easily as some are predicting, I still can't see him being challenged for the win. Big Daddy is one of our more exciting entrants IMO. Between the critical acclaim, Game of the Year awards, and the very positive reviews I've heard from most gamers, I'd have to imagine that Bioshock is going to have a strong core of support backing it all the way, much like GlaDOS did. Unlike GlaDOS, though, the big poppa ought to have considerable promise as a "joke character" on top of that. By joke I mean, his name is funny enough in itself, and then you look and its a giant mech kind of thing, whoa! Should have some decent casual appeal for those voters who don't feel strongly about any of the other choices (and considering Balthier and Gordon's past history, that could be quite a few!). I'm not going to do anything crazy and pick him for second outright, but heck, we've seen stranger things happen already this Contest. Balthier was a flop in '07, I don't think anyone really denies that. He was supposed to be the next Auron, and instead looked like the next... uh, Cecil or something. And that was when FF12 was at its peak! Even so, I think he's going to have something of a chance here. Zack and Zidane have already impressed, and also, couldn't Daddy and Freeman share something of a fanbase? Moody, atmospheric, really good FPSes that are available on both the PC and the 360... I wouldn't call a huge overlap likely, but again, we've seen weirder things happen, and Gordon certainly has a history of allowing the slightest bumps in the road to throw him off course. Overall though, between the success of Portal and TF2 and the Orange Box helping HL2 reach something of a new audience, GF ought to have enough in the tank to pull this one out. So why can't I get rid of this nagging doubt? Alright, but what happens when you translate those thoughts into numbers? With a little potting and stirring, THIS happens! - Scorpion - 35.32% - Gordon Freeman - 26.15% - Balthier Bunansa - 22.04% - Big Daddy - 16.49% Gosh, do I ever feel nervous about those numbers though... Ngamer Says: **Scorpion \> Gordon** ### Next Day Review Man, GlaDOS alone was enough to get me nervous about WCC crashing the party... now we see that the Orange Box has turned even Gordon Freeman into a stud overnight? DK and Tidus better bring their A games if they want to advance out of that one! Which could be trouble, as I'm not sure either of them have A games anymore. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3255&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=12) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=12) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Amaterasu vs Crono vs Frank West vs Kaim Argonar 2008 _source: Amaterasu vs Crono vs Frank West vs Kaim Argonar 2008 (revid 85779)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 4 - **Match \#:** 13 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Crono - 48.95% Amaterasu - 23.72% Frank West - 14.86% Kaim Argonar - 12.61% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Crono first place (2pts) - 78.50% Crono second place (1pt) - 13.09% Amaterasu second place (2pts) - 33.86% Amaterasu first place (1pt) - 11.97% - **Advancing Prediction:** Crono - 91.59% (39,295) Amaterasu - 45.83% (19,662) Another round 1 match, another predictable result. The Noble Nine came into this contest ready to take care of business and avenge the joke run of last year (even with 2008 being the most brazen root-for-the-joke contest we've ever had), and take care of business they did. When almost 100% of gurus predict a fourway and it goes to plan, you can just go to sleep that day. Casuals thought Amaterasu might lose for whatever reason, but ever contest you get a bunch of matches where the board embarrasses the casuals. This was one of those matches, though every year all you hear about are the times when casuals get one over on us. It happens. If you look at Amaterasu's contest history, even to the time I'm actually writing this (2020), she has never lost in round one. This is pretty impressive given she's the definition of middle of the road. Lastly, speaking of Kaim, I actually have The Lost Odyssey sitting around somewhere. I should really get around to playing it one of these days. Is it any good? ## Stats and Analysis - Kaim underperformed by **-4.56%**, the **\#20** most disappointing performance of 2008 - Amaterasu advancing was the **\#8** most surprising result of Round 1 Ah, Division 4. Home of the Noble Niner who broke the (four-way) Noble Nine, a rat, and a Block that threatened to doom us all. For the board, it - pretty much - all came down to Round 2, where the combined force of Crono and Ryu would steamroll the fourth piece of fodder, and ultimately knock L-Block out before it started down its path of destruction again. So even though this match was pretty much set for Crono \> Amaterasu - some restrospectively HILARIOUS Kaim hyping courtesy of Lopen aside - it was important in terms of garnering information on what would be necessary to eliminate the Block. Well, two things happened. The first was good - Crono was doing even better than most expected, and even managed not to tank his day vote too badly. The second, however, was a bit more foreboding. Amaterasu was not only stunning us AGAIN with her nonsensical strength - seriously, she wasn't even in the running for beating Little Mac and a Mii, and I guarantee you Frank West and Kaim would have been favored over her last year - but she was breaking 35% on Crono. Characters that have failed to do that over the history of the contest include Captain Falcon, Tommy Vercetti, and Dante. That was ridiculous no matter how much one might think Crono has fallen, and considering his overall performance on this pack there was only so far you could take it. Especially considering how the obvious winners had underperformed so far. Which begged the question - how were Crono and Ryu going to get enough combined percentage to kill L when Ammy was easily going to take up 15%+ of the vote? Exactly. Things looked bleak for the anti-L bandwagon. And we hadn't even seen it in a match yet. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Here's another of those where neither first or second place should be in contention at any point, but which isn't a borefest because there are still some things we ought to be able to take away from the result. The main thing we'll be doing, I'm almost sure, is getting that Crono \> Vincent hype train a'rollin! I don't care what anything else says: there was no excuse for Vincent to allow Falco to stick that close to him, and unless Crono likewise drops the ball in this one, I'm going to have to give serious considering to picking against my bracket when that match comes up. Now, what kind of strength gaps are we looking at? Last Known Value - Crono - 34.61% (2007) - Ammy - 19.81% (2007) - Frank - 11.74% (2007) - Kaim - new Pretty big ones! Ammy impressed us several times in '07, but even so, she shouldn't be TOO far above whatever fodder line you want to set up. She might be looking at something of a boost for this season thanks to Okami's pretty successful remake for the Wii a few months back, but it shouldn't matter too much either way in this one thanks to the enormous cushions she's got above and below her. As for Crono, his performance here is certainly what everyone will be keeping an eye on, and with good reason. Frog impressed a couple days back, but was that because of legitimate CT:DS excitement? If so, could that be enough to save Magus in his upcoming battle with the Sandman? Hopefully Crono puts on a show for us tonight to give us another talking point in that debate. Frank West last year was just... wow. Back before we knew there was going to be 4-way matches, I had made Frank my pick for character most likely to come in last in the final x-stats, since I assumed we'd only be seeing 64 characters. Well he lived up to the billing, that's for sure! A percentage that pathetic, considering he was placed in the most pathetic 4-pack in history, leaves little doubt about his status as complete jobber. Fortunately that keeps things interesting, because now Kaim should have a real shot at beating somebody! I'm by no means a believer in Lost Odyssey, but despite the less than stellar sales, characters from 360 games have been looking pretty decent this season for whatever reason. Certainly it SEEMS like a game that ought to have a fanbase at this site- I mean the words "Final Fantasy" are right there on the box! Hmm... hard to say how those bottom two will place, but in any case I'm expecting a real powerhouse showing from Crono in this one, something to send a notice that he won't be the one letting the Noble Nine down anytime soon. With that in mind and some weird numbers in the pot, we can heat for 10 minutes and get: - Crono - 46.30% - Amaterasu - 26.44% - Kaim Argonar - 13.83% - Frank West - 13.43% Go go Crono! Ngamer Says: **Crono \> Ammy** ### Next Day Review Not much to say! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3256&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=13) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=13) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## L-Block vs Meta Knight vs Ryu (Street Fighter) vs The Dog 2008 _source: L-Block vs Meta Knight vs Ryu (Street Fighter) vs The Dog 2008 (revid 85786)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 4 - **Match \#:** 14 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Ryu - 34.97% L-Block - 27.91% Meta Knight - 24.42% The Dog - 12.74% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** L-Block first place (2pts) - 49.02% L-Block second place (1pt) - 17.02% Ryu second place (2pts) - 43.81% Ryu first place (1pt) - 30.99% - **Advancing Prediction:** L-Block - 66.04% (28,333) Ryu - 74.80% (32,091) If you look in the wayback machine, you'll think most people wanted L-Block to come out in 2008 and get destroyed. This is simply not the case. It was a mixed reception, with a lot of people fully on the joke train that year. A lot of people were rooting against the repeat, but a lot of others either wouldn't have minded a repeat or were only rooting against the block because they wanted something else -- the Duck Hunt dog, the Weighted Companion Cube, the Sandbag from Smash Bros, CATS, Hogger, your sister's ass, the pony express, et al -- to take the bandwagon title. This was a heavily debated match pre-contest, with almost all of the arguing revolving around the defending champ. It was early in joke trend world, but Board 8 was wise to it early. We all knew that L-Block would fall off a bit (though nothing like what we'd see in the future with Draven), plus this poll also featured another joke all-star with the Duck Hunt dog. So L-Block had two huge things working against it; the novelty wearing off, and a basset hound potentially syphoning off a bunch of votes right in the first match. Jokes winning require the bandwagon effect, and for those rooting against L-Block, the potential existed for him to lose early in this contest. The issue, of course, was whether or not Ryu and Meta Knight were tough enough to pull it off. As someone who both picked against L-Block and would have loved to see him win the contest again, I can explain the logic here well enough. I thought L-Block would have the typical joke trend fallout the following year, and didn't think there was a chance he'd come back with any strength. Ryu has a very consistent contest guy over the years, which is why we all picked him to get first place. The wild card was Meta Knight. Kirby games have never been strong on here, but they also aren't why Kirby himself has contest strength. You can thank character design and Smash Bros for that, which thanks to BrawlFEAR Meta Knight had in spades. He actually made the contest in 2007 pre-Brawl, and though he finished a distant second, he did advance into round 2. With Brawl at his back, with L-Block anti-bandwagon at his back, with the Nova Scotia bloodhound dalmation beagle basset duck tolling short haired pointer retriever stealing joke votes, I truly thought we would see Ryu \> Meta Knight \> L-Block (close third place) \> goodest boy. Yeah we screwed that one up pretty bad, folks. In fairness, most people thought this was going to be Ryu \> L-Block, but even those folks dropped the ball. That's because L-Block, at least early on in this contest, showed no signs whatsoever of slowing down from its 2007 pace. When this poll started, Ryu and L-Block not only left Meta Knight and the dog in the dust, but L-Block showed off its joke trends all over again. It dominated the early voting of this poll even in the face of an anti-bandwagon, and this led to a lot of chicken little junk all over Board 8. There's nothing we can do, L-Block is going to steamroll all over again, and blah blah blah. You guys know I love my rallies and joke trends, so I was loving every second of the early going. Seeing L-Block going nuts for the second year in a row... that. That puts a smile on my face. It sucked seeing Meta Knight and one good boy getting sacrificed for it, but it was a small price to pay for salvation. It looked early on as if we would get a simple L-Block \> Ryu result, but then joke trends took over and L-Block started falling off. We ended up having a very good fight for first place here that would have been the stuff of legends were it an actual 1v1 match in a legitimately formatted contest. Can you imagine if L-Block was defending its title in a 1v1 match and Ryu gave it the duel we saw here? This is why I don't like 4way formats. We had this epic fight for first, and it meant dick. L-Block and Ryu would both advance anyway, so outside of point order and bragging rights, the actual result meant nothing. It's why it took me 12 years to bother writing this, because when epic fights for second place mean more than epic fights for first, your format sucks. That said, this was a hell of a match to watch, and the explosion on the forums was amazing. There was so much whining about L-Block, and it was great. As for the match, Ryu chopped off a 550 vote lead overnight, and then did his best impersonation of rubberband AI for 16 hours. You know how when you're playing Mario Kart or Madden and the AI gets more difficult as you get more ahead of it? That was Ryu in this match. The more L-Block pulled ahead, the tougher Ryu got. But then he would catch up, and just.... die. Then L-Block would pull ahead and it would start all over again. He came back from a 550 vote deficit overnight, died, and fell behind by 620. Then the ASV hit, Ryu won it, he came back, died again, and fell behind by 450. Ryu started coming back again when the second night vote hit, but then the poll ended. If this format wasn't garbage, we'd be talking about a great duel, L-Block outlasting Ryu, and what L-Block's odds were against Crono in round 2. As-is, L-Block and Ryu basically touched gloves at match's end with a gentlemen's agreement to see each other again soon. I hate it. Shadow vs Zidane and Isaac vs Lucario for distant second place should not mean more than the match we just watched. It just shouldn't, and I feel like Allen realized this after the 2009 games contest. It's just not the same as the finality of one and done. But more on that when we conclude all this up. Meta Knight basically crapped the bed here, though one wonders if the dog being here actually hurt Meta Knight as much as it did L-Block, the latter of which got first place even with some factors working against him. Focus quickly turned to round 2, where we would see Crono, Amaterasu, L-Block, and Ryu all in a poll together. For those rooting against the block to repeat, they soon realized that L-Block beat Ryu with a bunch of albatrosses hanging on him. In round 2, there would be nothing to slow him down, and it led to more arguing on the board about whether or not L-Block style contestants were good for contests. People were extrapolating this huge path forward and assuming L-Block would win again, and people were also going nuts extrapolating these crazy paths for characters not yet seen in polls. And Pikachu was just sitting there this whole time like ## Stats and Analysis - L-Block overperformed by **+3.90%**, the **\#24**most impressive performance of 2008 For the OTHER half of the board, if L-Block wasn't going to be done in Round 2, it would fall a round earlier. Ryu was presumably safe in first, so it was down to the posterboy for Brawl's unbalanced gameplay, Meta Knight, to do it. And in theory, it made sense - Meta Knight beat Peach when he was only a trailer, he was THE most overused character in Brawl, and the piece of fodder in this match - The Dog - was going to put a serious hurt on L, allowing Meta Knight to slip through and slay the contest champ. Yeah, right. This theory is probably the reason why Ryu lost this match. One day after Amaterasu lifted her hind leg and pissed all over the dreams of Board 8, the Block itself came down the screen and smashed the remains into oblivion. The match itself started ambiguously, but hopefully - L-Block clearly wasn't the same entity that had annihilated Link, Cloud, and Snake last year, it wasn't hitting those numbers against Ryu, Meta Knight, and The Dog. Meta Knight had a very strong opening vote, and if L's trends from last year held, we could see the miracle not never happen, right? Well, there was a problem. L's trends DIDN'T follow last year's. In fact, even though the first hour was still his best hour, he stayed consistent pretty much all day. And that, combined with Meta's collapse after the first update (which implied he stole Ryu's board vote), and Ryu being a day chump... yeah, you see where I'm going with this. Ryu's morning vote and ASV would be the death of him, as they have in so many years past, while L Block barely seemed phased by either. And that's what was so scary. It is impossible to overstate this - L was looking, for all intents and purposes, legit this year. And this was all with The Dog presumably leeching its support, a bandwagon yet to come, an Ammy that refused to fold... and really, how was Ryu supposed to beat L next round when he couldn't do it in THIS round? With that, and looking at the competition and SFF in future rounds, L making the finals seemed a virtual lock. Even the staunchest of holdouts were beginning to anoint it the repeat champ (with all the whining that goes with that). All we had to do was see how the specifics played out. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction So it begins... the great battle of our time. For the first time in history, we can honestly say that the most important match of the Contest takes place tomorrow... in the first round. What the wha? Let's jump right in! Last Known Values - L - 64.83% (2007) - Ryu - 28.05% (2007) - Meta Knight - 22.80% (2007) - The Dog - new The great battle is, in this case, BRAWLFEAR vs JOKEFEAR. Meta Knight's got alot going for him in this one- he was dismissed as "guy from a trailer" last season and some B8ers picked him to not only finish behind Peach, but behind CATS as well. (CATS!) Instead he proved that he's got a loyal Kirby following that stuck behind him and pushed him on to nice showings, even when SSB competition arrived in the form of Fox. He's still got that loyal Kirby backing, he's still got his very appealing character design, and now he's actually BEEN IN SSB as well. Where, just by the by, he's both a casual favorite and the undisputed \#1 ranked choice on the pro-level tiers. Whoa! What could stand in the way of so many strong positive points? Well, his opponent, uh... beat Link last year. Pretty easily. Does that count for anything? The crazy thing is, maybe it doesn't! Even though L ended the season as arguably the biggest powerhouse we've ever seen, he STARTED it not all that far above the fodder line, and had to rely on extremely fortunate bracket placement in order to survive in both round one and round two. Will the L-Block train need a few rounds to gain steam in '08? Will it even gain steam at all, or will the internet at large agree that the joke has grown stale and its time to move on? So many questions regarding JOKEFEAR, with so few answers to this point in the Contest... lucky for us those answers will be arriving in only a couple hours now. Seems like an epically close battle to this point- but what's this? It appears that SB has introduced a new twist that's going to tip the scales! In a brilliant move on his part, SB has decided to throw a major monkey wrench into L's gears right from the outset: not only are Ryu and Meta strong in their own right, and independent of each other so that both should perform at peak strength, L is also being challenged by a little something called Joke LFF! Could The Dog be L's perfect poison? I contend that it's more likely than you might think. He's an old school character that any gamer from the NES era should recognize, but he's also totally ridiculous and will look look just as out of place in the selection block as any other joke from this season. Plus, he got the perfect match pic! Let's not forget that the last time voters were offered a joke vote alternative to L-Block they jumped ship in droves by \[\| rallying ?-Block to a very easy victory over the '07 champ\], and this on the day when his strength should have been at its all-time height. In summation, Ryu is great in this format and should perform like a champ tomorrow, Meta Knight is very good in this format and should perform well also, and even though L-Block outdid Kirby, there will be no Donkey Kong tomorrow to hold MK back- instead, Blocky's the one who will have to deal with LFF, and The Dog will be the key to his defeat. (Now, how much of that writeup was honest reasoning versus wishful thinking? You decide!) When we take all of that wall of text into consideration, convert it into numbers, and cook it up in the big ol' pot, we come out with - Ryu (Street Fighter) - 34.60% - Meta Knight - 26.85% - L-Block - 26.75% - The Dog - 11.80% Death to the Block, you say? Why that sounds... delicious! Ngamer Says: **Ryu \> Meta Knight** ### Next Day Review Darn you Bloooock! But let me clear up something from yesterday before we begin: I don't hate joke characters. Really, I don't. Block and the Dog turned this into an exciting match, WCC forcing either Tidus or DK to choke away R2 will be pretty funny, Hogger knocking out Laharl and Ramza will be worth a laugh, and if the Sandman can actually rise up and punch Magus out of the tourney it will be hilariously embarrassing. My problem is that thanks to the nature of the format, these jokes AREN'T jokes anymore- instead of being worth some giggles and small R1 excitement, 4 ways only make them more dangerous as the competition around them becomes more legitimate. And that's just silly. Examples: that great Vincent vs Crono rematch everyone's been looking forward to seeing? Sorry, now its going to be a meaningless fight for third. That epic duel for a spot in the Final between Vincent and Mario? (Where Mario is weakened enough by Link and Samus to be in serious danger.) Yeah, that's been canceled and replaced by an obvious Link/L-Block advancement. Past the first round these jokes don't make the tournament more fun, they just turn once-interesting matches into clear results thanks to their dull static joke strength. And that's why we need to return to 1v1s in 2009. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3257&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=14) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=14) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Alucard vs Captain Falcon vs Diddy Kong vs Kratos Aurion 2008 _source: Alucard vs Captain Falcon vs Diddy Kong vs Kratos Aurion 2008 (revid 88459)_ ## Results **Round One** `Thursday, October 2nd, 2008` ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 4 - **Match \#:** 15 - **Match Date:** Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Alucard - 33.77% Diddy Kong - 23.69% Captain Falcon - 21.76% Kratos Aurion - 20.71% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Alucard first place (2pts) - 41.12% Alucard second place (1pt) - 17.43% Falcon second place (2pts) - 26.54% Falcon first place (1pt) - 35.56% - **Advancing Prediction:** Alucard - 58.55% (25,120) Falcon - 62.10% (26,643) After a long run of predictable necessities, we were given our second surprise match in a row. This didn't have the aura of an L-Block match, but it was a surprise nonetheless. Alucard, Falcon, and Kratos were all known commodities coming in, and because people were wise to LFF this year, Alucard was the clear and obvious favorite to finish in first place. Falcon and Diddy were guaranteed to steal each other's votes and prop Alucard up; we all knew that already. What we didn't know was who would finish in second place. Captain Falcon had been in two contests, and in both he got utterly embarrassed. Losing to Crono in a blowout will happen, but that 2007 result is so bad. In an all-Nintendo poll, this dude finished in third place behind Wario: Wario! Who actually likes Wario unironically? So there was that with Falcon. It was very hard to make an honest case for him to win second place here, because just one year ago we saw him lose in a similar spot. Kratos had made one contest prior to this one, and this was the result: Doesn't exactly fill you with determination to pick him, does it? That, and Fails of gets nominated for every contest and pisses down its leg in every contest. A ton of people thought Falcon and Diddy were collectively weak enough to not finish in second place while stealing enough votes from each other to allow Kratos to squirt by into second place. Yes, people in 2008 had faith in Fails of finishing ahead of Nintendo. This is a real thing. It actually happened. The overall consensus ended up being Alucard \> Diddy Kong, but it was not a confident backing of Diddy at all. It's almost like he was the choice by default. If you check the guru, oracle, and overall prediction percentage of the time, there was not a lot of faith in the little guy winning second place here, but the logic in him being the favorite was sound. Fails of had never proven to be anything but garbage. Captain Falcon had never proven to be anything but garbage. Diddy Kong had BrawlFEAR, The Hierarchy™, and the given fact of Donkey Kong Country being more popular than F-Zero all on his side. Captain Falcon had been in Smash since 1999 and never amounted to much in contests, but Diddy making a hyped Brawl debut had to be worth a lot.... right? When this match started, this was Captain Falcon: When this poll started, Captain Falcon didn't just come out and legitimately end Diddy Kong's whole career -- Diddy got his ass kicked in this poll and hasn't made a contest since -- he was winning the entire poll outright. To this day a lot of people are confused how this happened, but the answer is simple. Rally spillover. Weird things happen after L-Block/Draven/Undertale/etc type matches. This was no exception, as both sides of the L-Block crowd backed Falcon with the board vote. This gave him a lead over Alucard for 15 minutes before things settled down to a simple Alucard \> Falcon finish, and it stands to reason Falcon might have won this poll if it was a 1v1 match. For those playing the home game, the thought of Alucard losing to Captain Falcon 1v1 in 2008, or frankly in any other contest after 2002, was preposterous. But it was very likely would have happened if this was a 1v1 contest and this match happened directly after a Ryu/L-Block 1v1 match. Can you see why I hate this format yet? It robs us of so much. By the way, as one of the people who called this match, my logic was simple. Donkey Kong is a historic choke artist. Why would the less popular Diddy be any different, especially in the face of a character that Smash fans think of in much higher esteem? I know Smash fans really well; they hated Diddy Kong right from the jump and always had a healthy respect for Captain Falcon, plus Falcon has the cool factor. You can't say I didn't warn you, because I legitimately saw this coming. Us Smash fans are really, really picky like that. ## Stats and Analysis - Captain Falcon overperformed by **+6.63%**, the **\#6** most impressive performance of 2008 - Diddy Kong underperformed by **-4.77%**, the **\#17** most disappointing performance of 2008 Well, \*this\* was certainly an interesting little match. From the beginning, this was a debate between two to three characters. Alucard and Diddy Kong were the probable finishers, just with the order between the two debated. While Diddy was thought to be stronger than the constantly deteriorating 'card straight up, he had a weight in Falcon bringing him down. There was also talk of Kratos Aurion sneaking in ahead of Diddy, and while that conclusion would come to be somewhat vindicated by the end of this match, it certainly wasn't in any way that would vindicate his supporters. In the end, one part of the match played out to form - Alucard advanced easily. But on the other side of the spectrum was Diddy Kong - and he was getting his monkey ass smoked by Captain Falcon. Captain Falcon? The same Falcon who has nothing to his name outside of SSB except F-Zero, of which I'm pretty sure only transience and I have played and ONLY I like him from? Against the same Diddy who, aside from Brawl, has the monster hit DKC games to his name as well as a wealth of other AAA titles? Hell DIDDY KONG RACING is probably more popular than F-Zero here, so what happened? Call it Brawl seniority or Diddy Kong simply taking after his elder simian's penchant for choking, but by the end of this match Falcon had a good argument for beating Alucard straight up. He didn't just beat Diddy, he SFFed him down to Kratos Aurion's level (and thankfully for him, everyone was so preoccupied with Diddy sucking they barely noticed his flop). The pattern continued - if the only SSB game you had to your name was Brawl, you did horrifically. Suddenly Ike fans were really scared of a Blizzard entity waiting in the wings next match. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Let's thankfully move on to a non-joke match, shall we? Starting with what we saw out of these folks last time around... Last Known Values - Alucard - 21.09% (2007) - Kratos A - 18.02% (2007) - Diddy - new - Falcon - 15.25% (2007) This is one of the most unique setups we've ever witnessed, really. You've got Alucard, who has clearly taken a couple steps back since his 2003 glory days and is now only a little ways over the fodder line, by all indications. Then there's Kratos A, who was possibly hurt somewhat by sharing the GameCube with Midna; account for that and he's probably right there at the fodder line. And of course Falcon, who got triply held back by Fox/Wario/Banjo, and is probably right there are the fodder line otherwise (as he was in '06). And the newcomer is none other than Diddy, who by all accounts ought to be a little bit under DK in strength and... whoa, that'd leave him just a little over the fodder line as well! What to do when all combatants are right next to each other in strength? Well you account for LFF of course! Diddy was planning to pack some newfound punch in '08 thanks to Brawl, but how much will that series be able to help him when three-time series vet Falcon is going to be right there to scoop up much of the support? On the other hand the Capn't has already proven he's near the bottom of the Nintendo food chain- could Diddy really be on a lower rung? The most likely result would seem to be that neither completely ruins the other, but both do enough damage to drop them to the bottom of this pack. That leaves us with Alucard- fortunately, Ally's already been in a similar position, and he came through with flying colors! I'm referring of course to the last time we saw a R1 fourpack between seemingly equal opponents, where Alucard essentially tied Liquid Snake and both of them beat out Ness handily, even though he had come in with the advantage of being the only Nintendo character in the mix. Tonight there will be no other PSX-era challenger to limit his potential, so I'd be shocked to see Alucard finish anywhere but first. The bad news is, this forces me to do something I'd promised myself never to attempt again... I'm putting faith in Tales! Hate to, but Kratos Aurion is clearly the "cream" of the crop when it comes to that series, and with Diddy probably not being able to Ulti-blow-him-out even 1v1, the collateral damage from Captain Falcon ought to be just enough to allow KA to squeak by. That makes plenty of sense... so why do I feel so awful about picking it? Don't know, but better turn those thoughts to numbers before I lose my nerve! Potted and stirred and: - Alucard - 31.85% - Kratos Aurion - 24.21% - Diddy Kong - 23.79% - Captain Falcon - 20.16% I sure hope an outright Crew victory is part of The Plan- I could really use it at this point. Ngamer Says: **Alucard \> Kratos Aurion** ### Next Day Review So anyways I was thinking about that absolutely absurd start for Falcon, and wondering when we'd ever seen something like it before. And then it hit me- Soul Calibur/Kingdom Hearts! KH was a Square RPG during the height of Square's dominance on the site that had sold 10 million copies and dominated the FAQ listings most of the year- we were expecting it to win with about 65% of the vote. Yet the poll came up and, weird, SC was hanging in there... then a minute later and SC was somehow KILLING! Now the connection here is of course that SC/KH kicked off at the conclusion of StarCraft vs Halo, arguably the most heavily rallied matchup of all time to that point, and one that came down to the final minutes. Much like StarCraft and Halo fans not caring a bit about KH, why would the L-Blockers being rallied to hold back Ryu's powerful second night vote care about Alucard? They wouldn't, and between Falcon dominating that match pic, being a fan favorite in both SSB and Melee, and having a small meme of his own regarding his Falcon PAAAUNCH, now his crazy start makes alot more sense. (Unfortunately there's another character with a weak ASV and a powerful second night vote that figures to be cut out at the knees by Block rallying- guy by the name of Crono. How gross is it that only WCC or Sandbag have any chance of causing a Block loss from here out?) ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3258&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=15) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=15) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Arthas Menethil vs Ike vs Pikachu vs Spy 2008 _source: Arthas Menethil vs Ike vs Pikachu vs Spy 2008 (revid 85795)_ ## Results **Round One** `Friday, October 3rd, 2008` ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 4 - **Match \#:** 16 - **Match Date:** Friday, October 3rd, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Pikachu - 35.04% Arthas Menethil - 26.00% Ike - 25.52% Spy - 13.22% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Pikachu first place (2pts) - 50.76% Pikachu second place (1pt) - 34.36% Arthas second place (2pts) - 19.13% Arthas first place (1pt) - 18.73% - **Advancing Prediction:** Pikachu - 85.12% (36,519) Arthas - 37.86% (16,243) In retrospect, the debate around this match should not have been much of a debate at all. Ike lost to Duke Nukem and Gordon Freeman, while Arthas's 2007 number was clearly undervalued from having to split time with Diablo. Pair that up with Ike having to split votes with Pikachu this year, and it's a wonder anyone picked Ike for second place. That, and Ike is a choke artist on par with Donkey Kong in these contests, but he doesn't have a bunch of legendary meltdowns and blown leads so he isn't thought of the same way. And just look at the match picture. Other than Pikachu sticking out like Nicki Manaj's ass implants, The Lich King is one of the coolest character designs out there. I loathe Blizzard with every fiber of my soul and even \*I\* like Arthas. That tells you everything you need to know. When the poll started, Board 8 put their bracket vote support behind Ike. Pikachu didn't need it, Board 8 loves them some Fire Emblem, and they knew Ike needed the help. It lasted all of 30 minutes. Arthas started making headway before the Nintendo Power Hour was finished, and by the time the night rolled on this match was completely over. Pikachu easily took first place, and Arthas took second place so thoroughly that he actually gave Pikachu a small scare overnight when he stalled the little rat. Yes it was due to Nintendo votes being split, but still. It was an impressive showing by Arthas. When the morning rolled around and THE KIDDIES WOKE UP (always a fun thing to mention whenever Pokemon is involved), Pikachu and Arthas both exploded. Pikachu going up had a direct correlation with Ike dropping like a rock, and that was that. Match over. Ike's day vote has always been pathetic, and this match is one of many you can point to to prove it. But then the after school vote hit and we saw one of the funniest failed comeback attempts we've ever had. At his peak, Arthas led Ike by 2500 votes. Ike won the ASV so badly that he would end up losing by only 1000. Ike even cut Pikachu a few times, which is hilarious to think about in retrospect, especially given it meant nothing. Where was all this support before school let out, Ike fans? Maybe Ike's contest history wouldn't be such trash if you all weren't such flakes. It's a cool little event to look back on, but it doesn't mean much and it certainly doesn't take away from Ike's contest history as a choke artist. And for those paying attention so far, BrawlFEAR looked to be a bit overrated so far in this contest. Obviously we know this wasn't actually the case thanks to Solid Snake, but for first party Nintendo characters the case could definitely be made that Brawl was not the factor it should have been. More on that when we actually get to Snake's run. ## Stats and Analysis - Arthas advancing was the **\#3** most surprising result of Round 1 I encourage everyone to go look at the poll update graph if you haven't already. Ike's ASV is truly hilarious. Anyway, this match came down to two characters - Arthas and Ike. Spy was another random piece of fodder there solely to display how bad SBallin' was at bracket-making, while Pikachu, thanks to his ridiculous run last year, was an easy favorite for first. Arthas, for his part, was back after a fantastic showing where he not only prevented Diablo from beating KOS-MOS, but BEAT Diablo outright and would have likely advanced had it not been for Diablo weighing HIM down. Ike, now with a RELEASED SSB game to his name, also had high hopes, though they had been tempered and then some by the flopping of his kindred up to this point. Ike was presumably stronger than Arthas, but he had a weight in Pikachu dragging him down while Arthas was easily the most independent contender in the match. Hmm, this sounds familiar... Well, this match stayed more to form than the last - and after Ike's rush of bracket voting, Arthas quickly took control and rode himself through the night to an insurmountable lead. And by "insurmountable", I mean "cutting updates constantly on Pikachu until morning" insurmountable. Ike made some noise with the morning vote, but Arthas took control with the during school vote and built himself up a lead of nearly 2500 votes. From there, the match was all Ike's to shine - and boy, if he hadn't sucked SO much during the night we would've really had a match on our hands. By the end of the day Arthas' lead was barely over a thousand, and he had pretty much pushed himself out of contention for next round unless Alucard and Falcon turned out to be MUCH weaker than expected. Despite that, he had gotten to shine, Ike did what he could in a match where a big rat-shaped albatross was around his neck all day, and Spy uh produced fodder for interesting topics yeah. The only real disappointment, I think, was Pikachu - being unable to get 55% on Ike despite having reason to SFF him on two platforms didn't bode well for the rat, and Alucard \> Pikachu looked like a sexy upset. Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure I'd take Ike \> Pikachu 1v1. Where do you think those Arthas and Spy votes go, after all? ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction We've got another potentially super-wacky result ahead of us today! Let's hop right in. Last Known Values - Pikachu - 24.59% (2007) - Arthas - 16.78% (2007) - Ike - 19.51% (2007) - Spy - new You might as well throw that Arthas value right out the window. If you don't think that he and Diablo flat out devastated each other, and that left alone either would have crushed KOS-MOS with ease, then I'm afraid we can no longer be friends. The victory over Diablo makes it clear that the guy has a dedicated WC3 fanbase, and I see no reason for them to abandon him here. Then you add to that his being the face of the game receiving the biggest media blitz since Halo 3, AND drawing the perfect box art pic from that game for this poll, and its easy to see why I was willing to go out on a limb and make him my "upset special" pick for second place in this one. ...except as time went on Ike kept losing more and more support, until my upset pick had become the Guru consensus by the time brackets locked! What happened? Well I think that in addition to realizing how solid Arthas had performed in '07 (given the circumstances), people also started to realize what a grim situation Ike was looking at here in terms of LFF. Between Mudkip and Pikachu and Mewtwo, 2007 made it pretty evident that well-loved Pokemon from the R/B/Y and G/S/C era can hang in there with anyone in this format, even Nintendo heavy hitters like Ganon and Luigi and Bowser. And sure Ike is a Brawl casual favorite, but heck, so is Pikachu, and the guy ALSO held that title in almost undisputed fashion in both SSB and Melee. How could poor Ike be expected to perform much above the fodder line in the face of all that? I don't think he should be, and its unfortunate that what will end up being credited as 'Brawl Newcomer Weakness' will actually be, at least in this case, just a matter of Pikachu pulling from too many fanbases to be held back in this format. As for Spy, well, Portal has already looked solid and Half-Life has already looked quite respectable itself, so I don't see why TF2 wouldn't continue the trend tomorrow. Picking him to beat an LFF weakened Ike is pushing it IMO, especially when I don't think Spy is going to perform at the level of his more iconic co-TF2er the Heavy, but I wouldn't be shocked if he hung around that level before the SSB morning vote kicked in. In summation, I felt fairly confident about Arthas over Ike earlier today. After seeing this match pic, I'm upgrading that to "very confident." Now the fun will be in seeing where this wildcard named Arthas ends up- will the WoW regions rally him all the way past Pika to set him up beautifully for a Round Three appearance? I wouldn't count it out! After converting those thoughts to numbers, my pot has been stirred and it produced the following numbers: - Pikachu - 33.99% - Arthas Menethil - 28.14% - Ike - 23.17% - Spy - 14.69% Those look so good that I'm drooling! Ngamer Says: **Pikachu \> Arthas** ### Next Day Review After a stretch of bad results there, I'd forgotten how good it feels to go out on a limb and be right for a change. I gave Ike plenty of credit but still expected Arthas to have a little too much in the tank in terms of WotLK hype and rally power to fall back on if need be, and that was correct- whoo! (What's that you say? Arthas wasn't even the risky pick there? Hey, stop killing my buzz!) ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3259&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=16) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=16) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Donkey Kong vs Miles "Tails" Prower vs Tidus vs Weighted Companion Cube 2008 _source: Donkey Kong vs Miles 'Tails' Prower vs Tidus vs Weighted Companion Cube 2008 (revid 85796)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, October 4th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 5 - **Match \#:** 17 - **Match Date:** Saturday, October 4th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Tidus - 30.16% Donkey Kong - 27.36% Weighted Companion Cube - 23.75% Tails - 18.74% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Cube first place (2pts) - 18.67% Cube second place (1pt) - 19.37% Tidus second place (2pts) - 31.81% Tidus first place (1pt) - 24.52% - **Advancing Prediction:** Cube - 38.04% (16,320) Tidus - 56.33% (24,167) Pre-contest, the big debate surrounding this match was Tidus vs Donkey Kong. Neither character had been lighting the world on fire in recent contests, and some of their collective performances were outright embarrassing even in wins. Here are some of the low lights: The 2007 performances were especially egregious, but if you were a fan of the LOL X-Stats method, Tidus was always ahead of Donkey Kong in the stats. Conventional wisdom held that this would remain the case in 2008, and Tidus \> Donkey Kong was the pretty overwhelming consensus pick. Oddly enough, these two would eventually have a 1v1 match in 2018, and all of the same logic that made Tidus the overwhelming favorite in 2008 was used there as well. LOL, X-STATS. Ahem. As for the 2008 match, this was a case where people didn't exactly care about their brackets. This was all about rooting for the Weighted Companion Cube, and I'll say it again. If this was a 1v1 games contest, Portal would have won. It had the type of love that year that you saw from Undertale in 2015, and more importantly when it relates to this match, there was no anti-bandwagon with the Cube. Everyone loved the thing, and they were rooting for it to advance in this match. No one thought it would be L-Block or anything, but hey, maybe if it squeezed by this match, round 2 would be Mega Man, Tidus, the Cube, and some fodder, and from there who really knows? Yeah, the Cube did a lot more than merely "advance". When this poll started, it was clear the Cube had bandwagon joke love right from the jump, Tidus also left Donkey Kong in the dust once early bracket votes were exhausted, which paved the way for a fairly mundane Cube \> Tidus result. Or so we thought. The Cube built up a 1000 vote lead pretty quickly, and the lead peaked at 1500 overnight. What happened from there was a pretty fun comeback attempt by Tidus, but again, I can't bring myself to care about these first place duels. If this was a 1v1 match, and Tidus not only chopped a 1500 vote lead down below 1000, but started winning the morning vote, Board 8 would have lost their minds. As-is, it was a meaningless comeback because both characters were advancing either way. This format robs us of so much. I will say though that Tidus coming back in the face of a bandwagoned joke character, despite not being particularly well-liked himself, was super impressive. He took it on the chin early, but eventually got that 1500 vote lead all the way down to 400. Had he won the ASV he might have made a push for first, but the Cube won it to put things away for good. He got the lead up to 800 before falling off a bit at night. As one might expect, people lost their minds over this one. The Cube didn't get a lucky draw and win second place like L-Block did in 2007. He straight up won his first match, and if he beat Tidus here then round 2 seemed like a bye. All he had to do there was beat Tidus again. And from there, all he needed to do was catch more bandwagon love. A lot of people felt like the contest was over after this match, and frankly the Cube deserved to win this contest. We know what eventually happened, but the crazy run Cube went on all started right here. This was a triumph. By the way, that video has almost 40 million views. Those are Megalovania numbers. I'm telling you, Portal would have won. As-is, the Cube came dangerously close. ## Stats and Analysis - Weighted Companion Cube advancing was the **\#4** most surprising result of Round 1 - Weighted Companion Cube overperformed by **+8.46%**, the **\#4** most impressive performance of 2008 - Donkey Kong underperformed by **-6.11%**, the **\#7** most disappointing performance of 2008 - Tails underperformed by **-3.93%**, the **\#24** most disappointing performance of 2008 Funny how Tidus' most impressive match since Tidus/Ganondorf 2k3 is him losing to a Cube, huh? But seriously, look at that Oracle prediction. After Mudkip, L-Block, and especially GlaDOS I feel justified in saying the board looked like a fool in denial for this match. Cube was placing, it was the favorite to get first, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The "real" match was supposed to be Tidus/DK. After Tidus got exposed, people have talked him and DK as being a good match for awhile, especially considering the Ninty Boost and another probable Brawl boost on the way. Well, things didn't quite turn out that way, but Tidus had been looking nothing but disappointing since then as well. Thus, we got this match - Nintendo and Square's biggest chokers gunning for all the marbles. And what a fizzle it turned out to be - Donkey Kong, shocked that anyone would vie for his title after Vercetti, Duck Hunt, Vivi, Master Chief, and who knows what else, gave perhaps the biggest bomb of his contest career here. He must still be ashamed of winning over Aya Brea, what can I say? Tidus obliterated him 60-40 style, leaving DK much closer to Tails than he. Meanwhile, Tails was finding new ways of making Sonic Team look pathetic even after we knew they were hopeless. What a trooper. Tidus also managed to keep it razor close to Cube the whole day, and even though it was obviously a lost cause - jokes don't let characters complete close comebacks on them - he came out looking like he actually BELONGED in these contests. And really, for him, that's probably just as good as a victory. Meanwhile, the jokes were 3 for 3 and looked like they could all easily make it to the next round as well. "Augh" indeed. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction And now we return to... joke character territory, uh oh! Now as I explained in that post-Block writeup I DO think that jokes add something to the 4-way table. In the first round, that is. L-Block and WCC and Hogger and Sandbag, all of these are legitimately enjoyable matches to discuss and debate beforehand, because the element of the unknown means these jokes could either be true threats or absolute busts. The trouble is that from R2 and on, we're able to pin their strength down pretty easily, and their static fanbases work to actually makes results from then on LESS interesting. But okay, I'm starting to get carried away, got to break that line of thought and jump right into where these fellows finished up last time around: Last Known Values - Tidus - 22.69% (2007) - Donkey Kong - 21.53% (2007) - Tails - 18.26% (2007) - WCC - new (however if you count the bonus match and base it off L-Block, it's... really high) The Cube is undoubtedly the one to watch out of this whole delightful mess. In my opinion it has a pretty tremendous range: I could see it pulling anywhere from 20.00% (which is what GlaDOS managed against Vincent and is probably a pretty good indication of what pure Portal appeal is worth) and 31.81% (what L-Block managed against Ryu; we know Block could have gone higher if not for The Dog, but I can't see WCC having that kind of broad appeal right off the bat, so 32 seems about right). The trouble of course is that if its more to the low end, all Cube can hope for is to hold off Tails for third place... but if it performs toward the high end, it could not only win this four pack but do it convincingly. I hope that I'm just being too knee-jerkingly reactionary, but sorry, the way Block performed at mid-season '07 levels while having enough "funny" jokes left over for The Dog to look like at least somewhat decent fodder has me suffering from a pretty severe case of JOKEFEAR right now. I see the Cube finishing closer to the high end of my given range, which adds a whole new layer of excitement to this match- only one other option can survive here. Who will it be?! Let's eliminate Tails from the running right off the bat. Even if WCC was Tanner-level fodder no one would be giving this guy a shot at advancement, and with good reason; you don't go from losing to The Boss to knocking out decent midcarders, especially not when your Sonic Team pals have been bombing left and right ever since this new format came into play. OK, so how about Tidus? I think the FFX lead has been given a great opportunity here. He gets to act as a lightning rod for all things FF/Square/RPG and really stands out from this crowd of fuzzy animals and weird boxes. The underperformance from Vincent aside (which I still don't understand BTW), that's been a recipe for success so far this season, and I'm not seeing any reason for it to stop now. The only negative I see for Tidus is his match picture, but eh, he always looks kind of embarrassingly feminine in his pics, and that's never stop- Alright, so maybe it HAS stopped him before. But still, bad pics should just be a natural part of his (lack of?) strength by this point, so I don't see him flopping TOO far below expectations. That leaves us with only Donkey Kong. The poor guy... I see him losing here, finishing out of the running in third and having to put up with wave after wave of "better loosen that tie DK, you're choking again!" topics in the next 24 hours, but he really won't deserve it. The King of the Kongs has just been placed in a really unfavorable position here: we've already seen that there's a pretty serious connection between Nintendo and Sonic these days with the way Mario and Link caused Knuckles and Shadow to underperform, and so even though Tails shouldn't be pulling in a very large percentage of these votes, the few voters he does win over will be coming at DK's expense IMO. On top of that I just get the unexplainable impression that WCC, much like L-Block before it, is going to take the biggest bite out of old school Nintendo characters, and since we've already seen how bad DK looked when dealing with pressure from Blocky and Kirby, that feels like another strike against him. Maybe that sounds weird, but yeah, I can't shake the idea that Tidus supporters are going to be more loyal and less willing to toss their vote to the Cube for the sake of a laugh. In summation, if DK is able to overcome all these obstacles and advance tomorrow, I'll be hugely impressed. If Tidus blows all of his advantages and fails tomorrow, he will earn the title of the undisputed biggest choker in GameFAQs history. If JOKEFEAR fails me tomorrow and the Cube flops hard, I will be very surprised (but also overjoyed). Let's numberize those thoughts, stir them in the pot for a few minutes, and come out with: - Weighted Companion Cube - 27.66% - Tidus - 27.55% - Donkey Kong - 26.23% - Miles 'Tails' Prower - 18.56% And with that we reach the sad end of an era, as I've been forced to pick against my bracket (Tidus \> DK) for the first time this year. \*wipes away a single tear\* Ngamer Says: **WCC \> Tidus** ### Next Day Review Hey hey, perfect picks two days in a row now! If only my bracket could say the same... But yeah, today is a perfect example of why I don't mind joke characters in the first round. Even accounting for Tails hurting him and Tidus probably have the advantage of a stronger fanbase less likely to be joke-leached, DK still majorly disappointed in this one, and I have no problem with punishing him by not allowing him into another match. The trouble is that the presence of a strong, legit character in MM will only make it easier for the Cube to again outlast Tidus next round, and suddenly the joke has outworn its welcome. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3260&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=17) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=17) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Banjo vs Captain Olimar vs Mega Man vs Nero 2008 _source: Banjo vs Captain Olimar vs Mega Man vs Nero 2008 (revid 85797)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, October 5th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 5 - **Match \#:** 18 - **Match Date:** Sunday, October 5th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Mega Man - 50.47% Nero - 20.31% Captain Olimar - 16.42% Banjo - 12.90% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Mega Man first place (2pts) - 68.87% Mega Man second place (1pt) - 22.83% Nero second place (2pts) - 30.68% Nero first place (1pt) - 8.33% - **Advancing Prediction:** Mega Man - 91.70% (39,342) Nero - 39.01% (16,736) This was one of the easiest matches to pick all contest, because Mega Man \> Nero was a 100% lock. Banjo and Olimar are pretty much bottom of the barrel on the Nintendo Hierarchy™, and having them share a poll with Mega Man while also stealing votes from each other was a recipe to get annihilated. Nero getting second place by default here was a given, and that's exactly what happened. This poll might have different percentages in modern times with Smash Ultimate and Devil May Cry 5 factored in, but who really knows or cares. The last thing we need is more LOL 4ways. Oh and for the people who thought Olimar could beat Nero because of BrawlFEAR, you're a bunch of looney tunes. I hate to break this news, but no one cares about Pikmin outside of getting that one trophy in Super Smash Bros Melee, and no one likes Olimar in Smash Bros. The most hated characters in the series are the zoning types where you need a PHD in blueprints and sectioning to know the matchup. Olimar was never going to do anything here, and him getting dead last shows it. ## Stats and Analysis - Nero advancing was the **\#6** most surprising result of Round 1 - Captain Olimar underperformed by **-4.92%**, the **\#16** most disappointing performance of 2008 First, a hearty "what the HELL" at anyone that thought Olimar had even the faintest glimmer of a shot at Nero. The kid might be the "Raiden" of the Devil May Cry series, but even Raiden beat Sam Fisher and I assure you, Olimar is no Sam Fisher. More importantly, Mega "I CAN STILL OBLITERATE NINTENDO FODDER Y'KNOW" Man was in this match, and anyone that didn't think an effectively Brawl-only character wasn't going to be SFFed into the dust was deluding themselves. Okay, to take a less judgmental tack, this was all about seeing how our only newbie, Nero would do, as well as take measure of Mega Man's strength - calibrated for obvious winner underperforming, naturally. By that measure, Mega Man actually didn't embarrass himself, though looking at what, say, Crono had done a week ago, it just didn't measure up. It was definitely the weakest Noble Nine performance so far, and though SOME people pounced and refused to let go (\<\_\<), it was still NN caliber. Meanwhile, Nero did what he was supposed to do - put up decent numbers on Mega Man, kill Olimar and Banjo. Banjo even got a tiny ray of sunlight by not coming in last, though that's just really to say... get the \*\*\*\* out of my contest, Brawl. Seriously. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction The one hope for the non-jokes is that Nero pulls off something pretty incredible here tonight to make himself a favorite over the Cube. But considering he'd need more or less a Dante-like performance to do so, it's not looking too likely! Let's see what we're up against in this one: Last Known Values - Mega Man - 39.02% (2007) - Nero - new - Olimar - 8.84% (2003) - Banjo - 11.13% (2007) Like I said in the MMX match writeup, Mega Man was as solid as a Rock(man) all the way through the '07 bracket, doing pretty much what we expected of him every time and even impressing us once by giving Samus more than she bargained for in the sprite round. I see no reason for that to change here in 2008, especially not with this match taking place at the height of MM9's popularity (it hit the 360 three days ago and is now available worldwide for all three consoles... and the sales figures have been extremely impressive, at least in North America). Had MMX collapsed I might be worried, but nay, he did well for himself and so I think MM and Zero are safe from a series-wide Sonic Team-style tumble for at least one more year. The only point of concern is that with Mega Man acting increasingly Nintendo in recent times, Olimar and Banjo might hold him back a little and allow Nero a better showing than otherwise, but honestly I can't see that being much of a factor considering neither of those characters have any NES/SNES presence. Nero's something of a wildcard, except... not REALLY. We can probably count on him to perform somewhere in the general 16.71% range that Vergil set up last season. I'd probably have set his ceiling a little bit lower before I saw the match pic that was chosen for tomorrow- that's basically the perfect picture for Nero, as he looks almost identical to Dante and gets to hide his ridiculous oversized demon-grabber arm. Between standing out so well in the picture and being the lone non-Nintendo option, I'd be very surprised if he allowed either of his opponents to seriously contend for the 2nd place position. As for Banjo, should we perhaps revise our thoughts on his chances after seeing what happened a few days back? Fox crushed his fourpack in '07, making the rest of that group look somewhere in the range of pretty bad to extremely bad fodder, and yet Captain Falcon wowed us all by putting on a great show against Alucard, proving that Fox's SFF was even more deadly than we expected. But, uh, nay. Banjo's GOT to be worth more than the 11% he earned, sure, but I doubt MM's presence does him any favors in this one, and it's going to take a major flop from Olimar for him to stay out of last place tonight. That leaves only the good Capn't to consider. Could he be the one to shock us just like that other Captain did a few days back? Again, sorry, but I don't see it happening. Sure Olimar was one of the guys who should have received the most notable Brawl boosts, but just look where he was starting BEFORE that boost. If you replaced MM and Banjo with say Auron and Crash this might be the kind of thing where I'd take a flier on the upset of Nero, but as stands there's just too much working against him in this grouping, and I can't see the little guy having the kind of strength needed to swim upstream against odds like these for very long. Sooooo if MM is strong and Nero is meh and Olimar is ugh and Banjo is ewwww, then... - Mega Man - 51.81% - Nero - 19.44% - Captain Olimar - 16.09% - Banjo - 12.66% Oh man, no matter how I tweak this one it still keeps coming out looking just awful based on my gut reaction. All of a sudden I've lost alot of confidence in this pick. Ngamer Says: **Mega Man \> Nero** ### Next Day Review Darn it! DARN IT!! I just can't beat these Marios! And the video game tournament is tomorrow! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3261&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=18) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=18) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## King Dedede vs Pit vs Ryu Hayabusa vs Zero 2008 _source: King Dedede vs Pit vs Ryu Hayabusa vs Zero 2008 (revid 85798)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, October 6th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 5 - **Match \#:** 19 - **Match Date:** Monday, October 6th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Zero - 35.45% Ryu Hayabusa - 30.42% King Dedede - 17.66% Pit - 16.48% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Ryu H first place (2pts) - 41.77% Ryu H second place (1pt) - 27.88% Zero second place (2pts) - 38.51% Zero first place (1pt) - 25.34% - **Advancing Prediction:** Ryu H - 69.65% (29,882) Zero - 63.85% (27,394) As you can see, BrawlFEAR dominated the nomination process this year. Everything from Sandbags to space ants from that game made the field in this contest, and Nintendo or no, there was a ton of first round fodder from that game in this contest. In fact, here are the only Brawl playables to not make the field in 2008: -Zero Suit Samus, who I don't even count as a separate character from Samus -Peach -Popo, who I also don't really count since Nana got in -Sheik, who is another that doesn't really count -Pokemon Trainer Red, and yes the default in Smash is Red and you will never convince me otherwise -R.O.B. -Mr. Game & Watch -Jigglypuff -Toon Link (please) -Wolf Of that entire list, the only ones who count as actual characters are Peach, Pokemon Trainer, R.O.B. (if I'm feeling very generous), Game & Watch, Jigglypuff, and Wolf. From that list, only R.O.B. has never made a contest. If you go back to Melee, only Pichu, Roy, Popo (I guess), and R.O.B. hasn't gotten in. I don't care enough to do the research past that, especially given Smash Ultimate's roster isn't even full yet and I'm supposed to pretend like these writeups are happening in 2008. To the point. Damn near EVERYTHING from Brawl made this contest, and a lot of it went out in round 1 because all of these characters faced each other. Some people think this proves BrawlFEAR was overrated, and to that I simply point at Snake's run. So when people look at this match and place all of the blame on Zero for shitting the bed, it's not entirely his fault. The Mega Man series is basically Nintendo's bitch at this point, and he had to sit there splitting the votes with two other Nintendo characters. This doesn't mean Zero had any right not getting first place here, but what ended up happening is at least somewhat explainable. That said, this was still an epic choke job. Zero was once thought of as a character that could crack the Noble Nine, and it was mainly due to this set of matches: There was also the fact Zero and Ryu had a 1v1 match before: That poll is real. It actually happened. So we all just penciled in Zero \> Ryu without thinking much of it, because this wasn't some lol x-stats thing. We have a direct 63-37 result. Yeah, whoops. Turns out Zero is good, but not that good. When the poll started, Zero struggled to get out of the gates, while Pit and Dedede pulled up the rear. If you folks want to talk about the one time epical battle those two had for third place, knock yourselves out. You're a manic if you do, but hey, you do you. Zero did eventually get going, and overnight it looked like he would cruise to a comfortable, yet disappointing first place. He built up a lead of 700 overnight, and it seemed like we could all just go to bed. But then the unthinkable happened, and Ryu not only started cutting off votes overnight, but he won the morning vote by such convincing fashion that by the time he caught up, it was clear Ryu was going to win. The dude flew by Zero, and kept laying the wood on him all day long until he ended up winning by 1400. It was one of the most shocking board results of the entire contest, because even with two Nintendo characters bringing up the rear, there was no tangible reason to think Ryu could just turn around a 63-37 match in three years' time like this. This was a very embarrassing loss for Zero, though not altogether inexplicable, and again, it didn't even matter in the grand scheme of things since both of them advanced anyway. Thanks, 4ways. First off, Ryu Hayabusa is not some bottom feeder. Outside of 2005 and 2006, this guy is always involved in entertaining matches and he often wins them. Just ask Master Chief. Just ask Jill Valentine, whose mega-duel with Ryu back in 2004 might legitimately be the most entertaining round 1 match we'll ever have. Just ask Simon Belmont, who almost lost to the guy after Smash Ultimate hype. Or in an actual gaming sense, ask anyone who gets to that hidden mission in Nioh. That fight is some of the most annoying nonsense in the entire game. The other factor to consider is the warning signs have been there for years of Mega Man's gang falling off. Mega Man himself went from beating Snake every year to losing to him, and Zero's gradual downfall is pretty evident. If you want to see how bad it would get, just skip ahead to 2013 and 2018. So... yeah. Another random first place upset that would have meant so much more were it an actual 1v1 contest. Thanks, 4ways. You suck. ## Stats and Analysis - Ryu Hayabusa overperformed by **+6.11%**, the **\#8** most impressive performance of 2008 - King Dedede underperformed by **-4.25%**, the **\#22** most disappointing performance of 2008 That says it all. And believe it or not, this was actually considered to have been a GOOD result for Ryu Hayabusa, to have been mostly attributed to his picture. Zero was a once bright star who has been falling faster and faster ever since. Once good enough for 48% on Sonic, doing better on MEGA MAN than Snake could, since his match with Mario things have gone pretty much downhill. That was, until last year - the Maverick Hunter ended up shockingly close to Crono, both looking good and foretelling the downfall of the Noble Niner in the process. Sure, he got killed in the next round, but Link was there. Mega Man always gets crushed by Link. The bottom line was that Zero had looked good in this format, he wouldn't have had a problem even if he hadn't, and with two pieces of fodder from the same game tearing each other apart he would have the lion's share of the votes to work with in tearing down Hayabusa again. Well, either the star has regained its downward trajectory, or the universe just hates BT. I mean, seriously, just look at those results. The match started innocuously enough, with Zero off to a fast start - but it really just wasn't as fast as it "should" have been, especially considering Ryu H's own pretty poor board vote. Still, just a hiccup, right? Not so much - Ryu was stalling, stalling, stalling, and Zero was struggling to put on a lead during his best time. Mega Man characters are about as frontloaded as you can imagine - if you can beat them during the first three hours, you've got the match in the bag. Ryu H didn't do that, but he managed to keep the match within reach - and as soon as the clock ticked 4 am, he began his unstoppable comeback. Zero tried to keep his head above water with the during school vote, but it was for naught - Ryu H actually ended up taking the lead BEFORE the ASV, and 3 pm was just a formality on top of all of that. It wasn't the most impressive of wins, but we're talking about one of the biggest direct margin reversals EVER. Hayabusa shocked the world in this match, even more than he had when he beat Riku and Roxas combined last year. In fact, this one was even MORE shocking, because we had written that all off as a fluke after he went and bombed to a loss in the very next round. Then the gears in our heads started turning - why had he bombed last time? The only thing that seemed to change was the introduction of Solid Snake, and that didn't make much sense... but just to keep everyone on their toes, he was waiting in the wings AGAIN next round. Still, for the time Ryu Hayabusa got his moment in the sun, and while I actually like Zero more than him personally (not in the contests though, eww BT), the most skilled character in all of gaming with the best action games in the business deserves a good upset win under his belt. By the way, I say "upset" in the sense of the board - Ryu's bracket support was INCREDIBLE, and once again the casuals ended up humiliating us in a Zero match. Oh, and let us not leave without giving token mention of Pit and Dedede. See uh I told you Pit was more popular! Ugh two more Brawlers out of the contest less than a hundred to go ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Last Known Values - Zero - 33.32% (2007) - Ryu H - 23.73% (2007) - Pit - 15.73% (2007) - Dedede - new Zero is pretty clearly a stud in this format. I mean yeah, he folded underneath Link/Crono/Vincent, but who wouldn't have? YOU? Doubtful! Actually I was remembering that match and briefly considering whether or not I should consider, if even just briefly, the Ryu upset. But then I remembered that firstly Mega Man 9 was going to be tearing it up right around this time, and secondly that Zero flat out destroyed Ryu 1v1 back in '05. Hm, actually looking at it now, that was only a 63% beating, not as bad as I thought. But still, even if Ryu gets extra points in this format for looking so cool in the match pic or gains ASV strength for being the only Xbox option, there's no way I could imagine him keeping this competitive for the top spot. Likewise I'd be shocked if either of tonight's Brawl options were able to do anything surprising here. Even if that game had been turning newcomers into GameFAQs Contest superstars left and right, I don't see how either of these guys could get enough of an advantage over the other to upstage Ryu. And since we instead seem to be finding out that it takes Melee + Brawl + something else to not flop out here in 2008, I fear we may be in for something more on par with today's awful Banjo/Olimar showings. Between the two, I'm thinking Triple D should have a bit of an advantage thanks to his Kirby appeal, but Pit looks really cool in the picture and will hopefully be able to keep him from running away. Yeah, short writeup there since I don't see anything too wild happening... but prove me wrong, Dedede! - Zero - 36.45% - Ryu Hayabusa - 27.41% - King Dedede - 20.77% - Pit - 15.37% I... don't like that very much! Ack... Ngamer Says: **Zero \> Ryu** ### Next Day Review Well, color me surprised! I guess you can chalk up this Ryu shocker to those of us "in the know" wearing our previous result blinders... but come on now, this wasn't like Snake/Mega Man, where even though MM kept winning you got the feeling Snake was never all that far behind- this was an old fashioned 63% beatdown! You're not supposed to turn around a 26% deficit in just a few years! I guess MM9 alone isn't enough to make up for three years of doing nothing as a series; either that or these low tier Brawlers are taking a bigger bite out of Zero's pie than I would have thought possible. The good thing is we get to find out the answer in just a few weeks. Will Zero pull back out in front of Ryu with no other Nintendo options? Will Vivi instead capitalize on being the only Square/RPG option in a room full of badasses? Will Ryu take full advantage of being the only Xbox option and surprise us again? Wow, this format can be pretty awesome in those rare cases when you clear out the clutter and the fodder and the jokes and throw three legitimate options of near-equal strength against one another- who knew? ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3262&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=19) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=19) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Albert Wesker vs Sackboy vs Solid Snake vs Vivi Ornitier 2008 _source: Albert Wesker vs Sackboy vs Solid Snake vs Vivi Ornitier 2008 (revid 85799)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 5 - **Match \#:** 20 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Solid Snake - 50.65% Vivi Ornitier - 24.45% Albert Wesker - 15.82% Sackboy - 9.34% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Snake first place (2pts) - 78.18% Snake second place (1pt) - 18.86% Vivi second place (2pts) - 44.76% Vivi first place (1pt) - 4.91% - **Advancing Prediction:** Snake - 97.04% (41,633) Vivi - 49.67% (21,310) As silly as many parts of this contest were, there were a lot of predictable early round matches, which given the format is kind of silly. The whole point of the LOL 4ways was to shake it up a bit, no? Snake \> Vivi was a mortal lock that was never going any other way, though there was the occasional yayhoo thinking Wesker would do something here. Right. Dude lost to Fails of and Lara Croft. Whatever you say guys. The match was nothing to write home about, but I'm surprised to look in the wayback machine at people calling this a disappointing showing for Snake. The hell? Do you guys know how hard it is to get over 50% of the vote in a fourway poll without facing three pieces of trash? Snake looked fine here, and he would ultimately go nuts this contest. Metal Gear Solid 4 and Brawl both releasing in the same year will do that. And if you want to call this an underperformance anyway, you could easily say Wesker and Sackboy dragged him down. Moving on. ## Stats and Analysis - Vivi advancing was the **\#10** most surprising result of Round 1 And to round out our fifth division, we were treated to what was probably the lock of the contest. Solid Snake, in addition to being the Best Character Ever, is also none too shabby in these contests, and was a lock to take first due to that upper tier Noble Nine pedigree. Vivi, while not quite as stellar, uses his fan-favoritism from FF9 and his trademark Black Mage Factor to perform at a good midcard level. Their opponents? Albert Wesker, who got held under 30% by Kefka in his first contest outing, and Sackboy, whose game was both unreleased at the time and in the same match with probably the only character in the world who can SFF him. What the hell, SBallin'. As such, the only things to really watch here were the numbers, and Snake went out and put up that classic underperformance that we'd expected from our obvious winners by now. This didn't mean so much to all of the others, but Snake had just enjoyed the best year a character could have asked for in contest history - the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 AND Super Smash Brothers Brawl. People were even going so far as to have him beating Cloud in the semis with Sephiroth (hello), with the really nutty having him place in the finals. I get the feeling some people were expecting 60% here. Meanwhile, Vivi had a really stellar day, putting up good enough numbers on Snake and standing out so much in the next round's lineup that people were considering him for second. And after what Zero had just gone and done, more power to them, you'd think! Wesker and Sackboy were left with the leftovers, of course, with Wesker struggling at many points to win whole HOURS against the little guy. Seriously, when you're struggling to beat a SFFed character whose game isn't out yet, you know you're bottom of the barrel, and I love Wesker. Sackboy, for his part, definitely deserves a shot at another contest if LBP wears well. Just... hope he doesn't get put against Snake again. And just because I can - even though it took the day vote to do it (uhhhhhh), Snake did end up a percent ahead of his Oracle prediction in the end. He was also graced with having one of the strongest fourpacks a Noble would have to deal with next round, so he'd have the chance to stretch his legs there. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Speaking of awesome matches between even characters, today is... well, not one of them. I've been wrong before, obviously, but I'm going to go ahead and say that there's not any way I see this upcoming poll being too entertaining, at least in terms of placement. Should still be fun to watch as an indicator of how next round's fantastic battle for second ought to play out, though. Let's dive in! Last Known Values - Snake - 45.41% (2007) - Vivi - 23.49% (2007) - Wesker - 17.55% (2007) - Sackboy - new The story of Snake in '07 is kind of a sad one. I mean, here's a guy who looked absolutely incredible in this format, performed like a monster, made it into the Championship match, held up decently well against the two strongest characters we'd ever seen... and yet the only thing people recall about him is how seemingly every time you turned around the guy was struggling to pull ahead of a Tetris block. Well now he's back, and this time around he has been playable in Brawl, been top tier in Brawl, sold a ton of PS3s with MGS4- in short I'd be very surprised if between this format and all the extra exposure this wasn't the strongest version of Snake we've ever seen. A shame he didn't get placed in a 4-pack with a set of chumps, or I think he'd have had a legit chance of scoring the biggest blowout of the round. Vivi is a character who I think we have a pretty good bead on. Maybe we were a little surprised to see him unable to hurt Tidus more than he did last season, but aside from that he seems like a reliable guy who we can pretty much depend on to perform in that 23 to 25 mid-range on BL, at least when he gets to act independent of other Square like in this one. Wesker seems fairly reliable as well- he's one of those dudes who is just no good in these Contests, but has enough of a fanbase to never be completely awful either. I'm thinking that in 9 out of 10 cases he would live up to the billing and come out either just below or just a hair above that fodder line. The wildcard of the group is of course Sackboy. Before the jokes started really taking off, I heard him being discussed as a good candidate for the 128th position on the final stats for this season. But a Dog and and a Block and a Cube later, some of those same people are giving this Sack serious consideration for second place in this group- WHAT? Yeah, well afraid I'm not buying either of those two extremes: Sackboy might look like a joke, but with how heavily LittleBigPlanet has been promoted and hyped recently I'm giving voters enough credit to at least somewhat know him. And knowing him could easily work against him... no one hates Valve, but Sackboy is king of setting himself up as a posterboy for all things PS3, and that might be a dangerous place to sit considering this site's demographics. Especially when the console's REAL poster-game has a representative sitting right at the top of this poll. So Snake should be even more Steroid Snake than usual, Vivi and Wesker shouldn't surprise us, and Sacky... dang, I can't count him out entirely because he does look ridiculous, and clearly that's something the voters value highly these days. Let's take all those considerations into the pot a stir for a few minutes until: - Solid Snake - 52.07% - Vivi Ornitier - 21.33% - Albert Wesker - 15.07% - Sackboy - 11.53% That looks... actually, pretty good. Come on Snake, put on a show for us! Ngamer Says: **Snake \> Vivi** ### Next Day Review What a weird year... Remember when the Contest heavyweights used to use the first round to play a game of "how do you like me NOW!", matching blowout against even bigger blowout, constantly setting the bar higher for their next appearance? You know, like in '07. And '06. And every year before that. But this season we've seen Link, Mario, Mega Man, Vincent, Ganon, Samus, and now even Snake perform slightly below expectations. Of all of those, this Snake showing is the most surprising to me, just because he figured to have the most to gain over the past 12 months. ...actually no I take that back, Vincent allowing Falco to hang so close is still the most confusing result from a heavyweight to this point. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3263&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=20) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=20) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Chris Redfield vs Fox McCloud vs Sora vs Tim 2008 _source: Chris Redfield vs Fox McCloud vs Sora vs Tim 2008 (revid 85800)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 6 - **Match \#:** 21 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sora - 38.44% Fox McCloud - 33.84% Chris Redfield - 17.70% Tim - 9.91% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Sora first place (2pts) - 36.52% Sora second place (1pt) - 43.54% Fox second place (2pts) - 35.74% Fox first place (1pt) - 43.13% - **Advancing Prediction:** Sora - 80.06% (34,348) Fox - 78.87% (33,838) Pre-contest, there was a lot of discussion about BrawlFEAR pushing Fox to first place here. Before this match, Fox had been in 6 matches prior, and in every single one other than the Cloud match, he shared the poll with at least one other Nintendo character. With Fox finally being allowed to be his own man, some thought that maybe he could be a breakout star. As the contest played out however, it became clear that Brawl wasn't going to have the ludicrous effect on lesser Nintendo characters that some were expecting, and that made the overwhelming Sora \> Fox consensus rest easy at night. Heck by match time, people were more worried about Tim making a joke run due to Braid than anything else. Come the actual match, after a small early push by Fox, it was a super boring and predictable 40-30-20-10 type of affair. There was no upset, no big swings, and nothing surprising at all unless you count Chris Redfield doing better than he did last year: But again, third place in a fourway poll where nothing interesting happens is fairly ho-hum. It's not like he was ever going to get close to Fox for second or anything. As for those checking this page and wondering why Tim got no joke love, it's because Tim is an asshole. Braid is a wonderful, wonderful video game that I recommend to anyone reading this. I even wrote a guide for it! But Tim? Yeah, not a good guy at all. He got what he deserved in this match. ## Stats and Analysis - Chris Redfield overperformed by **+6.14%,** the **\#7**most impressive performance of 2008 When this match was set up in the bracket, there was a fair bit of speculation as to whether Fox would be able to pull off the upset over Sora here, thanks partially to a gigantic Brawl influx and partially due to him being hidden behind SFF for pretty much his entire contest career. Needless to say, by the time this match actually rolled around more people were wondering if Tim could capitalize on some kind of joke vote to upset Chris Redfield (who had lost to Pyramid Head last year) than any Fox \> Sora buzz. The real point of interest in this match would end up being neither scenario - instead, whether it be due to him standing out like a madman in the picture (1 red team badass vs 3 blue team cutesys), kooky Survival Horror rSFF, or just the strange commodity we would come to coin REFAQs, Chris had the match of his life this day. Fox would end up closer to Chris than he would to SORA, and during the night Chris would shred him repeatedly on scores of updates. I suppose you could say Fox did okay during his first true non-SFF outing in forever, but Chris made it look much, much worse than it could have. He ended up further from Sora than most expected as well, but most observant users expected that by this point. The last thing of note here would be Tim's performance, and he made a strong case for being the flat-out weakest character of the contest here. Clearly I have to try out Braid now, as its indie cred is through the \*\*\*\*ing roof after this showing !! ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Who's ready to see another awesome showing from a member of Team Fox? Me! And my bracket! Last Known Values - Sora - 25.52% (2007) - Fox - 23.93% (2007) - Chris - 15.14% (2007) - Tim - new I picked against the Guru cookie cutter in a total of 16 of this year's 63 matches- a decent number of upsets, at least by my standards, and now the one I felt least comfortable with has arrived: Fox \> Sora. I've always had a strong dislike for ol' clown shoes and Fox has become a favorite of mine thanks to his considerable potential that always gets hidden behind SFF, so when I saw a chance for him to finally perform at peak strength my gut reaction was to jump at it and take Fox for the win (as I did in my Initial Impressions topic). I took plenty of heat for that decision, which only made me more stubborn and forced me to stick with the silly pick right on through lockdown. But you know what, looking at it now, I'm glad I did! Yes Brawl newcomers have disappointed for the most part, but Fox is a mainstay of the series, Star Fox 64 has done great on the Virtual Console this year, and if being the only Melee/Nintendo option allowed Falco to snatch up that many votes against a guy with legit NN-smashing potential like Vincent, I see no reason why Fox couldn't knocked out someone a good deal lower on the Square totem pole. Plus, check out this picture! Not only does Fox dominate everyone and get another super-cool pose like R1 last time, Sora gets stuck with his back to the fans, puffing away on that Virginia Slim! For those who say it won't matter, have you forgotten that the victim of (arguably) the biggest pic factor underperformance in history was... Sora himself? Now some others are saying that Chris will do well with this pic, but again I'm not buying it. Sure it's an improvement on that goofy look from last year, but in my experience realistic-style pictures fail to draw the eye away from bright colorful foxes with their arms crossed in a no-nonsense expressions nearly 87% of the time. And Tim, well... he DOES look pretty good, but this is one of those cases where he'd probably have performed better if he looked more like a joke- as vocal as the Braid fanbase is, small numbers like that can only take you so far. In summary, the KH ASV figures to be as deadly as always, but if there's one thing that can stand up to it (well, aside from Halo) it would have to be SSB Melee. I think Fox will be able to get a large enough lead overnight and during the school that he'll be able to limit the afternoon damage and take this one home with a close finish decided by the second night vote. Whooo Fox! - Fox McCloud - 33.94% - Sora - 33.83% - Chris Redfield - 21.01% - Tim - 11.22% Feelin' confident! Ngamer Says: **Fox \> Sora** ### Next Day Review Hmm... well my upset didn't end up working out, but at least Fox validated himself as a legit Nintendo mid-carder with this performance. This should end any debate about him finishing behind the Donkey Kong's of the world, and it's cool that in only a couple weeks we'll be able to see how he stacks up against that higher tier that Yoshi represents. Actually this was a dang good showing for him- he put up a very strong fight during the ASV and it was actually his best time during the whole poll, which is incredible considering how easily KH has owned that timeframe ever since 2005. If only he hadn't fallen apart so badly overnight, we could have had a real match on our hands here. Darn those Europeans! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3264&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=21) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=21) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## CATS vs Nathan Drake vs Squall Leonhart vs Yoshi 2008 _source: CATS vs Nathan Drake vs Squall Leonhart vs Yoshi 2008 (revid 85801)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, October 9th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 6 - **Match \#:** 22 - **Match Date:** Thursday, October 9th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Squall Leonhart - 39.83% Yoshi - 36.00% CATS - 13.77% Nathan Drake - 10.56% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Squall first place (2pts) - 52.13% Squall second place (1pt) - 31.07% Yoshi second place (2pts) - 52.02% Yoshi first place (1pt) - 30.42% - **Advancing Prediction:** Squall - 83.20% (35,695) Yoshi - 82.44% (35,369) And thus began the second year in a row of Squall taking a bunch of steroids and HGH. I don't know what it is with Squall, but he always brings the smoke with these multi-way formats. In 2007, 2008, and 2013 he went totally berserk for no discernable reason. Everyone knew the match would be Squall \> Yoshi, but very few people thought it would be such a ridiculous blowout. Remember, this was a BrawlFEAR world and we had just seen a series of very good Yoshi results. If you look at those 2003 through 2007 results, Yoshi was mentioned in the same breath as Nintendo's second tier, with characters like Bowser, Zelda, Luigi, and various Pokemon. The Oracle folks are the smartest people out there for contests, and you can see the numbers off to the right. They picked Squall 40, Yoshi 36, and they are rarely off this much. In fact, this was an ass whipping so severe that it harkened people back to a similar match Squall had all the way back in 2003. The only reason this match here in 2008 isn't mentioned along with that epic 2003 beating is because no one actually expected Squall to lose here. We just didn't realize it would be this much of a blowout, especially with BrawlFEAR involved. But if Yoshi was the heavy favorite and this was 1v1, this would definitely be a contest lore type of match. Speaking of contest lore, CATS won the board vote like he usually does, but then the unthinkable happened. He managed to not get last place! Yes friends, for the first time ever, CATS managed to place in a contest match. I know he didn't advance, but who cares? He finally managed to find someone more pathetic than even him. This match is hysterical to look back on in 2020, because even after 4 games of that series I doubt Drake would beat CATS in a 1v1. He only had the original game for this match, which is why he was dogmeat in the first place, but the spoiler version is that Drake's company would end up loathed by gamers. We're talking Activision-Blizzard, EA, and Ubisoft levels of hatred here. Naughty Dog with their SJW idiocy and shady practices has them on the level of the worst companies in all of gaming, which in the long run means these results from 2008 would probably hold up now. Get woke, go broke. Losing to CATS was only the beginning. ## Stats and Analysis - Squall overperformed by **+5.23%**, the **\#13** most impressive performance of 2008 This was it. CATS had waited a long, long time, but he had finally spotted the perfect foe against whom he would finish ahead of in a match. DARKNESS and Jokefodder had finally evaded him, but here, against this PS3-exclusive character, victory would be assured. Oh, and yeah, there was also the little matter of Squall v Yoshi. Despite the overwhelming consensus in favor of the FF8 protagonist, most genuinely felt that this would be a close match between the emo and the dino. After all, Yoshi had beaten Dante and finished ahead of Squall in 2006 - and Solid \*\*\*\* or not, that was impressive at the time. The next year Squall clearly had the edge as he nearly upended Sonic twice, but considering how weak Sonic looked and how good Yoshi looked that year even when masked by SFF... in essence, even with the "deboost", as we had unoriginally coined it, Squall/Yoshi still looked like it could be interesting. Uh huh. That was before Yoshi decided to choke on his own egg shards and make Squall look stronger than Steroid Snake. It's hard to appreciate exactly how shocking this result was to the majority of the observers on the board, even when you look at the close Oracle spread for this match. Yoshi was SUPPOSED to be one of the Nintendo near-elite. His name was spoken in the same breath as Ganondorf's, Sora's, and Zelda's. Yet for 24 painful hours he laid egg after egg as Squall eviscerated him en route to a repeat of Squall/Luigi 2k3. There were really no explanations for this debacle. Yoshi stood out like hell, was the only even vaguely Nintendo option in the match, and was so pathetic that many were suddenly contemplating the idea of SORA moving along next round with Squall. As for me, this match is what exemplified the deboost - Mario characters gained the most with the 2k5 Boost, and now they were feeling the brunt of its reversal. But hey, at least CATS finished ahead of someone in a match! woo CATS ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Now we move on to another match where a strong Square guy ought to likewise finish 5ish points ahead of the not-quite-as-strong Nintendo option. But far from being dull, this is actually a pretty interesting setup for a very odd reason: we might be in for a classic battle... for third place! Oh boy! Last Known Values - Squall - 35.43% (2007) - Yoshi - 32.27% (2007) - CATS - 14.87% (2007) - Nathan - new As we well know, both Squall and Yoshi are studs in general, but especially in this format. Y has got strong credentials- he owned Knuckles with ease, refused to cave to Mega Man, and even the combined N appeal of MM and Samus didn't kill him entirely. And yet, Squall's creds are even better- he smashed Aeris, beat up on Sora, and very nearly "broke the Noble Nine" by edging out Sonic in that crazy L-Block poll. If Yoshi is able to pound Fox with SFF hard enough, I give him a great shot of sneaking ahead of Squall thanks to Sora most likely putting up a better fight. But here in the first round, where both should be unhindered and performing at full strength? Nay, can't see Yoshi taking a serious run at him, although he should be able to use the Day Vote to look plenty respectable. The real slugfest here will be for that meaningless Bronze Medal, as I hinted earlier. CATS is hard to peg... clearly he's got a strong fanbase of around 10% that will support him over anyone, and clearly you'd think that a guy like him could excel in this format, but we heard these same arguments back in '07. Some even were able to keep a straight face while picking him to upset both Meta Knight and Peach... whoops! You'd think we'd have learned our lesson, but with this being The Year of the Joke Character, can you entirely count out the Godfather of All Jokes? I don't know, but one thing I DO know is that I'm not going to be counting on Nathan Drake to be worth much of anything in this format, or any format for that matter. Uncharted reviewed well enough, and apparently it eventually sold over 1 million, but adventure characters have never struck much fear in my heart. PS3 adventure characters, with generic names and looks from new series that hardly anyone on the site will have played? Yeah, CATS sure seems to have an ace up his sleeve here. And yet... it's CATS. Yes sir, this is certainly a toughie. In the end though I think I'm going to put my faith in the joke, though in reality it's more a case of putting my lack of faith in the PS3. And when you put that in the pot and stir slightly, the result is - Squall Leonhart - 38.24% - Yoshi - 34.06% - CATS - 13.86% - Nathan Drake - 13.84% Think of it like this year's Phoenix/Bomberman. You see my drift! Delicious. Ngamer Says: **Squall \> Yoshi** ### Next Day Review I'm still going to go on record as being a firm disbeliever in this so called "Brawl de-boost", but I've got to admit that after the past two days I can see why so many are beginning to hop aboard that wagon. To me though this doesn't look like a Yoshi underperformance... our mistake in this one was giving any credit whatsoever to Nate McFodder over there, and I think if we would have known going in that he'd only be worth 6 or 7 or whatever he's at now, it would have been pretty natural to chalk most of the missed percentage from that PS3 "star" up to the ACTUAL star of the PSX and PS2. That's an advantage Squall won't have going for him in R2, and so even though I'm glad I didn't pick the Yoshi \> Squall upset after seeing these last two days, I still feel that those making Sora \> Yoshi \> Fox out to be a near-lock are being much too hasty in calling a result that's still very much in doubt. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3265&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=22) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=22) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Axel Steel vs Cloud vs Midna vs Miles Edgeworth 2008 _source: Axel Steel vs Cloud vs Midna vs Miles Edgeworth 2008 (revid 85802)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, October 10th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 6 - **Match \#:** 23 - **Match Date:** Friday, October 10th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Cloud Strife - 59.13% Midna - 18.00% Miles Edgeworth - 11.48% Axel Steel - 11.39% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Cloud first place (2pts) - 89.27% Cloud second place (1pt) - 6.70% Midna second place (2pts) - 50.43% Midna first place (1pt) - 3.61% - **Advancing Prediction:** Cloud - 95.97% (41,174) Midna - 54.04% (23,185) Not gonna lie, I forgot how many laughably predictable matches happened in round 1 of this contest until I started actually looking at them all. There was a loooooot of chaff to cut through before we got to the good stuff this year. This was yet another match in a pretty huge pile of them featuring titans smashing slugs. And you know what? Looking back on it, I want this version of Final Fantasy 7 back. Not the modern one that gets anti-voted to death every year and loses the first debatable match it has. Believe it or not, this site used to like the game. Hopefully the remake gets us back to Cloud, Seph, and the gang all whoopin ass like they used to. Did you know Cloud and Link were the only characters to get 60% in round 1 this year? Yeah, the same Cloud that lost to Squirtle and needed a bunch of clutch magic to beat Mario and Zelda in 2018. It didn't used to be like this, and you're seeing that here. Yes I love FF7 to death and no I will never apologize for it. Cloud \> Midna was a stone cold lock, especially with Twilight Princess fresh in everyone's minds this contest. This was actually Midna's second contest, and in both of them she managed to scrape into the second round with second place finishes. There was some minor hype for Axel or Edgeworth to get some joke love, but it never came to pass. Edgey couldn't even get the typical Phoenix Wright board vote that the series usually gets, so this match was set in stone not long after it started. It's also surreal looking in the wayback machine and seeing all these people claim the heavy favorites were underperforming. No, they weren't. You guys are on the good stuff. It is incredibly difficult to put up godlike numbers in a fourway match. Our elites all looked fine, and when one of them gets 60% in a 4way match only to be called disappointing, it kinda blows my mind. Even getting 50% in this environment is difficult; 60 is preposterous. As such, Cloud was looking real good this year. ## Stats and Analysis Talk about making a debate where there wasn't any! Thanks to the ramblings of some posters \*cough\*, this match was actually argued heavily, though it was really for the sake of arguing than anything else for most involved. But anyway - Cloud Strife is our \#2 character, and he was going to be an easy pick for first in any match not involving Link. Midna was a spectacular disappointment last year, but her two opponents were Miles Edgeworth (Phoenix would be a tough upset over Midna, Edgey sadly had no shot), and Axel Steel. Unfortunately, some users thought that thanks to Guitar Hero's amazing sales and worldwide popularity that the game's most popular avatar would actually be able to do something. And while it was really annoying and made me want to punch people through the internet on multiple occasions, what we got was the expected result in the end. Much laughter was had as Axel failed to garner even 8% of the vote, but other than that this match was as boring as it got. The only two things to note is that Midna did a smidge better relative to expectations than we expected, and that unlike last year Cloud wasn't really trying to compete with Link on a performance level. Seriously, Axel/Midna/Edgeworth is less credible opposition than Luke/Shadow/Zidane, yet Cloud got a lower percentage against the same pack. Cloud's hopes of winning the contest rested on Samus or Mario getting through to the finals with Link, and aside from the obvious SFF problems, at the moment there was an L-Block in the way. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction As for today... like I said in that Snake writeup, there's something weird going on this season that seems to be hamstringing all of our elite performers. They're not looking BAD per se, they're just all disappointing ever so slightly. But today will be the day where Cloud finally snaps the streak of "meh" with a powerhouse performance! (Of course I said the same thing about Snake, and look how that turned out!) Back in the day: Last Known Values: - Cloud - 51.90% (2007) - Midna - 20.42% (2007) - Edgeworth - 12.84 (2007) - Axel - new For a match where the winner will never be in doubt, and most likely second place won't be either, this is actually a highly intriguing poll IMO. You've got a proven stud in this format attempting to fan the flames of that Nintendo deboost bonfire and show us all that he could be a legit threat to Link this season, if given a little bit of help. As noted, I do think he's going to be the first of the NN to do something to really wow us this year, but alot of that will only happen because the rest of this group is so heavily Nintendo. Even GHIII has done over 50% of its sales on the Wii. ...I think. Don't quote me on that! Unless it's accurate! Midna on the other hand is a real oddball. She got chalked up as a bust in '07, which I don't think was fair- ZELDAFEAR aside, how far above above the fodder line could you really expect someone in the Navi mold to perform? That being said, it seems possible for her to turn into an actual bust this season, now that the TP effect will have worn off by another 13 months. If that happens, I don't think Edgey should be entirely counted out for second place. Yes, he was awful in '07, but the poor guy got the worst possible draw in that one, wedged between The King of All SFF, Jokemon personified, and an even MORE niche Nintendo handheld option (who'd have thought that was even possible?). I'd imagine the PW series distances itself from the Twilight Princess crowd far enough to give us a much more accurate representation of Edgeworth's strength this time around, and I'm excepting that to result in a pretty healthy improvement. Despite the other two being so up in the air, the true "wildcard of the group" status has got to belong to Axel Steel. I'd like to just dismiss him entirely, because who really cares about your onscreen avatar when you're playing Guitar Hero? When you're strumming away on GH or Rock Band you're not playing as Axel Steel, you pretend that you're playing as yourself, thrashing through a sick solo and melting the crowd's faces off. That's why there's been such a big drive for player customization in the genre, and why RB2 and GHWT give even more options in that area. HOWEVER, there's still a small possibility that this goes down as the most important Pic Factor of R1, because look, there he is on his guitar; can't miss it! Thanks to that very appealing look, voters should have no trouble recognizing him as "that guy from GH"... but aside from that hardcore group of rhythm game lovers, could there really be another 20% of the site who prefers it over FF7 and TP and PW? I wouldn't think so, be we've already seen crazier things happen in the past three weeks! With so much up in the air, it's tough to get it all back into the pot, but I've done so and here were the results: - Cloud Strife - 61.11% - Midna - 15.51% - Miles Edgeworth - 12.35% - Axel Steel - 11.03% Hmm, that actually looks... pretty reasonable! Ngamer Says: **Cloud \> Midna** ### Next Day Review Another day, another slightly (not hugely, just slightly) disappointing performance from an overwhelming favorite! The trend this year isn't NintendoFAQs, certainly, but as today shows it's also not SquareFAQs. And despite what some overly dramatic purists might be saying, I don't think its fair to call it JokeFAQs either. Sure WCC wowed us, but it's not as though whichever character has the strongest "joke appeal" or stands out the most from the traditional character options is seeing a significant boost in every match. If that was ever a theory, it was certainly disproven by Tim and Sackboy and Axel Steel, and most likely Travis will continue beating that now-dead horse tonight. If there's any trend at play in '08, it would appear to be anti-favoriteFAQs. Extremely odd occurrence, and something we'll definitely have to keep an eye on as these matches continue to play out... for the sake of our Oracles if nothing else! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3266&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=23) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=23) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Mewtwo vs Ness vs Pac-Man vs Travis Touchdown 2008 _source: Mewtwo vs Ness vs Pac-Man vs Travis Touchdown 2008 (revid 85803)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, October 11th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 6 - **Match \#:** 24 - **Match Date:** Saturday, October 11th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Mewtwo - 35.80% Ness - 26.92% Pac-Man - 24.89% Travis Touchdown - 12.26% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Mewtwo first place (2pts) - 33.15% Mewtwo second place (1pt) - 26.81% Pac-Man second place (2pts) - 32.81% Pac-Man first place (1pt) - 41.71% - **Advancing Prediction:** Mewtwo - 59.96% (25,725) Pac-Man - 74.52% (31,971) Before Mewtwo was known for his FRAUDULENCE -- it kills me to admit he actually is a fraud, because he's my favorite Pokemon of them all -- he was known for beating the ever-loving piss out of people in 2008 and 2013. You guys can skip to 2013 if you want to read about that run, because this is a 2008 analysis. Mewtwo was expected to get first place here and avenge that embarrassing 2007 debut, but this was something else. Not only did he come out ready to stunt on these hoes, but he also ruined any chance Ness had of getting second place by SFFing him to death. Ness was the overwhelming favorite to get second here, because Travis was always going to be gutter trash and Pac-Man only had one bright spot since 2002 -- an upset win over Revolver Ocelot. Pac-Man is just one of those characters people had no faith in, and again, Ness was largely picked for second here due to BrawlFEAR. When the poll started, it became very apparent very quickly that Ness just collapses against anything Nintendo-related more popular than him, especially if Smash Bros is involved. Mewtwo wasn't actually in Brawl, but he was in Melee and he's a part of the original 151. Pac-Man, despite also being a Nintendo character for all intents and purposes, simply had less overlap with Mewtwo. Thus, in The Hierarchy™, it meant Mewtwo \> Pac-Man \> Ness. It feels like we all should have known this easily back in 2008, but BrawlFEAR was a very real thing during the bracket period of this contest and it felt asinine to go against it. For most people, the thought of Pac-Man doing better than Ness here was ludicrous. We saw how that turned out. This also meant Mewtwo was basically getting a bye into round 3, because the next round was him, Cloud, Pac-Man, and Midna. That pile being a round 2 match was.... yeah, but this Mewtwo performance was pretty nuts given he had two leeches in the poll with him. ## Stats and Analysis - Ness underperformed by **-8.61%**, the **\#3** most disappointing performance of 2008 - Mewtwo overperformed by **+6.03%**, the **\#9** most impressive performance of 2008 After what he had done last year against the combined forces of Ryu and Bowser (also with Toad I guess), Mewtwo was the easy favorite for first in this pack, and it seemed like Ness should be an easy second. In fact, the ease at which Ness was designated to place in this match was eerily reminiscent of Ocelot/Pac-Man 2k5, though there was at least a smattering of chatter because of that very fact. Still, we were talking about two totally different scenarios, here. One match was straight-up affair, a niche character with a terrible blob of a picture going up against a guy as universally known as Mario. Ness, at least on GameFAQs, is every bit as well-known as Pac-Man, not to mention Pac-Man has fallen apart time and again against Nintendo icons. With the only non-Nintendo option being TRAVIS TOUCHDOWN, all Ness had to do was retain a fraction of his SSB luster and he would have had this one in the bag. And thus the match began, and within seconds we learned the sad truth that Ness would fall apart against any SSB character not named Lucas. Ness got trounced by Pac-Man here. He ended up significantly closer to Travis Touchdown than he did to Pac-Man here. And the whole of the trio was made to look pathetic - Mewtwo was scoring over 40% of the vote on them here, and that statistic would only look more and more pitiful as the contest wore on. Other than that, there really isn't anything to say - the favorite to place in this match ended up losing a plethora of updates to Travis Touchdown. The only real thing that stuns me is exactly how crazy high Pac-Man's prediction percentages were, especially his first place placing. The casuals didn't really seem to have much faith in Mewtwo, though we wouldn't see that sentiment justified until next round. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction I doubt the flight from favorites does anything to hurt Mewtwo's showing in this next one, as there are probably plenty of casuals giving Ness and/or Pac-Man equally good chances of advancing into R2. Let's take a look at how things went last year for these three: Last Known Values - Mewtwo - 23.73% (2007) - Ness - 20.46% (2007) - Pac-Man - 11.19% (2007) - Travis - new Just looking at the numbers, you'd have to call that a disappointing showing for this whole batch of characters. But Mewtwo has a good excuse- he got close to the worst draw imaginable, and the uproar that went out across this board when we first saw it was justifiable. Even against those long odds, Mewtwo put on a nice showing, especially with the ASV where he went on a pretty much awesome tear for a few hours, making some serious cuts on both Bowser and Ryu. There shouldn't be anything in this new group to hinder his ASV appeal either, and in fact I'd be shocked if any of these three hindered him at any time during the day to keep this from being a wire to wire runaway victory for the King of the Pokemon. Pac-Man looked bad in '07, but again, he at least had a good excuse. The guy doesn't respond well to old school or iconic opposition, and considering Mario is the perfect example of both those qualities, we should have known he'd be in for a hurtin' come match day. Mewtwo didn't even arrive on the scene until '97 (and didn't hit it big until the first Pokemon movie in '99), and of course Ness wasn't even on gamers' radars until SSB in '99, and Travis is obviously extremely new, so I don't see any of these options having the old or iconic appeal needed to hold Pac back. He's also the only option for voters who don't want to support Nintendo, which is apparently on of the agenda for at least a decent number of voters this season. I really wanted Pac to get his classic sprite look for this match pic, but even with this colorful 3D version of himself I'm liking his chances to have a decent outing here. Now, Ness also looked bad last time around, but unlike his co-contestants the Boy Wonder had no excuse. He was the lone Nintendo/Smash/"kiddie" option in a sea of mature PSX stars, and his failure to do ANYTHING with that huge advantage was one of the most baffling things about the entire Contest to me. Clearly his past 1v1 success was more a case of people being apathetic about or flat out disliking his previous opponents rather than people actually feeling strongly about Ness himself. However, you could say the same thing (and indeed many have) about Pac-Man. What's the difference? The difference is that there's an ELEPHANT in the way, and his name is Mewtwo. I doubt Mew kills Ness within the Smash fanbase, but honestly all he should need to do is tip the scales slightly, and that would be enough to give Pac-Man the advantage. I see it happening. Travis will be fodder, but like Axel before him, he's that good kind of fodder that I don't at all mind seeing in 128 character brackets. Really cool character design, has the Sword Factor working overtime for him, and heck, even his name is hilarious. He probably could have done better in a group without other recent Nintendo options, but no biggie, I still see him having enough appeal to crack into the double digits without much problem. Anything too far beyond that is probably out of his range regardless of opponent. So with Mewtwo a clear cut above the rest, Ness and Pac very close but the scales getting tipped in the favor of the old schooler, and Travis being able to avoid embarrassment, the end result has been potted and stirred and now I'll serve it to you. - Mewtwo - 37.92% - Pac-Man - 24.50% - Ness - 23.61% - Travis Touchdown - 13.96% Hm... not entirely comfortable with picking Mewtwo that high. But on the other hand, who's going to stop him? Ngamer Says: **Mewtwo \> Pac-Man** ### Next Day Review Wow, awesome showing from Mewtwo in this one. As I said in my writeup I wasn't really seeing where any of the other three would be able to hold him back, so in retrospect I'm not sure why I didn't pick him for a little higher... too much Ness faith I suppose. This sets up a really cool grouping for R2- where is Midna going to fall in relation to a Pac-Man who should once again be running unhindered by icon SFF? Who wins the ASV between Mewtwo and Cloud? (Well Cloud still WINS during that time obviously, but I could see Mew having the Pokemon Power to make it his best time.) And given his horrible starting power, might we even see Mewtwo in the lead for a couple updates? Ha, now that would be funny! Of course the even bigger point is that now Mewtwo's set himself up beautifully for a run all the way through this division- if it's Squall and Sora advancing out of the top half you might as well make him a lock, but even if Yoshi gets into the group instead, who's to say the dino would be assured the heads up win between these two, given what we've seen the last three days? ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3267&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=24) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=24) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Big Boss vs Jinjo vs Kirby vs Lucas 2008 _source: Big Boss vs Jinjo vs Kirby vs Lucas 2008 (revid 85804)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, October 12th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 7 - **Match \#:** 25 - **Match Date:** Sunday, October 12th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Kirby - 38.03% Big Boss - 35.18% Lucas - 14.31% Jinjo - 12.40% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Big Boss first place (2pts) - 40.75% Big Boss second place (1pt) - 31.28% Kirby second place (2pts) - 40.53% Kirby first place (1pt) - 49.95% - **Advancing Prediction:** Big Boss - 72.03% (30,903) Kirby - 90.48% (38,819) To understand how thoroughly and utterly absurd this result was, you have to travel back in time to how people thought back in 2008. Even with Metal Gear Solids 3 and 4 being fresh in everyone's minds, we had already seen Big Boss in a contest. Twice, in fact. Go look at how he did. Even with getting into round 3 in 2007, Big Boss got there by default unless you want to call his win over Magus some huge shocker. But does an upset win over Magus even count? There were also the LOL x-stats, which were the holiest of holy grails of prognostication at the time. Big Boss (2007c) VS Kirby (2007c) Big Boss has a strength of 16.22. Kirby has a strength of 22.67. Kirby wins with 64.23% of the vote! A win of 39,004 with 137,088 total votes cast. Big Boss (2005c) VS Kirby (2005c) Big Boss has a strength of 17.62. Kirby has a strength of 34.99. Kirby wins with 74.82% of the vote! A win of 42,751 with 86,117 total votes cast. Throwing Jinjo and Lucas into a poll wasn't going to close that gap, regardless of how much Nintendo LFF or BrawlFEAR existed. There was just no way. As such, just about everyone penciled in Kirby \> Big Boss, assumed it would be as boring as the litany of "heavy favorite \> easy second place" matches we had this contest, and called it a day. Even when the match picture came out and it looked like Solid Snake himself was in the picture, people didn't think much of it. This is Kirby we're talking about, after all. If anyone has a match picture or sore thumb advantage in a lol 4way poll, it's him. Then the match started and people just totally and completely lost their minds. Not only did Big Boss easily win, but Kirby never even came close, even early when board/bracket votes are a thing. This led to all sorts of absurd extrapolation for the future of this contest, including a bunch of people erroneously claiming Nintendo was dead and buried, a bunch of people claiming Big Boss was about to go on a deep contest run, and various other wild goose chases that happen after every upset. You know how these days when anything gets rallied in round 1, a bunch of people start claiming the contest is over? Imagine that here, but on a much bigger scale given people actually cared about our contests back then. This match was that insane. Kirby was probably hurt by Jinjo and Lucas to a degree, but neither that nor any match picture should have made up the huge gap between these two characters. I'm also not much of a "pictures matter" guy, but that's a different conversation for a different day. And I will yet again say this match is why the 4way format blows. Can you even imagine this match as a 1v1 Big Boss vs Kirby match, with Kirby losing? The internet would have exploded. As-is, it was a fun result that caused a meltdown, but ultimately it didn't matter. Both characters advanced, and round 2 would have Raiden of all characters in the poll. That right there nipped any hopes of a Big Boss run. Fourways suck. They really do. They rob us of so much. Just imagine this as a 1v1 with Big Boss actually winning. It's one of the great what-ifs. As-is, we got the result we all expected, just in the reverse order. For all the meltdowns and all the nonsense, it wouldn't amount to much of anything. And it should have, which is why after 2009, the stupid 4ways never came back. ## Stats and Analysis - Big Boss overperformed by **+12.90%**, the **\#2**most impressive performance of 2008 - Lucas underperformed by **-8.66%**, the **\#2**most disappointing performance of 2008 When the bracket was first released, this thing was an afterthought - for many, many reasons. Jinjo and Lucas are two of the most fodderific fodders that have ever graced the contest, and that's BEFORE Kirby gets thrown into the equation. And Kirby was just a teensy bit below the near-elite tier while Big Boss, as much as he impressed as Naked Snake last year, he hadn't even garnered 60% on Magus. Y'know, the same Magus that let Phoenix Wright lead him for half an hour. There as SFF to think about, but the characters were so weak as to have it be inconsequential. Even IF Big Boss were to get his Naked Snake picture - which wasn't assured - Kirby would have it in the bag. \*I\* waited until the last day to pull the trigger on this upset, and even then I wasn't particularly confident in it - unlike the Magus smashing. Well, Liquid breaking 45% on Luigi and the Deboost Parade put a lot of eyes on this match in a hurry. And when the picture was revealed - seriously, that pointing Snake is better than most of the pictures Solid has received in the contest - you could feel the bottom on the Kirby train drop out like a sack of potatoes. That being said, nothing could prepare people for what was to come next. At the first freeze, with the early Kirby-heavy board vote and everything, when the dust cleared Big Boss clearly had already pulled the massive upset and put the match away - he was up by 70 votes, with 41% of the total vote to Kirby's 37%. The next update? A 207 vote lead, and over 42% of the total vote. By the end of the hour he was over 45%, by the end of the night vote he had hit 49%, and he finished the match over 48% and killing the Kirbster by 15,000 votes. Big Boss put up bonafide Noble Nine numbers, numbers more befitting of Solid Snake than a character that had been tripled by Auron in his first contest outing. And Kirby had next to no excuses - both of the two fodder in the match were under 10% of the vote, with Lucas in particular well under 6% of the vote (with that in mind, a hearty "lol" for Lucas, an even bigger SSB leech than Ness). At this point, people were wondering if Big Boss could make it through NEXT round, despite Raiden being there to sap his MGS support. There was also the quite legitimate point that predicting Big Boss was getting to be like playing a game of roulette - why did we have to base our predictions on the luck of the draw picture a character would be drawing each round? Then again, this was pretty much just another example in a long line of Really Dumb Things this contest would do for the sake of unpredictability, and as much as I enjoyed this match I couldn't help but think, "Man, this contest really sucks." But, train wreck, powerless, etc. There was nothing to do but chin up, look forward, and prepare to complain even harder! ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Last Known Values: - Big Boss - 16.22% (2007) - Kirby - 22.67% (2007) - Lucas - new - Jinjo - new To me the most shocking stat relating to this match is that only 17 Gurus picked Big Boss for first place. That's less than 8% of the field willing to go out on a limb and select a guy who we knew (post-user pic creation announcement, that is) was going to get an awesome pic advantage to defeat a character who would be facing double Nintendo LFF. The same character who got owned handily by Kratos last season, when having to deal with only single Nintendo LFF. I mean I'll give Kirby something of a break for the whole L-Block thing being unfortunate, but even so, he didn't even manage 45% of the vote directly against Kratos in a match most of us had been expecting to be neck and neck. And given Donkey Kong's embarrassingly enormous flop the other day, recent results haven't done much to increase Kirby's stock around these parts. We've seen what even a not exactly well-loved character like Pac-Man can do when he gets to stand out against three Nintendo opponents- given all these trends, and with Big Boss looking like that in the pic, I've got to feel that the ball is in his court for this match. Now that being said, I've got to admit that I give Kirby a much better chance at the win than I did about 48 hours ago. See, the last time BB scored this pic he earned 25% of the vote against Mario, Magus, and Phoenix Wright; obviously much stiffer competition than he'll be facing tonight, so he would seem to be a lock for a take in the low 30s. Trouble is, Ness has disappointed me so much today that I'm no longer so sure that Lucas is going to be able to hold Kirby back whatsoever! I mean, going from Ness to Lucas you lose Melee, you lose SSB... you even lose an Earthbound that has actually been released in this country for heaven's sake! If Mewtwo can score 70% on Ness directly as he's doing today, I see no reason why Kirby wouldn't put up 75% on Lucas... and that could spell serious trouble for Snake-lite. The other thing that has shaken my confidence is Jinjo's picture. A green Jinjo, on a green background, right-side up? Noooooo! I was counting on Zen's upside down picture to get the go ahead in this one, which would have screamed "hey casuals look, this here's a joke character!" Can't guarantee that would have turned him into a joke powerhouse or anything, but eh, I'd have liked his chances much better if he could have grabbed people's attention like that. As is, I can't see the Jinjo meme being worth enough to keep him too far above Lucas. We're likely in for a highly pathetic 3rd place, 15-10%ish rumble to avoid the basement in this one. And again, all the extra percentage being up for grabs should prove to be a major advantage for Kirby- and a major disadvantage for my bracket. (BTW, did I mention that 2 of those mere 17 who picked this BB upset ahead of time are me and yo? Well, it's true! \*sends a disastrously overconfident pre-match high five yo's way\*) Okay, soooo, if Lucas and Jinjo have bad showings, then in order for Bossy to pull off this upsets we're going to need a result somewhere in the range of... - Big Boss - 36.14%% - Kirby - 36.10% - Jinjo - 14.30% - Lucas - 13.46% Bah, I like how far ahead of the curve I was in calling for this upset a month back, but here in the last hours I'm starting to get cold feet. Oh well, soldiering on! Ngamer Says: **Big Boss \> Kirby** ### Next Day Review Hooo boy, what a crazy showing from BB today! HOWEVER, people are going way overboard in terms of what this result will mean the rest of the way. I'm hearing ravings about "the death of Nintendo" (just absurd) and "massive MGS4 boost" (uh, hello, did you see Snake drop the ball only a week back?) and "Big Boss to win the division alongside MC!" Sorry, not buying it. The best way to explain this result in my opinion is by observing that not only does BB look great, he also looks almost EXACTLY like Brawl Snake, with the addition of an eye patch. It seems as though casual Smashers though they had the choice of three characters, and since it's very much a case of Snake \> Kirby \> Lucas within Brawl, that's how much of the undecided votes were swung. In any case, the trouble is that even if there has been a massive MGS4 boost, that's only going to work against BB in R2, in the form of Raiden. Let's not forget that Nintendo isn't the only company that suffers from LFF- next time around Kirby will be on the right side of it, and I bet that's more than enough to swing the results back in his favor. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3268&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=25) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=25) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Kain Highwind vs Master Chief vs Professor Layton vs Raiden 2008 _source: Kain Highwind vs Master Chief vs Professor Layton vs Raiden 2008 (revid 85805)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, October 13th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 7 - **Match \#:** 26 - **Match Date:** Monday, October 13th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Master Chief - 45.04% Raiden - 28.43% Kain Highwind - 17.29% Professor Layton - 9.30% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Master Chief first place (2pts) - 81.54% Master Chief second place (1pt) - 10.92% Raiden second place (2pts) - 61.52% Raiden first place (1pt) - 6.73% - **Advancing Prediction:** Master Chief - 92.46% (39,668) Raiden - 68.25% (29,281) This was another ludicrously easy-to-predict round one match of this contest. Master Chief \> Raiden was always going to be how this went, because Layton was guaranteed gutter trash and Kain wasn't far behind. Final Fantasy characters pre-6 are nothing to write home about in contests, and we had already seen Cecil before. He didn't do much. What floored people in this match however was Master Chief seemingly returning to form. In 2007, Chief was 3500 votes away from making the final, and that happened in a match with L-Block and Solid Snake in it. Chief 2007 was one of the best contest runs we've ever seen in these things, and believe it or not, there was a time when GameFAQs truly loved the Halo franchise. You're looking at it -- the mid-2000s. So when this match happened and Master Chief seemed to return to pre-2007 levels, alarm bells went off. A lot of people picked the Chief to make a deep contest run this year, and it was pretty apparent right from the jump that this wasn't going to happen. It doesn't take away from his 2007 run or anything, but it would have been fun to see him tear through a contest again, as it's always neat to have new challengers to the throne arise and actually stay in contention. On a personal side note, it's nice to see Raiden finally get a definitive contest win. I still remember to this day how he choked away 1200 votes against Sam Fisher in 2007 and almost lost that match. This time around, largely thanks to Metal Gear Solid 4, there would be no doubt about it. Raiden got a solid second place in this match, which meant all four MGS entries in this contest thusfar (Raiden, Snake, Big Boss, Liquid) all looked good in round 1, and if Ocelot wasn't a gigantic moron we would have had a perfect 5 for 5. MGS came a long way from the Solid Shit days to now. Brawl and MGS4 releasing at basically the same time did a ton of good for that franchise. It's a shame it didn't keep up over the years. ## Stats and Analysis - Master Chief underperformed by **-8.22%**, the **\#4**most disappointing performance of 2008 - Kain overperformed by **+8.13%**, the **\#5**most impressive performance of 2008 The difference between that match and this match is what will go down as one of the biggest year-to-year bombs we'll ever see in this contest. One year ago, Master Chief was incredible. We saw a character who many had losing to YUNA in the first round come within 2% of beating SOLID SNAKE and making the finals last year. This year, while perhaps not in position to improve on that - beating a powered up Snake was likely not in the cards - he would certainly have a shot to take down the most vulnerable Noble Niner out there, Sonic. MC \> Sonic was a ridiculously sexy upset pick, and the Oracle expectations said it all. With one of last year's biggest disappointments in Raiden, an untested FF4 character sure to be weaker than Cecil and another random piece of fodder (btw Layton's pic is HILARIOUS to me), Chief was going to bring the pain in a big way. So when he started this match under 35%, it really kind of floored people. Raiden, who had spent all day holding off SAM FISHER from completing a comeback, was way too close for comfort on the green machine. That wouldn't have been so bad - people were half-expecting MGS4 to do anything for its characters at this point - but KAIN HIGHWIND was keeping it close to both of them. Yeah, Kain, from the game whose main character had just gotten done getting fodderized by Zack and Wario, was keeping over the 25% mark. A good day vote wasn't enough to save Chief from this debacle, and he ended up not even breaking 60% on Kain by the end of it all. Even now people are still picking up the pieces of Chief's one year stint of stardom, and it falls to us to ask: What Happened? I, personally, have a slightly different take than most. While the advertising blitz and barrage of merchandise and the SFF all really helped Master Chief, this year proved that there is no entity that cannot be possessed by the power of The Bandwagon. And Chief had a whole stockade in his Game Fuel 12 packs, and the hilarity of seeing him go even deeper and deeper combined with the Halo 3 hype to make a perfect storm of MC power. Had L-Block not crashed the party, I firmly believe we could have seen a Chief \> Snake upset in the semis, and who knows what happening in the finals. As of this match, however, Chief had been made deeply mortal, if not mortally wounded. I don't think I could bring myself to pick him over Yuna right now, and him beating Sonic seemed like a pipe dream. No egg the hedgehog could lay would be THAT dismal. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Speaking of Raiden and that (probably not all that MASSIVE) MGS4 boost, let's see where he'd be boosting from! Last Known Values: - Master Chief - 37.79% (2007) - Raiden - 18.96% (2007) - Kain - new - Layton - new Even though I don't like MC at all as a character, he's definitely one of the funnest Contest entrants we're ever seen. What joy to see him flop left and right in 1v1s, and on the other hand, what a thrill to watch him suddenly Hulk up to a virtual NNer the minute we switch into 4-ways! I'm expecting another powerhouse showing from the King of the Xbox tonight, although I doubt it ends up being quite as dominating as his R1 from back in '07 just because there won't be any Vercetti to casual SFF. The real question of the day will be Raiden. Is he really as weak as he looked last Summer, or was some of that the result of voters not recognizing him inside all of that toaster armor? If it was just recognition holding him back, then he certainly would be on track for big gains now that everyone interested in the series would have played through MGS4. Even after seeing Liquid and BB look so good, I'm hesitant to get my hopes up too far for Raiden in this one. If he lets us down for the fourth time in a row though, might he even be in danger of getting knocked out early by Kain? Ehhhh, not really. Yes Square has turned in some good showings to this point, but they've all come from new-school Square, while the older games have failed to impress. Plus he looks like total junk in that match pic. That leaves just Layton. Now just looking over the names of our 128 entrants, I'd certainly have considered the Prof for the position of weakest of the whole pack. But after seeing him in this match pic, I've got to admit that this was a pretty favorable draw for him. He stands out like a sore thumb, is the only non-mature option, and has a funny enough name that he might get some joke support. Plus in a match with MC, you know there's always going to be plenty of anti-votes to go around. All the considered, I'd be surprised if he fell into the single digits in this one. Alright, so with MC going off on a sizeable blowout, with Raiden comfortably in 2nd and Layton looking perhaps a touch better than expected, that would shake out to about... - Master Chief - 45.19% - Raiden - 22.80% - Kain Highwind - 18.55% - Professor Layton - 13.46% AWESOME. Ngamer Says: **Master Chief \> Raiden** ### Next Day Review Annnd, here we go again! Like Mario and Cloud and Snake and Link etc etc before him, MC comes into this poll a heavy favorite for the win, but leaves with a heavily disappointing victory. Well actually, all the other NN and NN-breakers were just slightly disappointing, so clearly there was something at work here besides just anti-favoriteFAQs. I guess we were foolish to expect MC to remain at his 2007 levels given how hype and recent release-boosted they must have been... but even so, to finish at 37%? Come ON now! Of course the other way to spin this is that MGS4 has turned Raiden into a 4-way monster, which I might put some stock in if not for Kain. I mean honestly, how far above Kefka could any FF4 character be, really? So overall I'm leaning more towards Master Chief just coming way down from 10 months ago- which is awesome considering we're going to be seeing a weakened MC doing battle with an LFF-hurt Big Boss and an LFF-boosted Kirby in a few weeks. Fatal threeway, here we come! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3269&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=26) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=26) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Captain MacMillan vs Leon Kennedy vs Riku vs Siegfried Schtauffen 2008 _source: Captain MacMillan vs Leon Kennedy vs Riku vs Siegfried Schtauffen 2008 (revid 85806)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 7 - **Match \#:** 27 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Leon Kennedy - 36.87% Riku - 32.72% Siegfried Schtauffen - 18.37% Captain MacMillan - 12.04% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Leon first place (2pts) - 55.53% Leon second place (1pt) - 22.37% Riku second place (2pts) - 41.97% Riku first place (1pt) - 26.22% - **Advancing Prediction:** Leon - 77.90% (33,421) Riku - 68.19% (29,256) The birth of Swamp Thing! Seriously, what is that? It looks like a weird amalgamation of diarrhea, a sex toy, and a really bad infection. I don't even like Call of Duty, but it deserved better representation than whatever that is. Beyond that, the obvious consensus here was Leon Kennedy \> Riku, though a lot of people worried pre-contest that Leon would choke again. Remember this gem? As luck would have it, Leon didn't get hurt by Swamp Thing and Soul Calibur as much as he did by Dante a year ago, which meant an easy, boring match that went exactly as everyone expected. No crazy Riku upset, no crazy Leon choke job, no weird second place upset, nothing. Riku isn't really a character strong enough to take advantage of LFF anyway, as one can easily see by looking at his contest history. Quick note before moving on. I will never understand why some fighting game characters have last names and others don't. I didn't know what a "Siegfried Schtauffen" even is. Calm down, video game writers. There's a reason you're writing for such a bottom tier medium in the first place. ## Stats and Analysis - Leon overperformed by **+5.49%,** the **\#11** most impressive performance of 2008 - Riku underperformed by **-5.29%,** the **\#11**most disappointing performance of 2008 This pack was watched \*really\* closely as soon as the bracket was announced, because as Dante and Leon were famously responsible for letting the Worst Upset of All Time happen, there was a lot of speculation as to whether it could happen again with Riku. 45% on Yoshi in 2006 was nothing to snicker at (well, before a few days ago), and he had made up for a poor showing against Ryu Hayabusa with a good second round win despite Solid Snake being in the match. Heck, there was a niche sentiment that Riku had a shot at upsetting Leon in THIS match, and even those that thought otherwise knew Riku would perform respectably. But it would seem, at least, that Chris' and Yoshi's performances would both be harbingers of things to come. Leon just annihilated Riku from the beginning, and even the vaunted KH day vote did almost nothing to limit the damage. This was one of the more shocking beatdowns we'd ever seen between two characters, and the only thing that made it marginally less so was the fact that Squall had dismantled Yoshi a few days prior. Suddenly it looked like Dante \> Leon was going to be the favorite prediction next round. There were a few crazies (hello) that were verrrrrry quietly floating a Leon upset of Dante, but even they were pretty sure that was a pipe dream. Lastly, the two pieces of fodder in this match - Siegfried is notable only in the sense that he's the only entrant in the contest to get in under two names (and that he's much weaker than Nightmare), and Captain MacMillan was confused for the Swamp Thing for most of the match. That means he's using his camo properly, people! ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Looking ahead to tomorrow... hm, now this will be a tough nut to crack. Let's start by seeing how far the acorn fell from the tree last time around. Last Known Values: - Leon - 27.70% (2007) - Riku - 24.27% (2007) - Siegfried - new - MacMillan - new As I said, what an odd couple of characters. Who's the real Leon, the one who easily crunched Vivi and then Pikachu, or the guy who folded like a house of cards the minute Dante showed up? And who's the real Riku, the one who looked like total junk when Square SFF was in play, or the one who looked awesome in going toe to toe with Ryu H and Kratos once badass SFF arrived? Given the way Chris stunned us by doing better than awful the other day, I'm going to have to side with Resident Evil continuing the growth trend its displayed since RE4 and give Leon the benefit of the doubt here. That being said though, I'm betting that Riku does a better job of keeping it close than most are expecting, especially as he shouldn't have any serious competition for the ASV tomorrow afternoon. New Square has been putting up plenty of solid showings, and Sora's was just about the best of them all (although its entirely possible that I'm letting that pro-Fox bias get to my head again), so I'd still call it a mistake to count Riku out entirely. But wait, MacMillian is a 360 character- surely he'll draw strong ASV support as well! Uh... have you SEEN him? The guy's only in one CoD4 level (or so I hear) and you can play through the entire single player campaign and not even remember him (again, or so I've heard)- basically the guy looks like a walking joke, and he should perform like a walking joke, getting pushed out to a decent start by 4chan or whatever other internet weirdos find that seaweed hilarious before collapsing the rest of the poll. (Apparently there's even a listing of "Captain MacMillian Facts" out there somewhere, which makes his fad what, a ripoff of a ripoff of a not all that original idea in the first place? Yeah, I'm not expecting huge appeal across the board for this guy.) Siegfried, hmm... yeah, not expecting him to make too much noise either. People seem to have gotten over their SC4 excitement pretty quickly, I don't see the game having given the series the true jump start it needed to become relevant again site-wide. As for Nightmare, I think much of his strength comes from his ridiculous character design and awesome name, while SS both looks and sounds much more generic. Plus he didn't get a huge sword to swing around in the match pic, drawing in casuals with every stroke. So if Leon's legit (until a scary fellow Capcomer arrives!), and Riku's legit (but not QUITE so legit), and Siegfried is pretty bad, and MacMillian is just awful (past the first 90 minutes), then we're looking at something like: - Leon Kennedy - 37.97% - Riku - 31.79% - Siegfried Schtauffen - 17.82% - Captain MacMillan - 12.42% That looks... perfect! Ngamer Says: **Leon \> Riku** ### Next Day Review Gracious, you're got to put Leon right up there with Sora and Squall in that small list of characters that actually impressed while finishing first. I suppose it's not all that crazy- this is the same Leon that scored a 40-30 on Vivi, and I'd certainly have expected Vivi to be stronger than Riku in this format... but not THIS much stronger, especially considering how the Magician and Seaweed-wearer ought to have had more in common with Mr. Kennedy. Maybe everything RE will just keep gaining steam until RE5 hits? I didn't realize hype levels were this high. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3270&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=27) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=27) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Dante vs Hogger vs Laharl vs Ramza Beoulve 2008 _source: Dante vs Hogger vs Laharl vs Ramza Beoulve 2008 (revid 85807)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 7 - **Match \#:** 28 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Dante - 46.45% Ramza Beoulve - 22.49% Hogger - 15.75% Laharl - 15.18% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Dante first place (2pts) - 82.55% Dante second place (1pt) - 10.42% Hogger second place (2pts) - 27.02% Hogger first place (1pt) - 8.53% - **Advancing Prediction:** Dante - 92.97% (39,887) Hogger - 35.55% (15,252) This was one of the most entertaining matches we've ever had in round 1 of a 4way contest, and you can see why in looking at the results. Dante was always going to destroy these goofs for first place. That isn't the point. How often is it do you see three characters all have a fair shot at second place and stay basically tied for 24 hours? That's what happened here, but it wasn't supposed to play out that way. Did you guys know that Final Fantasy Tactics collectively only has one win in contest history? It was a random round 1 killing of Dance Dance Revolution back in 2004. That's tied with (ugh) Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and Ramza himself is an 0-for all the way up to when I'm writing this in 2020. His history as a contest choke artist started in this match, though he made his debut in 2003 when he got killed by Kirby. Even still, most people put Dante \> Ramza in this match and thought nothing of it. Laharl is bottomfeeder trash and Hogger exists only to serve as the first elite mob people kill in World of Warcraft. Some people will claim Hogger is a meme, but he isn't. He's the Guard Scorpion of WoW and not much else. Unfortunately for Ramza and Laharl, both were so weak and both stole enough of the minuscule non-Dante vote that Hogger was able to hang around. Ramza being weak was never supposed to happen here, but the combination of unexpected weakness and terrible draw really did him in. Laharl is one of the worst possible characters for Ramza to go up against, because both are strategy RPG leads. They're already the niche of the niche, and then they went up against each other? Oof. When the poll first started, it was clear Ramza was doomed. He struggled to build up a lead against total fodder garbage, and these polls start at midnight. This is generally the time when Square stuff does really well. Here, Ramza struggled to get a lead of 300 before Laharl started coming back on him. Not only that, but Hogger was sitting there in striking distance down by 600. Let's put this in perspective for a sec: Laharl ain't shit, and I say this as someone who loved Disgaea enough to transcript the text into a document for this site. If you're sitting here struggling against Laharl before allowing him to chop your lead away overnight, you suck. Come the morning vote, Ramza and Laharl were tied, but Laharl was never really able to do anything. These two just stayed tied for hours, and both of them ignored the snake in the grass behind them. Hogger was sitting there about 500 votes off the pace, and come the day vote he made his move. I know a lot of people are reading this expecting me to rage out about Hogger coming back on a character from my favorite game, but it's not happening. First off, I don't like Ramza all that much. The characters in Tactics in general don't really get enough screen time to make me emotionally invested, and the plot falls apart in chapter 4 when all the political intrigue dies and everyone just turns into demons. Final Fantasy Tactics is all about the gameplay. Secondly, and more importantly, I support rallies no matter who does them. Would I have preferred Ramza win? Sure. Am I mad about it? Nah. Hogger starting a rally with the day vote was hilarious, especially given how accessible WoW players were to rallying back then. This will seem impossible by 2020 standards, but GameFAQs actually liked WoW back then. Most of that was due to the 2006 South Park episode, but still! There was a time when Blizzard wasn't a dog shit company. So when Hogger started going off, I didn't mind it as much as one might think, outside of one particularly obnoxious user will not get the dignity of me naming him. And by the way, he was straight up lying about his rally influence. Hogger's run came from all corners of the internet. To the point. Around 10 am, Hogger started going nuts in the poll, and we've all seen the rally story before. Within a few hours, he turned a 500 vote deficit to a seemingly insurmountable 800 vote lead. I say "seemingly" because we know rallyers get bored once they're winning. That happened here, which allowed Ramza to put in one last hail mary near the very end. But it was too little, too late. Ramza's effort resulted in him "only" losing by 150 votes, but if he had bothered giving a piss of effort for 24 hours it would have never come down to this at all. People of course started freaking out and claiming Hogger was the latest possible bandwagon contest champ, which was of course impossible. Hogger had to rally to beat Ramza and Laharl. Compare that to L-Block's first result of 2007, which coincidentally also featured Laharl: It's no contest. This was destined to be a fun upset and little else. It was also destined to be the start of Ramza's choke job reputation, something he has yet to get rid of over a decade later. ## Stats and Analysis - Hogger advancing was the **\#2** most surprising result of Round 1 - Ramza underperformed by **-5.79%**, the **\#8** most disappointing performance of 2008 Of all the results that we had this year, none of them really have me going back and saying, "this should not have happened," like this one. There were bigger shocks, of course, but almost without exception there's an explanation, or at least a jaundiced eye and prism to look at the matches through. This thing may be underrated because no one cared about the participants involved, but in terms of "one and dones" it has a ton of not coincidental parallels with Grand Theft Auto/WarCraft. Dante was the easy first in this match - there was a smattering of hype that he could break 50% in it, but that was mostly disregarded - with the second place slot supposed to easily go to Ramza. For those who don't know who Ramza is (and that appears to be a LOT of people these days), he's the protagonist of Final Fantasy Tactics. The same Final Fantasy Tactics that nearly beat - and many argue should have beaten - Metal Gear Solid in the Games Contest. Ramza himself didn't have quite the same luster, but in his sole contest outing in 2003 he put up 42% on Kirby. This was back when Kirby was worth 48% on Alucard, but with 2003 arguably being 'card's best year that's hardly shaming. Well, five years had passed, and Ramza had returned. The big question mark was going to be how much he had deteriorated since his last and only contest outing, but he was up against the wimpiest of wimpy fodder - Hogger, a joke in WoW that only WoW fans get, and Laharl, who to this day has only finished above PS3-exclusive Nathan Hale in a contest match. It might be closer than expected, it might even be ugly, but despite a few WoW fanatics' ramblings Ramza was considered to be a gimme here. So when the match started and Ramza was under 20%, everyone's alarms went off. It's not just that Ramza was uncomfortably close to Hogger - he was an unknown and, hey, maybe a combination of joke factor and WoW power was going to make him worth something. But both of them were sandwiching between Laharl, who is some of the fodderiest fodder you'll ever see make multiple contests. As the night went on Ramza couldn't even build his lead consistently on Laharl, gains turned to stalls, and by morning the two had basically become dead even. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting Ramza and Laharl slugging it out, Hogger had also managed to hang around within striking distance all night - and, as the day vote began his vote intake began to pretty much mirror that of the other two's (who knew the kiddies were so into pork these days?). Of course, in order to win Hogger would need to overtake the two, not just match them. That, of course, is the point where the singular entity of WoW actually mattered. Rallies were formed, the biggest MMO out there was alerted, and Hogger began to throw out vote spikes on a regular, if not consistent basis. There would be some stalling during the school vote, but after the ASV hit Hogger was ahead and stayed that way for the rest of the match. There was a final, crazy push for Ramza at the very end of the match (look at the updater to see how much so), and while he tore into Hogger at a ludicrous rate considering the votes that were coming in, it was too little, too late for it to matter in the end. What was notable here was not the surprising strength of the upsetting character here, but how damn weak the favorite turned out to be. Just like GTA, Ramza was startlingly feeble, and while his weakness was easier to explain than GTA's, it was perhaps more stunning considering the caliber of his competition. We're talking about two LAHARL-level entities, and Ramza may very well have lost to Laharl here if he hadn't been counter-rallied against Hogger's push (to say nothing of brackets). Now, unlike GTA/WC, the format did play tricks here, and if you take Dante out of the picture to boil this down to a three-way Ramza's an easy call. But one just has to wonder how strong FFT even is today, and how much of that strength is derived out of nothing but franchise voting. It's not like there's much of an ensemble cast going on in that game or anything - Ramza is the clear main character, and the big fan-favorite doesn't even join until the game's halfway done. I would have picked Cecil to have won here. I would have picked BARTZ, and he's never even been in a contest! I think I may have taken every non-optional FF6 character to win here. Ramza showed us exactly how pitiful a Final Fantasy character could actually be in these contests, and for that alone I will remember this match. #### Interesting Facts - This is the only match to feature two successful comebacks against the same character, with both Laharl and Hogger coming back against Ramza, albeit at separate times. It is also only one of two matches to feature a successful double comeback (Hogger against Ramza AND Laharl at the same time.) ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Enough nonsense- on to two of the more exciting battles of R1 in my opinion! First comes Hogger, and tomorrow, the Sandman strikes. Let's try to get a bead on this Dante poll to start. Last Known Values: - Dante - 33.17% (2007) - Ramza - 22.31% (2003) - Hogger - new - Laharl - 11.23% (2007) Darn that SB and his slight delay before starting this Contest! This match should haven taken place yesterday or the day before- Blizzcon was just ending and Blizzard fans worldwide were hitting up all the fansites to get the latest info, while at the same time WoW players had no choice but to sit around bored downloading the 1.2 GB Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch and waiting for the servers to come back online. That 1 or 2 day delay could very well cost Hogger this match- Blizzard fans know all the big news already and won't be refreshing the fan pages, and WoW came back online about 5 hours ago and all the players are going to be too busy trying out the new content (I guess it was just about the most game-changing patch so far) for the next 48 hours to do anything silly like vote in popularity polls. What a shame! Well, for my bracket at least. Ramza was the guy I bet against, and I thought I was doing so with good reason. That disastrous loss to Kirby back in '03 certainly left a bad taste in my mouth, but now that I go back and look, it wasn't THAT awful. Sure Kirby scored 57% on him, but Ramza actually ended with a very respectable 22 in those final stats; needless to say, it's pretty difficult to think of a scenario that would land Hogger a spot above the fodder line. Square's been hit (Squall, Sora) and miss (Kefka, Riku) so far this season, but that crazy performance by Kain must have me really feeling the FFFEAR right now, because all of a sudden I'm feeling surprisingly confident in picking against my bracket to take Ramza here. As for the other two in the poll, what is there to say? Dante's a stud normally and even better in this format who should be blowing the rest of these chumps out, especially with that awesome pic. No way he pushes for 50% though like he did last year- these chumps aren't QUITE as chumpish as Ammy/Little Mac/Matt, plus anti-favoriteFAQs. Laharl is just really really bad and needs to stop making brackets. Still, he ought to improve on that nasty 11% value from '07, now that L-Block won't be ruining him. Soooo I guess that means I'll be preding... WAIT, HOLD THE PRESSES! A WoW-playing friend of mine from Europe just IMed me; he says that in Europe the pre-patch was 1.62 GB and that servers are still down while people install it, and that no servers on the continent will be back online for another 11 to 12 hours. Then I talked to an American WoWer, who said that he's been trying to log into his server every five minutes since 4pm today but that it's still down. He thinks most US servers will remain down overnight and probably many won't be back up until tomorrow morning. All of a sudden those millions of bored WoW players are back on the menu! Could this be the perfect storm for offsite joke vote rallying? Exciting! I'm going to have to change my pick to... - Dante - 45.45% - Ramza Beoulve - 21.89% - Hogger - 18.74% - Laharl - 13.92% Yeah, still think Ramza's got too much in his favor to bet against here. That being said, would not be surprised at all if Hogger took him behind the woodshed tonight. This will be a very interesting first 15 minutes IMO! Ngamer Says: **Dante \> Ramza** ### Next Day Review Awwww yeah, what an awesome match today. Too bad that the Stats topic had to be ruined by people crying about rallying for 24 straight hours. Come on guys, its Blizzard, of course there's going to be outside voting if the end result is at all in question. If you want to be upset at someone, vent your frustration at Ramza and Laharl for looking so pathetic (and seemingly LFFing each other a bit) that they couldn't put away a minor character from a game only 31% of the site has played. To me, this is the kind of "joke" character that's actually enjoyable- Hogger's a weakling, but (assuming he holds on these last hours for the win) it was fun to watch him shake things up and snatch the win away from equally undeserving competition here in R1. BUT, there's no danger of him suddenly going all L-Block on us and ruining perfectly good matchups down the line with a dull static strength. In fact, he actually enhances R2, as now Riku will have a much better shot at equaling an LFF weakened Leon than he would have with Square/FF/RPG LFF in play. Hogger: Truly a joke we can all get behind! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3271&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=28) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=28) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Commander Shepard vs Magus vs Sandbag vs Sonic the Hedgehog 2008 _source: Commander Shepard vs Magus vs Sandbag vs Sonic the Hedgehog 2008 (revid 85808)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, October 16th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 8 - **Match \#:** 29 - **Match Date:** Thursday, October 16th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sonic the Hedgehog - 40.60% Magus - 24.33% Sandbag - 23.62% Commander Shepard - 11.56% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Sonic first place (2pts) - 56.25% Sonic second place (1pt) - 34.69% Sandbag second place (2pts) - 21.67% Sandbag first place (1pt) - 11.36% - **Advancing Prediction:** Sonic - 90.94% (39,016) Sandbag - 33.03% (14,171) Called this shit like one of Anton Chigurh's coin flips, son. No, really, I did: As someone who saw this coming, I feel especially qualified to say why it happened. It's easy to look at Magus's entire contest history and judge the guy, but in the interest of 2008 we'll just look at everything prior, and remember I'm saying all this with Magus perhaps being my favorite character in all of fiction. He's way up there, at the very least. For starters, let's remember this dude has been disappointing people right from the beginning. Remember 2003 and everyone thinking the true final of that contest was going to be Magus vs Link? Remember what actually happened? It's frankly a miracle he even beat Ganondorf that year, because the total votes in the match against Sam Fisher showed how little interest there was. People like to point at percentages all day, but total votes matter. They show overall interest in the characters involved, which is why the modern standard of multiple matches per day with forced voting in every match is so laughably dumb. Multiple matches is fine, but not the forced voting. It's one of the dumbest things Allen has ever done to these contests. When Magus's sprite got 35% on Link, people thought it was some great performance, and they also erroneously starting pushing this ridiculous theory that pictures matter far more than they actually do. 2018 thankfully laid that garbage to rest for good. Moving on. In 2004, Magus was once again low energy, as Trump would say. No interest in his matches as all, culminating in getting his ass whipped by SFF. To date, this is perhaps the biggest round 1 upset in the history of contests. Magus went into that contest a favorite to make a deep run. After struggling to build a lead on Knuckles, he choked like a dog. I don't feel like doing the research on this one, but I'd be shocked if any other match in round 1 had every Oracle, Guru, and BOP all be wrong. Usually you have a straggler or two, but not here. Magus was that much of a favorite, and frankly he's been a dud ever since. He may have won a match in 2007 and looked "okay" on his way out, but once again. Low energy. That stuff matters. So when 2008 came around, I was done being burned by the little shit. I saw Sandbag in this match, I knew BrawlFEAR would cause something insane in this contest, and I just knew. I wish I had a better explanation for it, but this is all I got. I just.... knew. When the poll started, Sonic was the easy winner. That was obvious. Shepard was in last place, which was also not much of a surprise. Remember, he only had the original game at his back to this point, and I believe it was only available on Xbox 360 and PC. Mass Effect 2 was only a thought, and people hadn't fully embraced the original game yet. So here were Magus and a punching bag, going neck and neck for the first 30 minutes of the poll. I figured the match was over right then and there, because if anyone can choke away a close match, Magus can. But to his credit, he shook off the initial joke vote (likely helped by Sonic siphoning away a lot of the BrawlFEAR votes; let's not forget he made his debut in the series in Brawl) and started building a lead. He built it fast, too. A tied match saw Magus explode over 1000 votes overnight, and though there was a small hiccup with Sandbag looking to take the morning vote, Magus recovered there as well and continued.... well, knocking Sandbag around all over the place. That's Sandbag's job, after all! Beat him up, get stickers. Magus kept it up all the way until the after school vote, where he had a lead of 2150 votes. Barring the absolute meltdown of all meltdowns, he looked safe. Remember, he only led by about 700 against Knuckles. 2150 votes in a 4way poll would be just an all-time obnoxious choke job that would never have any real compare. In fact, has there ever been a bigger comeback in a 4way or 3way match? Someone check me on that. Chrono Trigger has never been an ASV all-star, but this was another beast entirely. Magus not only started losing the ASV, but he was losing it badly enough that he was likely being rallied against here. Suddenly, all the hype for this match made sense. Sandbag had the joke factor, BrawlFEAR, and Magus was a choke artist. After a few updates where we were at the razor's edge, the floodgates opened. Sandbag's comeback was quick, severe, and brutal. If we may peek into the future a bit, it reminds me a lot of the greatest match picture ever made. Credit to yoblazer for this one! That's basically what Sandbag did to this poll. This was more than a simple ASV comeback and Magus choking. You can tell it was a rally because as Sandbag gained more and more steam for the inevitable win, he was getting close to Sonic himself for several updates. How brutal was it all? The 2150 vote peak was at 2:40 pm EST. Sandbag finished the comeback in under 6 hours, and he never looked back in building up a 400 vote lead for himself. It was a good thing he did, too, because Magus tried to conjure up some of the old Chrono Trigger clutch that this series has pulled off in the past. Unfortunately for him, it just meant losing by 241 votes instead of 400+. It was brutal, it was embarrassing for Magus, and above all, for my money it was the best match we had in round 1 this year. It was either this or the L-Block match to be sure, no? A lot of people worried that Sandbag would go full Sandbag ZERO on this contest following this match. More on that in round 2's writeup, but for Magus this was basically the final nail in his contest career. No one would ever trust him again, and frankly they already should have stopped trusting him. The polls on GameFAQs have a search option; you can see what happened to Magus for yourself. And when you do, you're not dreaming with that 2018 match against Vincent. Magus almost pulled it off, but... he didn't. Of course. That's all he's good for in contests these days. Choke jobs. ## Stats and Analysis - Sandbag advancing was the **\#1** most surprising result of Round 1 It's hard to believe that a match like this had such deafening hype, but that's what happens I guess when you have one of the most elite bracketmakers on the board taking a new contestant to the finals. Sandbag was thought by many to represent a perfect storm; Sandbag was to be the spiritual incarnation of ? Block. Combining both the franchise voting of what would be the site's hottest game with the tenacious power of joke voting, it would be the ultimate cap on a joke dominated contest. Personally, I didn't think it would turn out that way - we'd already seen what an entity like Sandbag could do back when it was called Master Hand, and the format + an enhanced power for jokes wasn't going to put it that far above its gloved predecessor. Ultimately, however, I ended up biting the bullet and having Sandbag advance over Magus here anyway. The logic was simple: the pure Smash vote, even one hampered by Sonic (who has never really been embraced by the SSB crowd, see how Snake curbstomped him after they were BOTH announced for details), was going to be a force for the ever-slipping CT to contend with. Magus, in particular, has seemed to be on an even steeper slide than CT in general, although to be fair he was the most overrated to begin with. Whatever joke support Sandbag got was going to just push it over the top. Now fast forward to the day of the match. After what we had seen from Mudkip, L-Block, and WCC, Sandbag hype was in the process of consuming the board. That tight Oracle spread you see in favor of Magus there is nothing but pitiful, wishful thinking on the part of bracketmakers holding out hope against all hope. (why did we back Magus so decisively AGAIN, again?) Oh, and the other competitors here! Sonic just had to go and perform at his 2007 level (believe me, we weren't asking much) to designate him as a near-lock (Sandbag, remember?) for the semifinals now that Master Chief had run out of GAME FUEL. Still, a strong performance would go a long way toward assuring that he wouldn't falter against Auron in Round 2, either. Commander Shepard would be content with staying above 10%, I think. Well, the match started, and immediately one thing was apparent - Sandbag was no L-Block. Magus rode his awesome bracket support to an early lead... and lo and behold, he was hanging on! Many began to exult in the miraculous redemption of the Fiendlord; if Magus was holding against Sandbag in the Power Hour he surely had the match in the bag! (of course CT has an even stronger early vote than any Nintendo character, but we'll ignore that for now) Sonic, for his part, was doing TERRIBLY - Magus and Sandbag were combining for nearly 50% of the vote, and considering that Magus was on the top end of that comparison and Shepard was pulling 13% that Sonic was reduced to taking percentages we would sooner expect out of Sora or Dante. And Magus would continue to hold on - it wasn't what you would call "dominance", but it was an impressive night vote. This would be no Kuja/Master Hand, within CT's first prime four hours Magus had built himself an 800 vote lead. The Europe/morning vote was as unkind to CT as it always is, but it merely stalled his momentum and Magus would recoup it and then some with the during school vote. By his peak, Magus had attained a lead of nearly 2,200 votes over Sandbag with well less than half the match to go. All he had to do was endure what was sure to be a tough, but survivable ASV. It's not an understatement to say that Magus looked more impressive than he had at any time succeeding Magus/Knuckles. No Noble Nine killer, but enough to safely put away a sack of sand. Then the cuts started coming in. At first they were reasonable, something you'd expect out of a match with a CT character and the protege of Master Hand - 10, 20, sometimes 30 vote cuts. It certainly wouldn't be enough with the time 'bag had left, especially considering Magus was going to put on an epic rally come that last hour. That was CT's specialty, after all. Then suddenly, those 10 vote cuts weren't coming any more. In their stead came slashes of 40, sometimes 50 votes an update. Not only was Sandbag's quota to come back falling dramatically with each update, but Magus was just falling apart. Heck, SONIC was tanking in percentage. The only character not being affected was Commander Shepard of all characters. Personally I think that was Mass Effect telling us it wanted to be the next KOTOR of these contests, but what do I know? Sandbag blasted an ASV that would make Master Hand envious. I saw the 'bag eviscerate Magus by 80+ votes some updates, pulling in on SONIC'S level. It blasted by at 8 pm EST, kept its momentum going until 10 or so, and didn't even let Magus make consistent gains until that final hour... where he ended up coming back all of 150 votes in the end. This from the same guy that was able to shave off over 1000 votes off of Knuckles' historic upset. And with that... it was all over. A match that really no one could be happy with if you'd invested anything in any character performing. Sonic looked like crap, crap enough to look like he'd let Master Chief back into the game and to work the Auron upset train into a frenzy - as long as he just met expectations next match, anyway. Sandbag had certainly done just about everything to disappoint his backers short of actually losing the match, Magus had managed to outdo his outdoing of embarrassing himself, and Shepard probably walked away with the most dignity intact. Which is a shame, because he hadn't started with any in the first place. ...instant classic, right? ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction As cool as these last 24 hours have been, the next 24 might even top them! Time to see the Contest's biggest wildcard finally hit the stage- **The Sandman Cometh** He is the sleep stalker. Lock up your son, Lock up your daughter. He'll come past one, So prepare for the slaughter. The Sandman Cometh, To sing his lullaby. Try as you might, Try to defy. But not past tonight, In your grave you will lie. Last Known Values - Sonic - 36.54% (2007) - Magus - 21.17% (2007) - Shepard - new - Sandbag - new Let me be clear here- I'm not a fan of the 'bag, and would be overjoyed if he bombed out of this Contest, hard. I keep looking for ways for that to happen, but all of them seem like too much of a stretch. Sure, Sonic looks really good in this match pic, and sure Crono and Frog held up better than many expected in their matches, so maybe some kind of CT:DS hype effect is going around. And sure, Brawl hasn't turned former fodder into legit contenders this season as some had expected. But every time I try to make a case in my mind for one of those truths, a dozen even better counter points bounce back at me: - Master Hand won a match... in the 1v1 format. and he was arguably even MORE of a joke, competing back when SSB was weaker on this site! - WCC pulled in 32% of the vote - L-Block and Dog snatched 46% of the vote between them, and that wasn't even against weak competition - Magus earned 31% against PW/Bomberman/Crash... and 18% when Mario and Big Boss got involved - Sonic Team is awful in this format, both in '07 and '08 so far - Shepard has 360 appeal and won't just roll over and die, leaving less "legit" percentage for the other two options - Brawl newcomers haven't been world-beaters, but Sandy was the star of the Home Run Challenge, arguably the most popular Melee single player challenge (and plenty popular in Brawl as well BTW) - [youtube.com/watch?v=IunYZIYk1UY](http://youtube.com/watch?v=IunYZIYk1UY) Yeah, so try as I might I just can't come up with a way that the Bag doesn't outdo Magus in this one. Hopefully Sonic at least can stay comfortably ahead of him, so that we'll be able to stay confident in him being knocked out by the deadly Sonic/Auron combo a few weeks from now. With all that being said, here's how things should end up: - Sonic the Hedgehog - 39.51% - Sandbag - 23.98% - Magus - 23.49% - Commander Shepard - 13.01% Bah, it looks so bad... but I just don't know what else to do! Ngamer Says: **Sonic \> Sandbag** ### Next Day Review Oh man, this is one of the most intense nights in Contest history. Magus has blown a 2100 vote lead on Sandy and allowed the Bag to climb out to a 400 vote lead of his own, but now we're into the final two hours and he's attempting an epic Frogish comeback to save everyone's brackets (well not mine, but everyone else's). There was talk of trying to get a Magus rally going, but the trouble is- the boards have died! Only moments before Sandman surged into the lead the boards went down, and no one could post their disgust for about 85 minutes. Then they were back up for like an hour, but 45 minutes ago they passed away again and still haven't returned to life. If they don't come back up soon, and STAY up, this is going to be devastating for the Oracle. Not to mention Crew fans, who obviously will be pulling out their hair because they can't read my writeup before the match starts! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3272&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=29) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=29) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Auron vs Marcus Fenix vs Rydia vs Sub-Zero 2008 _source: Auron vs Marcus Fenix vs Rydia vs Sub-Zero 2008 (revid 85809)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, October 17th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 8 - **Match \#:** 30 - **Match Date:** Friday, October 17th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Auron - 37.42% Sub-Zero - 27.08% Marcus Fenix - 21.31% Rydia - 14.07% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Auron first place (2pts) - 50.74% Auron second place (1pt) - 20.32% Sub-Zero second place (2pts) - 46.73% Sub-Zero first place (1pt) - 21.66% - **Advancing Prediction:** Auron - 71.06% (30,487) Sub-Zero - 68.39% (29,341) If you look at all of contest history, Auron and Sub-Zero have faced each other four times. It's as pointless a contest "rivalry" as there is, because outside of something truly absurd (Sub-Zero in Smash Bros or as a JRPG lead), he will never be stronger than Auron. Ever. It will not happen. Thankfully this was early on in the so-called rivalry, with this contest giving us matches \#2 and 3. Auron \> Sub-Zero was pretty much a mortal lock for this match, and what was also a mortal lock was Fenix being a one-hit wonder. He got super lucky to make it into round 3 of the 2007 contest, and this year saw him fall back down to earth in a big way. He went from outright winning a match in 2007's first round, to... this. Losing to Rydia and being unceremoniously dumped from contest lore thereafter. Gears of War was never going to be the type of franchise GameFAQs cared about long term, so Fenix falling off in a big way was no surprise. We know this about Gears because even Drax replacing Fenix can't convince us to care, and Drax is the kind of dude GameFAQs cares about. This match was easy, predictable, and outside of Rydia's surprise third place and her, um.... assets, it was super boring without much to talk about. Moving on. ## Stats and Analysis - Marcus underperformed by **-5.17%**, the **\#12**most disappointing performance of 2008 Everyone knew the obvious conclusion was Auron \> Sub-Zero here, aside from some murmuring that Marcus might have a shot at advancing (that was shot down HARD, as we'll see). Thus, this match was all about analyzing the nitty-gritty details. And not to go all Ulti-style retrospective on everyone here, but anyone that couldn't read Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin clear as day after this match was just hiding in denial. Sonic had Magus, a character roughly equal to Magus, and an SBallin'-grade piece of fodder in his match. Auron had Sub-Zero, a character roughly equal to Revolver Ocelot, and a character that was thought to be fodder - and he ended up exceeding expectations, and getting a significantly greater percentage on his pack than Sonic did on his. This is made even more damning when the character that was SUPPOSED to be fodder, Rydia, decided to go out and \*finally\* validate the oldest theory we've had in these contests. Seriously, TJF has had a long, rocky road, but its holy grail was found in Rydia's curvaceous C-cups and we haven't let go since. She didn't just overperform, she beat MARCUS FENIX, thought universally to be one of the best newcomers from last year. Sure, that meant doing little more than beating Kefka and Ocelot (the latter in an all-day affair), but still! Sure Rydia would have never pulled this off with Amano art, but this was a victory for mammary-lovers everywhere. And more importantly, it made the pack even STRONGER. Despite all this (and some weird ass fanart for a picture), Auron was able to near 40% here. Something was going to have to give, because if things kept up as they were Auron wasn't just looking set to beat Sonic - he was looking good to blow him away. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction This is so wild that I have to get back to refreshing the boards and poll to see how this plays out, so let's keep this outlook on tomorrow a little bit shorter. Last Known Values: - Auron - 34.73% (2007) - Sub-Zero - 23.80% (2007) - Marcus - 20.84% (2007) - Rydia - new Actually a pretty cool match here... or at least potentially it could be. Auron will roll out to an easy win of course, but I don't think he fully cements himself as the winner over Sonic/Sandbag/Magus(?) next round, just based on the percentage he'll pull down. BUT, he's only going to appear to have had a bad showing, when in reality it will just be a matter of having to split some of his votes with Rydia, and actually he'll be in the clear once she's out of the way next round. Speaking of Rydia, I expect a pretty good result from her. Kain impressed us the other day, and I hear that Ry is decently well-liked by FF4 fans as well, which when added to her getting without a doubt the biggest pic advantage of the entire round (seriously, just *wow*) should spell good things for Miss Mist. Unfortunately she was placed in such an unwinnable position. Not only is Sub-Zero a proven upper mid-carder, but fighting games have always done well in this format, plus he's the face of the upcoming DC vs MK fighter. Which... might help him a little. Then there's Marcus, another guy who proved himself as legit last year, and this time around the 360 vote has only gotten stronger, plus he's also got an even more hyped release coming right up in Gears 2. When you add the fact that all 4 of these options got awesome pics and that AURON is sharing the poll, I'm afraid I don't see any way for Rydia to stay out of the basement here no matter how much she impresses. So an Auron win but not really a blowout, with everyone else looking pretty decent as well ought to result in something like... - Auron - 37.09% - Sub-Zero - 24.09% - Marcus Fenix - 21.25% - Rydia Mist - 17.56% Uhh... sure! \*back to mashing F5\* Ngamer Says: **Auron \> Subby** ### Next Day Review What a weird year... Ryu Hayabusa explodes with the Day Vote to easily pound Zero, but now Marcus Fenix and Master Chief can't even use it to hurt FF4 characters? Maybe you could make a case for Xbox acceptance being on the rise, but only in terms of having a greater ability to attract noncommitted voters who in years past would have apathetically supported the Nintendo option they were most familiar with. If that's the case it could explain this bad result from Marcus today- between FFX and TJF and awesome nostalgic ninjas there are plenty of good choices for the casual voter here, which might have hurt his case. But MC was facing a toaster-wearing character who was barely above the fodder line last year, a FF4 character (without TJF), and Professor Layton. There's just no excuse for flopping with the casuals against competition like that, and combined with today it has me seriously wondering if more than 25-30% of the site actually cares about supporting the 360. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3273&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=30) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=30) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Nana vs Ratchet vs Sephiroth vs Tifa Lockheart 2008 _source: Nana vs Ratchet vs Sephiroth vs Tifa Lockheart 2008 (revid 85810)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, October 18th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 8 - **Match \#:** 31 - **Match Date:** Saturday, October 18th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 50.81% Tifa Lockhart - 23.90% Ratchet - 13.46% Nana - 11.85% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Sephiroth first place (2pts) - 80.23% Sephiroth second place (1pt) - 15.46% Tifa second place (2pts) - 64.15% Tifa first place (1pt) - 5.24% - **Advancing Prediction:** Sephiroth - 95.69% (41,054) Tifa - 69.39% (29,770) Given what would end up happening in 2018 (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7369-loser-bracket-round-1-tifa-vs-sephiroth), this match is hilarious to look back on. Pre-contest, there was actual fear that Sephiroth would SFF Tifa into the ground hard enough for a BrawlFEAR-backed Nana to squeeze into second place. Everyone picked Seph \> Tifa, but the fear was there. At least, it was there before watching most of round 1 play out. Once Nintendo's D tier proved that Brawl alone was not enough, people went to sleep 2 seconds into this match. Seph \> Tifa was a lock, and Nana wasn't even good enough to beat Ratchet, of all people. The lone interesting thing about this match was Tifa avoiding getting SFFd into the ground, which gave some people hope for round 2. Tifa got a trash draw in this contest and deserved far better, especially after she went from a near-miracle upset of Samus in 2006 to getting snubbed from the field entirely here in 2008. When Tifa finally got a fair chance a few years later, Seph was waiting yet again. It took her 10 years to finally get her revenge, and you can skip to 2018 for that one. As for why she did better than expected here, that's an easy one. Japanese RPG characters tend to avoid SFF better than Nintendo characters, especially when they're well-liked. Yeah you'll get the occasional Squall \> Tidus mess, but for the most part, JRPG characters all have their own fanbases and the effect is lessened. That, and main characters like to overperform against villains. We saw it here, we saw it with Crono \> Magus, and we definitely saw it once Sephiroth started falling off in strength a few years after this contest ended. As an unapologetic fan of the guy, it's nice going back to the mid-2000s era and seeing Seph demolish people. I miss those days. ## Stats and Analysis - Tifa overperformed by **+4.59%**, the **\#18** most impressive performance of 2008 Poor Tifa. I have no love for her as a character, but she came the closest to breaking the Noble Nine (and likely could have if she'd had any bracket support or if ANYONE had seen the near-upset coming). So what does she get in return? Misses the next contest bracket entirely. This year, she finally gets in again, and what does she get? Sephiroth of all characters on her for the first round. Seriously, this is worse than what happened to Aeris. Tifa is a bonafide near-elite under normal circumstances, but with Sephiroth on her ass from day one what would have been an easily escapable division turned into a scenario where people contemplated if she would lose to Nana. Most didn't go quite that far, but with the up and coming superstar Kratos coming into the picture next round, she would need a heavy-duty performance to prove she had a chance. And, lo and behold, she got it. While absolutely no one was taking the Nana upset seriously anymore due to the epic bombing of Brawl-only characters, Tifa was still expected to get SFFed into the ground. Didn't happen. She ended up well over 37% against Sephiroth here, and was breaking 40% for a good long while until his rise to heaven started. Considering Seph is basically BL these days, she ended up doing better than many thought she could pull INDIRECTLY. If Sephiroth couldn't affect her at all, was Tifa in the clear against Kratos? Well, there was one problem - the competition was PITIFUL here. Seriously, Nana ended up below Ratchet, who is even more pitiful than Laharl when it comes to stinking it up in these things. There was just no option of worth for people that didn't like FF7 here, and that would be a totally different story next round. (not to mention that after what we had just seen Rydia do, Tifa's TJF was a major plus here and she wouldn't have that next round) Still, Tifa did as well as you could have expected of her given the circumstances, and proved without a shadow of a doubt she's still on that near-elite tier. Not too much else you can ask for. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction And now its time for... well, quite possibly the dullest match of the round, to be perfectly frank. After the excellent polls we've enjoyed the past week though, you can't be too upset about this small lull! Let's see what kind of dirt we have on these four. Last Known Values: - Sephiroth - 49.25% (2007) - Tifa - 41.01% (2006) - Ratchet - 13.12% (2007) - Nana - new Still stunned me a moment ago when I realized that Tifa missed the bracket last year. Well, at least she's here for '08 so we can finally get some questions answe- oh wait she's stuck with Seph. GRRRRR. On the plus side at least we get to make a Tifa/Vincent comparison, as Seph shocked me last season by scoring 76% of the vote directly on VV in their one matchup. Granted the presence of Link and Mario must have worked to push Vince further down, but regardless, I see Tifa withstanding SFF way better in this one. The thing to watch for will be if she's able to hold up well enough to seriously threaten against Ocelot or Kratos in the second round. My money is obviously on "no", but heck, the way newer Square has been performing this season I don't want to count anything out. Come on jugs, keep Tifa... afloat! As for Sephiroth, well... he scores about double whatever Tifa gets, which ought to be about 70% of the votes in the match. Next! As for Ratchet... ugh, just ugh. Next! Call me crazy, but I'm expecting to see something decent from Nana tonight. Yes the casuals haven't been clinging to Nintendo as in years past, but when the only other options in the poll are Final Fantasy 7 and a PSX action star that's pathetically weak even BEFORE taking into account any possible Sony SFF, where else can those voters turn? This is the same kind of "sore thumb" argument I'm going to be making for Kirby against MC/BB/Raiden- there's a huge advantage to being the only cutesy/colorful/eye catching/Nintendo option in a room full of mature/Sony choices, and unless your name is Ness you've got to be able to capitalize on that. Now I'm not crazy enough to think this gives Nana any kind of shot at Tifa (Melee/Brawl/bright and colorful can only do so much for someone this incredibly weak normally), but I do see her destroying Ratchet with impressive ease. How does a doubling sound? Eh, that's a bit much... but a 60/40ing doesn't seem out of the question. So if FF7 eats approx 3/4 of the votes here, and Seph eats about double Tifa's, and Nana like 3/5 Ratchet's, then... - Sephiroth - 50.59% - Tifa Lockheart - 25.16% - Nana - 14.11% - Ratchet - 10.13% That looks sooooo good. Ngamer Says: **Sephiroth \> Tifa** ### Next Day Review Impressive hold from Tifa today; this certainly makes things more interesting for Round Two. If she had really crumbled under Seph, say to around 20% or so, I think it would have been reasonable to count her out against Kratos, but as is that result has become a straight toss up in my mind. Man, aside from the one poll that L-Block ruins, this is going to be such a great second round. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3274&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=31) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=31) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Heavy vs Jill Valentine vs Kratos vs Revolver Ocelot 2008 _source: Heavy vs Jill Valentine vs Kratos vs Revolver Ocelot 2008 (revid 85811)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, October 19th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Division:** 8 - **Match \#:** 32 - **Match Date:** Sunday, October 19th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Kratos - 33.50% Revolver Ocelot - 29.32% Jill Valentine - 22.78% Heavy - 14.37% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Kratos first place (2pts) - 53.01% Kratos second place (1pt) - 27.67% Jill second place (2pts) - 21.79% Jill first place (1pt) - 23.19% - **Advancing Prediction:** Kratos - 80.68% (34,614) Jill - 44.98% (19,298) Typically I use the final match of round 1, and sometimes round 2, to do a small round synopsis. These round-enders are usually super predictable and give us all a breath of fresh air before the next round starts. Jill Valentine and Ocelot decided to put a wrench into all that. One year ago, in 2007, these two were in a poll together along with Cloud and the Midgar Zolom. Here is how it went: Jill was a huge favorite in that match, mainly due to extrapolated standings and Ocelot's embarrassing loss to Pac-Man in round 1 of 2005. Jill isn't some strong character or anything, and her and Ocelot have similar strength, but she had no business losing that match in 2007. None. There is no reason to suggest Cloud would have hurt Ocelot less than her, especially given we'd seen Final Fantasy 7 SFF Metal Gear Solid before: And yet somehow, some way, Ocelot got second place in that match despite being the heavy underdog. One year later, and we practically had the same poll. Kratos was the obvious winner and would clearly share more of a fanbase with Ocelot than Jill Valentine. Heavy was the obvious joke character. And there was Jill Valentine, sticking out like a sore thumb. However, we all picked Ocelot to get second place this year for one simple reason. Metal Gear Solid 4. We all figured Ocelot was the easy favorite here, and the Oracle numbers show it. Metal Gear Solid had been pasting fools all over the bracket thusfar, and there was no reason for Jill to boost or even come close to second place. Jill Valentine, of course, never makes a lick of sense in these things. When we all thought Kirby would beat her, Jill wins. We all thought Ryu Hayabusa would beat her. It was 50-50 for 48 hours. We all thought Jill would win in 2007. She didn't. So of course she came out and won this match for absolutely legitimately no reason at all, because that's what Jill Valentine does. If you put her and Kefka in a poll together, the universe would implode. Ocelot had a go at it for about 30 minutes, but once Jill started going up, that was that. Game over. Ocelot never threatened to win, and we were all left here scratching our leads. Because again, Jill had no actual tangible reason to get second place here. My best guess, outside of MGS fans simply not liking Ocelot all that much, is that Kratos did a ton of damage to Ocelot's votes here. They practically have the same fanbase, while Resident Evil has considerably less overlap with everything else in this poll. That's my best guess, anyway. As for round 1, I'm not gonna lie. Most of these matches sucked, and this is a hard PCA to get through. If this was 128+ matches instead of the old school 64, I probably never would have gotten around to writing these. Division 1 was a lot of fun. L-Block, Hogger, the Cube, BrawlFEAR, Sandbag, and a few other things were fun. Most of the round, however, was a predictable drag. Even matches that blew our minds were often a character getting first instead of second, which doesn't affect eliminations in a 4way format. That said, it did continue to get better, and vote totals this year were NUTS. So obviously there were tons of people out there having a ball this year. ## Stats and Analysis - Jill Valentine advancing was the **\#7** most surprising result of Round 1 - Revolver Ocelot underperformed by **-5.10%**, the **\#13** most disappointing performance of 2008 This match, to me, exemplifies everything that is stupid about this format, and why to this day I deride Bacon for running this debacle again. It's not about predicting character popularity. It's not even about predicting fanbase splits. It's about chaos, luck, and the draw of a match picture. The only thing that was supposed to be debatable about this match was who would come in first. Ocelot seemed like a longshot of longshots when the bracket was released, but with the way MGS had lit the contest on fire, it seemed plausible. And Ocelot was the character that had the MOST to gain from MGS4. He had more screentime than ever, he had more importance than ever, and his role in the finale involves some of the most climactic scenes in all of video gaming. No one had as big a reason to boost than Ocelot. If MGS4 could take Liquid, who was equal to Alucard, to near-Luigi level, what could it do for Ocelot? The end result is one of the most nonsensical you'll ever see in these contests. As the match started, it quickly became apparent Ocelot wasn't going to beat Kratos - he was barely ahead, and Ocelot has one of the best board votes while Kratos has one of the worst. But something even weirder was going on. Jill wasn't dying. As Ocelot began his percentage fall back down to earth, Jill was right there to catch him. Despite, y'know, having ZERO bracket support from us after she had just lost to Ocelot last year. Pre-MGS4 Ocelot. From there, it was like last year's match in reverse. After a minor struggle, Jill surged ahead and never lost the advantage, and ReSTALLver Lossalot was never in the match from there on. As evidenced by last year, the two had almost exactly the same trends, thus leaving no room for a comeback on either end. We probably should see Jill/Ocelot 1v1 next year, just for the hilarity of seeing two characters deadlocked for 24 hours. It was strange retribution, in a way. One year ago, Jill was in the heavily favored position, after having nearly upset Jokefodder while Ocelot blew it against Pac-Man. Ocelot basically took that match from the start and never let go. So the board ends up switching to Ocelot en masse this year, and what happens? Exact opposite. Also, because it can't really be said enough - Metal Gear Solid 4. So, what happened? Well, for starters, Ocelot is referred to as "Liquid" for pretty much all of MGS4 - which explains Liquid's boost, but apparently voters are either against the concept of a 2 for 1 or somehow were able to play through the game without eyes. I mean, c'mon, it's Liquid Ocelot. Jill was also the beneficiary of some nice STF - not TJF, but Sore Thumb Factor: her baby blue background and cute artwork really stood out in a sea of testosterone (whoa there Heavy). And, of course, having Kratos as the big man in the match is a lot different than having Cloud breathing down everyone's neck. But let's get serious here. Even with all that, Ocelot shouldn't even have had a chance to lose the match. He'd already won. He had the biggest game of his career. Any excuses were just that - Jill winning here was just nonsense, and while it was nice for her to finally pull an upset after so many near-misses, it just proves how pointless this format is. This would be evidenced in even more bittersweet fashion in later rounds, but this is what exemplifies it the most, I feel. After Ocelot's bomb, though, along with Snake underperforming, Raiden doing only so-so and Big Boss' performance being attributed to the picture, all eyes suddenly turned to Liquid, the odd man out. Was the first round miracle against Luigi a fluke? Was Snake's twin set for another Round 2 epic bombing? We left the first round on that apprehensive note - but thankfully, ZackFAQs was waiting for us! ## Match Trends ## Biolizard28's Analysis This match more or less exemplified the one major gripe with the new format: results that make absolutely no goddamn sense. Coming into this match, the only real debate was about Jill vs. Ocelot. Kratos was the obvious victor, barring some form of Ocelot miracle, and Heavy was more or less confirmed cannon fodder. The two faced off last year, Ocelot squeezing out a win against Ms. Valentine. Though, one could argue that this was merely a case of the Metal Gear Solid fanbase being more hardcore than the Resident Evil fanbase, so arguments in Jill's favor weren't hard to come by. ... This was until Liquid Snake kept up with Luigi and Big Boss curb-stomped Kirby. Two of the weaker characters to come out of Metal Gear, weaker or on par with even Ocelot, had excelled in their round one matches, most likely due to a heavy boost from Metal Gear Solid 4. Everything was going to plan, and the Oracles weren't shy about showing their support for Ocelot. And when the match began, Ocelot took the lead against Jill... For twenty minutes. Jill would soon take the lead, and the best Ocelot could do was stall her. Jill barely made any gains, but Ocelot barely made any sizable cuts. Ocelot got crushed in the day, like MGS characters should, and Kratos rose to heaven... or Olympus... whatever. The Jill/Ocelot stall-fest would end how it "began": With Jill in the lead and everyone cursing Ocelot's name. Now, I could end this summary here, but I just have one, simple question to all you Metal Gear fans, stat heads, and hell, voters. How. The. Fuck? Metal Gear Solid 4 was supposed to be THE Metal Gear game, and it showed. Pretty much every character with sizable representation in the series got a nice boost just from the game coming out. It's a strong contender for Best Game Ever. And do you know who the principle villain of this game is? Revolver. FUCKING. Ocelot. NOBODY had more of a reason to boost from this game than him. And there was no reason he shouldn't have. "Oh, but they call him Liquid the whole game!" Hey, that's fine, except that the match picture HAS LIQUID OCELOT. It doesn't matter what you call him, that's HIS PICTURE. IT'S EASY. The guy with Ocelot under his name? HE'S THE ONE YOU WANT TO VOTE FOR. Honestly, this is a poor excuse, and only makes me think less of the MGS fanbase. Tell me, how hard is it to put a name to face, because I think this is a skill that the grand majority of MGS fans lack. Explain Big Boss's constant over-performances as Naked Snake, or how sprite rounds are enough to make Solid Snake himself falter to Frog. It simply makes no sense that Ocelot wouldn't boost just because he had a different name. This was Ocelot's time to shine, and it's a goddamn shame that he could be beaten like this. On the bright side, he has found a new nickname in his constant disappointments: ReSTALLver LOSSalot. Commit it to memory next contest. ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction There's one more for R1 before we move on, so let's talk about it! Actually this poll could have some intrigue of its own... Is the MGS4 boost legit, and if so could it potentially be enough to lift Kratos into first? Is the all-things RE boost legit, and if so could it potentially be enough for Jill to reverse her narrow '07 loss to Ocelot? Let's take a closer look! Last Known Values: - Kratos - 27.44% (2007) - Ocelot - 20.21% (2007) - Jill - 19.96% (2007) - Heavy - new First off Kratos- one of the many very weird performances we witnessed in 2007. The guy looked all-world in demolishing DK twice, but then against it's Donkey Kong, and plus he was assisted by Marth one time and Kirby another. Is his true strength closer to the one we saw in R3, when he was so badly badass-SFFed by Snake that L-Block killed him and Riku nearly matched him? If so he'd better be on his guard, as it wouldn't even take THAT much of an MGS boost for Ocelot to knock him back to earth. Personally I feel we'll be seeing something more along the lines of R2 Kratos though; clearly this is a guy who thrives on the casual vote and the ASV, and he ought to be able to lap it up against these three, none of whom have much casual/TJF/pic factor appeal and all of whom I would peg as Night Vote characters. Ocelot's the wild card of the group. He impressed me last year by standing up to the FF7/MGS "something fishy factor" better than I had expected against Cloud, so clearly the guy's got a devoted fanbase that's going to be backing him no matter what. The question is how much additional appeal MGS4 can grant him- apparently he's the real star of the game storyline-wise and has a number of really cool cut scenes. That's nice, but frankly I'm not buying into the hype just yet; I don't doubt that plenty of people played all the way through MGS4 to feel the full effect of his awesomeness, but how many of those DIDN'T already vote for him last year? Maybe I'm just being silly in ignoring the apparent boost for this series after what Liquid and Raiden showed us... so heck Ocelot, go ahead and prove me wrong by beating Kratos! I'll reward you by picking Liquid to advance past Bowser if you can pull it off! I really wanted to pull the trigger on the Jill \> Ocelot upset here but just couldn't bring myself to do it... RE5 releasing during the Contest probably would have been enough to tip my hand, but as is I have trouble seeing her improve on her '07 margin against Revolver. That being said, I'd be surprised if he blew her out of the water here, but we've already covered my doubts regarding the MGS4 boost, so moving on to... The Heavy! Well, I expect him to be a decent bit stronger than his partner The Spy just because of his more iconic look and higher playrate, both in TF2 and TFC. Also it should help that he doesn't have to split the PC vote, as Spy did with Arthas. Overall though he probably doesn't have a shot at upsetting Jill unless he starts pulling down the joke vote, which doesn't seem likely- he's just too much of a character for that. Shouldn't have any problem putting up a respectable showing overall though. So yeah, even though I wouldn't be shocked to see Ocelot pull out to an early lead in this one, and possibly even keep it competitive all through the dead of night, I'm fully expecting Kratos to work those Day Vote muscles of his and turn this into a fairly comfortable win. And if Jill and the Heavy likewise have good turnouts relative to expectations, we'd be looking at - Kratos (God of War) - 34.29% - Revolver Ocelot - 27.96% - Jill Valentine - 21.74% - Heavy - 16.01% That looks... marvelous! Ngamer Says: **Kratos \> Ocelot** ### Next Day Review Haha, now that's more like it! Jill over Ocelot in convincing fashion only 12 months after we'd seen Ocelot over Jill in convincing fashion- and this despite all evidence and common sense pointing to the contrary. Results like this are exactly what makes these Contests so enjoyable! I guess there's a couple ways to puzzle this upset out... did the combined FF7 might of Cloud and Zolom suck up so much of the casual vote that Jill was ruined while Ocelot's more hardcore fanbase won out? Did Kratos kill Ocelot by being the bigger PS2/3 star, while Jill escaped by still having RE's GameCube appeal to fall back on? Have we just underestimated the impact of Umbrella Chronicles, and perhaps the series-wide RE boost has more to do with UC than it does RE5 hype? Plenty of questions, so its a good thing Leon and Jill will be involved in very interesting R2 matchups and will hopefully yield some answers. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3275&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=32) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=32) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Zack Fair vs Wario vs Link vs Zidane Tribal 2008 _source: Zack Fair vs Wario vs Link vs Zidane Tribal 2008 (revid 85812)_ ## Results **Round Two** Monday, October 20th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 1 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 33 - **Match Date:** Monday, October 20th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 50.10% Zack Fair - 24.01% Zidane Tribal - 15.16% Wario - 10.76% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Link first place (4pts) - 62.75% Link second place (2pts) - 30.13% Zack second place (4pts) - 16.33% Zack first place (2pts) - 13.26% - **Advancing Prediction:** Link - 92.88% (39,848) Zack - 29.59% (12,695) A lot of people think the ZackFAQs hype started right from the jump in this contest, but I truly think it started right here with this match. Call me a sucker for the bandwagon effect, I guess! Wario was fresh off of looking decent in round 1, but he was guaranteed to get SFFd into the ground by Link here. And get SFFd into the ground he did. Link was out for blood this contest, and it showed. The dude was straight up not going to let 2007 happen again, and brought his A+ to every match this year. It's truly a marvel looking back on Link's numbers now and again, but this poll wasn't about him. The debate here, obviously, was Zack vs Zidane. Shadow was a chic second place pick here pre-contest, but with him out the debate obviously had to shift. Zack was coming off of one hell of a performance in round 1, while Zidane was coming off of his cute little upset over Shadow. Based purely on eye test regardless of competition (Zack an easy first, Zidane a distant second in their respective matches), Zack felt like the easy favorite here. I'll go far enough to say that a lot of the people honking for Zidane were just bitter Shadow backers that wanted their mistake to not look so bad. In retrospect, this wasn't much of a debate. Final Fantasy 7 is always going to be above 9 in The Hierarchy™, but Zack had a very popular game in his own right to work with. I think Crisis Core is trash, but people seem to like it. Whatever. The point is it can do nothing but help Zack. There's also the "common sense factor", for what that's worth, that puts Zack over Zidane here. Honestly in looking back on this, I don't understand where any of the pro-Zidane arguments were coming from. When the poll started, ZackFAQs and the bandwagon were in full swing! Forget Zidane. Zack left him in the dust so badly that Zidane almost finished below an SFFd Wario. That's real. That actually happened. Zack did so well here -- or at least, as well as "30% on Link" can possibly look -- that people's imaginations started running wild. ZackFAQs was the big Board 8 bandwagon of this contest, and people really wanted to see him make a deep contest run. If he could get through this match, what was stopping him from getting through the likes of Duke Nukem? And from there, who knows? I've said this a few times now, but you had to be there. Believe it or not, Board 8 used to love things like jokes, rallies, and bandwagons. ZackFAQs is one of the better ones we've had. I miss these days. Link may have won this match, but Zack was the star of it. ## Stats and Analysis - Zack Fair advancing was the **\#16** most surprising result of 2008 And with that we entered our much anticipated second round, to ZackFAQs, and what would be the most anticipated match of his contest run - for different reasons than it was initially, to be sure. Zidane, for his part, wasn't supposed to be here, and aside from a few diehards rambling about him being having an exceptionally resilient fanbase,most figured that FF7 vs FFanything rarely turns out well for the latter entity. This time, however, we were potentially looking at a completely different Zack. The picture theme for Round 2 was the customary close-up round, as most expected. And without the iconic Buster Sword taking up half of his picture this time, Zack was going to have to rely on his pretty mug to carry him through the battle. And since Zack is hardly the moody character that Cloud is, there's also the little matter of most of his pictures having him smiling happily at the camera. The only cheery FF protagonist we pretty much have is Zidane - and sheesh, look at him! Then the match began - and Zack proved that he didn't need no dinky little sword to hold him up. Black-haired Cloud never let Zidane even believe he had a chance, blowing out both he and Wario (duh). But more importantly, he rode the momentum en route to putting up near 24% on Link with two 10%+ entities in the match. Those kinds of numbers on our \#1 character are no joke, and in the span of two rounds Zack had come from being compared to the likes of Wario and Shadow to that of Tifa and Vincent. While it was clear (to me, at least) that he wasn't going to be near that strength, to be in that position at all is saying something. And while you might be able to argue Wario was holding back Link a tad, the same thing could be said of Zack and Zidane. At any rate, it was going to take a monumental effort from one of the two characters that wasn't going to be SFFed by Link - if they even escaped next round - to stop Zack from escaping the division with ease. ZackFAQs was in full swing. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction For tonight... oh shoot! I'm working on this Excel sheet with everyone's R1 results and preliminary x-stats that I wanted to break out starting tonight, but I don't have it handy at the moment. Guess I'll just have to wing it for this one and get that sheet rolling tomorrow night... but yeah, there's going to be a new format to my writeups starting soon. But for now, old format a'hoy! Last Known Values: - Link - 59.90% (2007) - Wario - 17.68% (2007) - Zack - new - Zidane - 15.71% (2007) I heard all the arguments for Zidane that were being tossed around in Stats last night- his fanbase is more hardcore than Zack's, that gives him the advantage when facing casual vote eating machine Link, or else maybe Zack was all Buster Sword last round and without it he'll come back down to earth. Eh, reasonable points, but Zack blew me away too much to give that upset any real consideration, sorry. ESPECIALLY after seeing what Rydia and Kain have been worth- even assuming Cecil's naturally the weakest of the three, it's got to take some serious appeal to pound FF4 anything into the ground like that this season. Zidane should have a decent enough showing, but I would be very surprised if he was ever in serious contention for advancement here. As for the Nintendo side of this poll, there isn't really that much to say. Link ought to serve notice that he's still the class of the NN while owning Wario so hard that he'll never come within two miles of third place- not that he would have even outside of an SFF situation. As to where exactly Link falls, that's tough to say... but the 50% ballpark that most seem to be crediting him with seems about right. So Link \>\> Zack \> Zidane \>\> Wario ought to result in something along the lines of... - Link - 52.91% - Zack Fair - 20.94% - Zidane Tribal - 16.16% - Wario - 9.99% Bah, just can't justify Zack any higher, not with Zidane in the mix limiting his appeal... Oh well, come on BusterSwordFAQs! Ngamer Says: **Link \> Zack** ### Next Day Review Well would you look at that- one of the tournament's Elite characters has finally exceeded expectations! True, Link didn't blow us all away as he so often has in the past, but it seemed like the average pred I was seeing for him was right in that 49-52 range, and instead he's going to be finishing above 53 with ease. This goes along with my theory whereby "anti-favoriteFAQs" isn't going to be as big of a factor beyond the first round; it's not that people no longer LIKE Link/Seph/Snake etc etc, its just that after 7 straight years everyone is smart enough to know that they won't be threatened in the first round, and so its safe to throw their support to their second favorite character in the poll (Tifa, Falco, Zidane, or what have you). As we advance further into the bracket, though, a win from their favorites becomes less of a sure thing and so strengths should slowly return to more normal levels. What remains to be seen is what kind of effect this trend will have on our joke characters- L-Block set the bar high with his momentum-gaining run to R6 last season, but I'm not at all convinced that he (or Bag or Cube) will be doing the same here in '08. They've already become entirely different animals by losing their "joke trends" and instead performing more or less like normal character of strength- maybe that's a sign that people were only supporting them out of disinterest in the other options, and as the field around them goes stronger they'll naturally weaken? Good gracious let's hope so! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3276&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=33) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=33) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Marth vs Duke Nukem vs Altair vs Lucario 2008 _source: Marth vs Duke Nukem vs Altair vs Lucario 2008 (revid 85814)_ ## Results **Round Two** Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 1 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 34 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Altair - 32.30% Duke Nukem - 25.46% Marth - 25.37% Lucario - 16.87% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Duke first place (4pts) - 19.42% Duke second place (2pts) - 9.65% Altair second place (4pts) - 27.81% Altair first place (2pts) - 8.43% - **Advancing Prediction:** Duke - 29.07% (12,472) Altair - 36.24% (15,548) For a lot of people, BrawlFEAR died in round 1, which makes sense. Brawl by itself clearly wasn't enough to make a weak character win contest matches. The final nail in that coffin where it was buried for good was likely this match, where Lucario followed up his trash round 1 showing with.... whatever you want to call this. Pokemon after 151 clearly aren't anything in contests without the joke factor, and Lucario bombed so badly in this contest that he was never invited back. Seriously, his pair of matches in '08 are his only showing. He was that awful. Even worse, his being here completely screwed Marth out of making it into round 3. Marth outright won his poll in round 1 where Duke Nukem got second place, but any hopes of Marth advancing here died with Lucario's leech job. Marth held on for about 30 minutes, but then he just totally died. The shocker of all shockers though was Duke Nukem being out in first place when this poll first started. Altair getting second place was equally surprising, but Duke himself just blew everyone away with how good he looked. To put this into some perspective, here are the guru numbers for this match. 6 people picked Duke Nukem to get first place here. They deserve to be immortalized, so here are their names: TheRye, alblito, Smurf, Rhyhorn, Han, and LinkLegend27. You guys are geniuses or crazy men, and probably both! Good picking. Only 19 gurus had Duke making it into round 3. Equally shocking was Altair; only 17 had him making round 3. Altair making a hyped new guy run makes some sense. Great character design, popular series, and in most contests we see a new character or game make a run. Duke however makes no sense at all, and I say this as someone who picked the guy to get second place here. It was pure luck, because I thought Altair would be crap and Lucario would SFF Marth into the ground. What actually happened was even sillier. Once Altair shook Marth off, Duke and Altair were locks to advance. Altair actually made a crazy push for first place here, but it was too little too late. Duke had a 2700 lead at one point, and Altair cut almost 2000 votes off of that to lose out by only 750 or so. It was super impressive performance by both characters, and Duke almost blowing the lead does not take away from how shocking this all was. Reason being, here is Duke's entire contest history up until 2008. This dude was bottomfeeder trash for years, and only advanced in 2007 because he was up against a motley crew of losers. This year, however, was no fluke. Duke didn't just squeak by here; he destroyed Nintendo in this one, in one of the most randomly insane matches we'll ever have in a contest. It's up there with Kefka \> Arthas and DMC5 \> Tropical Freeze on the WTF scale, and it's within reason to assume Duke Nukem will never make round 3 of a contest again. Balls of steel, son. You got em. Sure his destiny was getting destroyed in round 3, but for a guy like Duke Nukem, making it into round 3 is basically his version of winning a contest outright. ## Stats and Analysis - Duke Nukem overperformed by **+5.61%**, the **\#10** most impressive performance of 2008 - Duke Nukem advancing was the **\#16** most surprising result of 2008 - Altair advancing was the **\#21** most surprising result of 2008 After putting up a percentage that is typically only seen by high midcarders and near-elites, Altair was looking GOLDEN for this Round 2 throwdown, and the Oracle predictions show it. Duke was also looking great to advance, as Marth had beat him by an unconvincing margin and Lucario, pathetic as he is, was definitely going to hold him back. But we soon saw that Lucario nearly getting upset by Isaac was no fluke, and Altair's 43%+ didn't mean as much as it first appeared when stacked up against characters that actually have a fanbase. It also couldn't hurt that Duke drew all the picture in the match pic and him winning was starting to be embraced as a fad by half the board, but if Duke ever put up those kind of numbers we'd be suspect from the get-go. What ensued what was in retrospect a pretty close match, although not recognizing the potential of Altair's day vote at first made it deceptive. The board did its darndest to keep Marth over Duke in the initial surge, but the power of Lucario-lovers was too much and he was immediately dragged down to earth. Altair was apparently bombing though, so it seemed he was safe to advance. And that thinking lasted all of one update, as Marth just fell off the face of the earth and Altair surged ahead, taking the lead and just not letting go. Duke had a killer night vote on the lot of them, though, and by morning had built himself a practically insurmountable lead. Altair had a go of it, however, and ended less than 1000 votes away from Duke by the end. That retrospective closeness would only underscore the most important thing - Duke had somehow yet again pulled an extraordinary upset and beaten a big favorite for the win. Considering this is the guy who was getting put up as a 16 seed milk carton against Cloud and was thought to have left these contests for good, that's really saying something. For the board's part, we could at least exhale - this weird ass half-division was finally done, and neither of the competitors had put up the numbers to give confidence in beating Zack. We were sort of ignoring the fact that Duke and Altair escaping gave most of us ZERO points in our brackets but, eh, details. Lastly, I'll save one last cringe for Marth. How do you let the equivalent of Isaac get 40% on you? Marth's strength is either much more suspect than I thought, or he somehow let Lucario rSFF him. And if the latter case is true, that means that somehow one of the elite top tier characters of SSBM, fan-favorite in both games, is somehow lower on the totem pole than a Brawl-only nobody. Neither reflects well on the pantsless one. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Anyways, today- wowza, what a mess of a matchup! We knew Division One was going to be wild heading in, and boy has it lived up to the billing. Let's break out my new R1-based writeup format and get cracking! Round One Values - Marth - 22.61% (based on '07 Kefka) - Duke - 21.34% (based on '07 Kefka) - Altair - 18.83% (based on '07 Guybrush) - Lucario - 12.80% (based on '07 Guybrush) Now obviously that Altair number is a little low, because Guybrush looked a decent bit better last month than he did a year ago, but the point remains - everyone going crazy over him needs to take a step back and realize that he only blew out a guy who's as strong as Isaac. Not only that, but an Isaac who was being LFF'd by another Nintendo option! You don't exactly have to be a Titan of the industry to pull that off, and heck, I think even Duke could have done it, so Altair's going to have a difficult time finishing second tonight IMO. Lucario... is just awful, no way around it. His only hope is that he shares less of a fanbase with Marth than he did Isaac- which I guess is ALMOST possible given their Nintendo handheld overlap, but nay, Luc must get almost all his votes from Brawl so it's much more likely that Marth murders him. I'd have to call last place a lock for the guy, and by a large margin. The coolest battle should be for first place between Duke and Marth. Chalk me up as a big Duke disbeliever, but even I've been forced to warm up to him this past month: between making the Contest banner pic, dominating this match pic, Forever, and his taglines making him the best joke option of the bunch, I've got to believe Nukem has the upper hand in this group. Even so, I see Marth beating down Luc so effectively that he'll be able to make something of a run at Duke during the Day to keep this one interesting, and at the same time give himself enough of a gap to not be overcome by Altair's Xbox ASV. Sooo Duke \> Marth \> Altair in a fairly tight one with Lucario lagging well behind ought to spin to something like... - Duke Nukem - 28.28% - Marth - 28.11% - Altair - 28.05% - Lucario - 15.56% That looks... marvelous! Ngamer Says: **Duke \> Marth** ### Next Day Review Pretty much all the long-time Contest vets were up in arms when we found out that this year's Contest would once again be a 4-way, and I'll admit that I was just as opposed to the idea as any of them. While I still feel that we're overdue to return to 1v1s for '09, I've got to admit that occasionally this format can turn out some real gems, and these two matches are a great example. Both yesterday and for tonight you could make a strong case for any of the top three characters finishing in any position, and that's pretty amazing IMO. Speaking of the current match, I can't say too much right now, as Duke has completely fallen off the map with the ASV (the only surprising thing is that it didn't happen sooner!) and will need to recover soon to ensure Altair doesn't overtake him. The one thing I CAN say though is boy, what a disappointment from Marth! You're a two-time SSB veteran, how are you letting a guy who got owned that hard last round hang around in this one? Bah, I guess the D/P generation of Pokemon isn't as pathetically weak as we all thought a few weeks back. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3277&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=34) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=34) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Luigi vs Liquid Snake vs Bowser vs Phoenix Wright 2008 _source: Luigi vs Liquid Snake vs Bowser vs Phoenix Wright 2008 (revid 85815)_ ## Results **Round Two** Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 2 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 35 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Liquid Snake - 28.81% Luigi - 28.20% Bowser - 27.77% Phoenix Wright - 15.22% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Liquid first place (4pts) - 35.37% Liquid second place (2pts) - 11.65% Luigi second place (4pts) - 15.62% Luigi first place (2pts) - 31.19% - **Advancing Prediction:** Liquid - 47.02% (20,173) Luigi - 46.81% (20,083) After seeing how round 1 played out, and having just come off of a match where Nintendo self-cannibalized, people were very concerned for Luigi's safety in this match. After all, we had hard data that Bowser \> Luigi: The board consensus for this match was Luigi \> Bowser even in the face of the LOL x-stats, which people were actually right about. Regardless of any stat, common sense would tell you Luigi would beat Bowser heads-up. I actually picked Bowser \> Luigi because direct matches as seen here in our example are a bit different than extrapolated stats. So for those who called me an idiot back then, you were right. What almost none of us saw coming, however, was how Liquid Snake and Phoenix Wright would factor into all this. After Phoenix did his usual thing and won the early board vote, one thing became readily apparent -- the Nintendo vote was being split three ways, which allowed Liquid Snake to waltz into first place unopposed, much to the dismay of many Nintendo fans. This was supposed to be a simple result where Bowser and Luigi stomped. Nope. Liquid probably would have advanced regardless, but Phoenix being here definitely diluted the Nintendo support. Remember how Luigi finished ahead of Liquid in round 1? Well add in Bowser and Phoenix Wright, and you get Liquid walking to first place with Bowser being the odd one out. And if there wasn't a weird Hierarchy™ with Nintendo's second level, a universe exists where Luigi gets third place here. The universe we're in though saw Bowser almost lose to Phoenix himself and finish in last place, which is especially embarrassing in its own right. Hats off to Liquid and Metal Gear Solid 4, though, for taking advantage. You don't choose who you go up against on the schedule, you just have to beat whoever's there. Liquid took advantage of lucky bracket placement and did what he had to do. Oh, and my best guess as to why Luigi finished ahead of Bowser despite the direct results is because main characters tend to overperform against villains in their own series. It's not the only time this has happened. Bowser may look stronger indirectly based on some stats, but I would never pick him to beat Luigi in a match again. The hero \> villain thing among voters is very real. ## Stats and Analysis - Bowser underperformed by **-5.08%**, the **\#14** most disappointing performance of 2008 This match was all about two things. The first, and arguably most important, was to glean something finite on the Bowser/Yoshi/Luigi trio. Bowser had beaten Yoshi soundly way back in 2003, and Yoshi had done the same to Luigi in 2004. Yet from 2006 onward, their performances had been pretty much reversed in terms of impressiveness - Luigi \> Yoshi \> Bowser was how the apparent chain was structured now. For Bowser, this was about proving that he was still at the top of the SFF chain. For Luigi, it was about validating his stellar performances from 2005 and onward. Also in the mix was the X Factor of Liquid Snake, whose pedigree had been cast into serious doubt after Ocelot's bomb a few days back. If his round one showing was a fluke, everything else seemingly fell into line, so we had to wonder if Liquid really had what it took to take first here, or even place. The picture also went a fair bit into altering perceptions. Luigi looked fine, but Bowser looked positively badass (although in retrospect, not as recognizable as he usually is... but it's BOWSER). Liquid Snake looked so horrible in his picture that people were actually getting even MORE nervous until it was pointed out that he's looked awful in every match picture he's ever had. Phoenix Wright, for his part, stole the show - the awesome close-up with anime lines streaking in the background was the greatest thing I could have imagined for him outside of a pointing picture, and it made it close regardless. The time for the match came - but it was late, so we had to wait for one of those delayed "jump-start" Power Hours. When it came, Luigi surged to a lead on Nintendoism and brackets, but Liquid decided for once to NOT flop and easily took the lead in time for the end of the update. The real shock was the so-called "main event": Luigi had taken a big 59 vote lead on third place, which \*could\* be attributed to brackets except for the fact that Phoenix Wright was in third. Not Bowser, but a character that most considered to be high fodder - and that's when we were letting fanboyism cloud our judgment! Still, PW had a killer board vote, so we were waiting for that second update to see if Bowser would make a move. And he moved - to all of a six vote lead on Phoenix. Meanwhile, Luigi had moved out to a 149 vote lead on Bowser and with that the match was decided in a flash. Liquid would go on to easily win despite Luigi KILLING Bowser. How badly did he kill Bowser? Well, he killed him so thoroughly that Bowser lost the lead to PHOENIX WRIGHT, who ended up leading him for a nontrivial portion of the night vote and ended up losing by less than 5000 votes. And this is to a character that was an hour of day vote away from killing Solid Snake. Ultimately, it was a sad day for fans of the Koopa King, even though there was some rambling about Bowser being indirectly stronger based on Liquid's and Phoenix's proportions to one another. But still, just like Samus' throttling at the hands of Mario, it proved to be of little consolation. Liquid, for his part, had finally made the third round of a contest, but considering that he was bound to stand out like hell there was an argument for him there, too. MGS had gotten its second round off to a good start. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Anyways, tonight's got me flustered big time. Let's get right into it before I lose my nerve! R1 X-Stat Performances - Luigi - 26.30% (based on '07 Roxas) - Liquid Snake - 23.92% (based on '07 Roxas) - Bowser - 28.29% (based on '07 Geno) - Phoenix Wright - 19.60% (based on '07 Geno) Just looking that over, the King of the Koopas would appear to be a clear favorite for the advancement in this one. BUT, I'm of the opinion that he overperfomed last round due to pretty much perfect placement- his status near the top of the Nintendo food chain allowed him to SFF down PW and Geno's percentage, while Cain looked like a generic old man from some RPG and couldn't take advantage of the split. He should still do well for himself in this one, and Phoenix should once again get his head handed to him beyond the first 15 minutes, but I don't see him finishing in the top two because... Luigi's even higher on that N food chain! Or at least, that's what Mario favorite polls and the last few years of Contest results would have us believe. Personally I'm not as sold on Luigi \> Bowser in this format as most others seem to be... sure the guy squeezed by Ganon, but he needed every advantage in the book to do so. Today the tables have turned somewhat and it's BOWSER who looks flat out awesome in the match pic, so even though I'm still sticking with a Luigi win, I bet Bowser keeps it closer than you might expect. As for Liquid... ack! I was all set on Ocelot coming out guns blazing the other day to prove the MGS4 boost beyond a doubt with a great showing on Kratos. Then it would have been easy for me to pick against the Big Boss-like three way Nintendo split and have Liquid stand out like a sore thumb right into an easy first place finish. But then... Ocelot crashed and burned big time. And now I'm remembering how the last time I put faith in Liquid he likewise made a total fool of himself against Lavos and then Sephiroth. And NOW I'm checking out this match pic, and Liquid looks like such a tool! Seriously, ugh, could someone please create some decent artwork for this guy some day? Soooo with Nintendo not performing up to standards to this point, Phoenix being there to further hold down the Mario guys, and MGS having at least a decent show of it so far, I'm afraid I can no longer stick with my bracket and the Luigi \> Bowser I picked here. However I refuse to be burned by MGS faith yet again, and so I'm stubbornly not moving from the Luigi side of that prediction. Here's hoping for an awesome fatal three-way tonight! Let's stir the pot and bring out... - Luigi - 29.39% - Liquid Snake - 29.20% - Bowser - 28.29% - Phoenix Wright - 13.11% That looks... like it's not going to happen! But dang it, I tried my best. Ngamer Says: **Luigi \> Liquid** ### Next Day Review Ugh, dang it all Phoenix. You fold to 11% against Mario and Big Boss, yet pull down 19% against Liquid and Luigi/Bowser? Worse yet he ruins both my Oracle and my bracket; I really think Mr. L could have competed for the win here if this triple Nintendo LFF had only been a double. Oh well, at least we won't have to sit through another embarrassing performance from Nintendo tonight... though that's only the case because there are no non-Nintendo options in the bunch! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3278&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=35) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=35) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Mario vs Zelda vs Mega Man X vs Mudkip 2008 _source: Mario vs Zelda vs Mega Man X vs Mudkip 2008 (revid 85816)_ ## Results **Round Two** Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 2 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 36 - **Match Date:** Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 34.33% Mega Man X - 27.83% Mudkip - 20.41% Zelda - 17.44% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Mario first place (4pts) - 71.97% Mario second place (2pts) - 11.07% Mega Man X second place (4pts) - 38.73% Mega Man X first place (2pts) - 5.19% - **Advancing Prediction:** Mario - 83.04% (35,627) Mega Man X - 43.92% (18,843) After round 1, you could cut the tension for this match with a knife. With all four of them being Nintendo characters and us not fully understanding The Hierarchy™ yet, plus Mudkip being the wildest of wild cards, any possible order of these four characters was in play. Looking back on it, would any of them winning the poll or getting second had truly surprised anyone? The Zelda series is king, IT'S FREAKING MARIO, Mega Man X was a potential monster, Mudkip had the joke bandwagon factor, and who really knew which way the Nintendo leeching would fall? I know I personally remember thinking it would be Mario \> Mega Man X \> Mudkip \> Zelda, but I wasn't at all confident in it. You can imagine the insane amount of arguing going on for this one, not to mention the palpable hype with Mudkip. When the poll began, it was very clear that Mudkip would be no factor at all, at least not with actually advancing into round 3. There was too much Nintendo in this poll for him to get any real joke support going, and typically these joke characters catch these absurd rallies and make the rest of the match irrelevant, a la Undertale in the finals against Ocarina of Time. That didn't happen here. Mudkip got some support, but not nearly enough to actually threaten in the match. He did, however, get enough support for third place. The unlucky loser in this spot was... Zelda?! I know it's crazy to think about given the utterly obnoxious boost in strength she got from Breath of the Wild, but Zelda used to be a pretty middling character in these things. Even in 2006, she was the beneficiary of a stupid bracket gimmick. That run was fraudulent, and she didn't really matter in these things until Breath of the Wild. After that though, all bets are off. Whatever the tier is directly below Link, she's on it now. But back then, not so much. She actually finished behind Bidoof in 2007, and after falling behind by 800 votes to Mudkip in 2008, she required the day vote to bail her out and save her dignity. It was a pretty sad display for an upcoming contest legend. The true shock and awe in this match came in the fight for first place. Yet again, I will point this out. The 1v1 format robbed us. Can you even imagine how nuts it would be if Mega Man X threatened to beat Mario 1v1 in his contest debut? Instead we have these ridiculous 4ways where it doesn't even matter who wins, because both advance. That said, your eyes do not lie to you when looking at the updater for this one. That is Mega Man X proving he was worth the hype and building up a 900 vote lead on Mario overnight. And it's not like Mario could claim he was being screwed over by the Nintendo presence, either, because Mega Man X deals with the same exact factor. What ended up happening is very easy to explain, thanks to the little graph we have here on the wiki page. We all know Mario won the morning vote to take first place, but what the graph makes readily apparent is that Mario did this by stealing support from Mudkip. Mario is a very difficult character to have a joke rally against, and this match showed it. The second Mudkip's support died, Mario got all of it. He erased the entire 900 vote lead Mega Man X had by the time everyone had finished eating breakfast, and what started as an entertaining poll ended with a dud. Mario and Zelda had simultaneous comebacks, and the rest of the poll was a continuation of the momentum. This match was very hyped going in, but once Mario and Zelda caught up to 1st and 3rd place respectively, the match was over. Mario \> Mega Man X was the result. Still, Mega Man X advanced anyway and Mudkip being somewhat fraudulent doesn't take away from either's showing in this contest. For Mega Man X especially, a 4-Nintendo match early in his contest debut are some difficult waters to swim through. Even with blowing a lead to Mario, he proved he deserved to be here, and Mega Man X is hardly the first character to lose a lead to Mario with the morning vote. He can thank his lucky stars for the format, too, because the laughable 4way junk meant X got to fight another day. For Zelda, she was probably happy to see this 4way crap disappear. There is also that open world Zelda game that would come in 2017, but skip to the 2018 writeups to see the effect that one had. For now, it was another leeched Nintendo loss. It would happen again in 2013 before she went godmode. This would set up the one and only time we have ever seen Mario and Luigi in a match together. It's true. Look it up. ## Stats and Analysis After Round 2, this match was basically seen as something where pretty much ANYTHING could happen, and the crux of it all rested on Mudkip. After all, we were talking about an entity that led a split fanbase of Ganondorf and Luigi for half the match. Sure, we were talking about much stronger entities in Mario/Mega Man X/Zelda, but there were arguments for all three being essentially Nintendo and the fanbase split being much more severe thanks to it being three ways instead of two ways. Couple that with joke characters seemingly having even MORE power this year than last, and... well, people were scared. Zelda was also a wild card. She had held up pretty well last round, but most thought this is where it would end. With a probable SFFed Knuckles and Fei Fong Wong being replaced by Mega Man X and Mudkip, Fourth Place Factor would likely rear its ugly mug and put her down to an SFF collapse. Mario was pretty much going to be guaranteed in placing, so he had to put a performance up to show he'd be able to handle Luigi next round and stop the winner of Mega Man X and Mudkip from taking him down. The result of all this banter would be an exceedingly strange result, and one that ultimately signified the ultimate end of this contest. Mario and Mega Man X started off on a tear due to their bracket support, but as that wore off they just continued to climb. Mudkip was DYING here, and letting Zelda into striking position. Remember, this was the same Mudkip that nearly edged Luigi and Ganondorf, the same Zelda that got fodderized by Link. For all the power Mudkip had put on display in its first outing, the joke just wasn't connecting here, and Mario and Mega Man X easily had the match in hand by the first update. But here's where things got wonky. Mega Man X, presumably due to the board thinking he needed the help more than Mario, started very close to Mario. The next update would seemingly rectify this - but instead we got a stall, with Mega Man X actually cutting three votes. This got people slightly nervous, but flukish things happen at times like this, right? Then we got an update with MMX taking a 40 vote LEAD over Mario. This was pretty much when Mario in general started to take the heat for all its failings. Nintendo failing was one thing, but at least there were some examples of Ninty doing well - Link and Samus, for example, looked to have at least maintained pace. But Mario had Luigi, Bowser, Yoshi, and now the big plumber himself unable to put away one of the biggest has-beens in video gaming. Fanbase splitting, sure - but Zelda and Mudkip were both still putting WAY too much on the big guy, a guy who looked capable of SFFing characters like Zero back in 2005. This, to put it lightly, was a disaster. And for awhile it looked like the match might morph into a catastrophe for the plumber, as MMX rode his crazy early vote (Power Hour has nothing on MM early vote) to a lead that looked like it was on track for 1000. But MMX is basically just Mega Man in the end, and right around that designated 3-4 hour mark, his momentum stalled out and he pretty much just died. Mario reluctantly came back to the match, took back the lead, and \*slowly\* built himself a lead of not even 1500 votes by the end, despite both him and MMX taking up the lion's share of the pool. This meant a few things - firstly, that you do not mess with anything Zelda as long as it's not put up against Link. Zelda may be one of the most worthless characters ever from a character standpoint, but that name brings with it a kind of resilience that most wouldn't even dream of thinking of. This was also the final step in her slow but inevitable show of performances upending the once conventional wisdom of Ganondorf \> Zelda. Even if the King of Evil was stronger indirectly, it was getting harder to see how he was going to win a direct match against the series' namesake. Secondly, Mario was in deep trouble - not only next round (although a firestorm of debate was triggered on whether or not Luigi would hurt Mario more or less than this), but a stronger than expected Zack and whoever made it out of the quarterfinals was going to make Mario's path absolutely hellish considering Link was going to be in those matches. And if Mario didn't make it through, then the contest was all Link's (or L-Block's, but I'll get to that in a second). The buzz on MMX \> MM was as high as it's ever been during this match, although watching him bomb the last 20 hours of the match just like Mega Man proved a tad deceptive for direct evaluation. The jury's still out for me on how they stack up directly and indirectly, though I will allow in the former that it's a lot more picture dependent. I can't see the MM picture that he got against Ryu in 2k6, for example, come even close to beating MMX. And finally, with Mudkip being the first joke character we'd ever seen to just outright FLOP... suddenly, they looked mortal. Still, we didn't yet dare to believe against L-Block. Still, it was nice to see one of the more annoying jokes fall. Who cares that it took arguably triple SFF and three Noble Nine level opponents to do it! ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Originally I had this one chalked up as an easy advancement for Mario and MMX, but in the end I decided to move Zelda into this grouping instead of Knuckles, at which point I realized... uh oh, the Kipper just might joke himself into contention! Let's try to figure out how realistic that would be. R1 Performance X-Stats - Mario - 40.25% (based on '07 Knuckles) - Zelda - 30.41% (based on '07 Knuckles) - Mega Man X - 36.78% (based on '07 Lloyd) - Mudkip - 29.77% (based on '07 Lloyd) Just looking at those first two you're thinking whoa, not only will this be Mario's in a cakewalk, but Zelda might have a chance to slide by as well! And then you see how impressive MMX was also... and then heck, even Mudkip looked like a champ! In reality it seems pretty clear that all these numbers are too high- Knuckles was surely hit with some platforming LFF by Mario to weaken him from 2007, while it was rather obvious that Lloyd (like Kratos A) got stung pretty bad by having to deal with Nintendo competition here in '08. Regardless though, the gaps are large enough where the Nintendo food chain of Mario \> MMX \> Zelda with decent sized gaps in between shouldn't really be in question. The troubling thing is... where does Mudkip fall? Well last season he had to compete with triple Nintendo in R1 and pulled down 28%. This year he had triple Nintendo in R1 and got... uh oh, 30%. But not to worry! Because in R2 last year he faced tougher Nintendo opponents and fell to... 25%. Crap! Considering Mudkip is apparently stronger this year, and considering that joke characters as a whole are certainly stronger this year, it doesn't seem impossible for Muddy to maintain that 24-25% he seems to like snatching up. And if THAT'S the case and Mario/Zelda keep the same ratio while X bombs and can only hang around with Zelda, then Mudkip is going to pull through easily! This is some serious trouble we're in folks... so why aren't I backing the upset? Two reasons: 1\. Anti-favoriteFAQs. It shouldn't be as big a deal as it was in R1, but even so I think 95% of voters are going to consider Mario an easy choice for the win tonight and some will instead throw their vote to someone who might need it more- and I think that secondary choice will be X more often than not. 2\. The pictures. Hey hey, thanks SB! Not only does Mudkip look sad and way too zoomed and not nearly as jokey-hilarious as last year, but MMX looks awesome and is sure to draw plenty of attention away from such a normal-looking Mario. But best of all, Zelda got Celda'd! I see this as strongly limiting her appeal, and the less appeal she's got the more legit votes there will be for X to eat up. Come on fighting robot, you can do this yet! (Though I still think it could be too close for comfort!) I've stirred this pot and am bringing out... - Mario - 32.23% - Mega Man X - 25.65% - Mudkip - 24.25% - Zelda - 17.88% Looks... dangerous! But that's my middle name. Ngamer Says: **Mario \> MMX** ### Next Day Review Haha, what a fun match that was! I never lost my faith in Mario, because as I kept pointing out in Stats MM has been a beast in the first three hours for a few years now, but that hasn't kept him from dropping like a stone the rest of the time. Still it was funny when I pointed out how Mega had jumped to a 169 vote lead on Samus before collapsing, and then the very next update MM hit 170 and continues climbing by 50 during many updates. So Mario will end up winning and doing so with ease, but this still makes the rest of his run so much more interesting... With Luigi in the picture for R3, will he do more damage than Zelda and allow MMX a win? When it's Link/Mario/MMX/Zack, can we expect Mario and MM to again be in a dog fight, allowing Zack to slip on by? However this match has possibly an even larger impact character: Mudkip. I know I know, he's not a joke, or at least not in the same way as Block/Bag/Cube, but this was still a huge collapse from a guy that many of us though would have a more static fanbase thanks to that extra joke appeal. Is this a signal that voters are tiring of these joke characters? L-Block and Dog put up a huge number, but WCC failed to match that performance by a long shot, and then the Bag was even 6% further back of the mark... Maybe I'm just getting my hopes up only to be crushed once again, but this is starting to make me feel better about Ryu's chances in this next one! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3279&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=36) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=36) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Samus Aran vs Nightmare vs Ganondorf vs Frog 2008 _source: Samus Aran vs Nightmare vs Ganondorf vs Frog 2008 (revid 85817)_ ## Results **Round Two** Friday, October 24th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 3 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 37 - **Match Date:** Friday, October 24th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Samus Aran - 37.70% Ganondorf - 27.30% Frog - 19.09% Nightmare - 15.92% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Samus first place (4pts) - 72.30% Samus second place (2pts) - 12.40% Ganondorf second place (4pts) - 55.72% Ganondorf first place (2pts) - 9.73% - **Advancing Prediction:** Samus - 84.70% (36,339) Ganondorf - 65.45% (28,080) This match was little more than heavy favorites taking care of business. Frog may have some magic against the likes of Master Chief, and Liquid Snake, and Kingdom Hearts's C tier, but Ganondorf is a bridge too far. It's sad to think about, but other than the contest Chrono Trigger almost won in 2015 (go back and look at how INSANE that game looked before the giga-rallies started), the game and its characters have gotten a little weaker each year. Frog's magic was long gone by the time this match happened, let alone when I actually got around to doing these writeups in 2020. There would be no drama, no comebacks, no picture screwjobs, nothing. Just an easy, simple Samus \> Ganondorf result that was never going to be challenged. It was a good breather after the silly Mudkip match, too, so it's not like anyone complained of boredom here. Every contest, much like every great wrestling match, needs the occasional rest break. That's what this match was. A rest break. ## Stats and Analysis This, like most Samus matches this contest, was a low votal snoozefest that was only good for telling us if Samus would be vulnerable to any kind of upset threat by Vincent next round. That would require Ganondorf to hold up about as well as Zelda did to Mario, of course... and he gave very little confidence in doing so here. Samus blew him out by almost 20000 votes, and Frog ended up slicing him up but good during the night. It wasn't close by the end, but with the competition stepping up to Vincent + Falco/Scorpion/Gordon next round, it was hard to see how the upset was going to materialize unless Falco made it through. The only other thing to really note here is that Nightmare fell apart like he did in Round 2 last year, becoming the next in a long line of characters that utterly fold when placed against real competition. And Frog hadn't failed us, which was almost surprising in and of itself - he did what he was supposed to do. Overall, this looked like it might be an omen for an okay contest for Crono in that he wouldn't slip again. But he didn't just need to stay constant - he needed to improve in order to beat Vincent in the quarterfinals, to say nothing of what the Block would do. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction We'll have to rush into my thought on tonight's battle, as we're running out of time! X-Stats from Round One - Samus - 32.86% (based on '07 Crash) - Nightmare - 19.91% (based on '07 Crash) - Ganon - 31.32% (based on '07 KOS-MOS) - Frog - 22.29% (based on '07 KOS-MOS) This is cool to look over because I feel its one of the rare cases where those x-stat values might be at least somewhat reliable; both Crash and KOS-MOS have been able to avoid LFF situations in '07 and '08, so we ought to be able to put a little bit of faith into the year over year comparison. Nightmare was the disappointment of the group in my opinion- coming in hot off Soul Calibur 4, yet he couldn't even entirely put away Crash? Frog meanwhile had his only good wire to wire showing since 2004, making it a no-doubter against KM when most had been expecting a shoot out. Nightmare's an easy last in this group and Samus should have no trouble getting first, which leaves us to discuss second place. Heading into the bracket this was probably the only R2 result that I considered a "no brainer" no matter how you tried to twist it. Samus \> Ganon, what else could possibly happen? But with the way Nintendo has been coming up short whenever LFF comes into play, and how Ganon took a pretty big dive once the picture came up last round, and how CT:DS has apparently been a real shot in the arm for everything Ct-related this season, I'm going to have to back the upset and say... Nay, just kidding! Ganon will pound Frog and take this down easy. He has already stood up well against Samus directly, Frog is still Frog, and even if he were getting Bacondorf in this one I still wouldn't be too worried. As is he looks pretty good in that pic, while Frog will be lacking his Sword Factor votes. Now keep in mind I'm not calling for a Ganon blowout from wire to wire; its entirely possible that Frog comes out like a house of fire in the opening three hours and puts a real scare into Nintendo for a short while. But no worries, as he'll pull an MMX and be out of contention before too long, except that he's going to fall even HARDER. Sooo with Samus looking great (in the pic too!), Ganon and Frog looking decent, and Nighmare looking awful (in the pic too!), it shouldn't take much pot stirring to arrive at - Samus Aran - 35.81% - Ganondorf - 26.50% - Frog - 20.82% - Nightmare - 16.87% That looks... wonderful! Ngamer Says: **Samus \> Ganon** ### Next Day Review What's this? A match that we all agree is "pretty much a foregone conclusion"... actually turns out that way? Well now, I guess there's a first time for everything! Eh, actually we did learn at least two things from this match: whenever she can avoid looking like an orange toilet, Samus is rock-solid in this format, and two, Chrono Trigger continues to give indications that it has stemmed the tide of its yearly blood loss. That being the case, Vincent needs to really show us something tonight if he's going to prove (firstly) that he'll be able to bounce Samus if full-on Nintendo LFF comes into play and (secondly) that he's still the guy to beat in his upcoming Crono rematch. Now we just need someone to knock off the Block, so that rematch will actually mean something... ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3280&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=37) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=37) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Vincent Valentine vs Falco Lombardi vs Scorpion vs Gordon Freeman 2008 _source: Vincent Valentine vs Falco Lombardi vs Scorpion vs Gordon Freeman 2008 (revid 85818)_ ## Results **Round Two** Saturday, October 25th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 3 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 38 - **Match Date:** Saturday, October 25th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Vincent Valentine - 37.50% Scorpion - 21.78% Gordon Freeman - 20.86% Falco Lombardi - 20.04% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Vincent first place (4pts) - 45.93% Vincent second place (2pts) - 13.69% Gordon second place (4pts) - 22.69% Gordon first place (2pts) - 10.00% - **Advancing Prediction:** Vincent - 59.62% (25,579) Gordon - 32.69% (14,025) We've created a monster! Gordon Freeman Never Wins? Fat chance. Now, all he does is win like DJ Khaled. It was a total out-of-left-field shocker, too. Vincent was always going to get first place here. We all know that. This might not be the case if you redid this poll with 2020 voters, but hey. The story was the battle for second place. As you can see by the Oracle numbers off to the right, no one knew what would happen. As you can see by the guru predictions, Scorpion was the massive, massive favorite to advance. And off in the lurch was Falco, who had no other Nintendo characters to deal with and the remnants of BrawlFEAR at his back. There was also the matter of the round 1 results. Scorpion beat Gordon for first place in round 1, albeit only by 2100 votes. And unless you think Big Daddy siphoned off a percentage of Gordon's votes due to some weird Orange Box/Bioshock overlap (which is actually what did happen there, by the way), Scorpion was set to do it again in round 2. Falco.... we should have seen coming. He had no Nintendo competition in round 1 too and only got 27% of the vote, and that poll had Vincent, GLaDOS, and Wander in it. That is weaker than what Gordon dealt with. Still, given what we had just seen in round 1, Scorpion felt like the favorite here. If anyone was going to pull the upset, it was most likely to be Falco. When the poll started, it was never close. Gordon Freeman -- yes, THAT Gordon Freeman -- the guy who lost so often that he got meme'd, was sitting there pulling off contest upsets and getting into round 3 like it was nothing. He beat the absolute piss out of Scorpion right from the jump, and Falco was never a factor. The poll was never close, and Gordon walked right into round 3 like he was born to be there. Even typing these words out makes no sense, because I still remember how awful this dude looked for so many years. It's like those two random years the Jets made the AFC title game under Rex Ryan. As for why it happened, a lot of people blamed Scorpion's match picture. And while it was indeed trash, I don't think it was the only factor. Remember, Scorpion only beat Gordon by 2100 votes in round 1. Big Daddy was in that poll, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if there was a lot of overlap between Bioshock and The Orange Box, the latter of which clearly boosted Gordon to the moon in this contest. With Big Daddy out of the way and nothing to really leech Gordon's votes, the turnaround makes sense. We may never know for sure, because the odds of Gordon and Scorpion ever being against each other again are low. You guys will notice I'm not doing as much picture commentary as usual with this PCA, and it's for two reasons. One is that this was pre-picsmith days for me, and two is 2008 was by FAR the worst year of match pictures these contests will ever have. Starting in round 2, the picsmiths thought it would be funny to get cute with almost all of the match pictures, leading to a series of pure garbage as they kept putting more and more useless trash and bad filters into every single one. I love Zen like a brother, but I include him in all this. You say Scorpion's picture was bad, but I say pretty much every picture starting in round 2 was bad. I could rant about these match pics being dog shit for half the contest, and part of why I became a picsmith who submitted basic stuff for every match in the first place to prevent this kind of garbage from ever happening again. Pictures are supposed to be a fair representation of the entrants, not a failed high school art project. It's like Gordon sitting there looking like Season 1 Water White had some huge picture advantage; his win goes much deeper than that. Thankfully Allen realized the error here and stopped allowing idiots to submit dumb stuff outside of matches with rotating images late in contests. Bathtub Geralt versus Peeping Link is okay as a joke when a match has 10 pictures, but half of the 2008 contest match pics had that type of, uh... "quality". Screw that. I will say that as the years went by, people got much, much better about what they submitted. But it's impossible to talk about 2008 without mentioning just how trash these pictures were overall. It's not why Scorpion lost, but it sure didn't help. ## Stats and Analysis - Gordon advancing was the **\#17** most surprising result of 2008 The threesome of the scientist, spectre, and Star Fox sidekick was probably the most split of the second round, and with good reason. Gordon had gotten scarily close to Scorpion last round, and the memory of Duke/Gordon II was still fresh in our minds. Most people were sticking with Scorpion out of bracket favoritism, but they weren't at all confident in it. Then throw Falco into the mix, who had gotten more on Vincent last round than Gordon got on Sora in 2006, and also the only Nintendo character in the match. The result you see is a tight Oracle spread that would have probably been dead tied if Scorpion wasn't such a massive bracket favorite here, and also a result that could potentially determine if an upset materialized next round. Of course, as so many hyped matches do, it ended up anticlimactically. In this case, the result seemed to be determined before the match even began - the picture's release had the most HORRIBLE picture for Scorpion one could have possibly picked, and even though it's Scorpion - who doesn't know him? - immediately the bottom on confidence fell out on him, which means everything rested upon Falco to take down HL's protagonist. And it didn't even come close to happening. Falco may have been the only Ninty character in the match - but he was still Ninty, and pretty much SSB ONLY Ninty at that. No one cares about Falco's role in Star Fox, no one cares about Falco, and it shows. The character that got 37% on Vincent last round ended up with 29% on him in a match tailor-made for him to overperform. Seriously. I can't get over how exceedingly pathetic Falco was here, and to go on an Ulti-style tangent, it shows exactly how stupid Nintendo was for even letting him back into Brawl, to say nothing of Wolf. He shouldn't have even been in Melee, geez, I have a hard time believing Krystal doesn't hold up better here. As for Scorpion, he went from a 2000 vote win to a 9000 vote blowout, and no amount of picture factor can explain that. Gordon had pulled the first major upset of his career, and did it in an epic style. All that was left was to see him in action against a SFFed Ganondorf for bragging rights. Oh, and Vincent. Yeah, he dominated here, but it was comparable to Samus' win and Gordon, Scorpion, and Falco are no Ganondorf/Frog/Nightmare. Ganondorf would have to stay almost entirely proportional with Samus from round to round, and while that seemed unlikely, we'd seen what Zelda had done just recently. The match would just have to play out. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Can VV redeem himself from that underwhelming opening round performance? Can Falco prove that Nintendo is still a force to be reckoned with on this site, at least when it can avoid LFFing itself to death? Let's look closer. X-Stats from Round One - Vincent - 35.55% (based on '07 Wander) - Falco - 26.31% (based on '07 Wander) - Scorpion - 20.00% (based on '07 Balthier) - Gordon - 19.45% (based on '07 Balthier) I see no reason for that Wander number to be unreliable; he looked utterly pathetic last season and gave us more of the same in '08, without any good excuse for his underperformance in either case. Which means, whoa, was Falco ever impressive! I wouldn't think he could possibly be THAT close to Fox in strength, but the numbers don't lie... or DO they? Scorpion and Gordon better hope they do! There's no way both of those guys have fallen back to the fodder line; clearly Balthier performed a ton better this season than he did in his matches back in '07, for whatever reason. But even adjusting them upwards some, that's plenty of ground they'd need to make up on Falco- can they do so without any help from LFF? That's the best thing about this match: it ought to give us a nice clear reading on all four of these characters, as we've got that rare poll between four unique fanbases where no one has any good excuse for not playing to their full potential. Let's start with Gordon... I've had this Freeman theory for a while which says that no one cares about HIM, but plenty of people do love all things Half-Life. That's why when he was just a zoomed out blob of a generic scientist in '02/'03/'04 he was beyond pathetic, but ever since he started getting these closer shots with the HL logo on his chest plainly in sight Gordon has suddenly become a decent low mid-carder. R1 was a perfect example of a "very good" Gordon pic... and just look at the result! This time around all we get is an ulta-zoomed (seriously SB, why the obsession with super closeups?) mug shot, and sorry, that tiny Half-Life style "A" isn't going to cut it. Much as I'll be rooting for the last Free Man, I can't see him finishing anywhere but last for this match. Scorpion's a real oddball. Even accounting for Gordon's HL logo help and the boost he apparently received from the Orange Box, there was just no excuse for Scorpion to not put him away in that match, especially as he was sporting a full-on killer ninja pic that should have put him way over with the casuals. If people had finally just given up on the Mortal Kombat series I'd be able to understand it, but no, Sub-Zero looked like he hadn't missed a beat just last week, hanging in there with Auron and never letting his second place finish be in doubt. And then to lower my faith even further, Scorp gets THIS picture... good gracious! I know its almost Halloween, but even so I can't see skeletons being more popular than awesome harpoon-throwing ninjas. Definitely expect a dropoff in the casual support for a character who looks this way, and if that's the case he should just be concerned with beating out Freeman to avoid the cellar, not trying to advance! As for the final two, I see Vincent taking advantage of the lessening of anti-favoriteFAQs and also the lack of a joke option in this poll (surely many voters knew he'd be fine last round and threw their vote to GlaDOS for the lulz) to put together the kind of showing we would expect from an NN-breaker. And Falco, well... call me crazy, but I still have plenty of faith in Nintendo. Yes, their inter-company SFF can be nasty, but let these characters lock horns with other independent entrants of about equal strength and I think that fans of the company will put them through to the next round 4 out of 5 times. I'm picturing a good early push for Gordon, Vincent to devour the percentage all through the overnight, and Falco to tear it up once the sun rises and put his second place finish away without too much trouble. Sooo, yup, got to pick against my bracket here and bank on Nintendo and having the best pic of the bunch in support of Falco! Converting those words to numbers and stirring the pot results in: - Vincent Valentine - 37.10% - Falco Lombardi - 22.38% - Scorpion - 20.75% - Gordon Freeman - 19.77% That looks and smells just wonderful! Ngamer Says: **Vincent \> Falco** ### Next Day Review Ugh, darn you Falco! I guess I can't be upset at him for coming up short against Gordon- the guy is clearly just on steroids or something, and I'd never have expected a score like this out of him in a million years. But to not even save face by edging Scorpion despite a significant pic advantage and not having to deal with any LFF? All the faith I had left in Nintendo is quickly leaking out of my left ear. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3281&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=38) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=38) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Crono vs Amaterasu vs L-Block vs Ryu (Street Fighter) 2008 _source: Crono vs Amaterasu vs L-Block vs Ryu (Street Fighter) 2008 (revid 85819)_ ## Results **Round Two** Sunday, October 26th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 4 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 39 - **Match Date:** Sunday, October 26th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Crono - 31.48% L-Block - 30.48% Ryu - 24.90% Amaterasu - 13.30% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Crono first place (4pts) - 49.61% Crono second place (2pts) - 20.36% L-Block second place (4pts) - 25.88% L-Block first place (2pts) - 23.62% - **Advancing Prediction:** Crono - 69.97% (30,019) L-Block - 49.50% (21,237) As crazy as the round 1 match was featuring L-Block, this match.... wasn't. If you check out the trend graph, this match was basically set in stone 10 minutes in. People were worried L-Block would start going nuts again, but it just... didn't happen. This was perhaps the most boring match a hyped bandwagon joke character has ever been in. L-Block had already beaten Ryu in round 1, so him beating Ryu again was no surprise. By the way, Ryu has the distinction of losing to both L-Block and Draven. Poor guy. He was never in contention here, but that wasn't much of a surprise. What was a surprise though was L-Block coming out in this match and looking positively normal. He was only in this match for about 5 minutes before falling off, and that was it. Crono got an easy first. L-Block got an easy second. Ryu and Amaterasu, better luck next time. The normalcy here surprised a lot of people in and of itself, because as you can see by the Oracle picks, many people expected L-Block to get a bandwagon going and challenge for first. When he failed to do that, alarm bells went off. Was L-Block falling off? Was he losing the joke appeal? Did he merely run up against a beast in Crono and this match was a speed bump? A lot of people felt it was the latter, and the Save_Us.RAT movement was born. ## Stats and Analysis This match was all about confirming the inevitable. L-Block had beaten Ryu LAST round, and with the Street Fighter icon now playing second fiddle to Chrono Trigger's main, L-Block was going to advance with laughable ease. In fact, if you weren't in denial and looked at it objectively, L was the 'smart money' to take first over Crono. But something happened here, and it would verify what Mudkip had already foretold. The board vote opened up on the match with Crono and Ryu enjoying the briefest of leads, with Ryu getting beaten easily and Crono just inching ahead of L. Considering how anti-L the opening five minutes were considered to be, it looked like the Block had the match all wrapped up right then. But the next update saw a Crono surge to a 72 vote lead. And it didn't really slow past then - 170 votes by the half hour mark, 419 by the hour. This was during L's undisputed best time, mind you - and from there he just began a percentage collapse all day, ultimately finishing under 28% with the lowest percentage of his contest career. Yeah, Ryu was never really in the match. But he only got beat by about 5500 votes, and considering that we were expecting the God-killer free of splitting fanbases with The Dog... in essence, this was the first match in L's entire contest career where he disappointed expectations, and it was very odd to watch. As well as being pretty boring - no exhilaratingly crazy board vote that allowed him to put up a big lead on Solid Snake as early as Round 3, and all the finals magic seemed to be gone. Unfortunately, the best avenue of taking out L also seemed to be gone - Ryu was the second strongest in this division, easily, and with him out of the picture and a mound of SFF awaiting until the finals, L had plenty of time to pick up steam between then and now. It sucked for the board - the Block finally looked beatable, and no one was there to capitalize on it. And finally let's also throw a shout-out to Amaterasu, who really needs to get in one of these things 1v1 and see if she can be a good midcarder. Still one of the craziest unexpected strengths I've ever seen - what a picture and dedicated fanbase can do, eh? ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Alright, so, we come to it at least. A month back this was unanimously agreed upon as the most important R1 matchup, perhaps in history. If only Ryu had been able to capitalize with the SNV and sneak out a victory there, we might be talking about this as the most significant R2 tilt of the season. As is... no one seems to be able to muster much hope. X-Stats from Round One: - L-Block - 27.44% (based on Meta Knight '07) - Ryu - 27.33% (based on Meta Knight '07) - Crono - 23.74% (based on Frank West '07) - Ammy - 16.64% (based on Frank West '07) Those MK-based numbers look pretty decent, but clearly Frank West vastly underperformed in that awful fourpack last season, because there's no way I'm accepting Ammy that far beneath the fodder line. Anyways, Crono \> Ryu \> Ammy might as well be set in stone but the question everyone needs answered is, which of those gaps does L fall into? Now, I've been talking for a while about how the joke characters might be weakening before our eyes, while at the same time the favorites seem to be returning to a more normal level of strength. The "evidence" is that despite the Block looking fantastic, WCC was weaker, Sandbag was weaker yet, Hogger was pathetic (just a little LESS pathetic than those other two!), and other character with potential "joke" appeal like Jinjo and the Sackboy have instead fallen on their faces. Also, there seems to be a definite resurgence for Chrono Trigger this season, which ought to give Crono fans a bit of hope. Unfortunately, there's still plenty standing in the way of an L-Block elimination here: - yes, the Block was under 32%, but let's not forget that the Dog was sucking up another 14% of that vote. jokes may be weakening, but they would need to weaken by light years versus R1 in order for this upset to have any chance - Ammy's not a pushover anymore... with her strong Wii sales for the Okami remake she ought to appeal to plenty of new Nintendo fans here, especially as none of these other options have had a real Nintendo release since the SNES. if this were a three way, Ryu would only need to avoid getting killed by Crono and he'd have a good shot at outlasting L's static 30%ish fanbase, but with the wolf not rolling over and surrendering her small percent of the legit votes, a win becomes nearly impossible - Capcom SFF between Ryu and Ammy? it sounds ridiculous, but then again we said the same thing about Dante/Leon and look where that got us. in any case its only one more case against Ryu, when he'd need a good dozen points in his favor before anyone would consider backing him Oh wait, forgot to mention Mudkip's major collapse! After what we saw in 2007 I thought he would have had a much more static, joke-supported fanbase, and instead he fell apart. So yeah, there are reasons to bet against a Block win in this one, but I'm not going to jinx it by picking it myself. Taking the Block for the win, but will be rooting my face off for Crono and Ryu all day! Let's throw those points in the pot and see what we get after a little stirring. - L-Block - 29.58% - Crono - 29.54% - Ryu (Street Fighter) - 25.01% - Amaterasu - 15.87% That looks... awful. Come on voters, win back my respect- drop that Block like it's hot! Ngamer Says: **L-Block \> Crono** ### Next Day Review Okay, so, this was the match where us Gurus almost unanimously agreed that L-Block would be meeting his maker. But... it didn't happen, and in fact, it happening was never even a real possibility, so by all rights I ought to be distressed. And yet... L-Block finally lost to someone, and its got me all smiles! Not only did he lose, he only won a single 15 minute update against Crono (at about 7:30 this morning) while Ryu has already topped the Block in 7 updates and could very well be scoring more before this match concludes, as he's sporting a darn impressive SNV right now. On the down side, L gains a major advantage in the next debatable match where Crono and Vincent will most likely be Square-SFFing each other. But on the plus side the idea of his having a completely static joke vote has been shattered just like it was for Mudkip early this round. Also, the trend of jokes weakening continues unabated... perhaps it will keep up, to put Crono far enough ahead to outlast him in R4? \*crosses fingers\* ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3282&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=39) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=39) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Alucard vs Captain Falcon vs Pikachu vs Arthas Menethil 2008 _source: Alucard vs Captain Falcon vs Pikachu vs Arthas Menethil 2008 (revid 85820)_ ## Results **Round Two** Monday, October 27th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 4 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 40 - **Match Date:** Monday, October 27th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Pikachu - 29.35% Alucard - 28.00% Arthas Menethil - 23.81% Captain Falcon - 18.89% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Pikachu first place (4pts) - 23.48% Pikachu second place (2pts) - 34.19% Alucard second place (4pts) - 12.24% Alucard first place (2pts) - 25.15% - **Advancing Prediction:** Pikachu - 57.67% (24,742) Alucard - 37.39% (16,041) If you look at the guru picks for this match, people were all over the place, mainly because people overestimated Diddy Kong and the extrapolations for Nintendo leeching were all over the place. A lot of people expected Ike, Diddy Kong, or some other permutation of triple Nintendo to be in this match, so a lot of people had Alucard \> X in their predictions. For those who expected double Nintendo, the pick was Pikachu \> Alucard. Conventional wisdom held that this would be a match with two Nintendo characters, with the weaker one unable to hurt Pikachu very much. Either way, the consensus pick was Alucard and Pikachu advancing in some order. There were spatterings of off-meta picks, but most people had those two advancing here after sorting out the crazy amount of Nintendo in this section of the bracket. The characters who ended up here, Falcon and Arthas, were never going to be strong enough to oppose them. In fact Falcon was so weak that Pikachu managed first place even with the leeching going on, which was some good insight into future Save_Us.RAT performances in this contest. I would love to get into the ridiculous duel Pikachu and Alucard had for first place, but again, what's even the point? This format blows, and continually stole so many great matches from us that would have been epic had they had actual consequences. For those living under a rock somehow, top two advance regardless of order in this format. I suppose one could go nuts about first place duels given point order in the bracket mattered, but every time I see a match like this I'm reminded that second place duels matter than first. It's just fundamentally dumb on every level. It was a great duel though. After Pikachu barely won the morning vote, Alucard started destroying him overnight, or at least he was laying wood as best he could. When the morning vote came along and Pikachu started winning it, the reasonable assumption was Pikachu would steamroll the poll and easily take first. But then the unthinkable happened, and Alucard freaking won the morning vote over a Pokemon. Before getting into what happened next, just think about how absurd that sentence is and marvel at the sheer idiocy of this not being a 1v1 match. Yes, I am well aware Pikachu easily wins 1v1 if Falcon isn't there. Not the point. This format is so bad. Matches like this are why it took me 12 years to do these writeups, because it just annoys me to look back on what could have been, especially with how high these vote totals were. Anyway, Alucard somehow started going nuts with the morning vote, so much so that by the time the ASV rolled around he had an 1100 vote lead. It was then that Pikachu finally decided to stop dicking around, and that 1100 lead got wiped out in like 2 hours. Apparently we've gone from WAIT UNTIL THE KIDDIES WAKE UP to WAIT UNTIL THE KIDDIES ARE HOME FROM SCHOOL. Pikachu pulled a 2500 vote swing in 9 hours to win by 1400, in a poll that feels like it never should have been that close. I'd give more passion and a better rundown, but this match I specifically remember as being the one that made me want to quit. That's when it really hit me at the time that we had this great duel going, one year after Alucard's crazy photo finish, and none of it mattered. At least in 2013 we had the decency of only first place meaning anything. Which is frankly how every poll should work. ## Stats and Analysis - Alucard advancing was the **\#22** most surprising result of 2008 Pikachu got put in a pretty rough position this contest - dealing with fanbase leeching not only once, but twice in the span of his first two matches. This match would pit him against an SSB vet as old as he, and while there was no (real) chatter that he could drop the actual match to him, there was the idea that he would be hurt significantly more than Ike, who would obviously have much less overlap due to a non-trivial portion of his strength actually coming from, y'know, his games. Alucard had his own problems, however, as people were doubting if he'd be able to beat Arthas, who had a pretty good showing last round. Couple that with the chatter that his power stemmed more from WC III than WotLK and that he had his WC III picture this round, and you had some variation there, too. In the end, the expected would happen, but in the kind of dramatic fashion that we all love it to unfold in. Pikachu ripped it up with his disgusting board vote at the beginning, while Alucard showed Arthas had no chance of taking him down - heck, Arthas was losing to Captain Falcon. While he would recover, this would end up being a pretty bad showing for him, and pretty impressive for the Captain considering what he was dealing with and that he had somehow lost to WARIO last year. As for the main event, Alucard's killer night vote took hold - and man, this time it was a doozy. In the span of an hour the nightwalker surged a comeback, snagged the lead, and built himself a healthy margin before morning came. Then, as if gaining one of his anime hax second winds, Pikachu ripped open an improbably large comeback of his own, nearly erasing Alucard's margin entirely. So what does Alucard do? Why, build up a lead even bigger than his night vote peak with the during school vote just to spite the rat, giving the slightest glimmer of hope before the ASV - all before the inevitable happened and he got slapped en route to a close victory for Pika. Honestly, we all knew what we were in for as soon as the match started, pretty much, but the way it unfolded was something that's always good to see in these contests. Knowing the trends can diminish the surprise, but there's something about multiple lead changes and comebacks during a match that just makes me smile, and when trends are defied (as we would see in later matches), it makes it just that much more shocking. As for final impressions, Alucard showed he wasn't completely off the map - but losing to Pikachu despite the rat's split fanbase and looking like he would have lost to Captain Falcon straight up isn't the most reassuring of things. Arthas showed he was an okay low midcarder, probably around current Diablo strength, but not much more - at least for now. Falcon was just "whoa", and Pikachu managed to simultaneously impressive and disappointing at the same time. On the one hand, he did make it to Round 3, this time as the victim rather than the beneficiary of SFF in both matches. On the other hand, he got less than 55% on Ike and let Captain Falcon make him lose to a guy who has become all but irrelevant in this day and age. At any rate, he had no shot against Block next round - though that didn't stop a lot of the crazies from arguing it anyway. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction That was a fun result, and I'm thinking we'll be seeing yet another here tonight! Let's take a closer look at these four goofballs. X-Stats From Round One - Alucard - 27.70% (based on '07 Kratos) - Falcon - 24.60% (based on '07 Kratos) - Pikachu - 21.85% (based on '07 Ike) - Arthas - 19.82% (based on '07 Ike) Eh, I trust those Alucard/Falcon numbers about as far as I can spit (which isn't very far). It was clear that Kratos was hampered by having so many Nintendo options in his R1 poll and didn't match his '07 standard as a result. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Pika and the Lich King appear to have been way underrated, but with the way Ike and Pika must have been ruining each other in that match no number coming out of that match was going to be very reliable. Now then, experience tells us that, at least based on all we've seen this year, when Nintendo LFF gets involved things quickly turn nasty, and you should bet on the non-Nintendo options wherever possible. And yet, look at that R1 result- even with Pika and Ike murdering each other, Pika still took first place with ease, and furthermore Ike came only a little bit short of pushing past Arthas and advancing himself. Today we replace Ike with Captain Falcon, a guy who is sure to be higher on the Nintendo totem poll... I mean, he has to be, right? He's made it into all three SSBs, was a favorite of both casual and tourney players in the first two, has some memes to his credit, and some minimal F-Zero support to fall back on if all else fails. All that Ike can counter with is swinging around a gigantic sword. ...and yet, somehow, I get the impression that that's going to be enough. Falcon's awesome, but I see him pulling a repeat of that OTHER SSB dude with the amazing R1 performance and the same name except for an "N" who nevertheless collapsed and burned when the pressure mounted in R2. So yeah, Falcon for last place, and probably won't match Ike's percentage against Pika. As for Alucard, sorry, just not buying it. He got the ideal setup last round, standing out big time against three pieces of Nintendo fodder or near-fodder, yet he still only managed a 5% win against the guy who should be the weakest today. I picture him contending for advancement or perhaps even the outright win throughout the dead hours of the night, but then shriveling up and dying once the sun rises for a third place finish. That leaves us with Arthas vs Pikachu. Arthas has a couple things working against him, namely that Falcon probably doesn't hurt Pika quite as badly as Ike did and that WoW players aren't going to be spending as much time tomorrow on fansites and message boards (they were back in R1 because a Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch knocked servers worldwide offline for most of that day). But he also has one big thing working for him: the perfect match pic! WoW was already going to be voting in support of him, but this should help him appeal to any Warcraft III players who wouldn't have recognized him in his Lich King form. Also I think his rally power might be a little more effective here, as WoW players might care about the match more now that we're into R2 and the competition is better. All in all I see him improving slightly against Pika; probably won't be enough to net him the win, but ought to be able to outlast Alucard. And Pikachu, well, wins again! Though as I've stated above it ought to be a bit closer than last time. Taking all that into consideration and turning it into numbers, let's see what some pot-stirring results in. - Pikachu - 28.84% - Arthas Menethil - 25.48% - Alucard - 25.22% - Captain Falcon - 20.47% That looks... pretty solid, actually! Ngamer Says: Pikachu \> Arthas ### Next Day Review Heck of a cool match today. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around how Alucard only falls from 35% to 30% when you swap out Diddy Kong and Kratos A in favor of Pikachu and Arthas, especially since he ought to have stood out more against the Nintendo competition last round and overperformed THERE, not here. But I guess this goes to show why Alucard/SotN are so cult or niche or whatever you want to call it- they're not going to blow anyone out, but that 20something% fanbase is going to always be there, just like they were for him last year in R2. As for Arthas, I guess last round all the WC3 players were voting for him based on his name while all the WoW players were voting in support of the WotLK box they'll be buying soon. So switching to this old picture continues to get WC3ers involved, but WoW no longer cares and that caused his drop. In any case, at least we're going to get to see Pikachu tear into the Block's face with full on, un-LFFed Pokemon/Nintendo Power! Sure the odds are still against him, but that didn't stop him from getting an R/B/Y sprite and destroying our expectations in R3 last year. Come on Pika, let's see another amazing run to R4 from you! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3283&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=40) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=40) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Weighted Companion Cube vs Tidus vs Mega Man vs Nero 2008 _source: Weighted Companion Cube vs Tidus vs Mega Man vs Nero 2008 (revid 85821)_ ## Results **Round Two** Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 5 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 41 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Mega Man - 35.98% Weighted Companion Cube - 26.18% Tidus - 22.55% Nero - 15.38% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Mega Man first place (4pts) - 29.72% Mega Man second place (2pts) - 42.37% Cube second place (4pts) - 7.08% Cube first place (2pts) - 21.29% - **Advancing Prediction:** Mega Man - 72.09% (30,929) Cube - 28.37% (12,172) Someone really needs to get Tidus away from joke characters in these contests. This dude has had to deal with the King of All Cosmos, the Weighted Companion Cube, Missingno, Serge, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Claire Redfield. He's even had to deal with pre-DMC5 Nero (KYRIEEEEEEEEEEEE) and Banjo. Enough is enough already, leave the poor guy alone. And yes I am aware Claire is not technically a "joke", but as a Board 8er it's impossible to see her the same way after yoblazer's famous topic where he meticulously reviewed every curvature and pixel of fake asses. That was, uh... something else. As for the actual match, it was eerily similar to the Crono \> L-Block match from two days prior. There was a lot of discussion around it given one of the characters was of the bandwagon joke variety, but round 1 had already clued us in as to how the result would go and the round 2 match had alarmingly boring trends. That is exactly what happened here. Cube had already beaten Tidus once when nothing was really on the line. How could anyone expect him to do worse when he had to? On top of that, the match was essentially over in seconds. Mega Man was never challenged for first, Cube was never challenged for second, and Tidus + Nero brought up the rear. As jokey as Cube being in this bracket was, he performed in this match, bizarrely, like a normal character. It was somewhat anticlimactic, as the match itself did not match the surrounding discussion at all. Where this differed from L-Block however was bracket placement. People had a lot of hope in Save_Us.RAT. The Cube was a different story, as people began to math out the possibility of this thing making a very deep contest run. Most people were cool with it, while the crybaby anti-fun brigade was not. In the long run, my side was proven right on that argument. Check out the vote totals being at laughably low levels a decade after this contest to see what happens when you have contests without the fun. On a personal side note, Tidus deserves a round 3 run some day. He's legitimately a very good character, but he gets unfairly hated on due to his voice actor being garbage. If Final Fantasy X had only text, I'm convinced Tidus would be on Auron's level. Instead, we're stuck with what we got. Tidus has been in contests since 2002, and has yet to make round 3. Jecht got there on his first try, as a 14 seed no less. Poor guy deserves better. ## Stats and Analysis - Weighted Companion Cube advancing was the **\#14** most surprising result of 2008 After what we had seen over the past matches this round, the result of this match seemed to be pretty much set in stone. Tidus had failed to overcome WCC last round, but the Cube was no L-Block and L had seemed pretty darned vulnerable a few matches ago. And it ended up that way, more or less. Mega Man took an easy first, WCC beat Tidus by more but got nowhere near MM. There were only two real things of note going on here. Firstly, Tidus managed to improve on his performance on Mega Man in 2004, and considering how both characters have seemed to fall off in recent years that couldn't mean anything encouraging for MM. Secondly, Nero pretty much just FOLDED, making him the next in a long line of casual characters to fold against real competition and making Banjo and Olimar look like the next Serious Sam and Mr. Driller. The important thing to note was the signs for what would happen next match. Unlike L, WCC was looking to have the challenge of a lifetime coming up next round, as Mega Man's easy win coupled with Solid Snake being even stronger made it a heavy underdog. Zero was going to have to make the match just for it to even have a chance. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Speaking of joke characters... X-Stats from Round One: - WCC - 28.98% (based on Tails '07) - Tidus - 28.76% (based on Tails '07) - Mega Man - 27.01% (based on Banjo '07) - Nero - 17.26% (based on Banjo '07) Eh, both sets of numbers look pretty bad. Nero has to at least be at the fodder line based on R1, as he was taking advantage of being the only non-Nintendo option there. And there's no way I'm buying Tidus that high no matter what kind of circumstances he had working in his favor. Alright, let's start with Mega Man. Why in the heck was everyone dancing on his grave (or, that of the whole MM series) a couple weeks back? Sure he was against weak competition, but scoring over 51% in ANY matchup is nothing to sneer at with the way our elite characters were performing that entire round. And MMX had done pretty well for himself also. The only disappointment in my mind was Zero, and even that one I'm not sold on completely... let's see what happens when Snake slithers into the mix tomorrow, because I could still see Zero surviving and advancing there. (heck, even Vivi might!). So yeah, should be a no-doubter of a first place for MM, and I'd have been saying that even before MMX wowed us. Now then, here's my take on why the Cube is going to disappoint tonight. Last time around he was against three options that, while having huge recognizability, voters were sure to be pretty "meh" on. Heck, even within their own series fanbases people are pretty slow to warm to Tidus, DK, and Tails- you might even call them the black sheep of the family in all three cases. Combined with anti-favoriteFAQs and WCC being a cool new option, I think a ton of voters jumped ship to the joke which resulted in that crazy final score we saw from R1. Since that match jokes have continued to weaken (a trend L-Block did nothing to stop, I might add) and this time Cube has to deal with competition that voters are surely more likely to respond to: MM (with an awesome NES-era logo, great!), Nero (with another full-on "Dante proxy advantage" kind of headshot), and Tidus (who at least has a stronger following than DK/Tails, and who ought to be at his best with this anime look that seems to do well with voters). That's why I'm confident in taking this upset. MM for the win, and a close second place will be going to Tid- Nay, can't pull the trigger! I DO think he puts up a better fight than most are calling for, however, and that Nero will at least look respectable while exiting. Bah, if only someone else with REAL fan backing were in contention here, like swapping Auron in for Tidus... but I shouldn't complain, Auron's current placement might deliver a classic for us in just a few days! So MM \>\> Cube \> Tidus \>\> Nero, and when those thoughts convert to numbers we get something like - Mega Man - 35.11% - Weighted Companion Cube - 25.21% - Tidus - 23.22% - Nero - 16.46% ...bah. Try as I might, I couldn't justify WCC falling under 25. Oh well... go ahead and surprise us, Tidus, I dare you! Ngamer Says: **Mega Man \> WCC** ### Next Day Review Well shoot, this match was a bit of a dud. WCC's going to lose about 2.5% off R1, but he's still doing a much better job of keeping a static fanbase than I gave him credit for, which is... troubling, to say the least. On the plus side, next up is the sprite round- surely the Cube will look awful there while MM will as always be going in with a major advantage. On top of that, we'll probably be seeing Solid \*(&% which ought to allow MM to stick closer to a 50/50 with Snake than normally, further hurting the Cube's chances. The one fly in the ointment would be if Zero advanced to that match alongside MM and held him back enough to put WCC back in contention. Luckily Ryu H easily outlasted Zero back in R1, and we have no reason to bel- \*looks back at the last time Snake ran into Ryu H\* Oh crap! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3284&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=41) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=41) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Ryu Hayabusa vs Zero vs Solid Snake vs Vivi Ornitier 2008 _source: Ryu Hayabusa vs Zero vs Solid Snake vs Vivi Ornitier 2008 (revid 85822)_ ## Results **Round Two** Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 5 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 42 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Solid Snake - 38.31% Zero - 21.87% Ryu Hayabusa - 20.49% Vivi Ornitier - 19.84% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Snake first place (4pts) - 56.60% Snake second place (2pts) - 32.45% Zero second place (4pts) - 15.88% Zero first place (2pts) - 11.17% - **Advancing Prediction:** Snake - 89.05% (38,205) Zero - 27.05% (11,605) Another match, another Noble Niner taking care of business. However, this was a much bigger deal than Snake simply winning a match easily. Every now and again in the stats topic, you'll see Leonhart4 and Black Turtle arguing about an old account bet. That happened in this match. Leon4 correctly believed that Snake would get an insane boost from the conjoined factors of BrawlFEAR and Metal Gear Solid 4, and that this would be the match where he started flexing some muscle. If you go back to round 1, Snake had to deal with Sackboy, Wesker, and Vivi -- three characters likely to leech off of him -- and the dude broke 50%. This time, he had to deal with much better competition, but Leon4 predicted Snake would finish between 43-45%. Turtle is a huge Mega Man X fan and thought this was preposterous, and you all can see what happened. Snake easily finished above 43%, which is a ridiculous number. In these contests, there is the Link tier, the 1A tier below Link, and then tier 2 where the lower Noble Nine characters live. This number put Snake clean into 1A, and Leon deserves endless love for seeing it coming. As for BT welching, account bets are dumb and I don't blame the guy at all. Who cares if someone closes their account or not? We've had legitimately awful people on here over the years, and BT is not one of them. He's just having fun. He isn't threatening to blow people's heads off with shotguns, he isn't stalking people, he isn't a pedo defender, he doesn't make fun of the various users that have committed suicide over the years, he doesn't pull the trash Preston has pulled via PM, and overall he's not a bad dude. Contests are better with BT around, so good on him. Welch all you want, bro. The actual story here was the battle for second place. I'll spare people the usual rant about how these being more important than battles for first are dumb, because this was just an epic match between two beloved characters. There was a tiny bit of hype for Ryu Hayabusa here, but deep down we all knew it would come down to Zero and Vivi -- and I'm convinced that if people didn't have Zero in their bracket overwhelmingly, Vivi would have pulled this thing off. When the poll started, it didn't look like much. Vivi got some early love, and then it looked like the match would come to a simple finish. Zero beat the piss out of Vivi overnight as if Vivi were Jesse Pinkman, and the overnight is typically Square's best time. Match over, right? One would think this was done, given Zero had a 600 vote lead overnight, but Vivi inexplicably started coming back as the night wore on. But Mega Man X characters, largely due to the series having no love in Europe whatsoever, just DIE overnight. It's brutal to watch, and back then I don't know that most of us knew this trend. The Europe vote wasn't discussed much before geolocation stats happened. Once Vivi started getting momentum, he ran with it. It took a little while thanks to sharing this poll with Snake, but he did manage to catch up thanks to the Europe vote and the morning vote. He caught up at 10:30, and Zero gave no resistance whatsoever as Vivi started building up his own lead. For the second time, the match looked over as Vivi flew ahead by 400 heading into the ASV. With one or two major trends left and Vivi being absolutely adored by people, it looked like he would hold on. Unfortunately, we all saw what happened, and I'm still convinced it wouldn't have happened if Zero wasn't such a massive bracket favorite in this spot. Zero began the slow, painful, methodical match forward. He won the ASV, but not in convincing fashion. Most of the updates during his comeback were +5, +2, +10, +15, and the occasional Vivi push where it looked like he would hold Zero off. But it was not to be. Though it took hours and felt like open heart surgery, Zero caught up. His major push came after dinner, where the perennial stall turned into a legitimate Zero push. When Zero finally caught real momentum here, the match truly was good and over. These two characters were stuck in the 200s for hours after school, but when Zero finally made his move after dinner he pulled off what would end up a 600 vote swing to ultimately win by 400. The 400 vote win wasn't really indicative of how close and how back-and-forth this match was, but only one of them could advance in this spot and Zero was it. 81% of gurus picked Zero here, and even though the board loves Vivi, they were happy to see Zero win here for their brackets. I will remain convinced that if Vivi had 81% of gurus behind him, he would have won. That's often how these things go. This ultimately set up a bizarre matchup between Snake, Mega Man, the Weighted Companion Cube, and Zero -- eerily similar to this match in 2007: Lastly, for those lamenting Vivi's not finishing the job here, no worries. He would more than get his win back. Not only that, but he came dangerously close to winning a division in 2018. Vivi would be alright. He always pulls through. But this day was about Solid Snake jumping up a level, and Zero surviving. ## Stats and Analysis - Ryu Hayabusa underperformed by **-6.54%**, the **\#5** most disappointing performance of 2008 - Snake overperformed by **+5.24%**, the **\#12** most impressive performance of 2008 - Zero advancing was the **\#13** most surprising result of 2008 The most important part of this match, of course, was with Leonhart stating that Snake would be possibly getting 43-45% in this match, and that said performance would be enough to put him up into the Mario/Samus tier of strength. Considering how the Noble Nine had performed this round and that most people thought that performance would be more appropriate for Sephiroth (hello), this prompted one stats topic pariah Black Turtle to state he would close his account right then if Snake pulled that off. Thus Snake started off the match getting just that, BT reneged, and there was much rejoicing and gnashing of teeth by all. And to move on to the less important, non-Solid Snake related part of the match - is there any point where the Oracle DOESN'T mechanically side with their brackets in a close match, even when the logic points against them? One of the reasons why I prefer the superior Analysis Crew, but no matter how you looked at the match it was set to be a three-way fight for second. Vivi had done exceedingly well on Snake last round, and Ryu H had upset Zero in a squeaker. The arguments for each were pretty diverse. Ryu H's supporters believed that he was simply the stronger character this year due to Ninja Gaiden 2, and that Vivi would collapse when stronger competition appeared. Zero's believers relied on the belief that Ryu H's bomb in the second round against Riku after beating Riku and Roxas COMBINED was no fluke, and that something similar would happen here. Vivi fans knew he was going to stand out among three badasses, and combined with his great performance on Snake from the previous round he was the guy to beat. Well, one thing definitely came true here - Ryu Hayabusa, whether it be because of his casual fanbase, disproportionately badass appeal, or just because of something really WEIRD apparently Hayabusa commits seppuku at the first sight of Solid Snake. And while the twitching corpse of the ninja was apparently still enough to give Riku the fight of his life last year, Zero and Vivi are on a different level. He ended up with 14%, and had to fight all day for it - still one of the oddest consistent anomalies in contest history, I say, but now we know it's absolutely true. That left Vivi and Zero, and Zero took control of the match early due to his bracket support and trademarked powerful Mega Man Early Vote. But four hours in, the inevitable happened - as it always does - and Vivi took control of the match in a big way. By the morning he had shaved a 600 vote lead to practically nothing, and the during school vote allowed him to build a 400 vote lead of his own. It looked like Zero was going to drop ANOTHER match that he should have had in hand, but Vivi's historical troubles with the after school vote finally came back to haunt him. It was slow and painfully methodical, but Vivi's weakness during the ASV allowed Zero back into the match, slicing away with Vivi's lead, and Mega Man's nice second night vote pushed him over the top into a 400 vote victory. Zero did what we expected to do in the end, but in the very worst way for the Mega Man franchise to look. Losing to a character you 63-37'd and barely beating Vivi due to what was probably the most favorable picture outcome he could have hoped for - and now he was going to potentially kill his series' flagship character next round. The stage was set for an epic showdown between Noble and Joke, the winner gaining a berth in the quarterfinals. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Time to discuss what could possibly turn into the greatest fatal threeway in Contest history! X-Stats from Round One - Snake - 44.98% (based on Wesker '07) - Vivi - 30.11% (based on Wesker '07) - Ryu H - 27.52% (based on Pit '07) - Zero - 27.10% (based on Pit '07) Yes Vivi looked great, but I get the feeling that was largely anti-favoriteFAQs at work, in the same way that so many jumped off Vincent in favor of Falco back in R1. As with Vincent's match, I don't see that trend holding here for R2. As I alluded to earlier, the last time Snake and Ryu went head to head, Solid came out of the match with 48% while Ryu couldn't even manage 19%. That was back when their competition was Riku and Nighmare; sub those two out for the stronger Zero and Vivi and Snake's percent is sure to come down, as will Ryu's... right? Well on the one hand the 360 has seemingly asserted itself and turned Ninja Gaiden into a better threat, especially with the ASV. But on the other, Snake figures to perform better than back in '07 himself, especially when drawing full MGS4 appeal with this picture, so shouldn't he more or less retain that ratio on Ryu? Not sure, but I've decided not to put much faith in the final result from round one and will be picking Hayabusa for a close last place in this one. Zero's a bit of an odd duck. Sure he hemorrhaged up votes all through the Day and kind of embarrassed himself by giving Ryu the win, but how much of that underperformance needs to be tied back to the two Nintendo/Brawl characters who may have been holding him back? And if Ryu gets held back again by whatever killed him against Snake last time (badass SFF?), is Zero going to be immune? You'd think he'd have a larger hardcore fanbase than Ryu, since it would make sense for Hayabusa getting much of his appeal from looking like an awesome ninja. All things considered I like Zero to outlast the ninja this time around. But will it be enough for second? That all depends on... Vivi! So cool to see him not wasted in this bracket, and sporting full-on Black Mage Factor in this pic, which is undoubtedly his biggest advantage. The more Snake dominates this match, the better Vivi's chances get I would think, as the Final Fantasy fanbase is probably the most dedicated of the three. He should also most likely do the best job of avoiding this "badass SFF" if that's really going to be a factor, as that's where Zero gets much of his appeal within the MM fanbase. All that considered... eh, I still don't feel good about backing him. Yes, he ought to have an excellent chance, but I keep coming back to that Falco result and others like it that we've seen in R2- just have this gut feeling that the bubble is going to burst against tough cookies like Ryu and Zero. So in the end I'll say Snake with a good sized win (nothing like that '07 domination though) and then Zero just barely over Vivi just barely over Ryu. But I don't do so with much confidence! Let's stir the pot and find some numbers... - Solid Snake - 38.20% - Zero - 21.11% - Vivi Ornitier - 20.68% - Ryu Hayabusa - 20.01% That looks... like a heck of a match! Ngamer Says: **Snake \> Zero** ### Next Day Review Awww man, what an awesome match. Ryu sure dropped the ball as far as the fatal threeway went (what the heck, Snake must just be that guy's kryptonite), but what a show Zero and Vivi have put on! When Zero got out to the big lead I wasn't sold- he'd done the same thing against Ryu before fading away, and Vivi figured to have the kind of huge night vote that we often see from FF8-9-10. But when it was four hours in and Zero not only had a huge lead but was still gaining, I threw in the towel on Vivi- no way you can come back from that without an MC-like day vote. Then I checked this aft and... Vivi was up by like 200, and gaining! I was amazed, but figured Zero could probably still take the ASV to pull out a narrow win. But then we were a full hour into what's usually the ASV, and Zero was doing nothing- still down a bunch, only going even, and since Vivi was sure to take the second night vote in any case, I threw in the towel on Zero. Then I got in from work an hour ago and... Zero back out to a big lead! This time around I'm holding on to my towel with a death grip; I've got no idea what to think anymore! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3285&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=42) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=42) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Sora vs Fox McCloud vs Squall Leonhart vs Yoshi 2008 _source: Sora vs Fox McCloud vs Squall Leonhart vs Yoshi 2008 (revid 85824)_ ## Results **Round Two** Thursday, October 30th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 6 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 43 - **Match Date:** Thursday, October 30th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Squall Leonhart - 33.70% Yoshi - 26.65% Sora - 23.41% Fox McCloud - 16.17% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Squall first place (4pts) - 21.60% Squall second place (2pts) - 31.57% Sora second place (4pts) - 14.71% Sora first place (2pts) - 28.91% - **Advancing Prediction:** Squall - 53.17% (22,812) Sora - 43.62% (18,714) A few matches ago, I mentioned how Auron vs Sub-Zero is one of our most pointless contest rivalries. They've faced each other four times somehow, and Auron is 4-0. The opposite of that is Squall vs Sora, who have faced each other five times over the years, and while Squall is 5-0, he has never blown Sora out. He has never SFFd him. He has never screwed him over and he has never leeched support enough to screw him out of some win that Sora would have otherwise had. It never even matters who else is in the poll. These are always inexplicably, bizarrely, and unbelievably close, but Squall always wins the duel. I don't know how Squall never SFFs the guy, but that's what always happens. Sora loses close every single time, outside of the Rivalry Rumble debacle where it looked for a minute Sora might actually pull it off. I have no explanation for why Squall doesn't SFF the guy but Cloud was apparently able to. I don't know. Your best guess is mine. Maybe Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy don't have overlapping fanbases anymore, which would make sense given Final Fantasy in no way matters in those games at this point. This is all important to bring up because it halfway explains what happened in this match. Sora being close to Squall is no real surprise, because we saw them do this twice in 2007. If '08 was the first time we saw these two in polls together, this would have been much more of a stunner. What is a stunner however, even by 2020 standards, is whatever the hell happened to Nintendo in this match. Nintendo rarely just gives up and dies, but this match? They quit. Yoshi not advancing here wasn't a huge surprise at the time, because you can look at round 1 and see it coming. That wasn't the surprise. It's that Yoshi got completely and thoroughly destroyed here. Once bracket votes wore off, Sora beat the tar out of Yoshi by 7500 votes in a match that wasn't even that close. Yoshi was harmed by the presence of Fox. Sora was not hurt by the presence of Squall. That's the quick version of what happened. If someone has a definitive answer for why Sora and Squall are so independent, I'm all ears. Is it Kingdom Hearts being on some Nintendo consoles? Is it Final Fantasy not being in the series anymore? I don't know. This set up a fun match with Sora, Squall, and Cloud, and depending on who would squeeze into second place in the next match, it was practically a bye into the divisional finals. Oh and just for fun, since this was 1v1 Square vs Nintendo. Square - 74965 \[58.78%\] Nintendo - 52569 \[41.22%\] Total Votes - 127534 Savor these matches where Nintendo gets annihilated by Square, because they don't happen often. They seem to happen at a higher clip when Squall is involved, though. Hmm. Oh and the match picture was a huge point of discussion here, no, Smilin' Squall didn't decide this match. All four of them are smiling in this match picture. Outside of a joke 5 people on Board 8 understand, it meant nothing for the match. ## Stats and Analysis - Sora overperformed by **+4.90%**, the **\#15** most impressive performance of 2008 - Yoshi underperformed by **-4.21%,** the **\#23** most disappointing performance of 2008 Another match, another round of the Oracle goombas blindly trying to cling to their brackets. We know the story by now. Yoshi had just gone and put up one of the biggest bombs we've ever seen in these contests, letting Squall go out and tear him apart like he was the incarnation of Solid Snake himself. Not only that, but Sora had just put up a decisive win over Fox McCloud - perhaps with Chris too close for comfort, but we had seen Squall and Sora go two rounds with each other last year. Sora put up 39% against Squall in his worst showing, Yoshi had gotten 43% last round. How in the HELL was Yoshi supposed to beat the kid with Fox breathing down his neck? The answer - one of the bigger beatdowns we've ever seen in these things. Yoshi got KILLED here. He ended up much closer to Fox McCloud, a character who gets the majority of his strength from SSB, than he did in even sniffing Sora. In fact, the match ended up being less Sora/Yoshi as it did Sora/Squall. Whether you want to put it on Kingdom Hearts being more established or Squall's wacky pic where he's grinning like an idiot (I'd go with the latter, Squall killed Yoshi by more than Sora did Fox in the previous round), Sora was keeping pretty close with Squall, and despite being down by an insurmountable margin pretty much just walloped him during the day. The end margin between the two was less than 3000 votes, and considering that Sora had just gone out last year with a piddling 39% on the guy that's something you've really got to hand to him. And more importantly, now with Yoshi out of the picture Mewtwo of all characters had seemingly received a free pass to the quarterfinals. There was some rambling on if Sora could avoid some Cloud SFF and make it a match - Squall was definitely going to get pasted - but it was pretty muted. Mewtwo had just been too impressive last round. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction There's another potentially awesome match on the way for tonight! X-Stats from Round One - Squall - 29.40% (based on '07 CATS) - Yoshi - 24.78% (based on '07 CATS) - Sora - 20.00% (based on '07 Chris) - Fox - 17.50% (based on '07 Chris) Have to kind of hurry with this one as those last innings of the World Series (congrats Phils!) have put me a bit behind. Pre-Contest this was considered a pretty easy advancement for Squall and Yoshi, with the only question being what order they would go in. But after the way both Square guys dropped bombs on their Nintendo counterparts, all of a sudden Sora sneaking through here looks like at least a possibility, while it would take something truly crazy for Yoshi to pull the upset and finish first. A moment ago I was planning to predict Squall for a pretty easy win, Yoshi to advance but not with much room to spare ahead of Sora, and Fox to get SFF-pounded well out of contention. But now let's look at this pic... Good heavens, what happened to you Squall!? For all the grief Tidus has taken over the years for looking like Meg Ryan, that's a MUCH worse look than anything the FFX lead has ever sported. Seriously, wow. Sora looks pretty goofy too, but he's at least saved by showing an anime look that seems to do pretty well with this GameFAQs crowd. Yoshi's pretty meh; not a bad picture for him but pretty generic. And Fox once again looks great! Of course I said the same last round and that didn't stop him getting beaten bloody... but yeah, I'd be very shocked if Yoshi was able to hurt him too badly with SFF when he comes out looking that good. Soooo let's take those thoughts and throw something together quickly. Into the pot and stirred and what have we here... - Squall Leonhart - 31.76% - Yoshi - 25.17% - Sora - 23.06% - Fox McCloud - 20.01% That looks... really bad! But I have no time to correct it! Come on Fox, prove me right. Ngamer Says: **Squall \> Yoshi** ### Next Day Review Oh wow... even with it busting up both my bracket and my Oracle, and with Sora being quite possibly my most hated Contest character, I can't help but laugh at this result. What the junk happened here? Well the way I see it, that picture happened. Everyone was calling for Leonheart's head the minute "Smilin' Squall" hit the presses, and as it turns out with good reason, but what we didn't stop to think was that this was actually the best possible situation for Square overall. Clearly this ridiculous look was a major turnoff to former Squall voters, but the trouble is, nearly all those "on the fence" voters ended up going with Sora! Yoshi finishing much closer to Squall doesn't do him a lick of good when all of the votes the \#1 guy loses are going to the other option that he's ACTUALLY trying to compete against. Which meant Yoshi's only hope was to obliterate Fox, and... \*looks at pic\* nope, that wasn't going to be happening! The poor green guy was caught between a rock and a hard place in this one, and was never really going to have a chance given the circumstances. On the plus side, what an excellent validation for Fox fans this ended up being. (BTW, I'm still taking Yoshi \> Sora in next year's 1v1, so there.) ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3286&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=43) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=43) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Cloud Strife vs Midna vs Mewtwo vs Pac-Man 2008 _source: Cloud Strife vs Midna vs Mewtwo vs Pac-Man 2008 (revid 85825)_ ## Results **Round Two** Friday, October 31st, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 6 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 44 - **Match Date:** Friday, October 31st, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Cloud Strife - 48.86% Mewtwo - 22.68% Pac-Man - 14.74% Midna - 13.64% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Cloud first place (4pts) - 85.30% Cloud second place (2pts) - 6.08% Mewtwo second place (4pts) - 20.46% Mewtwo first place (2pts) - 1.98% - **Advancing Prediction:** Cloud - 91.38% (39,205) Mewtwo - 22.44% (9,627) I had this watch this video. So do you. Somehow I didn't know about this idiot until last week. He's married, by the way. What's your excuse? These are the things we put into PCA writeups for laughably boring matches. I know Midna vs Mewtwo looks like some epic duel based on how close the result was, but it really wasn't. Mewtwo won the early vote, and despite being held under 300 votes on his lead all night, the winner of second place became clear once Mewtwo won the morning vote. There was a small bit of concern Midna might win the morning vote Legend of Zelda style and pull the upset, but thankfully that didn't happen and the garbage from Twilight Princess was laid to rest. Seriously, what an overhyped pile that game was. It was average, that's it, and largely because once you hit the Arbiter's Grounds the game finally decides to stop being garbage. The reason Midna vs Mewtwo was close wasn't because Midna was trying to pull some epic upset, however. Cloud was so laughably, thoroughly dominant in this match that the other three characters were fighting over scraps, like Tony Stark in the cave in the first movie. Pre-contest, Mewtwo was the heavy favorite to advance here. In fact he was such a heavy favorite that only Samus \> Ganondorf had better round 2 guru odds. Mewtwo may have won ugly, but he still won. On top of Cloud being a total badass in this contest, the competition was splitting the Nintendo vote three ways. That said, Mewtwo would have considerably less Nintendo leeching moving forward, and was a real threat to get lucky and make a deep contest run. Next match was Cloud, Squall, Sora, and Mewtwo. After two strange outings, Mewtwo was about to catch a huge break. ## Stats and Analysis - Mewtwo advancing was the **\#8** most surprising result of 2008 - Mewtwo underperformed by **-5.77%**, the **\#10** most disappointing performance of 2008 - Cloud overperformed by **+4.63%**, the **\#17** most impressive performance of 2008 So anyway, this was supposed to be THE easiest match of Round 2, with the POSSIBLE slim exception of Samus/Nightmare/Ganondorf/Frog, and even there some rambling existed on Samus SFFing Ganondorf enough to let one of the other characters in on a win. But this... Midna was one of the biggest bombs of last year, surpassed perhaps only by Balthier in her suckiness. Mewtwo gave Bowser a scare last year. This wasn't supposed to even be close. Yet in a single stroke, everything about last year seemed to be turned on its head in a new light. Mewtwo coming close to Bowser wasn't so much the Poke impressing as it was Bowser putting up another massive disappointment. Ryu's victories over Bowser made him look a lot more cracked up than he actually was, and his near-miss against a SFFed Auron and just rolling over against L-Block twice was indication of this. Let me be clear. Midna and Pac-Man did what they were supposed to do in this match, which was to get similarly fodderized by Cloud. Mewtwo, on the other hand, the character among whom the lamest of Pokemaniacs still cream themselves over, was letting her come within striking distance. A character whom SCORPION had decimated twice, mind you! And since both were extremely close to Pac-Man... it's hard to say it, but Mewtwo proved to be the next in that seemingly endless parade of casual fueled characters folding to real competition. Suddenly, that Sora to the quarterfinals chatter got REALLY loud - even SFFed, could this stinker really pull it out? The other thing to take away from this is that you just do not mess with Zelda on the SFF chain, even if you're dealing with their absolute bottom of the barrel entries. Mewtwo probably takes a more comparable strength entry like Wario much better. But the bottom line here is that this would be Cloud's sole match in which he appeared to be clearly on or above Link's level. And seeing as how virtually no one gave Cloud a chance in the finals (without Mario, at least), that meant that these three were pitiful. Who the heck takes Zack/Zidane/SFFed Wario to be decisively above Mewtwo/Midna/Pac-Man pre contest? ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Okay, moving on to a match that kind of looked like a dud not too long about, but that now... who knows? X-Stats from Round One - Cloud - 37.70% (based on '07 Edgeworth) - Midna - 19.16% (based on '07 Edgeworth) - Mewtwo - 33.61% (based on '07 Ness) - Pac-Man - 25.21% (based on '07 Ness) Whoa, what a messed up set of stats. Clearly Edgeworth got owned by Link and Bidoof last season and so Cloud/Midna deserve to go much higher, which in turn puts Midna very easily above the fodder line. People would probably have argued that, given how mad they were at her last season, but after the way she held up on Cloud, there doesn't seem to be much room for debate. Ness in turn was undeniably awful this season, whether from a Mewtwo SFFing or whatever else, which makes sense because there's no way Pac is THAT far over the fodder line. Now conventional wisdom tells us that Cloud destroys this whole pack while Mewtwo in turn destroys Midna Ness-style, turning the poll into a mere pillowfight of the jobbers for third place. But has conventional wisdom EVER been right this year? Cloud blows everyone away and scores around 50%, that much should be a lock. But beyond that I'm starting to have totally ridiculous nightmares about that 2 spot... What if Mewtwo can't lay the SFF hammer to Midna? I mean, he looks like total garbage in the pic (seriously, will that look appeal to ANYONE, aside from Area 51 conspiracy enthusiasts?), Midna's sporting a pretty cool devilish grin, and why would Pokemon be able to hurt Zelda anyways, especially when they don't have SSB in common? Meanwhile Cloud's pulling another of those anime styles that is currently doing wonders for Sora, and the higher his percent climbs the better the independent/more hardcore backing for Pac should allow him to look. Plus he looks good in this picture, and is running out the classic Pac-Man title screen font that should make him more appealing to older voters. How's this for a Halloween horror story: Cloud explodes overnight and posts a Link-like number in this poll, Midna's cool look and Zelda appeal turns this into a Fox/Yoshi style rSFF affair, Pac takes full advantage and eats the largest portion of the pie, slipping past Mew into the next round. ...where he runs into Steroid-Cloud utterly annihilating Squall and Sora while leaving his old school/iconic fanbase untouched (speaking of that old school base, remember that Pac will be showing up to the dance in his original sprite form for the first time ever!), pushing him through to the most undeserved Round Four showing since... Pac-Man, in 2002! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! (Oh wait, actually it was SCORPION who made R4 in '02. Anyways, same idea!) \*deep breaths\* No no, that scenario is just too horrible to imagine. Got to stick with my bracket and the "sensible" Cloud \> Mewtwo pick. Still though, I'm thinking both Midna and Pac come out of this one looking better than most are expecting. Let's throw these numbers into the pot, toss in some candy corn, stir for a few minutes and bring out - Cloud Strife - 49.15% - Mewtwo - 19.74% - Pac-Man - 16.09% - Midna - 15.03% That looks... pretty spooky! Come on Pac, give us all a good scare tonight! Ngamer Says: **Cloud \> Mewtwo** ### Next Day Review Shoot, so close to seeing a classic. This was sure to end up as one of the closest wire to wire matches in history, and there was even a decent possibility of Midna riding a Zelda second night vote to victory, but then Mewtwo messed everything up by finally doing something in the match with the ASV. Well I was right about Cloud tearing it up and right about Mewtwo underwhelming... too bad Pac collapsed to wreck that part of my pred (although I guess to be fair, he at least looks great in relation to Mewtwo). Mew performing to Oracle expectations here would have been enough for me to rubber stamp his spot in R4, but as is we're left with NO IDEA who will be coming out of that one alongside Cloud... I've heard arguments for Sora, Squall, and Mewtwo, and any one of the three is a legit, reasonable guess at this point. Should be awesome! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3287&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=44) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=44) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Big Boss vs Kirby vs Master Chief vs Raiden 2008 _source: Big Boss vs Kirby vs Master Chief vs Raiden 2008 (revid 85828)_ ## Results **Round Two** Saturday, November 1st, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 7 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 45 - **Match Date:** Saturday, November 1st, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Master Chief - 30.98% Kirby - 27.35% Big Boss - 24.99% Raiden - 16.80% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Kirby first place (4pts) - 26.78% Kirby second place (2pts) - 27.03% Master Chief second place (4pts) - 37.53% Master Chief first place (2pts) - 42.55% - **Advancing Prediction:** Kirby - 53.81% (23,086) Master Chief - 80.08% (34,357) For the people who whined all match long about Big Boss losing because of a match picture, pictures do not matter as much as you people think they do. And even if they did, it's a distant fourth on the list of reasons why Big Boss lost. But before that, let's start with first place. Pre-contest, almost everyone agreed this match would be Chief and Kirby advancing in some order. For the Kirby backers, the logic was easy. This match was always going to be Big Boss, Kirby, Chief, and either Kain Highwind or Raiden. Kirby is the lone Nintendo character of the bunch, and he's near-elite. Kirby being the lone Nintendo character in a poll is a far cry from, say, Falco being the loner. There was a 0% chance for Kirby not to advance here, be it in first or second place. For the Chief backers, the logic was equally simple. If he recaptured some of that 2007 magic (and Halo + GAME FUEL was still well-liked in 2008, unlike the state Chief is in now), Chief would threaten for first place here. Granted, he had more potential to get leeched than Kirby did with having to deal with Big Boss and Raiden, two characters who are much closer to Chief in fanbase than Kirby is. Kirby was the very likely favorite, but Chief winning first place here wouldn't have floored us. 2007 was that big for the guy. But once again, first place duels don't matter much in this format. The main discussion revolved around Big Boss, for some reason, even though Raiden being in the poll all but guaranteed his loss barring a Master Chief meltdown. People also pointed to Big Boss's round 1 result where he beat Kirby, somehow forgetting that the Nintendo vote got split three ways. Big Boss was never going to finish ahead of Kirby here now that Kirby was alone with all the Nintendo votes. That said, Boss put up one hell of a fight with Master Chief for second place. Him and Chief were basically tied when this poll started, which allowed Kirby to slowly fly off with first place. Kirby's win ultimately wasn't impressive, but he did end up winning in the end. More on that in a sec. Big Boss and Master Chief spent the first few hours of this poll having a MANLY DUEL OF TESTOSTERONE, and stayed legitimately tied the entire time. It was anyone's game until late into the night, where Big Boss started running away with things. He built up a pretty nice 800 vote lead going into the morning vote, where Master Chief then started making his move. I'm going to pause here and get into those three reasons for Big Boss's loss that I promised earlier. 1 - Master Chief rallied. A lot of people blame Raiden for Big Boss losing here, but given how hard the Chief's base rallied in this match, it's possible Chief gets second place even without Raiden there. I remember this match very well, and around 9am, Chief started getting these wild updates. Not only did Chief erase the 800 vote lead like nothing, but he did so so sharply that human intervention was clearly involved. You don't go from sub-100 vote updates to 150-200+ out of nowhere like that. This rally lasted all through the rest of the match, and not only did it leave Big Boss in the dust, he made a decent run at Kirby for first place. Kirby had a 2300 vote lead on Chief going into the ASV, and Chief managed to only lose by 1500 votes. Had Chief fans rallied that hard for the entire match, he may have won this poll outright. Chief has had crazy rallies before, so it's not inconceivable. 2 - Raiden's presence can't be ignored. Two Metal Gear Solid characters in a match is different from, say, Yoshi and Bowser sharing a poll. Raiden and Big Boss have 100% overlap in their fanbases, and Raiden being here unquestionably hurt Big Boss's chances. 3 - Big Boss is simply not that strong. I don't know why people can't accept this one, but it's the truth. Pictures have nothing to do with it. In the end, we were treated to a very entertaining match in which we got to enjoy a rally completely erasing a lead in seconds. And you know me, I live for rallies causing meltdowns. This rally caused quite the lot of crybabies to pop up, though given most people had Chief and Kirby in some order the whining wasn't quite the level one might expect. This would ultimately set up another match with Kirby versus TESTOSTERONE. ## Stats and Analysis - Raiden underperformed by **-4.76%**, the **\#18** most disappointing performance of 2008 - Kirby overperformed by **+4.12%**, the **\#22** most impressive performance of 2008 This was one of the more anticipated matches of the second round, as the favored first placer among them had laid one of the bigger eggs we'd ever seen in his last match. There was not only talk that Kirby, standing out as only he can against three mature characters, could take first, but that Big Boss - y'know, who had KILLED Kirbs in the previous match - could place or take first outright here even with Raiden holding him down. All he would need is luck and a Naked Snake pic on his side again... ...and for the first time it would matter, he didn't, and it would cost him. The board abandoned the MGS3 protagonist's train as quickly as they had gotten on, as now we were presumably dealing with the entity that had gotten tripled by Auron and needed Mario to beat Pac-Man. There was a good amount of chatter on the old man losing to Raiden, and it wasn't exactly unwarranted - Raiden had gotten the "wow" role of his career in MGS4. The first indication that most people got that Big Boss was even IN the game was the picture in this match. And as weak as he may have been last year in struggling to beat Sam Fisher, that's a far cry from being tripled by Auron. So when old man Boss started the match ahead of Master Chief, you better believe people took notice. Kirby was WAY out in front, which people were kinda anticipating at this point, but still... Master Chief behind a Big Boss with an old man picture, one that was being held down by Raiden (a Raiden that he was SFFing to death, but c'mon). Chief would break back into the lead based on his impressive bracket support, but Big Boss would not let up. By the night he had taken a decent lead of his own on Chief, and even though Chief would end up shredding that lead in minutes when the day vote hit, it was still a sight to see. As for the Chief/Kirby showdown, it ended up being the highlight of the match when Chief got going. Kirby was up by an insurmountable lead, but when the day came Chief gave it his all in what was likely his most impressive showing in this contest. Ending up only 1500 votes away from Kirby in a match where the MGS vote would have almost certainly broken his way had BB/Raiden not been there is something. Granted, we had to deal with the fact that Kirby is a bit of a cupcake when he's not standing out, but the fact remains - Chief holdouts had a little more to cling to after this match. As for Big Boss, he ended up having something more akin to MGS trends of old - running purely off of hardcore fans will do that - but the fact that he did as well as he did with Raiden holding him back was a sign that whether because of MGS4 or people just finally figuring out who the devil the guy is thanks to his Naked Snake pics, the Fox operative has come a long way in these things and clearly established himself as the \#2 MGS character. Well done, old soldier. \*salutes\* ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Another matchup I've got high hopes for takes place tonight. Let's get that hype train a'rollin. X-Stats from Round One: - Master Chief - 31.01% (based on Layton = Tom Nook) - Raiden - 26.98% (based on Layton = Tom Nook) - Big Boss - 33.77% (based on Jinjo = '07 Banjo) - Kirby - 29.27% (based on Jinjo = '07 Banjo) What absolute garbage numers. Since no one out of the Jinjo/Lucas/Kain/Layton group made the bracket in '07 I didn't have any comparisons to make, so bah. Regardless, you can see BB will go down as the strongest character based on results pretty much no matter how you adjust those numbers, and from there it's a mish mash. Raiden at 27 looks so wrong, but how far below 30 would you really be willing to place MC, this format's former stud? But yeah, remove the Nintendo LFF that held Kirby back and it seems clear that Kirby/Naked Snake BB/de-boosted Halo should be right around even in strength, with Raiden not all that far behind. Unfortunately for the MGS guys, these GameFAQs polls don't take place in a vacuum; the same LFF that has been killing Nintendo while making them look like superstars all year to this point is about to suddenly backfire on them, and its a backfire that will be chalking up two casualties tonight, in my opinion. Big Boss had two chances at advancement: One, get a full on Naked Snake picture. Mission Failed. Two, SFF Raiden into the ground so hard he pushes up dandelions in Australia. Well, this DID seem possible for about 5 minutes, and then Raiden went and put up 43% on MC directly. Uh oh! Mission Failed. Frankly I'm not sold on Raiden's picture either, but without the full on Snake effect I can't see BB topping him by more than 60/40 or so, which means that unless the MGS fanbase became half the site overnight (hello there Ocelot!), they're going to be coming in third and fourth. That leaves us with MC vs Kirby, and this one could very well end up being quite the entertaining battle. It would be awesome to see Kirby power out to a big lead with his morning vote and hold off MC's ASV for the win, especially for how it would turn all this "lol Nintendo es ded" talk right on its head, but... I'm not quite feeling it. Yes, Kirby will be the one standing out against all these mature PS2/Xbox options, but on the other hand all of the Contest elites have been recovering from their bad R1 showings here in this round, and Cloud today is just one more example. Yes MC's performance was the most disappointing of all of them, but even so I'm imagining he'll be able to score just enough of a comeback to save his reputation and sneak this one out in the after school period. But feel free to go ahead and prove me wrong, Kirby old pal. Okay, MC ~= Kirby with a decent gap before BB and Raiden, that ought to give us results somewhat along the lines off... \*pots and stirs and delivers\* - Master Chief - 30.18% - Kirby - 29.75% - Big Boss - 22.40% - Raiden - 17.67% Hm... crazy as it sounds, I'm actually feeling pretty confident with those numbers! (Now watch them get blown to high heaven.) Ngamer Says: **MC \> Kirby** ### Next Day Review Haha, what a fun match that was! Sure, it lost some of its luster due to Kirby never being in any real danger of losing to MC, and even when Boss had opened up that nice lead we were still very confident that Chief would be killing him in the Day to make up for it, but even so I maintain that this was a highly entertaining poll. I mean, just check out those vote trends! \*points to graph above\* Note to self: Europeans really loved MGS4, and really, really dislike Halo. I could see that little tidbit coming in handy for the upcoming Game Contest! (Actually I think it's more a case that Europe will go crazy for anything recent and Sony, like how FFX and now MGS always pounds people during those hours, while they refuse to support anything Xbox, which explains why guys like MC and Marcus last year are able to put on such amazing fireworks displays as soon as that continent falls asleep and it's back to 100% American voting.) Okay, well this sets up a HECK of an interesting proposal for Round Three. MC's so weak that he's no longer assured third place in that pack, let alone first, while Kirby will once again be getting the full advantage of going cutesy against three mature action stars. Unless Leon hurts him with GameCube appeal he ought to be able to survive and advance out of that match... but wait, will Riku be the one there instead, evening the mature versus cutesy appeal at 2 to 2? ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3288&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=45) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=45) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Leon Kennedy vs Riku vs Dante vs Hogger 2008 _source: Leon Kennedy vs Riku vs Dante vs Hogger 2008 (revid 85830)_ ## Results **Round Two** Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 7 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 46 - **Match Date:** Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Dante - 33.60% Leon Kennedy - 27.96% Riku - 24.49% Hogger - 13.91% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Dante first place (4pts) - 32.75% Dante second place (2pts) - 41.48% Leon second place (4pts) - 19.82% Leon first place (2pts) - 29.89% - **Advancing Prediction:** Dante - 74.23% (31,847) Leon - 49.71% (21,327) This was one of the most boring matches of the entire contest, because we had just seen a version of it last year: There was no reason to think that result would flip in a year, and barring Riku or Hogger pulling off a miracle, there was no reason to think this result would be anything other than Dante \> Leon Kennedy. Leon made it fun for a couple hours -- seriously, where did that even come from? -- but ultimately that's all it was. A couple hours of fun. The board exploded, people lost their minds, but... once Dante settled in, this match was done. No upset by Lone. No upset by Riku. No bandwagon run by Hogger. Just a boring, simple match to wind round 2 down that had a fun start. For Hogger to get the type of joke run people were worried about, he would have to star in something people actually like. Even the people obsessed with World of Warcraft don't like World of Warcraft anymore. Hogger pulled a cute upset over trash in round 1, but that was that. As for Riku, there was actually a lot of buzz he could pull an upset and take second place here. As for why, I couldn't tell you. People were vastly overestimating Kingdom Hearts pre-contest, I guess. You couldn't even manipulate the x-stats enough to make Riku anywhere near Dante, yet 76 gurus picked Riku here. I couldn't tell you why. This set up a really funny match of TESTOSTERONE. Leon Kennedy, Dante, Master Chief, and... Kirby. Kirby is of course the MANLIEST character among that group, but the coming divisional final was eerily reminiscent of the 2007 runs of a couple of those characters. We'll get to it when I write up round 3. ## Stats and Analysis This had been one of the more anticipated showdowns... of last year. Dante was the upper midcarder who had never come through when it counted, while Leon was the upstart upper midcarder who had never been given a chance against a character not named Gordon Freeman. But with his great performances against (pre-suck) Mega Man and Bowser, could Leon really give Dante a run? The answer turned out to be no, but that was sort of lost in the whole "Pikachu killing them both" debacle. Now, with Riku here in pretty much the EXACT same setup, could the KH fan-fave ride a fanbase split to advancing? Of course, after last round, there was more talk of Leon keeping close to Dante rather than Riku giving him any kind of a run, some ramblings of certain stattrolls aside. Hogger was also briefly mentioned for, I dunno, \*maybe\* sniffing at third, but most wisely calculated a character that could barely keep pace ahead of Laharl wasn't going to be making any waves here. Well, the match started - and suddenly, it was like how last year was supposed to have panned out. Leon wasn't just doing better relative to Dante - he was within one vote of him at the freeze. Dante was able to pile all of eleven more votes on that margin after the next update, but Leon went and just took that back and then some in the next to give him a 14 vote LEAD. So, expecting Dante to fire back in the next update, we watch with bated breath... only to see Leon crush and surge to an 83 VOTE LEAD. All hell had broken loose on the board at this point, as this seemed to be Jill v Ocelot all over again, except instead of reversing a thin margin Leon looked on track to be turning around a legitimate BLOWOUT. But Dante held strong, and made a major cut of his own in the next update. From there it was a combination of Leon spikes and Dante whittling the lead down, and the ups and downs made it one of the more exciting Power Hours we've seen in these things. Of course, as those who have watched the Power Hours long enough have learned, a close Power Hour usually means a match that doesn't end up that way. And with Leon having the backing of Nintendoland, all of that fell apart once the night came. Dante was really able to put the thing out of reach with the night, and even though Leon recovered somewhat when the day hit... he's still an RE character, and even the most Nintendoey of RE characters are no match for an even semi-casual vote like Dante's. Still, it's important not to understate exactly how well Leon did in this year's showing against Dante, which also made Pikachu's showing against the two even more perplexing. Riku came to a far third in what was clearly his least impressive contest to date. I guess the most you can say about that is that he did what he did (despite?) looking absolutely bangable in the match picture. And by that I mean um ignore that last remark hey let's laugh at how bad Hogger bombed hahahaha oh what happened to you Ramza? ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction X-Stats from Round One: - Leon - 24.44% (based on MacMillan = Frank West) - Riku - 19.21% (based on MacMillan = Frank West) - Dante - 22.77% (based on '07 Laharl) - Hogger - 11.45% (based on '07 Laharl) Yuck, what awful stats. There was nothing to base Siegfried or MacMillan on, so the only thing we can really get out of the first match is that Riku REALLY ought to have been able to hang closer with Leon and didn't have an excuse not to. The second result is a little more telling... yes Dante put up over 50%, but Hogger is pretty bad fodder and Laharl and Ramza were destroying each other all day in order to bring themselves down to his level. Surely Dante ought to be a LITTLE higher in the stats than is reflected above, but... probably not all that much higher. Leon had the more jaw-dropping performance of the two, which makes today's battle all the more intriguing. Let's start with Hogger just to get him out of the way quickly. Positive: he stands way way out in this picture. Negatives: everything else. Yes WoW rallying can have an impact, but as we saw in the Arthas match and other things like Mario/Warcraft, people don't care enough to vote unless the match is close enough where their rally effort is going to have an impact. Hogger is miles below the rest of this pack in natural strength, will never be in contention to place ahead of anyone past the first 15 minutes, and is going to flop mightily vs his R1 showing as a result. Next! Riku's just incredibly weird. Sora got an awful smoking pic yet still smoked Fox (which as Yoshi proved is no small feat!), then got a solid anime face shot and nearly bested Squall! Clearly KH is riding high in '08... except why then did Roxas and Riku fold like lawnchairs to Liquid and Leon? I have no idea, but despite how good New Square has performed in many spots to this point I just can't justify Dante allowing Riku to make up the 16% he'd need to catch Leon in this round. That being said, I'm going to have to be conservative and give him SOME credit- he's probably going to make up a good majority of that at least. That leaves us with Leon vs Dante, and it ought to be a no-brainer. After all, we saw this matchup only last year, and Dante put up 30% of the vote to Leon's mere 24%. As to that, I'm going to repeat my initial reaction at the time: "oh jeez, Leon looks AWFUL in that pic!" And he sure did! This time around he's right on par with Dante in terms of "cool factor", and I expect that to be worth plenty between guys so closely related in terms of character design. Also, there's been a sudden unexplainable (Umbrella Chronicles?) new trend called REFAQs taking hold of the site recently. Sure DMC4 sold well, but did anyone really love it? If they did, they sure didn't do a good job of showing it in that Nero match! In summary I'm expecting Leon to have a much better show of it in this matchup, and could perhaps, PERHAPS, even contend for the outright win! So if I'm keeping Leon pretty close to Dante, who in turn will be pretty close to Riku, who in term will decimate Hogger, we'd be looking at something along the lines of... \*gets out his pot and does some stirring\* - Dante - 32.25% - Leon Kennedy - 29.13% - Riku - 24.60% - Hogger - 14.02% That feels... pretty good, actually! Ngamer Says: **Dante \> Leon** ### Next Day Review Well, that was another entertaining match. Really awesome for those first few hours, but I'm surprised Leon wasn't able to use his GameCube (and now Wii as well) fanbase to stick closer with the Day vote. But eh, that's alright, the important thing is how much he improved on last year's showing, which should be enough to prove that was mostly just him looking goofy in the match pic. He won't have that problem in R3 thanks to our B8 artists taking the reigns, and there seems to be some real kind of REFAQs thing going on as well, but... heck, even so I'm not seeing any way for him to catch up to Kirby or the Chief. That's alright; I chalk this up as a strong season for him regardless. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3289&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=46) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=46) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Sonic the Hedgehog vs Sandbag vs Auron vs Sub-Zero 2008 _source: Sonic the Hedgehog vs Sandbag vs Auron vs Sub-Zero 2008 (revid 85831)_ ## Results **Round Two** Monday, November 3rd, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 8 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 47 - **Match Date:** Monday, November 3rd, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sonic the Hedgehog - 30.53% Auron - 29.59% Sandbag - 21.43% Sub-Zero - 18.51% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Auron first place (4pts) - 10.60% Auron second place (2pts) - 28.90% Sonic second place (4pts) - 15.47% Sonic first place (2pts) - 53.47% - **Advancing Prediction:** Auron - 39.50% (16,947) Sonic - 68.94% (29,577) Tohoya, The Real Truth, Terrafire, amyvitality, Zagro, Explicit Content, and Xuxon are the only gurus who picked Auron to get first place here. You guys are geniuses and get to be immortalized in PCA lore forever. Nice job, folks! Bizarrely, two of you went the extra mile and thought Sonic wouldn't even get second place -- Terrafire had Magus(?) in this spot, and TRT picked Sandbag. Doesn't make this insanely beautiful upset pick mean any less though, no worries. As for the match, I was there. I remember the hype. I remember all the people saying there was clear data Auron was a 4way all-star and had the chops to pull this off. I remember ignoring the litany of terrible matches Sonic has had since 2006. I remember looking at this match in 2007, shrugging it off, and thinking "nah, I'll be fine" like a Critical Drinker skit: And to this day, I still cannot believe this result actually happened. Like I'm sitting here looking at this thing in 2020, going "Did this actually happen? Did Auron seriously beat the tar out of Sonic in the year Brawl came out?" Yep. It's real. It actually happened. Props to everyone who called it, and props to everyone who hyped this thing up all contest. It shocked me when it happened and it still shocks me now to look at it all these years later. It wasn't just that Auron won; it was the way he won. After the freeze, this match was never even close. Auron just beat the shit out of the guy for 24 straight hours. You know those weird sports upsets where the underdog wins, but plays the entire game like they knew they were the better team the whole time, and even after it's over the fans are left scratching their heads? The 18-1 Super Bowl felt like that. The Magic randomly beating Lebon's Cavs that one year felt like that. The Pistons getting a gentlemen's sweep over the Lakers definitely fits the bill, and is probably the biggest example I can think of. That was what watching this match felt like for me. It was just like... what on earth was I even seeing? I know Auron boosted from Kingdom Hearts 2 and Sonic wasn't looking too great there in the mid-2000s, but this was something else. The Noble Nine very rarely loses to outsiders, so any loss is a big deal. A loss this decisive is just.... yeah. This was much deeper than one upset, almost as if Sonic fans were punishing the guy for having such a garbage series for so long. I'd bring up how this not being a 1v1 was highway robbery in terms of longstanding contest lore, but I've ranted enough on that subject for now. For all the WTF factor of Auron winning this match, Sonic still advanced anyway. Dumb. Last point. Sandbag was a bit of a dud. There was some fear he would pull an L-Block, but instead it was just one upset over a choke artist before bowing out in an easy last place. It was another data point in an increasing line of them that the joke factor, while still existent, would not be the end-al be-all of deciding this contest. The big names were all out for revenge. ## Stats and Analysis - Sandbag underperformed by **-6.28%**, the **\#6** most disappointing performance of 2008 - Auron overperformed by **+5.05%**, the **\#14** most impressive performance of 2008 This, to me, was probably one of the most enjoyable results of the contest. Partially because I had it in my bracket and argued the stew out of it, of course! - but also because of the validation that it meant for a character who has not only become one of my all time favorite characters, but a contest entrant who really deserved a chance to shine. Auron has always been a character who has straddled the line between upper-midcarder and near-elite. Now after the release of KH2 he's firmly on the side of the latter, but before then he's had to suffer some tough draws. Knocking down fodder before getting fed to Cloud and Sephiroth in 2003 and 2004 is pretty rough, and he got his big chance against Ganondorf in 2005... only to let his Villains Contest high and The Boost send him to a humiliatingly easy loss. Since then and the release of KH2, however, he's looked only better and better - pulling in a great number on Crono in 2006, and then a pair of dominating performances in 2007 before barely - barely - losing to Ryu in the face of Cloud SFF. Despite this, however, there have been some who have treated Auron like Dante - strong, sure, but never able to pull off a shocker against the big boys. Well, the writing was on the wall after his and Sonic's first round matches, and he would have absolutely no excuses if he wasn't able to pull the upset here. And Sonic, having looked AWFUL ever since his upset victory of Crono back in 2006, finally saw his bad performances catch up with him as Auron easily fought off his bracket vote, pushed ahead in the Power Hour, and essentially never looked back en route to a match Sonic was never even remotely in. The hype for this match and the payoff are pretty much the only things of note in this match, because Sonic's efforts were BORING. Heck, watching Sandbag fail and end up getting clobbered by Sub-Zero were more entertaining than the hedgehog, as it really threw into perspective exactly how pitiful Magus had been in the previous round. And with this result, a whole new line of conversation was opened - could Auron end up advancing AGAIN next round? Not too many entertained the idea, but Tifa holding up as well as she did last round gave some credence to the idea. It would have to be seen how well she would do the next day against Kratos. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction And now for maybe the most-discussed matchup of the round! Let's throw a couple hundred more words at it, shall we? X-Stats from Round One: - Sonic - 39.10% (based on Shepard = Marcus) - Sandbag - 31.61% (based on Shephard = Marcus) - Auron - 35.92% (based on '07 Marcus) - Sub-Zero - 29.09% (based on '07 Marcus) What terrible numbers! I guess I didn't want to base anything off that horrible showing by Magus last year, but it's clear Sonic and the Sandman should be way lower. Likewise you can't make a very good case for '08 Marcus... he was just not nearly the same character who surprised us a year ago, for some reason. With a fixed set you would surely see Auron entering the fray as a distinct favorite, I would think. Let's start with ol' Sandy eyes. He appeared to have confirmed himself as the one joke character who was going to perform like a joke about an hour into his match- the early joke push had been there to an extent, but Magus was soon killing him, and it got especially nasty once the NPH was over. But wow, what an ASV he came up with! Fortunately for our sanity, I can't see anything like that taking place again in this one... Sonic will be there to help limit his morning, and then both Auron and Sub-Zero are guys with respectable strength all through the day; a Magus-like collapse from either would be just unheard of. Since he'll be against three guys with pretty unique fanbases, all of whom look great in the pic (while he's got about the most bland image imaginable), I can't see the Bag maintaining his joke base as well as WCC did the other day- a slip from 25 to around 22 or 21 should be more likely. The bad new for Subby: even a Bag weakened that far will probably be too much for him to deal with. Yeah, the blue ninja held up well directly on Auron in R1, but I figure much of that is his ability soak of casual votes like a sponge, much like his partner in ninjadom, Hayabusa. Now that Sega fans and Smash fans have somewhere else to go with their votes, he probably loses a bit of ground versus Auron's more steadfast base, and as a result I have trouble seeing him stay out of the basement here. Which of course means that the real battle should be Auron versus Sonic- and I think it's going to be a true slugfest! On the one hand Sonic is pretty obviously the character with the greater natural strength. On the other, his whole Team has been just dreadful in this format two years running, New Square has been consistently solid and seems to have improved somewhat for '08, and worst of all, he's going to be splitting much of his newfound Smash support with that bag of sand over there. Perhaps I should be more cautious... after all, Squall looked all-world in R1 as well, and that didn't stop him from getting brought way back down in earth a few days ago. But come on, Smilin' Squall versus Winkin' Auron- there's just no comparison! Plus there no option remotely like Sora in this bunch for those on-the-fence Square supporters. - Auron - 29.39% - Sonic the Hedgehog - 29.21% - Sandbag - 22.03% - Sub-Zero - 19.38% That looks... just fine! Ngamer Says: **Auron \> Sonic** ### Next Day Review Uh oh, not alot of time for tonight's writeup because I spent most of it doing an Oracle prediction of the upcoming election. So let me just quickly say, hoooray for Auron! So good to see him finally be given a chance to knock around fodder before getting bounced out by Cloud/Sephiroth... this time he got to knock around a Noble Niner before that happened! Also it's obviously awesome to see the weakening joke trend continue, as Sandy couldn't even manage a real ASV and is going to be punked easily by Subby in this one. I still don't have much hope for Pika over the Block, but after a showing like this I think MM \> WCC once against becomes a good possibility, even with Zero trying to hold him back. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3290&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=47) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=47) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Sephiroth vs Tifa Lockheart vs Kratos vs Jill Valentine 2008 _source: Sephiroth vs Tifa Lockheart vs Kratos vs Jill Valentine 2008 (revid 85833)_ ## Results **Round Two** Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 8 Semi Final - **Match \#:** 48 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 39.57% Kratos - 24.49% Tifa Lockhart - 20.46% Jill Valentine - 15.58% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Sephiroth first place (4pts) - 81.65% Sephiroth second place (2pts) - 8.20% Kratos second place (4pts) - 43.57% Kratos first place (2pts) - 6.43% - **Advancing Prediction:** Sephiroth - 89.85% (38,548) Kratos - 50.00% (21,452) Round 2 concluded with a very easy to diagnose poll, which featured all Playstation characters and a predetermined order. Sephiroth was always going to get first. Tifa was always going to get SFFd to death and get screwed out of getting second place, though if you reran this poll in 2020 it's quite possible that wouldn't happen. Jill Valentine, unpredictable as she is, was probably not going to be strong enough to take advantage of the situation and finesse her way into second place. This left Kratos as the lucky odd man out for the second year in a row. In 2007 he took advantage of Kirby, L-Block, and Donkey Kong all stealing votes from each other. Here, he took advantage of Sephiroth, Jill, and Tifa all stealing votes from each other. Dad of Boy always knew how to make his mark! Also, I think Tifa gets hurt by the presence of Jill Valentine more than most people might think. They're both Playstation-era bombshells, which actually does matter. I wouldn't be at all shocked if there was massive overlap there. This concluded round 2 of our secondary 4way experiment, and it was starting to get pretty decent. I wouldn't say "good" given the format, but it was decent. We had some surprises, we had some bandwagons, we had some arguments... but above all, these vote totals were massive. People were really having a lot of fun this year, and a huge bit of it was coming up to lead off the divisional finals. ## Stats and Analysis Another year, another Kratos easily advancing in a debated match where his opponent was suffering from SFF. Didn't we have something more important to worry about in this match? \<\_\< Okay, okay - so while being overshadowed by the FAR superior poll (the election) going on at the same time as it, this was a pretty interesting match to follow. Kratos had put any murmurs of Ocelot upsetting him to rest by killing his fourpack (not that he needed to, thanks Jill), but Tifa had shocked the world by holding up to Seph better than anyone could have predicted. She was back in this thing, although there was one little problem here - Tifa had two VERY big assists helping her out in the last round, and being the face shot round she was more or less going to have to go on how \*snicker\* likable people found her. Secondly, instead of having an old man hanging on to Kratos' coattails, the unpredictable Jill Valentine was there. And having another lovely lady of the PSX certainly wasn't going to do Tifa any favors. And finally... it's Sephiroth. Who wants to rely on him doing the same thing twice? So past became prologue - Kratos sealed the fate the match's results as soon as he put up anything resembling a fight during the board vote. Tifa kept him within reach as best she could, and even ended up taking the lead briefly thanks to her killer night vote... but this is Kratos we're talking about. The casual day and ASV vote he feasts on is always a sight to behold, and a close match became a 5500 vote loss by the time everything was said and done. All in all it was a pretty standard result, though while it couldn't really tell us anything about the characters specifically it all but shut the door on Auron pulling a second miracle next round - Tifa needed to perform excellently (while still barely losing to Kratos) in order to give the upset any kind of hope. Instead, she got pushed over by Kratos while he got his face kicked in by Sephy. And while Sephiroth was no Cloud, Sonic, for his part, was no Ryu. (yet) And with that, we had the end of the second round! A good end match, the announcement of free-form pictures for the third round (aw yeah Snake), and Indiana going blue for the first time since 1964 were only a few of the highlights we got to enjoy on just that day alone. What could be better? Well, the easiest answer was what we learned the end of a round always gives way to: more Zack Attack! ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Alright, on to the last battle of the round. This one's got great potential! X-Stats from Round One - Sephiroth - 28.80% (based on '07 Ratchet) - Tifa - 21.67% (based on '07 Ratchet) - Kratos - 25.62% (based on '07 Ocelot) - Jill - 20.94% (based on '07 Ocelot) No time to discuss these stats! Why such potential? Well, if Seph once again forgets that he's 1/3 of Clinkeroth and barely hurts a character from his own game with SFF like we saw in R1, there's a very real possibility of Tifa advancing. However, if that realization suddenly dawns on him and he destroys Tifa like he ought to (and like he DID do to Vincent back in '07), then there's a very real possibility that Jill REFAQses her way past her into third. So the question of the match is, which Sephiroth will show up? Personally I'm banking on the later. Ratchet and Nana were horrible competition no matter how you look at it; Kratos and Jill aren't exactly Mario and Link, but they're at least decent options and so I'm expecting trends to return moreso to what we witnessed in the poll where VV got owned. Even so, I see the final percentages here being something where even though Tifa looks pretty bad, Seph doesn't exactly come out looking good, just on account of how his doing so would make some kind of sense, and Sephiroth doesn't roll that way. Sooo, does this mean Jill will be able to catch up to Tifa? Nay, sorry, still don't see it. She and Leon and Chris have already done more than enough to distinguish themselves this season by going well beyond our expectations; should be fun to see them in action again in '09, assuming RE5 is as big a hit as many are predicting. If Jill were a bigger Day Vote threat I'd have to consider the upset more seriously, but as is I can't see her making a real game of it. That leaves us with Kratos, who frankly I'm fairly hesitant to put much faith in... Sure he looked good in R1, but I get the impression that he's one of those guys like Hayabusa or Altair or (apparently) Mewtwo- capable of soaking up enough casual indifference vote to wow us in the early rounds, but who voters will abandon in droves as soon as other legit options are delivered. Plus if there's one thing that's sure to hurt a Playstation star it's the introduction of a compelling Final Fantasy 7 option. But... eh, I still see him doing well enough in the day to put this advancement out of Tifa's reach. Plus he's sporting full-on Banner Factor in that pic, which never hurts! So Seph \>\>\> Kratos \> Tifa \> Jill, which if stirred in a pot for five minutes will result in something along the lines of - Sephiroth - 38.06% - Kratos (God of War) - 24.71% - Tifa Lockheart - 20.68% - Jill Valentine - 16.55% Hmm, that's a decent bit of Jill faith. Come on REFAQs, pull this out for me! Ngamer Says: **Sephiroth \> Kratos** ### Next Day Review This ended up being pretty well-timed... not much to keep an eye on in this match (aside from Tifa taking the lead for a brief while during Europe's voting, but we all knew that wouldn't last), but that was just fine because we had that OTHER popularity poll to follow along with tonight. Just quickly I'll say that I'm a little miffed at Jill for not maintaining more of her base, but ah well, still a great season for her regardless. And I'm also miffed at Seph for not doing what I expected, and instead performing up to expectations. Arg, even when I bet against common sense in the hopes of nailing down his unpredictable nature I still can't peg him! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3291&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=48) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=48) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Link vs Zack Fair vs Duke Nukem vs Altair 2008 _source: Link vs Zack Fair vs Duke Nukem vs Altair 2008 (revid 85834)_ ## Results **Round Three** Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 1 Final - **Match \#:** 49 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 47.22% Zack Fair - 22.58% Duke Nukem - 15.87% Altair - 14.52% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Link first place (8pts) - 78.03% Link second place (4pts) - 6.77% Zack second place (8pts) - 6.96% Zack first place (4pts) - 6.40% - **Advancing Prediction:** Link - 84.80% (36,382) Zack - 13.36% (5,732) Before we get to the obvious, the number Link got here is completely asinine. Breaking 50% in a 4way poll this late into a contest, against competition that all advanced twice, is almost impossible. This dude was on an absolute warpath in this contest, and nothing on God's green earth was stopping him. The vote total itself is also absurd. In most of Link's 1v1 matches, he hasn't gotten close to 74,000 votes. Here he was dropping 74k like it was a warmup. I know people are bored of Link, but some of the numbers he gets are a marvel to watch. But that's all well and cute. All that actually mattered in this poll was... Zack. F. A. Qs. Zack is one of the most fun bandwagons we've ever had in a contest, because he has the rare distinction of being liked by everyone. Board 8 loves the guy. JRPG fans love the guy. Bandwagon rally contest people love the guy. It was just a big lovefest with no arguing or anti-bandwagon blowback, and it was just so fun to be there. Zack is so popular despite his small bit role in FF7 that he got his own spinoff game. The game was gutter trash, but still! He got one! It led to people going total fangirl during this match, even though it was fairly predictable when we saw the layout. Duke Nukem's run was fun, but him even being here counts as a win for the guy. Hell, him not being last place here counts as a moral victory. This is the only contest Duke has made round 3 in, and even in getting destroyed by the Link/Zack combo, he got to look respectable on his way out. Shout out to Duke and his run; he is definitely one of the stars of the contest. Altair gets similar love, even finishing in last. We've seen new characters in contests make some terrible debuts, but that didn't happen this year. He represented the gurus well, even with this exit. A third round run is always respectable, regardless of competition, but every character but one was going to lose eventually. Altair would go down as one of the most successful guru nominations ever, topped only by Black Turtle's X vs Zero nomination in the (ugh) Rivalry Rumble. All that said, all anyone cared about here was ZackFAQs running wild, and to say people's imaginations were also running wild is an understatement. There was a loooooot of potential fanbase leeching from Nintendo's heavy hitters moving forward, and we've seen crazier things happen. Who knew how far Zack could go? ## Stats and Analysis - Zack Fair advancing was the **\#5** most surprising result of 2008 - Zack Fair advancing was also the **\#22** most surprising result of all-time - Link overperformed by **+4.30%**, the **\#20** most impressive performance of 2008 After the excitement of the previous day (\<\_\<), we needed a breather - and while it's hard to NOT get all hot and bothered when Mr. UNfair is involved in a match, he did his best to oblige. In all seriousness, this match was pretty much a gimme - Altair was going to need to perform significantly stronger than Duke to even give Zack a run here, and seeing as how he couldn't pull that off LAST round there was no way that was happening with Link sapping every drop of that casual appeal. Anyway, Zack tore a nice percentage into Link as per last time, but without Nintendo and pseudo-Nintendo holding him back Link really swung for the fences. It's not like Duke and Altair are anything special, but they just got absolutely fodderized here. Link was looking more like Link 2k6 than Link 2k7, and seeing as how Mario got his face pounded in by the former it was going to be one tough number awaiting the plumber once he advanced next round. Though against MMX or Zack (or even Liquid!), no one could say. It was also cool to see that our freeform pictures got off to a pretty awesome start as well. I'm of the opinion that we need to go back to one picture a match the whole way through a la 2k2/2k3 - some of these things were WAY too gimmicky - but if you do something, may as well go all the way. Round 1 multiple freeform pics, anyone? \<\_\< ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction And this election has robbed me of my time, so let's hurry on to X-Stats from Round Two Don't have them! I have to set up my spreadsheet to cover the R2 results once election fever is over. So let's rush on to - Link: he one-upped Cloud in R1, but his eternal rival showed him up in R2; I see the mean green machine being out to revenge in this one and looking to toss out a stunning percentage of his own. without anything Nintendo to limit his damage, watch out for Link tonight! - Zack: should look very solid as well; this is tougher competition than last round, and yet he might very well do the almost unheard of and increase his percentage now that Zidane's out of the way. I think he powers past these others in style, number 1 because Square's looked good, number 2 because Square always brings its A game against big Nintendo, and number 3 because these other guys are kind of chumps! - Duke: alright alright, so he's clearly not the same Duke we'd seen in years past, but still, there's a world of difference between not collapsing under Nintendo when it's being represented by Marth/Lucario and when it's being represented by LINK. I think this is finally the time for him to wilt under pressure as he did in R2 last season... but even so, Altair probably flops harder! - Altair: prime casual bait right here. congrats on surviving Marth, I guess (though I still don't think you'd have done it in a legit match without Lucario there wrecking him), but now that he's running into the teeth of the combined casual appeal of Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy 7 it's going to take more than an appealing character design to save him. Altair for last, though he can still probably at least take a run at Duke during the ASV. And converting those thoughts to numbers, potting and stirring should yield a result like: - Link - 47.92% - Zack Fair - 23.47% - Duke Nukem - 14.45% - Altair - 14.16% That looks... rushed! Ngamer Says: **Link \> Zack** ### Next Day Review Yesssss, now here's the Character Battle I love to see. Cloud and Link playing an interstellar game of HORSE- "match this!" "no, you match THIS!" Ah, just like old times! No matter how you slice it, Link holds the upper hand in the '08 version of their rivalry so far thanks to this performance- I'm seeing Oracles for him at 45, 46, 47... to barely fall under 50% all day is truly astounding. Oh, and Zack is once again putting on a very nice show of his own. Assuming Liquid doesn't crash the party, we could be in for one heck of a threeway between Mario and X and himself, something I never thought I'd find myself saying two months back. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3292&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=49) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=49) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Liquid Snake vs Luigi vs Mario vs Mega Man X 2008 _source: Liquid Snake vs Luigi vs Mario vs Mega Man X 2008 (revid 85835)_ ## Results **Round Three** Thursday, November 6th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 2 Final - **Match \#:** 50 - **Match Date:** Thursday, November 6th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Mario - 30.52% Mega Man X - 30.02% Liquid Snake - 23.40% Luigi - 16.35% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Mario first place (8pts) - 45.10% Mario second place (4pts) - 25.76% Mega Man X second place (8pts) - 13.46% Mega Man X first place (4pts) - 3.44% - **Advancing Prediction:** Mario - 70.86% (30,401) Mega Man X - 16.90% (7,251) This is the only contest poll to ever feature Mario vs Luigi in any way. Hopefully it doesn't happen again, because this one shows us that Luigi will just get SFFd into the ground when he faces his big bro. There was a lot of hype leading into this match, because the conventional wisdom is that Luigi being here offered the potential to screw Mario over. Mega Man X came dangerously close to beat Mario in round 2, and that poll had Zelda and Mudkip in it. Add in the possibility of Liquid being the only non-Nintendo character, and people thought it was a recipe for wild upsets. We should have known it wouldn't pan out that way. Of course Mario is going to do better if the Nintendo vote is split three ways instead of four. We overthink these things way too often, and this is one of those times. Add in the clear and obvious fact that Mario directly benefits when a joke character is removed (just look at the match trends for the round 2 Mudkip match), and you were left with Mario doing much better here in the divisional finals. That said, Mega Man X made a real go at it early in this match, proving he definitely belongs in the near-elite conversation. Mario won early, but not in total blowout fashion. He did have Luigi stealing some votes, after all. And Mega Man X, at least for the first few hours in this match, wasn't harmed by Nintendo at all. Shortly after Mario built up a 200 vote lead, X came storming back. He was unable to breach the 50 vote barrier however, and Mario quickly put this thing to bed. Still, Mega Man X came out of this match looking like roses, and was so impressive in getting second place that Liquid never stood a chance. Liquid did well in getting this far, but Water Snek (he attac, he protec, but most importantly, he snek) was not on the level. This all culminated in setting up one of the most hyped matches of the entire contest. Link, Zack, Mario, and Mega Man X. You can imagine where the hype men were focused for that one. ## Stats and Analysis - Mega Man X advancing was the **\#6** most surprising result of 2008 As heavily anticipated as this match was - would Mario, having barely eked out a win with Zelda and Mudkip pulling him down, lose to Mega Man X with Luigi hampering him? Could he lose to Liquid? - the excitement was over within the first update or so. While it seems odd to think that Zelda hurts Mario more than Luigi does, her own natural strength (and the fact that there was a whole 'nother character that, joke or not, is Nintendo at heart) is something that Luigi just doesn't have on his own. Mario was definitely hurting, but this time he never really let X in the match and, once those first four hours were over, cruised on to an easy and decisive victory. Liquid did pretty well for himself considering the overwhelming competition (going from 24% on Seph to 22% on Mario, Luigi, and Mega Man X), but there becomes a point when other characters' natural strengths just become too much for a character that would have killed to just been called a respectable midcarder a year ago. The real point of interest I found here was Luigi's performance. I've always been of the opinion that Player Two would just get pulverized against the superior brother, and while he didn't exactly make any waves here, 16% ain't that. Not to mention that despite pulling that number down while being weaker than Zelda and more connected to Mario, Mario ended up winning EASIER than before. Luigi'd probably pull down the same or better percentage that Bowser did in 2004, and seeing as how hero-sidekick SFF should be much more brutal than hero-villain SFF, that's saying something. What, I'm not sure, but to me Luigi's most impressive match came here in his loss. The same thing would be true of Mario - this would easily be his most impressive match of this contest. Which means, of course, that very bad things awaited the plumber in the matches to come. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Speaking of Liquid, let's see if he'll have any real chance to ruin that threeway, starting with some stats! X-Stats from Round Two ...nope, still don't have them! But shortly, dude. Shortly. Kind of weird circumstances whereby the real question of this match isn't how Liquid compares to X or X compares to Mario, but instead how Luigi compares to Zelda. With that Princess in the mix Mario very nearly embarrassed himself by tripping up against MMX. The good news for the plumber is that there's no way Luigi manages 20% of the vote like Zelda shocked us by doing. The BAD news is, you'd have to imagine Mr. L hurts his big brother much moreso than Zelda did, at least proportionally to Mega Man X. That means Mario's only hope for an outright victory would be to ground and pound Luigi right out of the gate, leaving him beaten down far enough to not mess up the morning vote he needed to power past X last time around. So, will he be able to pull it off? My money's on... No! Nothing against Mario, but Luigi's been making serious strides ever since '05, and with the way he has held up against solid Nintendo competition in Kirby and Ganon and Bowser, I'm starting to put more faith in those Mario character polls that list him right near the top of the series' food chain. Now naturally Mario is still going to make him look bad, but I think the Player Two appeal will be enough the Bros. shared fanbase beyond where Zelda took it, and that ought to be just enough to allow MMX and his awesome character design to sneak through for the win. Now, we know Liquid eats Nintendo LFF alive, and we know Luigi's going to be taking a bite out of the company's flagship... might he also have a chance at the upset? Nay! That 30% was nice, but there's a world of difference when you sub out Bowser for Mario and PW for MMX, and considering how he'd probably need something pretty darn close to that R2 percentage in order to advance, I don't see the Blue Bomber or the Red Plumber being in any real danger during these upcoming 24 hours. Alright, so if Mr. M and Mr. X engage in another slugfest while This Arm hangs around looking respectable and Mr. L gets pretty beat up, that would probably come out something like... \*ponders, pots, and stirs\* - Mega Man X - 31.07% - Mario - 30.97% - Liquid Snake - 22.92% - Luigi - 15.04% That looks... pretty shaky. But I don't know which way to lean, so that's understandable! Ngamer Says: **MMX \> Mario** ### Next Day Review Ugh, really disappointed in myself for last night. I knew I was being foolish by discounting Mudkip's impact on Mario's R2 performance, but I chose to ignore that factor in favor of supporting my bracket and its MMX upset pick. Yeah, Mario has really redeemed himself with this performance, and I was a fool to not see it coming... oh well, I'll make it up to him by taking him over MMX and Zack next time around! The crazy thing though is, check this out, the Mario Bros are pulling down 49% of the vote today! If you'd told me that Mario would be finishing close to 33% in this one I'd have assumed that meant he'd squashed his little brother down out of the teens; very impressive to accomplish this despite L holding on so well. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3293&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=50) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=50) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Samus Aran vs Ganondorf vs Vincent Valentine vs Gordon Freeman 2008 _source: Samus Aran vs Ganondorf vs Vincent Valentine vs Gordon Freeman 2008 (revid 85836)_ ## Results **Round Three** Friday, November 7th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 3 Final - **Match \#:** 51 - **Match Date:** Friday, November 7th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Samus Aran - 33.12% Vincent Valentine - 30.40% Ganondorf - 19.47% Gordon Freeman - 17.16% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Samus first place (8pts) - 54.54% Samus second place (4pts) - 13.09% Vincent second place (8pts) - 26.31% Vincent first place (4pts) - 8.13% - **Advancing Prediction:** Samus - 67.63% (29,015) Vincent - 34.44% (14,776) Hey, so remember this match? That's real. It actually happened. It was only two years before the match we're about to talk about, too. Remember this match? That was only three years ago. A couple matches ago, we talked about Duke Nukem going out like a winner. In this match, Gordon Freeman got to go out like a winner -- and that's because Ganondorf got so thoroughly demolished that Gordon Freeman actually managed to not finish in last place. Gordon Freeman Always Wins! This was an all-time terrible match for Ganondorf, though it isn't the first time we've seen him just get demolished by Nintendo in odd circumstances. There was the famous match against Link in 2004 where he got totally embarrassed, and here Samus was to show that 2005 was a fluke. All we needed really was the third member of the trinity, Mario, to do the same at some point. And he would get his chance in 2013, oddly enough. ...oh Anyway, this was just Samus and Vincent flexing a ton of muscle. Samus was doing her usual thing where she destroys everyone until the top half of the Noble Nine came along, and Vincent was getting ready for the much-anticipated Crono rematch. All systems go at this point. ## Stats and Analysis - Vincent advancing was the **\#19** most surprising result of 2008 Someone has got to tell me when the VV disrespect is going to end. Only 35% had him escaping \*this\* division? (68% for SMAUS isn't exactly stellar, either) And it's nice to see some other Samus picture making an appearance, even if it's a photoshop. Picmakers have been positively petrified of changing her up much ever since that Tifa match. Now if only we could do something about that insufferable Vincent DoC model... This was something we all knew was going to happen - Samus and Vincent advancing. What we weren't exactly sure on was the exact order. Samus is much more popular than Vincent here, but that gap closes a lot when you've got a weight like SFF bringing you down a couple dozen notches on the totem pole. And this wasn't just any SFF, now - this was Zelda. We'd seen Zelda herself cause MARIO to nearly lose to a carbon copy of the biggest has-been Noble Niner ever. We'd seen Midna \*somehow\* turn the once thought "unSFFable" God of Pokemon into the same fodderline level as she. But the King of Evil is THE biggest leech Zelda has, and we all know it. Link proved it in 2004, and the cracks (along with a nice pic assist) came to fruition with a humiliation at the hands of Luigi in 2007. But still, a big Zelda leech is still ZELDA. And this was still Samus, she of the METROID pedigree. We'd seen Zelda herself put up nearly as much on Samus as Solid Snake did, surely Ganon could hold it together for a measly 20% or so? Chyeah, right. Ganondorf started this match firmly behind Gordon Freeman, and simply never recovered. The once-biggest laughing stock of the entire contests finally got all the payback he wanted and then some, as for 24 glorious hours he cruised to an easy victory that was never really in question against the King of Evil. As for the 'dorf, he hit a new low, and has reversed some once unquestionable conventional wisdom - I'm pretty sure the majority of the board sides with Zelda in a match between the two now, directly and indirectly. Such is the fate of our (second) most touted Noble Nine breaker... Oh, the ACTUAL match. Well, with Ganondorf's flop, Samus cruised along to a win that was closer than it should have been, but never in doubt. Vincent tried to do something during the night, but this was over in the first handful of minutes. The only thing to do was TRY to gauge this match in the face of the SFF being thrown around, and then see how Vincent was going to stack up for his Crono rematch. But of course, then there was L-Block, which kind of made it all feel fruitless... (for one more day) ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Let's move on to a brand new match where I'll be able to either... trust Nintendo, OR continue backing my bracket. Again. D'oh! X-Stats from Round Two - Samus - 30.55% (based on Frog '07) - Ganon - 23.21% (based on Frog '07) - Vincent - 41.67% (based on Scorpion '07) - Gordon - 31.62% (based on Scorpion '07) Look out Samus, Freeman's gunnin for you! But seriously folks... CT has clearly risen, so I don't buy Frog still being at the fodder line as he was last year, and Scorpion was very obviously a shadow of his former self in that matchup, so VV and GF need a solid drop. Even so, it's hard to argue that Valentine looked like the strongest character out of the group just based on their showings in that round. Let's start with the Last Free Man. Kudos to him for a very surprising, very enjoyable run this season, but it ends here, and in fact I don't see any way for him to stay out of the basement. His more dedicated fanbase ought to allow him to outperform Duke's ~15% from the day before, and I'm expecting Nintendo fans to jump ship to Samus moreso this time around since she'll be trying to fight out Vincent, but there's no way she pushes Ganon down far enough for Gordon to give him a serious run. Then again, I've been betting against Freeman all season long, and look how well its worked out for me so far... I still hold to the unpopular opinion that Ganon could give Vincent a decently interesting run for his money 1v1, but this format does wonders for fan favorites like Auron and VV and so the King of Evil would have no shot at second place tomorrow, even assuming Samus wouldn't be around to damage his Nintendo appeal. Oh well, better than going out looking like a total pig, '07-style! The true battle is going to be between Samus and Vincent, and I think it will provide us with some real fireworks! Now I've been saying all season how good Samus is in this format, how she even held up well against Link, how she beat MM despite a major pic disadvantage, how her appealing design can keep her in matches even if the rest of the company is disappointing. So why would I bet against her now? The Legend of Zelda, that's why. In terms of intrinsic strength in this format, the gap between Mario and MMX is probably pretty similar to the one between Samus and Vincent. Yet when Mario (a guy many have called "The King of SFF") ran up against Zelda he ran up against an immovable object- the strength of the LoZ fanbase on this site refuses to let their series fold. Heck, even Cloud and Mewtwo found this out to some extent, and Midna is miles apart from Ganondorf! That's why I see Samus being between a rock and a hard place in this one. New Square has looked very good, Vincent is going to bring the heat as soon as the Power Hour comes to a close, and she's going to need to start stealing percentage from the Zelda fanbase in order to not get buried during the overnight... which I don't think she can do. Ganon probably sticks a little above that 20% mark that Zelda clung to last time around, which means Samus is only going to be able to reach the low 30s, a position that will leave her very much in play for a guy with independent, NN-breaking strength like VV. So if Vincent gets a large enough lead on Sammy during the dead hours to withstand her morning vote and come back for an SNV victory, and Ganon holds serve with the Zelda base and Gordon's strong base continues to stick with him, we'll see something close to \*gets out the pot, stirs a bit\* - Vincent Valentine - 31.62% - Samus Aran - 31.48% - Ganondorf - 20.93% - Gordon Freeman - 15.97% That looks... pretty respectable, actually! Ngamer Says: **Vincent \> Samus** ### Next Day Review RAGE. That's twice in a row where I've picked with my bracket instead of with my head. THIS time around, though, I'm placing the blame for my failure firmly on Ganon's head. This is SAMUS, not Mario or Link- how do you crumble to her like a total chump after watching Zelda and Midna hold up so well to better competition the last two rounds? If he'd just not made a complete fool of himself and pulled down the 21% that I wanted this match could have been right back into that tossup range where I felt good about taking a flier on Vince. Ugh. In other news, what the junk Gordon- how do you fall from 24 to only 18 when swapping out Scorpion and Falco for Samus and Ganon? I knew your fanbase was hardcore, but that's just nuts! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3294&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=51) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=51) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Crono vs L-Block vs Pikachu vs Alucard 2008 _source: Crono vs L-Block vs Pikachu vs Alucard 2008 (revid 85837)_ ## Results **Round Three** Saturday, November 8th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 4 Final - **Match \#:** 52 - **Match Date:** Saturday, November 8th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Crono - 31.38% L-Block - 27.53% Pikachu - 22.92% Alucard - 18.44% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Crono first place (8pts) - 31.88% Crono second place (4pts) - 11.97% Pikachu second place (8pts) - 19.80% Pikachu first place (4pts) - 5.47% - **Advancing Prediction:** Crono - 43.85% (18,813) Pikachu - 25.27% (10,842) Save_Us.RAT Apparently this all was just a part of The Plan™. Alucard brought Pikachu here to finish the job, and that job was booting L-Block out of this contest. Crono getting first and Alucard getting last was pretty much expected, though with L-Block involved who knew if a crazy bandwagon would boost him into first or not. If you look at this match in 2020, you'll think to yourself "well derp, of course Pikachu was going to win, what's the problem?". To understand how silly this actually was, there are two things to consider. One was L-Block's 2007 run, which everyone knows already. The other is that Pokemon used to be legitimately despised on GameFAQs. Just for fun, I'm pulling up every match Pokemon had up until 2006. That's the entire list. I was there for all of it, and Pokemon anti-votes most definitely used to be a thing. It's a huge reason people picked Fox in 2003. It was a huge reason people picked Xenogears in 2004. No Pokemon even made the field in the 2004 or 2005 character contests. Pokemon getting close to Metroid in the series contest was seen as flabbergasting, and it was the first remote hint that the worm was turning. Fast forward to 2007. Pokemon looked... okay. Bidoof and Mudkip both got into round 2, but that was mainly due to joke votes. Mewtwo bombed completely. Pikachu made a deep run, but a lot of people felt he got lucky and credited the sprite and thought (erroneously) that Dante and Leon Kennedy leeched each other. Even as late as 2007, Pokemon anti-voting was still a thing. The hype around this match was palpable, but then again so is the hype around every "joke character" match. This was a little different, though. The warning signs were all there that perhaps this wasn't the same L-Block as last year. That perhaps those rooting for him to lose so we could get an airquotes legitimate contest winner would get what they wanted. Boy did they ever. In pro wrestling (yes I make a lot of meme, sports, gaming and wrestling comparisons, shut up), there is something called a double turn, where the good guy and the bad guy switch places during a match. If you get two extremely talented people doing it, like Bret Hart and Steve Austin, you get the best double turn in the history of the business. That doesn't really apply here though, since Bret actually won the match where that double turn happened. People were rooting for Austin, but he still lost. As such, you get the best possible comparison for this match: Vince = Crono Pikachu = Steve Austin L-Block = Kurt Angle Ric Flair = Alucard Believe it or not, Kurt Angle was the hero the night before. He turned on the (ugh) Alliance and prevented a hostile takeover. Steve Austin, who has been incorrectly booked as a heel for way too long, was the guy that got screwed over. The night after, fans were over it. They never really wanted to cheer for Kurt Angle. They never wanted to boo Austin. So the night after Survivor Series where WWF won, they did a perfect double turn involving Ric Flair, who much like Alucard, always had The Plan™. By the end of that segment, Austin was back to being the top babyface, Kurt Angle was being booed out of the building, and the fans got what they were secretly rooting for all along. It's exactly what happened in this match. 2007 was great and all and we all had our fun, but anti L-Block sentiment was building up little by little over time, culminating in this match. Conversely, Pokemon was finally shedding the stigma of anti-votes. You could practically feel this coming a mile away, because no one really wanted L-Block to win again. No one really hates Pokemon anymore. Some people don't like it, but they don't actively hate it. It all culminated in a wild celebration on Board 8, much like how the fans in Charlotte lost their minds that night. L-Block had his early joke vote, but Crono was well ahead in first place and Pikachu was tied with him. That's when the double turn happened. Suddenly almost everyone was cheering for Pikachu to pull this thing off, regardless of what they might have had in their bracket. When you get people cheering against their own interests -- Undertale, Vivi \> Mario, Knuckles \> Magus, Sonic \> Crono, et al -- you get these amazing matches. Pikachu and L-Block stayed tied for a few hours overnight, and then.... it finally happened. L-Block choked. Pikachu pounced. By the time the morning vote was in full swing, this was all over barring an absurd rally. This was arguably the most important result of the entire contest. It showed these crazy rallies do in fact have a ceiling, it was the Pokemon face turn on our web site, and it all but closed the door on a joke character winning the contest this year outside of Weighted Companion Cube and Zack, the latter of which would have Link to deal with in every single match. It also ensured our other match of the contest, which was the long waited rematch between Crono and Vincent. There was some fear here Crono might choke and rob us of our fun, but it was not to be. All that was left to do was to finally let those two destroy each other. ## Stats and Analysis - Pikachu advancing was the **\#12** most surprising result of 2008 - Pikachu overperformed by **+4.08%**, the **\#23** most impressive performance of 2008 Alucard was a bit out of his league, and there's Crono SFF'ing him into the floor. Everyone knew Crono was going to get first, and Alucard last, but the tango between Pikachu and L-Block wasn't so easy to guess. After the initial smackdown that occurred between the Pokemon and the Tetris piece, it was pretty clear that Crono \> Pikachu was set in stone for the rest of the day, even if the block looked to be within pixels of the pokemon. L-Block dipped just a few percentage points from its normal value, but that turned out to be its undoing. This came totally out of the blue, and can't easily be explained, but it definitely involved a large antipathy vote against the Character Battle VI champion. Pikachu acted as the tool to remove L-Block. Another possibility is an SFF phenomenon, in which a chunk of L-Block supporters voted for Pikachu instead--perhaps these were people who played Pokemon Yellow. In any case, L-Block's percentage over 24 hours always followed a sort of flipped square root curve, whereas Pikachu often hits a minimum percentage right around three or four hours into the match and goes generally uphill from there, with maybe one other valley. When L-Block is going down, Pikachu is going up, and the mouse is already urinating on the bunch of squares in placing, there's no question as to how it will end. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Oh well, at least I won't be able to continue killing my preds with bracket favoritism tonight, since I had Ryu advancing out of this one. Let's do a quick check to see if there's any real shot of killing off that L joke in the next 25 hours, shall we? X-Stats from Round Two - Crono - 32.90% (based on '07 Ryu) - L-Block - 30.51% (based on '07 Ryu) - Pikachu - 20.38% (based on '07 Arthas) - Alucard - 20.02% (based on '07 Arthas) The Crono and Block numbers look okay, which makes sense since Ryu is Mr. Consistency, after all. The Pika/Aly stuff is way off due to Diablo hurting Arthas so badly last year, but eh, we should keep in mind that Pika wasn't going to look good in any numbers so far this season regardless thanks to Ike and then Falcon holding him back. The King of all Pokemon gets to unleash his full Nintendo potential tonight... but will it be enough? Let's start with Alucard. I sure hope he amended his Plan for this season to mention getting bumped off in a match where he's never remotely in contention for getting out of the basement, because that's all he'll be able to accomplish here. Oh well, at least he increased his Contest stock this season by easily outclassing Arthas and going toe to toe with an LFFed Pikachu; he's a vet that's still well worth seeing in these brackets, so no shame in that. Moving on to Crono, a guy I continue to gain confidence in every day. With Ryu out of the way and the older SNES-loving voters most likely swinging his way, I don't think the CT star should have any problem increasing his margin of victory over the Block. With the way Vincent dropped the ball today, I could easily see Crono impressing us enough tonight to set himself up as a slight favorite in the long-awaited R4 rematch between the Square stars. But will that rematch actually mean anything, or is L-Block going to rain on the parade and turn it into a "just for pride" third place battle? That all depends on Pika riding Nintendo's recent wave of good performances to a second straight season of shocking bracket advancements. Can he do it? Short answer: no. Long answer: I give the electric rat a ton of credit in this format... he's been held back by Ike and Falcon and Luigi and triple RPG LFF, but the one time he was given free reign to flex his muscles he shocked the world by pounding Dante and Leon straight up. Part of that was his surely his classic R/B/Y sprite coming into play, but hey, he's once again rocking that baby in a few pics for tomorrow, so I'm certainly expecting to see a Pikachu closer to peak strength than we've ever seen since that infamous '07 result. So why can't I pick him? For one, Alucard (like Ammy before him) is a legit character with a pretty diehard fanbase, so he isn't going to shrivel up and die tomorrow, which will leave fewer non-joke votes to go around for Crono and Pika. And for two, the match pictures for this round are ridic. A Tetris piece at a presidential debate, wearing a tie behind a podium? If that doesn't scream "lol support the joke vote!" I don't know what does. I think part of the reason for L's growing success in '07 was the internet rallying behind him as he went along, certainly, but that another significant portion of his strength came from looking so silly as the pictures got more dramatic. Like remember Mt. Rushmore, with the "faces" of Link/Cloud/Snake/L carved in? That's the kind of stuff that I'd imagine does a joke character wonders. Alright, so with Crono looking good but L refusing to fold to Pika, while Alucard holds up decently well, we get something along the lines of... \*stirs after potting for a bit\* - Crono - 32.07% - L-Block - 26.95% - Pikachu - 24.04% - Alucard - 16.94% Alright Nintendo, bet against you two days in a row... time to prove me right with another good showing today! Ngamer Says: **Crono \> L-Block** ### Next Day Review Yes. Yes. YES! The King is Dead! WCC can go right ahead and make it to the finals and kill off my bracket in the process and I wouldn't even mind at this point, because... what a fantastic result today! To get the Block knocked out at any time would have been great, but for it to happen like this, with another miracle third round result for The Little Rat that Could when we were once again all counting him out... just wow! By far the most pleased I've been with any result in many a year. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3295&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=52) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=52) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Mega Man vs Weighted Companion Cube vs Solid Snake vs Zero 2008 _source: Mega Man vs Weighted Companion Cube vs Solid Snake vs Zero 2008 (revid 85838)_ ## Results **Round Three** Sunday, November 9th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 5 Final - **Match \#:** 53 - **Match Date:** Sunday, November 9th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Solid Snake - 35.24% Mega Man - 25.68% Weighted Companion Cube - 23.96% Zero - 15.32% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Snake first place (8pts) - 38.40% Snake second place (4pts) - 37.75% Cube second place (8pts) - 5.84% Cube first place (4pts) - 15.30% - **Advancing Prediction:** Snake - 76.15% (32,671) Cube - 21.14% (9,070) Board 8 is a very fickle group. One day after losing their shit in elation with L-Block losing, a lot of you guys were cheering for the Weighted Companion Cube to pull off a crazy upset here. Obviously this never would have happened if Zero, of all people, wasn't also in the poll, but that's the breaks in a format like this. Replace Zero with almost any other character in this contest, and Snake + Mega Man walk into the quarterfinals. As-is, Mega Man almost managed to scrape by even with Zero in the poll. Solid Snake was on a whole other level in this contest, and when the poll started he just flew off into first place. Snake is the only character that had to be in four matches against L-Block in 2007, so he had a little bit of practice in dealing with rallied inanimate objects. You basically have to put them down ASAP, or they become unstoppable. That's what we saw from Snake, as well as a lot of other heavy hitters, in this contest. The upper half of the Noble Nine, Snake included, was all business this contest. They were not dicking around, which is why they looked so good right from the jump. The bottom half, not so much. Sonic showed his cracks in round 2, and Mega Man just straight up failed to place in this one. Zero or no, Mega Man was the only Noble Nine character that didn't get out of their division this contest. It's just a brutal, embarrassing loss. I know we all love the Cube and all, but all love Mega Man too and it would have been nice if this had happened to someone else. Worse still is how close it was. Board 8 loves the Cube and all, but they love Mega Man. They had a feeling what was coming with Zero being in this poll, and voted accordingly. Mega Man built up a small lead early, and then with the first update after the freeze he went up again. All looked good, but then... the wheels came off. Cube erased the lead almost instantly, the two stayed tied for awhile, and then Cube started building up a lead overnight. He got a lead close to 300 at one point, and people assumed the match was done. After all, it's very difficult to come back when a character who so closely has your fanbase is in the poll with you. But Mega Man was determined to go down like a champ. He's the robot master, after all! This dude has been fighting things like the Weighted Companion Cube since 1987! Mega Man, lovable beast that he is, fought against the European trends and the joke trends to come back, caught a little bit of morning vote, and erased that entire 300 vote lead Cube had by breakfast. He kept the momentum going, built up a lead of his own, and before anyone knew it Mega Man had a 250 vote lead of his own. But the Cube once again started to stall and fight back, and unlike the beginning of poll where these two had a good tug-of-war going, Cube brought help. Cube slowly shaved votes off the lead at first, but once he got it down to 150 or so, he rallied. It wasn't as blatant of a rally as Master Chief used, but it was a rally nonetheless and it worked. If you look on the graph here on the wiki page, you'll see a big blue mountain in the middle. That's the rally that ultimately decided this match. Cube swung more than 400 votes in no time at all, and after one last attempt by Mega Man to hold on to this thing, he finally ran out of gas. Cube slowly (very slowly) climbed up to 450, and held on for dear life for the rest of the match in hopes we wouldn't throw him into the incinerator. But Mega Man, fuckin champ that this little guy is, gave one last push at the very end. He was down by just under 400 with just over an hour to go. He gave one final push the rest of the way, but he just.... ran out of time. Ran out of real estate. No more votes. Final margin 238. It led to a lot of complaining, but let's be real here. Zero cost Mega Man this match. It's an easy win otherwise. Cube and Snake would advance to go up against Cloud and Mewtwo, and by beating Mega Man, a lot of Cube's good will disappeared. This wasn't 2007 anymore; the joke bandwagons didn't have the same appeal. As for Mega Man and his fans, don't worry. Much like Vivi would get his revenge in hilarious fashion in 2013, Mega Man would get his in even funnier fashion. Zero was not going to pull this garbage on the Blue Bomber twice, and what made the 2013 rerun even sweeter is everyone expected Charizard to win. Even the gurus who picked Mega Man to win. You all thought he was losing at some point during that match. I see you workin. So yeah, Mega Man lost here, but it's okay. It was all just a part of the redemption arc. ## Stats and Analysis - Weighted Companion advancing was the **\#7** most surprising result of 2008 Anyone could see the SFF coming from a mile away. Zero was going to get pasted. Snake, on the other hand, was a lock for Round 4, and would definitely get first place. The only question was the fate of LFF'd Mega Man tackling a 9 ton block of steel, and it turned out to be one heck of a brawl. The match started out with Mega Man diving into first place, Snake taking a close second, and Zero getting pasted. WCC was just sort of there. Snake trades places with Mega Man in the next update and never lets go of his lead, while the other two straggle. Mega Man loses ground fast afterward, while WCC's Portal fanbase finally kicks in and pushes the cube up a few percentage points. In thirty minutes, the Weighted Companion Cube scrapes past Mega Man. The Cube maintains a threadbare lead until eight and a half hours into the match, when the morning vote causes the brawlers to change places. Mega man keeps a tiny lead until about lunch time, where his lead hits an apex and falls to WCC. The blue guy tries to catch up at the very end, but he can't chop the cube's infinitesimal lead, and loses by 238 votes. A member of the Noble Nine was taken down by a giant box with hearts on it. And there was much complaining. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction I've been so busy celebrating all day that I didn't leave much time for this writeup! So let's jump right on in. X-Stats from Round Two - Mega Man - 29.54% (based on '07 Tidus) - WCC - 25.97% (based on '07 Tidus) - Snake - 35.99% (based on '07 Vivi) - Zero - 23.72% (based on '07 Vivi) Pretty reasonable results all around there... Those are solid numbers, but we're going to have to bend at least three of them. First we'll have to lower MM and Zero a bit to make up for their shared fanbase- but which way do we go? Could Zero be able to rSFF his blue pal, as he appeared to back in 2004, or are we going to see a more standard SFFing of Zero, kind of like what we just saw in Mario/Luigi? Personally I'm leaning toward the SFF option... yes Zero impressed by surviving a high powered onslaught from Vivi, but let's not forgot how easily he was (apparently) LFFed by having two Nintendo guys hanging round in R1, or how he has generally disappointed the last few years. The voters seemed to have brightened up this year as we move further into the bracket: they knew to drop Tifa in order to push Seph through, and were quick to drop Ganon in favor of assuring Samus a win a couple days back. If the Cube threatens, and I've got to think he will, I'm picturing voters once again coming to the rescue by dropping that Zero and going with a hero. Even so, I think he'll have a tougher time of dispatching this joke than Pika did today... this was L's 10th main page Contest poll in the last 13 months, 11 if you count that "who is going to win this year?" question where he featured prominently, so I could see how voters might have tired of the joke. WCC on the other hand is still pretty new and fresh, and has the more dedicated Portal fanbase to fall back on if all else fails. Even so... nay, just can't bring myself to pick the joke, not after today. And as for Snake, well, he's going to destroy everyone, of course. We're on an incredible hot streak for Nintendo overperformances here in this round, which means that as the only Brawl representative Solid's going to have to keep the pace. Rock their world, Snakey! A big Snake win, a tight MM survival, Zero getting pounded, that would look something like... \*stirs the pot very quickly\* - Solid Snake - 38.14% - Mega Man - 23.24% - Weighted Companion Cube - 23.18% - Zero - 15.43% That looks... like Snake has his work cut out for him. But MM is no king of the Day Vote, so he'll pull it off! Ngamer Says: **Snake \> Mega Man** ### Next Day Review Haven't been able to follow the poll today... looks like Mega Man went out to a comfortable lead this morning, and then the Cube went on a big surge out of nowhere? Darn these jokes! Ah well, here's hoping that MM can pull a joke-hate fueled Frog in these last hours while I'm out at the theater. But if not, eh, Cloud and Snake will cook his goose next time around, so nothing to worry too much about. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3296&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=53) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=53) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Squall Leonhart vs Sora vs Cloud Strife vs Mewtwo 2008 _source: Squall Leonhart vs Sora vs Cloud Strife vs Mewtwo 2008 (revid 85843)_ ## Results **Round Three** Monday, November 10th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 6 Final - **Match \#:** 54 - **Match Date:** Monday, November 10th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Cloud Strife - 42.69% Squall Leonhart - 19.29% Sora - 19.23% Mewtwo - 18.99% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Cloud first place (8pts) - 55.21% Cloud second place (4pts) - 29.08% Mewtwo second place (8pts) - 2.86% Mewtwo first place (4pts) - 0.74% - **Advancing Prediction:** Cloud - 84.29% (36,163) Mewtwo - 3.60% (1,545) After seeing L-Block and Weighted Companion Cube back to back, we needed a rest break, and that's what we got here. This poll was literally over in 2 seconds when Mewtwo won the board vote over Cloud. Mewtwo actually stayed with him for a couple minutes before finally getting swamped, which led to perhaps the most boring match of the round. In fact, I'll just say it's the most boring match of the round outright, because the other seven all have something interesting to talk about. This one, not so much. It does make me quite happy given Mewtwo is my favorite Pokemon, though. Only three things are worth discussing, and none are particularly relevant. One is that Mewtwo looked really, really good here after a really subpar performance in round 2. If you go back and look at that match, Midna was within striking distance for 24 hours. One rally and she could have pulled that off. Here, Mewtwo made up for it, which makes sense given the Pokemon sprite and him being the only Nintendo character. Two, and I have no answer for this one, is that Squall can't SFF Sora but Cloud somehow can. In fact Cloud whipped them both so badly that they had a fun little leftover duel for third place, which Squall of course won. If anyone can explain how this weird SFF situation happens, please let me know so I can quote you. Hopefully we can get Sora into Smash Bros so he can finally get one over in the series against Squall. Lastly, and most funny, is how most people expected Yoshi to be here in Sora's place and take an easy second. I mean it does make sense, don't get me wrong: Mewtwo (2007c) VS Yoshi (2007c) Mewtwo has a strength of 23.76. Yoshi has a strength of 32.27. Yoshi wins with 63.19% of the vote! A win of 38,415 with 145,669 total votes cast. But Yoshi never got here. I'm not making fun of anyone or anything, it's just fun looking back at the numbers surrounding old upsets. Final point before I move on. This was one of the only good match pictures all contest. Uncoincidentally, it involved sprites. If I may have my soap box for a sec, I'm pretty much over people telling me I only like the sprite round because they think I enjoy pic sabotage. I like the sprite round because I like the sprite round. It's not difficult to understand. The people saying this never actually submit any pictures of their own, of course, they're just being jackasses for the sake of being jackasses. Sprites are beloved in match pics (outside of Solid Shit) and were never complained about by the vocal minority of whiners until 2010, which is of course when I started submitting stuff. Make your agenda less obvious, crybabies. You enjoyed sprites all along and anyone can check the archives to prove it. That's the thing about picsmith stuff -- anyone can do it. If you think you can do better, be like me and go buy Photoshop, shut the hell up, and do better. I'd bust out the man in the arena line, but it seems inappropriate for such a silly venue as this. It does say a lot about people when they make complaints instead of content, though. ## Stats and Analysis - Mewtwo advancing was the **\#1** most surprising result of 2008 - Mewtwo advancing was also the **\#6** most surprising result of all-time, with the only results beating that are that of L-Block's 2007 Championship run and Charizard's Heart Division championship in 2010. - Mewtwo overperformed by **+4.17%**, the **\#21** most impressive performance of 2008 - This marked the third straight round where Mewtwo defied expectations, having overperformed by even more in Round 1 and then underperforming in Round 2. That match pic up there tells you all you'll need to know about this one. With three Square heroes going up against each other there was bound to be some massive SFF going around, especially with Cloud involved. Tagging along with the Square trio was Mewtwo, whose Round 2 bomb against Midna had raised concerns about his prospects of advancing. However, Mewtwo's chances of advancing were somewhat brighter than many had predicted. As mentioned earlier, Sora and Squall were likely to be hurt by being in the same match as Cloud. Also, there was some talk of a "Pokemon boost" after Pikachu's surprising victory over L-Block earlier in Round 3. Once the match began, it was clear that Mewtwo had put the talk of his Round 2 disappointment behind him. Cloud did his thing, Mewtwo capitalized on the massive SFF beating, and the match was never in doubt after the first few minutes. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction And now for what might very well be the best triple-threat of the whole season! Whooooo. X-Stats from Round Two - Cloud - 44.01% (based on '07 Midna) - Mewtwo - 21.14% (based on '07 Midna) - Squall - 31.38% (based on '07 Fox) - Sora - 30.23% (based on '07 Fox) The trend this round has been for our NN and other elites to redeem themselves for those soft R1 showings, and given that this is going to be a massive SFF situation, you'd think Cloud would be all set to outdo Link's powerhouse performance from earlier in the week. But not so fast! Square SFF can be bad at times, sure, but it still seems to pale in comparison to the kind of vicious Nintendo SFF that Link can lay down on the Warios of the world. So even though he'll be hurting his Kingdom Hearts buddies quite a bit, I can't see them collapsing far enough to let him take a shot at Link's percentage... heck, if he can even manage 45% I'll be thoroughly impressed! Speaking of R3 trends, the biggest of all to this point has been Nintendo once again looking like the champs they've been ever since '05. Link, Mario, Samus, Snake today, and of course being topped off by that incredible stunner by Pikachu... which means that Mewtwo has no choice but to do great today! Yes, Cloud certainly hurt his casual appeal a couple weeks back, but I still think that much of that ugly result needs to be chalked up to Midna's decent Zelda appeal. I was feeling pretty decent about Mew advancing out of this one two days ago, but I feel very good about it after seeing an unhindered Pika unleash that full Pokemon power on L-Block. Let's go Mewtwo! The only question that remains to be answered: Sora, or Squall? Well on the one hand Cloud figures to damage Squall a decent bit more, given how connected FF7 and FF8 would have to be. But on the other hand, he's not going to be held back by Smilin' Squall this time around, which in my mind is going to be worth a ton. Even it out, and I think I still have to give Sora an advantage...but only a small one. If he wins this, I imagine he's going to have to do so with his sick ASV. So if Cloud ruins the competition but Mewtwo improves thanks to Midna's absence while Sora and Squall kill each other all day, we'd be looking at something along the lines of... \*stirs in the pot for two minutes\* - Cloud with 44.51% - Mewtwo with 19.09% - Sora with 18.24% - Squall with 18.16% That looks... weird. But with triple Square it's bound to be, right? Ngamer Says: **Cloud \> Mewtwo** ### Next Day Review Haha, Mewtwo goes from 17% on Cloud to 23%... still on Cloud! Golly, I gave Midna plenty of credit for holding him down, but even so I didn't see any way for that crazy Pokemon to crack 20%, not with legit competition like Squall and Sora in the picture. I guess this is the ultimate vindication for the "sore thumb" theory... not that anyone should have really doubted it, but still, yikes. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3297&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=54) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=54) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Kirby vs Master Chief vs Dante vs Leon Kennedy 2008 _source: Kirby vs Master Chief vs Dante vs Leon Kennedy 2008 (revid 85845)_ ## Results **Round Three** Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 7 Final - **Match \#:** 55 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Kirby - 27.50% Master Chief - 25.69% Dante - 25.29% Leon Kennedy - 21.48% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Kirby first place (8pts) - 13.19% Kirby second place (4pts) - 10.39% Dante second place (8pts) - 30.76% Dante first place (4pts) - 7.39% - **Advancing Prediction:** Kirby - 23.58% (10,117) Dante - 38.15% (16,367) TESTOSTERONE! Very few matches in contest history have more MANHOOD than this one, and make no mistake. Kirby has all the others beat in T levels and they all know it. Jokes aside, this was a heavily debated match pre-contest and mid-contest. Most people expected this particular fourpack, but if you check the guru numbers, people were just all over the place. The favored outcome pre-contest, believe it or not, was Master Chief \> Dante. The "Dante" part of that favored outcome was highly in dispute, with Kirby only barely having less support for second place. Master Chief was arguably the star of the contest in 2007, and if he stayed at that level, him being a favorite here made sense. The contest itself to this point didn't provide a whole lot of clarity, so it was a cool match where no one really knew what would happen going in. We only knew two definitive things. One, Dante was going to finish ahead of Leon Kennedy. We had already seen this once in 2007 and in round 2 this year. That was a mortal lock. The other certainty was Kirby was absolutely finishing top 2. The main question is whether or not Master Chief would be there with him. Kirby and Chief had a match together in round 2 where they were only 1500 votes apart, but Kirby finished in first place. Some argued that Big Boss and Raiden leeched Chief, and that Chief could have won that one with a better draw. So come match time, we had pretty much all figured out it would be Kirby, Chief, and Dante in some order for top three, with Leon having no shot. And as you can see by the Oracle picks, Kirby was the first place favorite. The match itself was... kind of a dud, all things considered, but it was still fun to hype up. Kirby just wrecked shop right from the jump and put the first place debate to bed immediately. No one was catching him, proving Kirby had THE BIGGEST BALLS OF ALL in our testosterone-fueled Ertyu Special. The other lock was Leon in last, which happened as expected. The fun came in the second place duel. You guys know my feelings on second place duels mattering more than first place by now, so no need to relive it. This was a really fun one though for about an hour. Dante and Master Chief did their thing, talked a bunch of smack in deep voices, gave us some over the top cut scenes, saved a few babes, had a few drinks, had a few laughs, had a few fights, and generally did what dudebros like to do when they're having a disagreement. You settle it like men, and then shake hands and move on. On this day, it would be Dante accepting the brofist-hug-handshake combo from Master Chief, because after an hour the Chief just didn't have it in him. He fell off pretty badly overnight, and his usual ASV fire just wasn't there. I know getting the 2007 magic back was going to be almost impossible, but I was hoping for a tiny bit more warrior from him on his way out this year. But if you're gonna lose, you might as well lose to characters that are just as cool are you are. Semper Fi, Master Chief. This sent Kirby and Dante along for a match with Sephiroth and Sonic. Easy match, right? Turns out this contest had a couple more surprises left before it was done. ## Stats and Analysis - Kirby advancing was the **\#10** most surprising result of 2008 - Dante advancing was the **\#25** most surprising result of 2008 As in Round 2, Kirby was the obvious standout among three "mature" characters, and emerged as a clear favorite to advance, while the other spot was pretty much up for grabs. Kirby came out of the gate on fire, seemingly having gained strength after his first two matches. By the end of the Power Hour, he had built up a lead of over 900 votes, and he coasted to a 5000+ victory. The other story of this match was Master Chief's continued fall from grace. After his big performance in 2007, the Chief looked vulnerable from the start of this contest, and never managed to regain his former strength. After battling for the first half-hour of the match, he fell behind Dante in the race for second, and was never really in contention after that. Dante crushed Chief during the night and into the morning, and built a lead of over 3300 by the afternoon, before eventually winning by 2900. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Speaking of sore thumbs, we've got another today! But even better, we've got a great chance to continue that amazing streak of Nintendo overperformances. Can Kirby pull it off? X-Stats from Round Two - Kirby - 17.86% (based on '07 Big Boss) - Master Chief - 17.53% (based on '07 Big Boss) - Dante - 30.64% (based on '07 Riku) - Leon - 29.17% (based on '07 Riku) Whoa, BB sure is a whole different character from the guy we saw in '05 and the start of '07. Adjust for that, and this one goes right back to being a four way pick 'em. Weak as Master Chief has looked, we know for a fact that Dante and Leon are going to be holding each other back at least somewhat. Set them up for a 1v1 tomorrow and I take Dante easy, and I'd even be sure to take him in a "fair" 4 way situation, but as is those two share the same company, same character design, and leave MC free to run unchecked with the Xbox vote. It shouldn't be a blowout, but I see the Chief being able to advance ahead of Team Capcom, though he might need his ASV to do so. As for Dante vs Leon, well that's no longer really in question, is it? Mistaaaa Kennedy was fantastic in the opening hours last round but Dante soon righted the ship and proceeded to run away from him for the next 20 hours. REFAQs or not, there's unfortunately just not any reasonable way for Leon not to finish this poll in the basement. The odd thing is that Leon is going to decide the final result though, in some way. You see much of his strength comes from being the only M-rated major seller from the GameCube's library, and so even though Kirby gets to look all cute and pink against three mature action stars once again, this time around there figures to be at least a little LFF limiting his damage. How much will that matter, though? Probably not a whole ton... Leon beat out Pikachu by 9% back in R2 of last year, after all. Originally I was planning to take MC for the win over Kirby due to the overlap, but with the way Nintendo's been on fire I'm going to back off that "upset" now and continue to support the puffball. Yeah, so even though all four of these characters are probably very close in natural strength, I don't see any way for this to be the epic 4-way "anyone could win!" battle that would be so awesome to watch. It might LOOK like that during the dead of night, but I've got to imagine and MC and Kirby's strong Days will push them through if it comes to that. But if its still pretty close all the way around, we're talking about like... \*pots and stirs and spits\* - Kirby - 26.17% - Master Chief - 25.75% - Dante - 25.06% - Leon - 23.02% Looking mighty fine! I guess. Ngamer Says: **Kirby \> Master Chief** ### Next Day Review This is seriously pretty upsetting. I've always despised MC and had hearty laughs at his failures, but after last season I had no choice but to respect him (in this format, at least). So I go out and give him credit for the first time ever, and he thanks me by doing THIS... not only do I get this pick wrong, but it's the mistake that eliminates me from the Guru. Bah! I mean, losing to Dante would be weird (considering he beat him by 6% last year in a fair, non-Block match), but at least understandable/acceptable post-DMC4. But to never even be in contention against Dante, in a match where he's being limited by Leon, in a match where there's no one to share your Xbox fanbase? That's just flat out pathetic. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3298&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=55) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=55) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Auron vs Sonic the Hedgehog vs Sephiroth vs Kratos 2008 _source: Auron vs Sonic the Hedgehog vs Sephiroth vs Kratos 2008 (revid 85846)_ ## Results **Round Three** Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Division 8 Final - **Match \#:** 56 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 36.49% Sonic the Hedgehog - 26.00% Auron - 20.41% Kratos - 17.47% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Sephiroth first place (8pts) - 50.42% Sephiroth second place (4pts) - 29.56% Sonic second place (8pts) - 22.90% Sonic first place (4pts) - 16.66% - **Advancing Prediction:** Sephiroth - 79.98% (34,314) Sonic - 39.56% (16,972) Speaking of testosterone, this was our second match in a row featuring four shit-kicking badasses. And before you tell me Sonic isn't badass, you are wrong. Save it. I take back what I said about the Division 6 final. This was the most boring match of the round, because the result of Sephiroth \> Sonic was a literal 100% guarantee. Sonic was never going to challenge for first place here -- Cloud showed us how far ahead of Sonic the FF7 gang is back in 2003 -- and thanks to Auron sharing the poll with Sephiroth, he was not going to be able to follow up his round 2 upset of Sonic with a sequel. Thanks for being a good format, 4ways. You suck. No one knew it at the time, but this result helped set up one of strangest upsets we've ever had in contest lore. Too bad 2008 has kind of been lost in the memory hole (thanks 4ways, you suck), or else Sonic's awful showing this year would be mentioned along the likes of Donkey Kong and Magus. More on that when we get to it. As for a round synopsis, it was pretty decent! We had a Noble Nine character get upset, two really fun matches involving joke characters, the fever pitch of ZackFAQs, Mega Man X annihilating fools, Crono and Vincent on a collision course, and my favorite Pokemon balling out of control. As much as I despise the format, the results have been fun enough to keep me interested in writing these things. Moving on. ## Stats and Analysis Despite the Auron\>Sonic result from the previous round, this match was a foregone conclusion. Auron was going to get SFF'ed by Sephiroth, and Sonic stood out from the three mature characters (AKA STF). The only question mark was Sonic's performance. Sandbag was no longer around, so if Sonic underperformed, he'd have no excuses. And for the first (and only) time in the contest, the blue blur actually performed to the levels which he suppossed to do in the first place. Both Sephiroth and Sonic overperformed by 2%, whereas Auron was hit hard by the SFF, causing him to only have a 1500 lead on Kratos. Because of Sonic's "impressive" performance, any talk on Dante or Kirby possibly beating Sonic in the next round pretty much died after this match. That said, the division finals were over. Provided if Crono beats Vincent and Sonic doesn't choke, it looked like we would have the first Noble Nine elite eight since 2004. Lastly, no Sonic match can be complete without the annual bad Sonic advancing prediction. No one was going to stop Sonic making it out of his division with Sephiroth in the picture. Sonic's advancing prediction was not only almost the same as Auron's advancing prediction from Round 2, but Sephiroth had twice as many brackets carrying him out of this divsion than Sonic. Not much faith put into SEGA's mascot nowadays. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction But enough venting, we've got a new, hopefully less disgusting result to predict! X-Stats from Round Two - Auron - 31.98% (based on '07 Sub-Zero) - Sonic - 29.69% (based on '07 Sub-Zero) - Sephiroth - 39.24% (based on '07 Jill) - Kratos - 28.93% (based on '07 Jill) I like the Subby-based numbers (especially since they result in Sandbag falling under the fodder line) but those Jill-based babies seem a touch high... she appears to have collapsed somewhat against such tough R2 competition. Can't blame her though, as these were three very daunting opponents- not even REFAQs could make up for that. Some people are trying to come up with ways to validate tonight's match as somehow in doubt, but... eh, I just can't see it. We've already seen the kind of beatdown Seph can apply when he decides he wants to take a match seriously, and even though Auron is sure to hold up better than Tifa managed, it's still got the potential to get ugly. If that was all that Sonic had going in his favor I'd probably still be rocking this upset, but... there's a bag in the way. Everyone wants to dismiss Sandbag as a joke and forget he ever existed, and though I understand that line of thought, I don't think it's very wise. Stupid as it was, that thing exhibited legitimate Nintendoish, SSB proxy-style vote patterns and strength. I just can't visualize something that so clearly symbolized SSB Brawl not taking a decent bite out of Sonic's fanbase. With that out of the picture and Sonic now being the one to stand out from the mature badass crowd like a cute lil' Kirby, the ball is clearly in his court. With all these factors in his favor, if that hedgehog can't take the rock to the hole tonight then heck, it'd be more embarrassing than Master Chief. And that's saying alot! Kratos has impressed me a decent bit the last two times out, but I feel pretty confident picking him for last place regardless. His appealing character design won't win him many votes against cool customers like Sonic/Auron/Seph, the FFX star limits his PS2 base, and I get this odd feeling that Auron's somehow going to do something respectable despite the SFFing. So yeah, 4th place seems a good bet. A big Seph win, then fairly tight races between the others ought to give us something along the lines of... \*pots once and stirs twice\* - Sephiroth - 35.85% - Sonic the Hedgehog - 24.60% - Auron - 21.51% - Kratos (God of War) - 18.04% That looks... reasonable, I suppose. Cloud's 50-18 beating of Auron gets me a little worried, but I've just got this hunch that he holds up way way better in this one for some reason. Ngamer Says: **Sephiroth \> Sonic** ### Next Day Review Well, what do you know- Sonic can still impress! You just need to put about five factors in his favor, and about three factors going against every other option, and a solid pic advantage, and for Smurf to lose his soul to the devil, and then heck, Sonic can almost score 29% of the vote! Well that's wonderful for him, but pretty awful for me... my bracket went down the toilet last night, and now Sonic's desperately pulling the handle on my Oracle season. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3299&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=56) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=56) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Link vs Zack Fair vs Mario vs Mega Man X 2008 _source: Link vs Zack Fair vs Mario vs Mega Man X 2008 (revid 85847)_ ## Results **Round Four** Thursday, November 13th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Quarter Final - **Match \#:** 57 - **Match Date:** Thursday, November 13th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 39.20% Mario - 22.41% Mega Man X - 20.93% Zack Fair - 17.78% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Link first place (16pts) - 61.74% Link second place (8pts) - 13.32% Mario second place (16pts) - 40.90% Mario first place (8pts) - 9.96% - **Advancing Prediction:** Link - 75.06% (32,203) Mario - 50.86% (21,820) Until my dying breath, I will always believe Zack could have caught an unstoppable bandwagon had he pulled this thing off. The next match would have been Link, Zack, Samus, and Crono. Link would have SFFd Samus into the ground, and who knows how the Zack/Crono thing would have gone with all the ZackFAQs and FF7 v Chrono Trigger fuel behind him? From there, it would have been Link, Zack, Snake, and Cloud. Zack probably finishes last place there thanks to Blonde Cloud \> Black Cloud, but still! We've seen crazier results! In all seriousness, as a lover of bandwagons and silly fun, this one hurt. He was so close, yet so far away. Let's start with Link's continued and insidious domination over this contest. 40% in a 4way poll in the quarterfinals against this competition is ludicrous. Just ludicrous. This was some '85 Bears playoff run type shit. Past that is where the fun was. One of these three Nintendo titans was bound to get dicked over, and it was apparent very quickly that Mega Man X was not going to be able to hack it. He was somewhat close to Mario for a little while -- and I will always maintain Mario has more overlap with Link than the Mega Man series -- but he fell off to a distant SFF-fueled third place. This left a clear Link \> Mario \> MMX order for Zack to try and squeeze into, but he just started so damn slow in this poll. When this thing started, Zack was actually in dead last. This spelled his doom right from the jump, because it showed his support was more organic than joke type. He had a bandwagon, but not the kind of bandwagon he would need to work miracles. He was also sitting there behind two characters that were being SFFd into the ground by Link. Still, he gave us an incredible effort and went out almost exactly like he does at the end of Crisis Core. First, he had to come back on Mega Man X, which took quite awhile. He was dead last early, but the gap with X was only 60 votes. It took almost an hour just to erase that lead, and when he did he was unable to make any headway at all. He and X stayed tied for another couple hours, before the typical Europe vote did X in and Zack started going to work. We should pause here and give X some credit for getting this far, and note that him being SFFd twice is not indicative of what his actual strength is. To this day, he is solidly either upper midcard or near-elite. I doubt that ever changes, because the guy is just too damn cool. The entire reason we all fell in love with him in the 90s was because he could do so many more things that vanilla Mega Man just couldn't do. HADOUKEN! The funniest thing happened when Zack came back and finally caught up to X for good -- he was less than 300 votes away from Mario himself. Hey if he could come back once, why not aim for the king? It seemed unthinkable, but why the hell not go for it and give ZACKFAQs the match they all wanted? And give us the match we wanted he did. It took all night of chipping away and chipping away some more, but Zack managed to claw his way up to Mario. Mario! FREAKING MARIO! It was insane! 100% of gurus picked Link to get first (obviously), but over 75% picked Mario to get second. 40 people picked Mega Man X. TWO picked Zack. Two! More people picked Liquid Freaking Snake to pull this magic than Zack. Yet there he was, tied with Mario, with the morning vote yet to come. We all figured the match was over right about here, but then the absolute unthinkable happened. Zack started winning the morning vote and building a lead! It's hard to put this in perspective for those who weren't there, but a lot of you might remember Undertale since it was pretty recent. You know how happy Undertale fans were at the entire tidal wave in that contest? Remember how there was a counter bandwagon? Had Zack pulled this off, it would been all the love and none of the counter bandwagon. That's how hard we were pulling for him to miracle his way into second place here. We all know the rest of the story. Zack only built up a 150 vote lead before getting stalled with the morning vote, and though it took Mario the entire morning, he did ultimately take control of the poll and slowly (very slowly) build a lead for himself. It was so slow in fact that Mario only led by 350 going into the ASV, which let people hold out hope that Zack might still pull it off. When Zack started cutting some votes during the beginnings of the ASV, people lost it all over again. Unfortunately, around 4pm Mario finally stopped dicking around and ended the match. He did it by bludgeoning poor Mega Man X to death and stealing a bunch of support from him, but a win is a win and you do what you have to do to survive and advance. Mario turned a pretty close match into an 1100 vote win, but Zack did have one final bit of fight left in him to prevent the final margin from being bigger. Oddly enough, this match played out almost exactly like Crisis Core, right down to the ending and Zack refusing to quit. It was like Rocky Balboa meets his contest end or something, and it was remarkable to watch. Mario may have won here, but he didn't win our hearts. Zack, bottom's up to you bro. You're the Star of the Contest. For those hoping Mario would get his comeuppance for this, an old enemy of his was waiting in the wings, and this time he had friends. ## Stats and Analysis If you needed any more proof that Link was going to tear this contest a new bunghole... tadah! Aside from Link, every other contender in this match had a pretty interesting run. Zack Fair of ZackFAQs fame managed to wow the board by getting some excellent numbers on the Hero of Time. (Nothing like Blonde Haired Zack, though.) Mario had just gone through what was quite possibly the worst division run he's ever had. The poster boy for bad bracket placement, he endured many underperformances thanks to our good friend SFF. Mega Man X decided to rub some salt on the wounds, and gave Mr. Nintendo two dangerously close matches, and proved that he's more than worthy of comparison to his classic counterpart. With two heavy hitters in the match with him, and Mario with the largest of all monkeys on his back, Link could have taken anyone out of this match with him! The initial rush of bracket votes gave Mario respectable lead for second place, but Zack was making cuts. He pushed past Mega Man X in the early morning, and caught fire at around four and eventually took the lead. Mario would take the lead back in the following hours, but the two would stay amazingly close to each other until the ASV, when Mario built a basically insurmountable lead. Mario may have won, but his fate was sealed. Despite the almost memetic nature of his strength, Zack was definitely no Vincent. Considering he was facing either him or Crono in the next round, there was absolutely no hope for the poor plumber. At the very least, he could put up a good fight while Link laughs maniacally at the top. And with that out of the way, quite possibly the most hyped match of the contest was set to begin. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Bah, another bad Oracle pick. Got to reverse the trend! And how will I do that? Why, by picking the opposite of what I've been doing all year and finally putting a little faith in Mario, that's how. Let's hit it. X-Stats from Round Two - Link - 47.63% (based on '07 Duke) - Zack - 28.59% (based on '07 Duke) - Mario - 36.49% (based on '07 Liquid) - MMX - 31.00% (based on '07 Liquid) Ehh, both Duke and Liquid were clearly stronger in '08 than what we saw in 2007, but that is countered partially by their collapsing somewhat against the tough competition they ran up against in R3. So all in all these look like pretty reasonable numbers to me. As you see, Zack's got an upward climb ahead of him no matter how you try to tweak that. On the plus side for Zack, he's got SFF working in his favor here, and in fact it's working overtime. Link's the King of SFF and has already laid a hurting on both Mario and MM, Zack will be the one standing out from the crowd, and Square always brings its A game against strong Nintendo competition, as I've mentioned many times. On the down side... these are REALLY tough competitors, and we've already seen the very dedicated fanbase of MGS crack under this kind of pressure. On the plus side, the FF7 base is about two steps up the rung from MGS... on the down side, Link is about five steps up from Luigi! Sure it would make for a great story, but nay, can't see Zack ever being in contention against Mario tomorrow- I don't think third place is entirely out of reach though, assuming X feels the Nintendo heat and weakens a bit from where we saw him last round. Regarding Mario v MMX, I'm likewise not buying into the upset hype. X had the win handed to him on a silver platter last round (is there any character who could possibly disadvantage Mario more than his own brother?) and yet he failed me by not taking advantage of it. I'm now convinced that it was Mudkip more than Zelda holding the plumber back in R2, and since Zack is an independent draw like Liquid, I'd be surprised if X manages to get much closer than he did last round. That leaves us with Link vs Mario, which... shouldn't be much worth talking about, really! The last time we witnessed Link v Mario v FF7 we were shocked that Link was only able to score 62% directly on the Nintendo mascot. I've got to imagine Link extends that percentage at least slightly in this one just because Mario and MM share deeper NES roots, but as I've discussed it would take a pounding more along the lines of the Battle Royale before I'd seriously consider either of those two catching up to him, so he ought to remain fairly safe. In summary, while I'll admit to this match having excellent triple threat potential, I just don't think we'll get that lucky and the far more likely result is a 2 - 3 - 4 finish that, while fairly close, is never really in doubt. With that in mind, let's see what five minutes of pot stirring will result in. - Link - 38.22% - Mario - 23.33% - Mega Man X - 20.13% - Zack Fair - 18.32% That looks like a result I have can some real confidence in! Too bad even when I've been able to say that I'm still wrong half the time this season... Ngamer Says: **Link \> Mario** ### Next Day Review Sore Thumb Factor strikes again! As I was talking about yesterday, even though I acknowledged how being the only non-Nintendo option would be important for Zack, I downplayed its significance just because he doesn't LOOK like a sore thumb in the match pics. Kirby and Sonic literally stood out like fuzzy, puffy sore thumbs while Zack just looked like one of two cool dudes with swords. But I guess I was wrong, as has so often happened this season! It's looking like Mario has built himself a big enough ASV cushion to survive Zack's SNV without much trouble, but still, heck of a showing from this black-haired cloud, and it will be very interesting to see how he holds up when we switch back to 1v1s next year. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3300&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=57) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=57) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Samus Aran vs Vincent Valentine vs Crono vs Pikachu 2008 _source: Samus Aran vs Vincent Valentine vs Crono vs Pikachu 2008 (revid 85852)_ ## Results **Round Four** Friday, November 14th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Quarter Final - **Match \#:** 58 - **Match Date:** Friday, November 14th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Samus Aran - 31.71% Vincent Valentine - 25.62% Crono - 25.11% Pikachu - 17.69% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Samus first place (16pts) - 29.31% Samus second place (8pts) - 15.74% Crono second place (16pts) - 14.50% Crono first place (8pts) - 9.11% - **Advancing Prediction:** Samus - 45.05% (19,328) Crono - 23.61% (10,129) This is it. The most hyped match of the contest, the best match of the contest, and the entire reason I finally got up off my ass and did these writeups after 12 years. I didn't like this contest overall, but 12 years with no PCA is just awful and I'm sorry for that. And of all the random blurbs you see out there, this is somehow the one match on the wiki that had nothing before today. It's time to fix that. To understand why this thing was so hyped for a full year, you don't merely have to go back to 2007. That would be easy. You have to go back to the beginning. The final of this match had the stars aligning for it for more than 6 years. People talk of bandwagons and rallies. In 2002, Crono was the rallied bandwagon. Mario was the heavy, heavy favorite that year, followed by characters like Link, Cloud, Sonic, and Solid Snake. Crono was no where to be found, and more importantly, neither were things like x-stats, Oracle picks, match trends, update charts, guru contests, and board odds projects. We were just a bunch of kids cheering on our favorites every match, ignorant of everything else. It was a better time back then. I don't want to go off on my usual tangent about how advanced metrics are the worst thing to ever happen in sports, so I simply move on. In that contest, Crono was the star of the whole show. The little 5 seed that could. People expected him to win his first match, and that was about it. Most people thought Dante would beat him. Crono won. Most people picked the 1 seed, Lara Croft, to beat him. Crono utterly demolished her. Then, right after the back to back to back trio that gave us our best 3 day run in contest history -- Samus \> Sonic, Sephiroth \> Mega Man, Mario \> Cloud -- Crono went out and pulled another upset, this time over Solid Snake. A looooot of people were pulling hard for Snake that year. Crono beat him with ease. This set up the first of many Crono vs Mario duels, and by the time that match happened, Mario was the contest villain. He straight up cheated to beat Cloud, and back then CJayC was such an idiot about catching cheating that he just up and allowed a phantom 500 vote spike around dinner time to stand, even though there was literal visual proof of the script used to do it. Before it happened, a user went around posting a screenshot of the script, with an image saying there was no way he would allow a crossdresser to win (his words, not mine) and that there would be a 500 vote spike. I'll never understand how that one stood, but I digress, and Cloud did eventually get a pittance of revenge anyway. By the time the Mario v Crono match happened, people were losing their minds. Mario had to lose that contest. The poll was close for awhile, but Mario was proving to be a bridge too far, and built up a lead of 1000 votes going into the final few hours. You guys know the rest. Crono started pulling off one of the most clutch comebacks we'd ever seen, erased the lead, and then CJayC took 400 votes away before admitting a few years later that Crono had 3000 scripted votes that day. If Crono cheated fine, but we know Mario cheated one round earlier and nothing was done. It just left the entire thing feeling incomplete. A year later, Mario and Crono were blatantly set up for a rematch, and the saga of that match could be made into a documentary at this point: Not only was the match started early for some inexplicable reason, not only did it last past 24 hours with no warning that it would, but it went 5 minutes past the usual closing time (which was 1am est back then) to "check for cheating". After all, Mario erased an 800 lead in 2 hours when trends were pretty close before then. That just isn't natural. Did CJayC find any cheating, even though there was yet another provable script being floated around? Of course not. Mario cheated in that match, and CJayC ignored it. He also ignored the cheating against Cloud. I will absolutely never be convinced otherwise. We know too much about contests and how they work now to look back at the numbers involved and think of them as anything but impossible. I had even picked Mario in 2003 and was rooting for him to win, and it's the dirtiest I ever felt in being right on a match. It's finally getting with the dream girl you've been chasing, only to find out later she has herpes. It's just gross. If you weren't there, you'll never understand the unreal meltdown that occurred. True fact -- there is no 24 hour period in that match that Crono lost. Crono's luck wouldn't get much better in the years to come. In 2004, he finally got his win over Mario, but it was meaningless. That contest was among the worst we've ever had, and Mario went berserker in 2005 and got his win back in spades anyway. In 2006, Crono hit a low point when he blew a 2200 vote lead against Sonic, which I believe was the biggest comeback in contest history to that point. The dude just didn't have that 2002-2003 magic anymore, and it would still get worse. Enter Vincent, who has always been a Final Fantasy 7 fan favorite (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/845-who-is-your-favorite-final-fantasy-vii-character), but never could make the contest field before 2005. His debut however was a huge success. He got thrown into one of the most difficult divisions we've ever had, and won the thing despite being in three straight debatable matches. Well Kerrigan wasn't debatable to anyone with sense, but people argued for weeks that she would win that one. I still couldn't tell you why. Vincent destroyed Kerrigan, then had close wins against Dante and Squall before facing... Crono. Vincent had a very respectable 55-45 loss there, and it began the hype train that maybe Vincent would be the guy that cracked the Noble Nine. For the unaware, the Noble Nine is a winning streak. Nine characters -- Link, Cloud, Mario, Samus, Sephiroth, Crono, Mega Man, Solid Snake, and Sonic the Hedgehog -- never lost a match to anyone outside of their group until 2007, which I'll get into in a bit, but the point here is that the hype around breaking the winning streak was palpable. People talked about it every year, and more importantly, people wanted to be on the right side of history and pick it in their brackets. Every year, there was so much hype around any match one of them might lose to an outsider. Would this be the year? In 2006, we got some more hints. Sonic, Crono, and Mega Man all looked like monkey trash. Vincent and Ganondorf, two characters hyped up to be Noble Nine breakers for years, had a really fun round 1 match. Vincent won it close, then Vincent turned around in round 2 and had a 52-48 loss to Sonic. That one perked some ears up, though in fairness we saw something similar in the past and we know how that turned out: That's the thing. The hype of being a breaker has ruined a lot of these characters. Not Vincent, though. And that's when the absurdity of 2007 hit. L-Block aside, one of the most hyped matches of that entire contest, if not the most hyped match, was Link, Vincent, Crono, and Zero. The match itself was basically a mortal lock to happen, and the hype surrounding that thing was palpable. I helped make sure of that, because I was sick of everyone obsessing over the Noble Nine's winning streak and whether or not a loss in a 4way would be "legitimate" or not. You would think these characters are Board 8's actual children with how much that streak was defended by some people. It was embarrassing then and it's especially embarrassing to look back on it all. Not our finest hour, guys. In contest lore, Vincent/Crono isn't what Mario/Crono is, and frankly nothing can be, but Vincent/Crono certainly comes close. It's an all-time series of matches, and the 2007 match was dope. Crono looked early on like he would reclaim the old glory, and jumped out to an 1150 vote lead overnight. Vincent then spent the rest of the match swinging nearly 3000 votes his way, and that was that. At the time, a lot of people claimed this didn't actually break the streak and that Crono lost due to the format. In 2020 I'm inclined to agree with that logic, but at the time, I felt like the streak was over and people should stop talking about it. I found the argument to be incredibly dull. I've gotten some new perspective in my old age, so I can see where people were coming from back then. Still, a loss is a loss and Crono was the first guy in the Noble Nine to lose to an outsider, regardless of format. That will never change, and frankly it's better that it happened to Crono under these circumstances. Do you guys not get that without this match, L-Block would have been the one to break the streak, and it would have come against Solid Snake and Sonic? I'll take Crono losing to Vincent over ever having to type that sentence again. Oh and not to brag, buuuuuuut.... 52 of us called our shot and got it right. Crono looked terrible for years, was trending down, and Vincent was trending up and had a match against 3 characters who are titans on Nintendo systems. All the makings were there. Which finally, at last, brings us to 2008. Vincent and Crono's duel was hyped for good reason, and the other two characters would be Samus and Pikachu instead of Link and Zero. Those are acceptable substitutes and wouldn't get in the way. All that was left to do was to finally have the match itself, and these two definitely came in ready to throw down. In the first hours of the match, the trend mirrored 2007. Last year, Crono built up a lead over 1100. This year, he built up a lead of about 950 -- almost to the hour. A lot of people figured the match was over at this point, not because Crono was winning, but because the year prior Vincent was able to swing 3000 votes. People were expecting the comeback this time, and with Crono unable to build an equal or bigger lead than last year, a lot of people lamented the inevitable. We had seen the guy get beat in these close debated matches for long now. Right on cue, Vincent started his push. The numbers from 2007 to 2008 were almost exactly the same, which felt so bizarre. At 7:30 am both years, Crono's lead was chopped all the way down to 350. Vincent's win felt inevitable at this point, especially given Chrono Trigger's historical ineptitude with the day vote contrasted with FF7's day vote being really good. But then, the most unthinkable thing of all happened. Crono this year said screw this, we're not rolling over and dying this time. Vincent got stuck at 300, and though he pushed the lead below 300 for a bit, he was just.... kind of stuck there. We all assumed an inevitable day vote would push Vincent over the top, but it just wasn't coming. Crono kept stalling, and stalling, and stalling, and hour after hour, update after update, we were stuck in this bizarre phantom zone of Crono holding this 250-350 vote lead. To give you an idea of how insane the board was during all this, Vincent was the favorite and though a lot of us wanted the guy to win for our brackets (he was the favorite, after all), it wasn't with the typical fervor. As this madness kept going, more and more people remembered the old wounds and wanted to see Crono finally pull one of these things out. The match stayed in this period of odd flux until the ASV, where Crono was still nursing a 250 vote lead. This in and of itself is a miracle given the guy's trends and how the match went down last year. By the time the ASV hit in 2007, the match was already over. Vincent had come back by then, led by over 100, and used the ASV to end the match. In 2008, it once again looked like Vincent was going to use the ASV to put this thing to bed, much to the dismay of pretty much every Crono supporter other than red sox. He was the one guy on Board 8 who never lost hope, and he deserves props for that. Vincent pulled a 166 vote update out of his ass, his highest since early in the match, and that looked like the beginning of the inevitable. It wasn't, but it looked like it. Crono fought like hell, but Vincent literally tied the match up within a couple hours. From there, Crono pulled off the unthinkable for the second time in this match. Instead of Vincent rising to heaven and ending the match like he did at this time last year, Crono refused to quit. Vincent quickly built up a lead of 100, and then just got... stuck there for two hours. And even as Vincent finally started increasing his lead a bit heading into the evening vote, it was never by much and Crono kept fighting back at him. It wasn't until nearly 9pm, with a mere three hours to go, that Vincent breached the 150 vote barrier. Last year, his lead at that time was well over 1400. Obviously, times had changed, and the final three hours were just a mad rush to the finish line. For the next hour of the poll, Vincent looked like he had this thing on lockdown. He slowly increased his lead to 200, and though he and Crono were both really going for it, the clock was running out. I'd say votes were drying up, but there was definite rallying going on. One of the most entertaining parts of this match is that Samus, the character I have yet to even mention thusfar in this writeup and the one who actually won first place, was getting her winning percentage wrecked here. Check out the trend graph and how much of the green was below her actual trend line while all this was going on. It's one of the funniest visuals to come out of this contest. With two hours to go and Vincent up by 200, this thing seemed like a done deal. Even worse for Crono is that the usual Chrono Trigger second night vote wasn't showing up, so while Crono managed to stop the bleeding, Vincent wasn't losing any ground. The 200 vote lead stayed at 200 for a solid hour; as entertaining as this was, it looked bleak for the Crono faithful. The final hour was absolutely wild, and it brought us all back to those childhood days of just cheering for favorites regardless of anything else. First update, Vincent brought his lead from 184 to 192. From there it was all a blur, and the explanation for what happened is easy -- BOARD 8 RALLIED THEIR BALLS OFF. We had seen enough of Crono getting his poor heart broken. Enough of cheating only being enforced one way. Enough choke jobs, enough blatant bracket rigging to always see Mario, enough nonsense. We were going to finally give Crono his moment or fuckin die trying. The next 4 updates went -20, -30, -30, -30 to get the lead under 100. Vincent then stalled to keep his head for an update, but it was postponing the inevitable. BAH GAWD THAT FROG'S MUSIC! BUSINESS IS ABOUT TO PICK UP! For the last half hour of this match, Board 8 rallied so hard and so well that it went far beyond a simple rally in hopes of helping one character win. This was six years of pent up frustration at always seeing Crono get dicked over and pushed around, and while Vincent himself isn't to blame for a lot of Crono's contest history, this rally felt like helping the bullied kid suplex their tormentors and justifiably crack some skulls open. The next three updates were -20, -20, and -30 to tie the match up with 10 minutes to go. God himself wasn't getting in Crono's way at this point, and even if the good lord above tried, Crono has time travel on his side and Dr Strange probably would have let him borrow the Eye of Agamotto just this once. Crono deserved this. Nothing was getting in the way. Not this time! The penultimate update was won by Crono with a totally insane 146 vote push, giving him a 59 vote lead and basically ending this match. He put out 100 more votes in the final five minutes just to be sure, and that was that. Crono finally won one of these damn things. A weird, hyped, close, heavily debated match finally went his way. No cheating, no phantom time extensions, no one-sided scripts, no bullshit, no nothing. Crono won. It was real. It actually happened. Crono's final push was so laughably insane that he didn't just pull the clutch comeback on Vincent. Samus got 1058 votes in the final hour of this poll. Crono got 1191. That's how bad Board 8 wanted this, and remember, this was a time when rallying was REALLY hard to do because of the high vote totals. This wasn't like when we pushed Mega Man ahead of Charizard, Mario ahead of Samus (sorry but I had to do it!), or Resident Evil 2 ahead of Bloodborne. This took a borderline miracle to pull off, but hey. Board 8 was not going to be denied here. Not this time. Crono's reward for pulling this off? He, yet again, had to stare down his oldest of enemies -- FREAKING MARIO. But this time, Crono was bringing friends with him. Samus and Link didn't want any of that smoke. In the long run, we all know this didn't stop the overall decline of Crono. We know what happened against Missingno and Pikachu. We all know about the laughably awful Rivalry Rumble. Doesn't matter. Nothing will ever change how great we all felt when Crono pulled this thing off. The unintended consequence is that this match basically ended Vincent's contest career as an elite. Not that it matters. No one cares. This match was, and still is, a celebration of the greatest contest underdog these things will ever have. For the record, I will never be convinced under any circumstances that Chrono Trigger wasn't on track to win the 2015 contest before rallies happened. I am in favor of those rallies, you all know this, but the board explosion would have been nuts had Chrono Trigger of all games annihilated Ocarina in the final. There is a universe where that happens. I wonder what it's like there? ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction This sets us up for Link/Mario/Samus/Vincent. Wait, or do I mean Link/Mario/Samus/*Crono*? Let's look closer... X-Stats from Round Three - Samus - 32.94% (based on '07 Gordon) - Vincent - 30.14% (based on '07 Gordon) - Crono - 32.97% (based on '07 Alucard) - Pikachu - 29.85% (based on '07 Alucard) Oh my, we're in for a real slugfest just based on those numbers! However, it seemed fairly obvious that Gordon has had a nice boost since '07, so to keep those legit you'd have to push Sammy and Vince up at least a couple points... that puts Samus out of danger but fortunately moves VV directly into Crono's range. So here we go again! As I'm sure everyone remembers, Crono jumped out to a very big lead on Vincent last season before giving it all back and then some to lose by 1.2%. Let's look at some pros and cons for Vincent here in '08: - beat Crono by 1.2% 13 months ago - lost to Crono by 10% in a legit 1v1 back in '05 - won't have Link hurting Crono's Hero of Time/sword-wielding fanbase, or Zero hurting Crono's SNES fanbase - WILL have Samus hurting Crono's SNES base and Pikachu pulling some of his Nintendo fanbase - Pikachu came scarily close to Crono last around - Vincent flopped big time last round, finishing 4.5% back of Samus despite her having to deal with Ganon - Crono has flat out looked better than Vincent to this point in the season - Zack just showed us how dangerous FF7 can be against three characters with Nintendo appeal ...arg, can't decide! I was all set to back Crono for the upset, and with a decent bit of confidence, but then Pikachu shocked us by making it here and that swung my scale back into coin flip territory. I'm going to flip a coin and go with.... Crono, final answer! He just seems to be a touch stronger than last year, perhaps thanks to CTDS, and beyond that I expect Samus to limit the damage Vincent does to him thanks to her strong morning vote, while Pikachu limits Vincent's damage later in the match with his good ASV. Also, if it's a nailbiter in the final hour I don't see any way Crono loses, thanks to CT's "clutch" ability and how much the board vote despises Vince. Second question is, if Pikachu goes crazy like last time, is there any chance that the Square boys could catch up to Samus? And my answer is... nay. During the euphoria of L-Block's demise I was considering this possibility, but now that my head is cleared I realize that even if Pika holds on better than Ganon (and he should- darn you, you stupid pig!), it probably wouldn't be by 5% like V or C would need. And even if it WAS by that much, don't forget that they're going to be dragging each other down in a dogfight all day. Given that I'd be shocked if Samus is ever not in first beyond the opening 90 minutes or so. As to Pika, well, I'm expecting good things. He was in this position last year and did well, scoring 18 percent to Luigi's 23, so he seems a good bet to pull down about that much once again. A comfortable Samus win, comfortable Pika last, and a down to the wire finish between the Square leads ought to result in something alot like... \*pots, stirs, deliberates, and delivers\* - Samus Aran - 31.74% - Crono - 25.13% - Vincent Valentine - 25.08% - Pikachu - 18.06% That looks pretty wild... but heck, my bracket's dead, my Oracle is floundering, might as well go with my hunch for once! Ngamer Says: **Samus \> Crono** ### Next Day Review Gah, how am I supposed to do a writeup when there's this epic Crono/Vince battle going on in the background? Currently VV is up about 150 with 2 hours left and it's anyone's ballgame... but in any case, good showing for Crono! He's going to end up having a much better showing directly against Vincent than last season, which is a decent justification for those of us who picked him based on CT:DS hype or lack of Link overlap or whatever else we came up with. Also a nice showing for Samus- will be interesting to see how much she can improve on her '05 outing against Mario in this next round, although I don't see a way for either of them to keep up with Crono/Vincent, considering Link's presence. ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3301&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=58) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=58) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Solid Snake vs Weighted Companion Cube vs Cloud Strife vs Mewtwo 2008 _source: Solid Snake vs Weighted Companion Cube vs Cloud Strife vs Mewtwo 2008 (revid 85861)_ ## Results **Round Four** Saturday, November 15th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Quarter Final - **Match \#:** 59 - **Match Date:** Saturday, November 15th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Cloud Strife - 36.26% Solid Snake - 29.07% Weighted Companion Cube - 19.89% Mewtwo - 15.14% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Cloud first place (16pts) - 39.61% Cloud second place (8pts) - 31.20% Snake second place (16pts) - 28.02% Snake first place (8pts) - 24.77% - **Advancing Prediction:** Cloud - 70.81% (30,380) Snake - 52.79% (22,648) We all needed a rest break after the epic nonsense we had just been through, which is exactly what this match was. The only excitement to be had here was Snake keeping it close with Cloud for five minutes, which was a portent of things to come but we can save that for the appropriate time. After that five minutes was up, Cloud looked thoroughly dominant here. Not as dominant as Link, but he looked amazing nonetheless. It ultimately made the final all that much more of a shock. Past that, not much to talk about. Mewtwo did well to make it this far, and he more than made up for his atrocious 2007 showing, but he never really looked that good here in 2008. Cube.... just kind of went out with a whimper. L-Block showed us that the inanimate joke factor was dead and buried, and that these characters were not going to have the same steam here in 2008, and this match showed it. Cube was never in this thing, had no joke trends, and acted more or less like a normal third place character. It was cool to see him not finish in last place on his way out, but L-Block he was not. It was a boring match here today, which is exactly what we all needed. Crono's Redemption Story really took it out of everyone. ## Stats and Analysis Of the four quarterfinal matches this contest, this was easily the most predictable of the bunch. Though given how exciting the other QF matches were, it was perhaps nice to have a breather after Vincent and Crono's epic third act. Most people knew that Cloud and Snake were going to the advance here. Weighted Companion Cube and Mewtwo had deep runs this contest, but both of them more or less got lucky with bracket placement and advanced thanks to stronger characters sharing the same fanbase. Heck, we were 1000 votes away from seeing Midna escape from her division instead of Mewtwo. As for Cloud, he would drop the board vote as usual before taking the lead for good at around the four minute mark. The FF7 lead would end up scoring 56.86% on Snake. A decent victory (and arguably the last good win Cloud has ever had in these contests), but with Sephiroth crashing the party next round, Cloud's performance was bound to weaken due to overlap. The upcoming Semi Final was a great opportunity for Snake to snatch the upset over GameFAQs \#2 character. And with Cloud and Snake joining Link, Mario, Samus and Crono in the Semis, surely we would be getting our first Noble Nine elite eight in four years. No way would a white-haired devil hunter or a dumb pink ball take down Sephiroth or Sonic, right? (AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA) ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Now moving on to what should be the last kind of dull matchup of the season. Or at least it darn well BETTER be dull... \*shakes fist at WCC\* X-Stats from Round Three - Snake - 53.66% (based on '07 Mega Man) - WCC - 39.22% (based on '07 Mega Man) - Cloud - 54.91% (based on '07 Sora) - Mewtwo - 35.23% (based on '07 Sora) What terrible terrible numbers! Mega Man's fate was sealed the moment Zero went and ruined everything by making that ASV comeback on Vivi, and it also left these x-stats fated to be awful. Not even the beastliest of MGS4/Brawl boosts could have pushed Snake above BL... and yet look at that, he STILL can't reach Cloud! That second set of numbers was of course destroyed by the triple Square SFF, which is likewise more or less impossible to adjust for. Oh well, moving on! I took MGS4 boosted Steroid Snake to upset Cloud in the Final, but even \*I\* know that Solid isn't getting within CQCing range of Blonde Haired Zack without some major assistance from either Sephiroth or Vincent. As is, the only thing to keep an eye on is if Cloud can fire another shot across the bow by matching Link's percentage from earlier this round. 40% here would be hugely impressive, but I wouldn't put it past him. Mewtwo had a nice run this season, but let's face it, that was mainly due to some very lucky placement and sliding by thanks to Fox making sure Yoshi wouldn't cut his legs out. After witnessing the ASV that Pika just pulled off against such respectable competition, I think we can put to bed the debate over who the strongest Pokemon is, at least in this format. I'd still like to see the two go head to head in a pure 1v1, but as is I don't see any way for Mew to come close to matching Pikachu's current percentage, and since he'd need to do so to have any shot of catching the Cube, a last place finish is just about a lock. Speaking of WCC, let's check out his round by round progress. From 32% to 29% to not even 24%, ouch. And that was with hundreds of rallied votes and an ideal massive LFF setup, where it still barely managed to survive. There will be no such luck this time around; it's against three entirely independent characters who draw from three very powerful fanbases, and since it'll never be in the running against Snake no one's going to waste their time trying to rally for it. This is about as bad a situation as any joke could face, and as a result I'll be surprised if it can even manage to stay above 20%. As for Snake, well, what's there to say? It would be really neat if he could hang around somewhat with Cloud, giving us some hope of the upset once Seph/VV come into play, but that doesn't seem very reasonable. Also would seem entirely insane (and infuriating!) if Cube ever challenged him. Staying within 10% or so of Cloud while 10% or so above WCC should be about right. Cloud \>\> Snake \>\> Cube \> Mewtwo... sure would be cool to see the Pokemon give him a run though! Sooo, that would work out to about... \*pots and stirs up a heap 'o trouble\* - Cloud Strife - 38.12% - Solid Snake - 27.66% - Weighted Companion Cube - 18.36% - Mewtwo - 15.86% That looks... not very good, somehow. Oh well, if I go down I want to go down hating on joke characters. Ngamer Says: **Cloud \> Snake** ### Next Day Review Hmm, well guess I'll try to get this writeup in before UFC 91 kicks off. Gooo Lesnar! Things went about as expected today, except that Snake did a touch better than I expected and Mewtwo surprised me by collapsing. I realized he wasn't going to have triple LFF working overtime for him like last round, but STILL, he was the only Nintendo option and a Pokemon to boot- I assumed that meant that, like Pikachu, you wouldn't fold to anyone outside of Zelda/SSB. Time to boot Mew to the curb and bring in Charizard as a replacement IMO! As for Snake, darn fine showing here, and I think it sets us up for something extremely interesting once Sephiroth comes to town next round. As long as Sonic doesn't cramp Snake's Nintendo appeal too much, we could really be in for something special there! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3302&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=59) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=59) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Kirby vs Dante vs Sephiroth vs Sonic the Hedgehog 2008 _source: Kirby vs Dante vs Sephiroth vs Sonic the Hedgehog 2008 (revid 85854)_ ## Results **Round Four** Sunday, November 16th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Quarter Final - **Match \#:** 60 - **Match Date:** Sunday, November 16th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Sephiroth - 36.70% Sonic the Hedgehog - 24.63% Dante - 19.42% Kirby - 19.26% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Sephiroth first place (16pts) - 41.80% Sephiroth second place (8pts) - 26.98% Kirby second place (16pts) - 3.40% Kirby first place (8pts) - 2.98% - **Advancing Prediction:** Sephiroth - 68.78% (29,509) Kirby - 6.38% (2,737) The Crono/Vincent duel was not the last of this contest's surprises, and hell this match wouldn't be either, but this match was an absolute shocker. Sonic is lucky Crono lost to Vincent in 2007, or he would have caught a lot more flak than he actually got for choking this match away. Shocking as this was, it wasn't completely out of left field because Sonic had just lost to Auron two rounds prior. Heck, he might have lost to Auron last round outright and not been here at all if Sephiroth wasn't in the poll. I covered how bad Crono looked for years leading up to his big duel a couple matches ago, but it's worth noting that Sonic has looked just as bad. He just doesn't have the choke artist pedigree and huge redemption story attached. In fact, his 2200 comeback on Crono in 2006 is what prevents him from being the weakest character in the Noble Nine. But make no mistake, this was coming for quite awhile. Beginning with sis epic choke job against Samus in 2002 where he blew a 1500 vote lead in 3 hours, Sonic has been mostly downhill. He didn't lose the Noble Nine's win streak or anything, but he kept having these awful showings and was constantly mentioned as a potential weak link. I mean just look at some of these low lights. When you pair Sonic's bad track record with how this contest was playing out, people came into this match thinking an upset was possible. But it wasn't Kirby they were looking at; it was Dante. Dante was fresh off of beating Master Chief (flipping their 2007 result), and Kirby wasn't all that far ahead of Dante this year. Dante got smoked by Sonic back in 2004, but given how this contest was playing out, who knows? Sonic and Kirby might split votes and allow Dante to squeeze through. We'd seen crazier things in this contest alone, plus Kirby didn't have some dominant first place performance in that match where Chief finished in third place. Dante was within striking distance if something weird happened. Something weird happened alright, and people were more than correct to think an upset was possible, but they picked the wrong character. Sephiroth was always going to win first place here. Almost everyone knew it, picked it, and forgot about it. What next to no one knew was Kirby taking second place. Sonic was the favorite, that much is obvious, but the Upset Special for this slot was actually Master Chief. People thought a 2007 rerun was possible, so you can't fault anyone for picking Chief. But Kirby? No one saw it coming. No gurus picked it, the Oracles all thought he would get last place, and the sitewide advancement percentage on Kirby here was only 6.38%. That's the second biggest upset of the year, topped only by Mewtwo's absurd 3.6% in the match against 3 Square characters. And remember, that percentage is added up and counts for people who picked Kirby to get first OR second place here. Anyone who actually picked Kirby to get this far had a favorites bracket or something. The match itself was a total dud, which was the other surprise here. Sonic only kept it close for 5 minutes, and outside of one tiny push during the morning vote, he made no threat whatsoever at winning this match. He basically got his ass whipped for 24 hours, leaving no doubts whatsoever. I covered a lot of this during the Auron \> Sonic upset from two rounds before, but I think a big reason Sonic looked especially bad in 2008 was anti-votes. The mid-2000s was the peak of anti-Sonic bandwagon hatred, and it hit its boiling point with a series of atrocious games with bad ideas. I'd get into how trashy it all was, but a picture is worth 1000 words. That is a real screenshot from Sonic Unleashed, which hit shelves two days after this match. If you don't think that piece of trash was a factor in Sonic doing so poorly in '08, you're nuts. It took a LONG time for him to shake that stigma off, and it mainly happened with the Sonic series becoming Nintendo's bitch. Thank goodness Smash and Sonic Mania happened, or the poor guy might still be in the dog house. ... ...I'll see myself out. ## Stats and Analysis - Kirby advancing was the **\#2** most surprising result of 2008 - Kirby advancing was also the **\#10** most surprising result of all-time - Kirby overperformed by **+3.84%**, the **\#25** most impressive performance of 2008 It's hard to sum the match up beyond a simple "wut", but it doesn't hurt to try. This match wasn't really talked about at any point until Dante won convincingly over the heavily favored Master Chief. At that point, Sonic's loss to Auron had sparked talk of a potential upset. Though, Sonic performed fairly enough in his round three, so any talk of Sonic losing quickly simmered down, and this match was, once again, considered a gimme. Nobody seemed to notice the pink ball in the room. When the match began, Kirby jumped ahead of Sonic in a flash. It was entirely possible that Kirby had a better board vote than the blue blur, so people weren't too worried. In fact, they thought it was funny to see Kirby hold the lead against a noble niner like this. (And they'd get to see it again!) But as the match continued, Kirby just held on to his lead. He would steadily decline as the match went on, and Sonic only started making cuts during the morning vote, but then he just completely lost momentum in the last half, and the straight lines just tell the rest of the story. Now, you can try and argue that this is a case of some new "bandwagon factor", which would explain a lot of the strange occurances over the past two contests. Would some form of rallying behind Kirby explain Kirby's victory? Sure. But it does not excuse Sonic's abysmal performance here. The numbers Sonic put up in this match show him scoring 35% on Sephiroth. 35%. Not a single member of the Noble Nine should be able to get away with failing to break 40% in this day and age without heavy SFF being involved. Whether or not Kirby got a bandwagon going doesn't matter. Sonic put up pathetic numbers against Sephiroth and Dante. Nothing can change that. This match made me, at least, feel bad about riding Crono and Mega Man for being the weak links of the Noble Nine. When Crono loses, it's to the tenth strongest guy. Mega Man was being SFFd by an elite level opponent. Sonic was fresh out of excuses the second Sandbag exited the contest. Sonic will always return to the field, but God knows how he's going to do now. This was a complete disgrace to his name. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction As for what's coming up tonight, eh... I think there's potential here for an interesting result, but I've been forced to lower my hopes due to Sonic looking a little too good last around. Let's see what I mean. X-Stats from Round Three - Kirby - 37.97% (based on '07 Leon) - Dante - 34.49% (based on '07 Leon) - Sephiroth - 34.68% (based on '07 Kratos) - Sonic - 28.31% (based on '07 Kratos) Kirby, you monster! Alright, so obviously that isn't fair considering how Leon was being held way back by Dante while Kirby sat there in an ideal position, but still, it goes to show how dangerous the puffball can be with the right positioning. Meanwhile Seph and Sonic look awful, but that goes back to Kratos not having any reliable performances last season due to L-Block; adjust him up to something more reasonable and Sonic moves right into Kirby's range. As I mentioned, I was really pumped for this matchup right after Dante knocked MC out of the bracket without breaking a sweat, despite Leon acting as an anchor (presumably) to his strength all day. Plus Kirby had looked fantastic, which got me excited for Kirby being able to make deep cuts into Sonic's Brawl/Nintendo base- possibly enough to let Dante sneak through for the advancement! But then Sonic went and had to ruin everything by scoring 28% in R3. Dang! To be clear, I still think the Blue Blur is in for a major hurting versus last round due to not sticking out like a sore thumb, but he just did too well there to bet against him. Also, he once again looks solid in these pictures whereas nothing from Dante really stands out to me. Also, silver-haired badass SFF? Not sure I entirely buy that, but eh, Dante would need a few more factors working in his favor to pull this off, so regardless I can't see it happening. So Sonic \> Dante... but can he at least top Kirby? I think so! Leon's gone, which should naturally be a huge weight off his shoulders, and now Kirby no longer gets a free ride against mature opponents, so I see him coming back down to a more natural strength. Kirby probably comes last here, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him keep it very close, perhaps with a strong morning vote after Dante creates a decent lead in the dead of the night. Sonic \> Dante \> Kirby, pretty close between all three. Is that going to leave any room for Seph to impress? I don't really think so. Sure he looked great in R3, but he's the kind of entrant than can eat PSX/2 action stars like Auron and Kratos up for lunch. I could see him damaging Dante somewhat that way, but Kirby figures to stand up much better against him, and if Sonic brings his A game for the second round in a row it'd be easy to see him stumble into the mid 30s. If instead he amazes us and shoots for 40 once again though, oh well, at least a showing like that would increase Snake's R5 chances! Sephiroth \>\> Sonic \> Dante \>~ Kirby, sounds about right, now let's pot and stir this up quick so I can get back to this PPV! - Sephiroth - 35.83% - Sonic the Hedgehog - 24.70% - Dante - 19.93% - Kirby - 19.54% That looks... like I'm undershooting Seph. Come on big guy, surprise us again! Ngamer Says: **Sephiroth \> Sonic** ### Next Day Review The other day I called Pikachu \> L-Block the most pleased I've been with any result in many years. Well, I stick to that, but Kirby \> Sonic is making the Hall of Fame also, as the most hilarious result in a long long while! I wasn't able to check the poll until 15 minutes in, once Lesnar/Couture was over, but my reaction was just to go "what the heck?" ...and then start cracking up. Stat's reactions only made it more funny! I still don't understand how this is possible, but oh well; it sets us up for what could be entirely really absurd result between a weakened Cloud/Seph, a Snake weakened by splitting Brawl, and a Kirby who will once again stand way way out against three mature PSX stars. Oh boy! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3303&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=60) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=60) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Link vs Mario vs Samus Aran vs Crono 2008 _source: Link vs Mario vs Samus Aran vs Crono 2008 (revid 85858)_ ## Results **Round Five** Monday, November 17th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Semi Final - **Match \#:** 61 - **Match Date:** Monday, November 17th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 38.51% Crono - 24.02% Mario - 20.96% Samus Aran - 16.25% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Link first place (32pts) - 46.50% Link second place (16pts) - 12.53% Crono second place (32pts) - 8.13% Crono first place (16pts) - 1.31% - **Advancing Prediction:** Link - 59.03% (25,326) Crono - 9.44% (4,050) Most of the excitement was gone by this point of the contest (or so we thought), because the rest of it seemed so predictable. The final eight characters were the Noble Nine minus Mega Man and Sonic, with Kirby as the random newcomer to this late stage. The first of the two semifinal matches was incredibly boring and predictable the second it got set up, and really whoever got here in Crono's place was basically guaranteed a spot in the finals. Link was a given for first, we all knew that already. Samus was a given for last, though her getting SFFd twice should not take away from her run at all. Mario was pretty much a given for third, depending on the fourth character. We almost had Zack in this spot over Mario, which would have been legendary and shaken things up, but it was not to be. As for that fourth spot, most people picked Vincent, and he would have waltzed to the final here. Some picked L-Block. The really smart people picked Crono. Crono wouldn't have gotten here without a rally and probably wasn't actually stronger than Vincent in 2008, but so what? He deserved that shit after everything he's been through. And when he got here, his oldest enemy was waiting. But this time, Crono brought friends. He may struggle against Mario alone, but with Link and Samus here helping him? Cakewalk. Samus was happy to step aside, take last place, and do it all while leeching Mario's support. Link acted like Sephiroth in the Smash Ultimate reveal and skewered Mario('s overalls) like a fish. This tag team heel turn Nintendo leeching action allowed Crono to get the easiest win over Mario he'll ever have. This was never in doubt, nor should it have been. It was Crono's time to finally make it into the finals of a contest, and nothing was stopping him. Not L-Block, not Vincent, not Mario, nothing. And no the 2005 run with the three strongest characters removed from the field does not count. This was the first actual contest final Crono made. It should have happened back in 2002, but better late than never. ## Stats and Analysis - Crono advancing was the **\#3** most surprising result of 2008 - Crono advancing was also the **\#17** most surprising result of all-time Back when we were expecting to see Vincent in this match up, it was supposed to be a gimme. Vincent had already proved that he had elite-tier strength, and with Link there to godstomp Mario and Samus, there was absolutely nothing stopping him from moving on to the finals. Of course, Crono couldn't allow that so he decided to pull a Frog, make a wild comeback, and... change absolutely nothing. Anyone who thought Crono had even a remote chance of losing this match was either delusional or thinks that he has as much overlap with Nintendo as, say, Sonic. He was cruising to an easy victory and a well deserved spot in the finals. Not much else to say. But goddamn, it's hard NOT to feel bad for Mario after this. Since day one, he's been held down by SFF. He had to deal with Zelda in the first two rounds. Then he got her off his back to run into Luigi in round three, and shook him off to meet the king himself and suffer through an embarrassingly close match against Zack before this match. On top of it all, he was given crap for sucking it up the entire time through no fault of his own. This was a horrible bracket placement for him. On a side note, no offense, but anyone who considers this a legitimate chapter in the Mario vs. Crono saga needs to slam their head in a car door. ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Now it's time to renew the greatest rivalry in Contest history: Mario vs Crono V, here we go! But is there any chance of this being another classic? Let's review. X-Stats from Round Four - Link - 55.28% (based on Zack = Auron) - Mario - 35.87% (based on Zack = Auron) - Samus - 36.30% (based on '07 Pikachu) - Crono - 31.50% (based on '07 Pikachu) Pretty good set of stats. I don't buy Zack being at Auron's level in this or any format, but he WAS being helped along by triple Nintendo LFF, so that value should be about reasonable. 2008 Pikachu was probably stronger than last year, but he was held back by Samus somewhat and may also have been hurt by having to deal with two other RPG characters, so again, it's probably a decent enough value there. Looks like Crono's a pretty big underdog... but wait! LFF to the rescue? Crono had better hope so- I'd pick Mario over him 1v1, and in a 4 way... heck, I think I'd even take Mario over him with Link in the match! (Considering how MMX couldn't keep up, and he's probably not much below MM, and Crono should be right at MM's level in this format.) But with Samus being in the mix as well, I don't see any way for Crono to lose this. I mean in terms of fanbases we're basically talking about LttP v SMW v Super Metroid v Chrono Trigger, and could you see any way that CT loses there? No way, and that makes me think Crono will win over those old school voters handily enough to do what Zack couldn't and pull ahead of the Nintendo competition to advance. So if Crono advances by a percent or two to bring the all-time rivalry to 3-2, what happens between Mario and Samus? Ehhh, I think Mario still edges that one out without too much trouble, but I'd be shocked if he beats her anything like he did in '05. Samus was in a much worse position last year (with Cloud/Seph there as well), yet held up admirably against Link. I think she improves on that showing by a touch, which MIGHT be enough to give her a shot on Mario... but probably not. And how does all this crazy Nintendo/SNES LFF leave Link looking? Probably not too good, I'm thinking. I realize he's the King of SFF and all that, but we've already seen Zack gash him for respectable percentages time and again, and Crono should be able to improve on those showings without trouble. Beyond that, I don't know... I just get the feeling that with all this wacky SFF flying around, something weird is bound to happen, and what could be weirder than both Mario AND Samus holding up well against him? Alright, so yeah, feel pretty confident in saying Link \> Crono \> Mario \> Samus, but my gut is telling me that something really strange is going to happen in terms of how the percentages fall out. Let's take a stab with... \*smokes, pots, stirs, and hands out\* - Link - 38.11% - Crono - 23.01% - Mario - 20.58% - Samus Aran - 18.30% That looks... pretty odd indeed. Come on Samus, don't collapse! Ngamer Says: **Link \> Crono** ### Next Day Review Aww, Mario/Crono V didn't turn into the new classic we'd been hoping to see. Ah well, there's still next year. Galaxy and Brawl will be further from people's memories, and if CT:DS is as big as hit as it ought to be... alright, so I still wouldn't be backing Crono, but at least he'd have a shot at keeping it interesting IMO. Samus was SFFed down a touch harder than I thought and Link is going to overperform my expectations by a quarter point or so, but other than that things went more or less according to plan; odd, I was sure that much LFF would churn out something wacky! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3304&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=61) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=61) `• `**`Previous Match`**`       • `**`Next Match`** --- ## Cloud Strife vs Solid Snake vs Sephiroth vs Kirby 2008 _source: Cloud Strife vs Solid Snake vs Sephiroth vs Kirby 2008 (revid 85859)_ ## Results **Round Five** Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Semi Final - **Match \#:** 62 - **Match Date:** Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Cloud Strife - 32.60% Solid Snake - 27.80% Sephiroth - 20.57% Kirby - 19.34% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Snake first place (32pts) - 13.02% Snake second place (16pts) - 10.35% Cloud second place (32pts) - 14.21% Cloud first place (16pts) - 37.57% - **Advancing Prediction:** Snake - 23.37% (10,026) Cloud - 51.78% (22,215) The match picture was a prophecy! All four of those characters ended up in Smash Bros! Thanks to a few factors -- Cloud and Sephiroth in the poll together, Solid Snake being on a rampage thanks to MGS4 and Brawl, and Kirby somehow being the only Nintendo rep in the match -- this semifinal match was guaranteed to be a lot more interesting than the first. There was some hope that either Kirby would pull another crazy upset, or that Snake would manage to sneak out a first place finish from Cloud and Sephiroth eternally dueling. The only real guarantee going in is that Sephiroth had no chance. Before this poll, Cloud and Seph had been in 6 matches together. Cloud was 6-0. The only chance Seph ever had was in the 2003 final when he was boosted up by angry Link fans. Beyond that, unless Smash fans miraculously decide to 100% vote for him against Cloud in the future, Seph will never finish ahead of the guy on our site. For an hour, we almost got both crazy spots. When this poll started, Snake was flying off with first place, and Kirby was riding high as the only Nintendo rep while Cloud and Seph were off dueling somewhere. The first half hour of this poll was something else, because Snake was in first and Kirby was in second, with the latter having a 100+ vote lead on Cloud. Cloud did eventually shake Kirby off despite Sephiroth's best efforts at leeching support, but by the time Cloud got into second place he was already more than 650 votes behind Snake. Kirby would never again contend in the match, but shout out to the little guy for the run he made this year. Of Kirby's 5 matches this year, 4 were very entertaining, including really fun upsets over Master Chief and Sonic, two Ertyu Specials, and a near-upset against Cloud. You can't ask for better than that. Conventional wisdom would say that Cloud would begin coming back on Snake any time now, but the problem is he was sharing this poll with the worst possible albatross there is. Only Tifa could have leeched him this badly, and it led to Cloud never actually threatening for first place at all. Cloud was able to cut 200 votes off of Snake's lead overnight, but Snake got it all back when the sun was up, and had such a hold on first place that he built up an 800 vote lead at one point. By the time Cloud made a legitimate push at first, it was too late, but he still gave it one heck of a run. Snake fell off pretty hard in the evening and second night vote, and Cloud used this time to chop off almost 500 votes from Snake's lead. If Seph wasn't there, Cloud takes first place. If this format wasn't dog shit, this battle for first place might have actually mattered. But I've said enough on that subject for one contest. Let's wrap this PCA up and go home. ## Stats and Analysis - Solid Snake advancing was the **\#9** most surprising result of 2008 - Sephiroth underperformed by **-4.47%**, the **\#21**most disappointing performance of 2008 A lot of interesting things were going to happen here. Cloud/Sephiroth is never good for the latter, and Cloud would take some SFF damage, thereby putting him within striking distance of Steroid Snake, who was going to walk into this match high on overperformance. And then there was Kirby/Sephiroth to watch. Woohoo! The Nintendo Power Hour yelled out as soon as the match started. Kirby was beating Cloud. Granted, that's reasonable, and wasn't going to last long, but the FF7 fanboys had to be crying over it. Dignity -1 for Cloud. But, not even the NPH could overturn Solid Snake. The guy got a vice grip on the lead and never let go. Kirby later folded to Cloud, and after that it was never in question as to who was getting through, although the order still could be debated. To get the unimportant point out of the way, Kirby made Sephiroth look like dirt--SFF takes no prisoners in the 4-way format, and Sephiroth is not immune. From a vote ratio of 1.67 in Sephiroth's favor to 1.41 *in Kirby's favor* is a testament to the power of split fanbases. However, the real show here was Cloud's inexorable march towards Snake. Cloud is the \#2 guy in the Noble Nine by most any account, and he wasn't going to let this Snake guy get in the way of that. Well, math got in the way. anyone here know what an "asymptote" is? Imagine Cloud is the function, and Snake is the asymptote. That's it in a nutshell. Unfortunately for Cloud, he didn't have infinite time. The match was going to be over when the clock struck midnight, and Snake never showed any real signs of a breakdown. Cloud's climb eventually leveled off simply because he wasn't going up in anything other than percentages. He won a few updates here and there, but every time he did that, Snake would come back and take the votes right back. The lead just couldn't be cut down below 300 at any time, and with the two having a tango of practically equal vote incomes, Cloud eventually settled in second place. The match could have lasted another day, but there was no way anything significant could have happened beyond this point without rallies or cheating. Either way, cue the Link \> Snake ruckus for the finale. And I'm going to reiterate: lol sephiroth ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction Speaking of which, time for another match featuring Captain Wacky himself- Kirby! Will The Little Puffball That Could be sending his fans home happy once again? Let's see what the stats say. X-Stats from Round Four: - Cloud - 54.10% (based on '07 Mewtwo) - Snake - 45.26% (based on '07 Mewtwo) - Sephiroth - 55.11% (based on '07 Sonic) - Kirby - 38.70% (based on '07 Sonic) For the third round in a row I say, Kirby you beast! Like the last two times though, you have to call this result very much into question. No one seems to know what in the world happened to Sonic, but however you explain that he was clearly nowhere near his 2007 level of strength and so Seph and Kirby both need to come down about three notches. The Mewtwo values are surely closer to legit, though even there I hesitate to put too much faith in a guy who went from Chump to Champ and back to Chump again in three straight matches. Even lowering Kirby to 35%ish looks absurd, I'll admit. But then again, consider the competition- he's once again getting the ultimate in Sore Thumb treatment, standing out big time as the lone cutesy/cartoony bright pink ball of Nintendo against three very grey/drab realistic mature Sony stars. And two of them share the same game! And if there's anything to those persisting rumors of "FF7/MGS SFF", Kirbs could even be considered the outright favorite! Right? Sooo... why am I not backing the upset? Two things: Snake's newfound Nintendo support post-trailer, and the beating Big Boss laid down on Kirby back in R1. The only justification I've been able to make for that crazy result was that because the casual Brawl totem pole goes Snake \> Kirby \> Lucas, that's the way the poll ended up playing out. That being the case, nothing's going to save Kirby here... still, no shame in third place! One upset shot down- time to back the other! After all, Snake stayed within 9% of Cloud in a fair match last round, so once Seph is thrown into the mix FF7 will surely be weakened enough that Solid's hardcore fanbase will be able to push him into a first place finish. Right? Uh... hate to say it, but I'm going to have to back down from this upset as well, badly as I'd like to see it. Yes, Seph's going to bring Cloud down to his level, but now I can't help but see this surprisingly resilient Kirby likewise throw some LFF around, and all it would take is a Brawl-style 1 or 2 percent and the upset hopes would be dashed. So great work in getting here Kirbs, but I fear you may have doomed Snake in the process! As for Kirby/Seph, eh... give me Kirby. Anything could happen there really, but with the way that guy has been swallowing opponents left and right it just doesn't seem wise to bet against him. Cloud \>~ Snake \>\> Kirby =~ Seph. Sounds like an Instant Classic! I'll give it a classic scoring of \*stirs and pots and stirs some more\* - Cloud Strife with 30.74% - Solid Snake with 29.39% - Kirby with 20.14% - Sephiroth with 19.73% That looks... mighty tasty! But come on Snake, pull it out! Ngamer Says: **Cloud \> Snake** ### Next Day Review Awwww man, my boy Snake providing an awesome capper to an awesome Contest right now. People have been bashing this season ever since the bracket first came online and we saw how 4-ways were returning, and I've never thought that was fair. Sure, I can understand how badly we all want to see 1v1 games, but to let that overshadow all the really fun, really strange results we saw out of this bracket isn't too cool. And today is the biggest highlight of all IMO, as this crazy Snake upset means that your 2008 Contest Champ is... creativename! The \$500 couldn't have gone to a better or more deserving guy, even though he's actually way more concerned with the Oracle (which he is ALSO going to win this year, for his much-deserved first \#1 finish). Paratroopa is going to win the Guru, which I'm pretty pleased with as well- I trust him to make an excellent Game nomination choice. But if you don't, be sure to pester him into picking your own choice! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3305&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=62) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=62) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Link vs Crono vs Solid Snake vs Cloud Strife 2008 _source: Link vs Crono vs Solid Snake vs Cloud Strife 2008 (revid 85864)_ ## Results **Championship** Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Tournament Final - **Match \#:** 63 - **Match Date:** Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Link - 33.00% Cloud Strife - 27.05% Solid Snake - 24.81% Crono - 15.30% - **GameFAQs Expectations:** Link first place (64pts) - 29.17% Link second place (32pts) - 10.74% Snake second place (64pts) - 6.55% Snake first place (32pts) - 3.59% - **Top Two Prediction:** Link - 39.91% (17,123) Snake - 10.14% (4,350) This contest had one final surprise for us after all. In the Summer 2008 Contest, it turns out that the most rallied, bandwagoned character would not be L-Block, the Weighted Companion Cube, Sandbag, or any of the other obvious joke characters. It would not be a random midcarder suddenly finding their wings, even though we saw really fun upsets all throughout the spectrum in this contest. It wouldn't be the legion of BrawlFEAR entrants. It wasn't even Zack, Mega Man X, or Crono, and those three had some real chops this year. Turns out our big bandwagon would be... Solid Fuckin Snake himself!! People looked at the semis like a fluke, because there was the obvious issue of Sephiroth being in the match. But when the final started, all hell broke loose on Board 8 for a long time. Before getting into it, let's look at how Snake was building to this for quite some time. In 2002, Snake got tripped up in an upset by Crono. He used the loss to fuel himself, and he got a little bit stronger, a little bit better every year. In 2003, he had a close loss to Mega Man. In 2004 and 2005, Snake took a step back, and I think a lot of it had to do with absurd Nintendo boosts paired with Solid Shit. But hey, if you're going to have a redemption arc you might as well almost lose to Frog and Bowser. In 2006, Snake made a clear leap, avenging his losses to Mega Man, winning the male side of the bracket, and eating a close loss to Samus in the final. In the Battle Royal that year, he pulled a crazy upset over Sephiroth with Cloud's help. The symmetry of him upsetting Cloud with Seph's help this year should not go unnoticed. In 2007, L-Block happened to everyone, but Snake had to deal with him 4 times. Eventually, it all led here. Very, very few characters in the history of video games deserve a rallied bandwagon more than Solid Snake. He took all that momentum, paired it with a Smash appearance and Metal Gear Solid 4 in the same year, and went nuts in this contest. Snake looked like a killer all contest long, and in typical stealth fashion, everyone forgot about him as they focused on the characters mentioned in the first paragraph. They remembered in the semis though, and they definitely remembered him in the final. When this poll started, Snake wasn't merely in a fluke second place spot over Cloud, with an assist from Crono. Nononono. That would be the easy way. Snake does things the hard way. Alone. No help. No sound. Procurement on site. Perfectly. Solid Snake came out in this poll and took aim at the fuckin king, and when you aim for the king, you best not miss. Snake came out in this match and took the lead over not just Crono, not just Cloud, but everyone. Including Steroid Link, the only Nintendo character here, who was out for giga-revenge after L-Block happened a year ago. It was one of the all-time great finals moments we've ever had in a GameFAQs Contest, and it's sad it's so forgotten about with how much everyone hated the format -- and trust me, I get it. Snake didn't lead by much, mind you, but he led. It was a 19 vote lead at the freeze, and he went up with the first update. Link started coming back pretty quickly from there, and we all figured the match was over. ...nope! Snake held strong, built up a 150 vote lead, and held strong in the 100-150 range all night long heading into the morning vote. It was one of the all-time great contest accomplishments, and I would have loved if this poll were only six and a half hours long. Unfortunately, it was 24 hours long and Link went full Giga-Oni-Link when the sun came up to put a wrap on his revenge tour and end the Summer 2008 Contest. Snake did not go out a loser, though, because he would still end up in second place. Cloud, in large part due to Crono's presence and Snake's bandwagon, never had a shot. Cloud did cut a 3700 vote deficit down to losing by only 2100 and go out like a warrior in his own right, but he failed to place in the final nonetheless. And Crono? His final was the rally over Vincent and subsequent demolishing of Mario. His "final" happened long before the actual final of this contest, and for Crono he was just happy to be here. Your winner of the Summer 2008 Contest was Link, finishing the revenge tour and retaking the crown. In second place, in shocking fashion, was Solid Snake. Given bracketeers get points for second place, I say we give Snake half a contest win for this one! All in all, the format may have sucked, but the contest was decent enough with crazy vote totals to keep things watchable until the very end. ## Stats and Analysis - Solid Snake making it into the Top Two was the **\#4** most surprising result of 2008 - It was also the **\#15** most surprising result of all-time So finally, the final match of the Summer 2008 Contest is here. Everything we have seen so far in this contest has pointed to this match as a standard Link's slaughter of Cloud, Cloud's assault on Snake and Crono being in the fourth place far behind. However, Solid Snake managed to do the impossible and maintained a small lead over Link 6 hours into the match. During this time, a large part of Board 8 was hoping for Snake to hold onto the lead for 24 hours. If this holds, Snake will become only the third character to ever beat Link in GameFAQs Contest after Cloud's championship run in 2003 and L-Block miraculous run in 2007 (Well, fourth if you count the Jay Solano's massacre of Link in 2006). Unfortunately, when the morning vote kicked in, Snake allowed Link to build a 800 votes lead and increasing (even Super L-Block lost about 900 votes to Link during the morning vote last year). As a result, Snake fans lost their faith and not bothered to alert the internet in a huge scale during the ASV to counteract Link's advancement. Snake would go on to freefall throughout the day, allowing Cloud to cut his lead by more than 1500 votes from 3600+ to just over 2000 votes win at the end, and Snake has lost to Link by over 9000 votes when all is said and done (it's actually just under 9000, but I can't help it). Still, Snake has fought a great fight. His final mission (to beat Cloud twice) has been accomplished. Karma Hunter is loving it. And Link has won his fifth Character Battle title, out of seven contests. What a beast! Congratulations! ## Match Trends ## Ngamer's Same Day Analysis ### Match Prediction So yeah, really good season, one of the better we've seen, and... wait, what's that? There's one more match left? Well shoot, guess I better discuss it! X-Stats From Round Five - Link - 68.52% (based on '07 Mario) - Crono - 51.62% (based on '07 Mario) - Snake - 28.18% (based on '07 Kirby) - Cloud - 28.02% (based on '07 Kirby) Crono's got this. That's funny, you'd think stats would be more reliable as we moved away from the fodder of the opening rounds, but instead this is probably the worst set of the whole year. Massive three way Nintendo LFF combined with massive Nintendo Sore Thumb Factor overperformance will do that to you, I guess! In any case all you really need to know from looking at this is that Link is the heavy heavy favorite going in, just as you'd imagine, but that Cloud is obviously up for a major gain now that Seph will be dropped. Let's start with Crono. Everyone's picking him for last by a mile, which is obvious enough, but even though he'll be getting LFFed by two more powerful cool-looking swordsman I don't see him entirely falling off the map like most people are saying. CT held up extremely well against FF7 all things considered, and of course it did great against both LttP and Mario 3... I don't see that firm fanbase of his entirely abandoning him here, and so I bet he looks better than Snake did in the '07 Final pretty easily. As to Link vs Cloud, well... Cloud had some very good showings this season, including outdoing Link's percentage in R2, and Sephiroth aside this ought to go down as one of his best years. Had L-Block survived long enough to let Vincent and Crono knock each other out with their split it would surely have moved Mario into this match, at which point I'm pretty much positive I'd have been backing Cloud. The two Nintendo icons in one poll, turning it into triple Brawl LFF due to Steroid Snake, with Cloud the lone Square option? Now that would have been some true Championship material Sore Thumb Factor! As is though it's Cloud taking the major disadvantage thanks to CT's strong SNES support, and I don't see any way this setup would not result in Link's biggest win over Cloud ever, percentage wise. The real question of the day will be "can lightning strike twice"? And the real answer will be... sorry, but no. Crono has been great this year, but even so you'd have to figure that Snake needed Vincent in this match applying same-game LFF Sephiroth style to have any legit chance at the upset. Solid gets more bad news in the form of long time SSB star Link- yes he stood up to one Brawler fine in Kirby, but Link is much more likely to cut down his Nintendo support like Samus did back in the '06 Final, which could potentially limit his strength rather drastically. Luckily he's also got some good news! Link/Crono/Cloud, three cool looking sword-wielding RPG/action characters who peaked back in the mid to late 90s... that means Snake gets to be the one to stand out from the crowd here, and much like Kirby today and L-Block in the '07 Final, I think that will result in a decent overperformance. He'll never be in contention for 2nd outside of the Power Hour, surely, but even so I'm thinking he hangs in there closer on Cloud than most are expecting. Alrighty, so all 4 players separated by decent margins but with no one really collapsing and Snake looking the best relatively. That ought to give us percentages along the lines of... \*stirs up the final pot of the year\* - Link - 35.95% - Cloud Strife - 28.27% - Solid Snake - 21.71% - Crono - 14.07% Wanted to do something more crazy here, but ehhh, just can't see it. Great season everyone, this was fun! Ngamer Says: **Link \> Cloud** ### Next Day Review Wow, just... wow. Greatest Final of all time? Ehh, I guess I'd still have to say Zelda vs Final Fantasy was epic enough to top it. But this stunner isn't too far back! ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3306&num=4) - [Guru Match Predictions](http://www.thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=63) - [Oracle Match Results](http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k8&type=match&match=63) • **Previous Match**       • **Next Match** --- ## Classic Link vs Young Link vs Toon Link vs CD-I Link 2008 _source: Classic Link vs Young Link vs Toon Link vs CD-I Link 2008 (revid 85865)_ ## Results **Bonus Match** Thursday, November 20th, 2008 ## Ulti's Analysis - **Round:** Bonus Match - **Match \#:** 64 (Extra) - **Match Date:** Thursday, November 20th, 2008 - **Oracle Expectations:** Classic Link - 40.25% CD-I Link - 23.32% Toon Link - 18.53% Young Link - 17.90% How this match got more votes than the actual final, I'll never know. I get that this was a big joke to laugh about how dominant Link was, but this match really should have been Link vs Snake. It took 5 years for us to actually get that as a bonus poll and it required Draven pissing everyone off, of all things. The match itself was funny for a minute, as CD-I Link took the bandwagon votes and was winning for a couple minutes. Once that dried up though, Classic Link annihilated everyone in one of the funniest cases of SFF we'll ever see. Not only do we have Same Game SFF, but we have Same Character SFF! And spare me the "different Links from multiple time lines" crap. No one cares. 95,000 votes for the winner of a bonus poll is a record that probably never falls. Seeing CD-I Link get second place here was legitimately funny, and I'm actually surprised Young Link got last place. Do people really like Toon more than him, or was this legitimate Ocarina of Time SFF? I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't like Young Link, given he kinda sucks in the beginning of Ocarina of Time, but that begs the question of why Majora's Mask didn't matter more. Then there's the business of Smash Bros, where we legitimately have three of these characters as separate fighters somehow. I'm probably overthinking it. Congrats to Link on the win, and congrats to CD-I for being what all true warriors strive for! ## Stats and Analysis This is the single greatest case for SFF ever. This is not just a simple "characters from the same genre" SFF, or "the same series" SFF, or even "the same game" SFF. It is **the same character** SFF. Link SFF'd himself into the ground so hard that he seems weaker than CATS. This is the first time that Link has ever been SFF'd and failed to break 10% in a match, but on the other hand, Link also scored the second highest percentage in 4-way contests in this match! This match also has the highest vote total in 2008, proving that Link is one of the biggest vote draws in these contests. On that note, Wee CD-I Link! MAH BOI, this contest result is what all true warriors strive for! ## Match Trends ## External Links - [Match Updates](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=3308&num=4) • **Previous Match**       • **No Next Match**