# Character Battle IX (2013) _Board 8 wiki -- CC BY-SA 3.0. Contest overview plus 125 match writeups, in match order. Converted from MediaWiki to Markdown; navigation, image embeds and footnotes stripped. See ATTRIBUTION.md._ --- ## Summer 2013 Contest _source: Summer 2013 Contest (revid 85218)_ | Announced: | June 10, 2013 | |------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Started | July 8, 2013 | | Ended: | September 16, 2013 | | Winner: | Draven | | Contest Winner: | BowtotheTWIG | | Notable matches: | Alucard/Falcon/Rydia, Missingno/Tidus/Banjo, Ezio/Auron/L-Block, Mario/Vivi/Ganondorf, Zelda/DK/Charizard, Cloud/Squirtle/Leon, Mega Man/Zero/Charizard, All Draven Matches | **Spring 2013 Contest** **Summer 2013 Contest** was the ninth GameFAQs character tournament held on GameFAQs. The format diverged from 1-on-1 again, but this time for 1-on-1-on-1, with the top voted moving on. This was probably made to fit something no Board 8er complained about: fitting the ninth edition, there are nine divisions, with the top seeds being the Noble Nine. ### Ulti's Pre-Contest Analysis Way back when Allen originally announced this contest, and man that seems like forever ago, there was a ton of excitement in the air. It had been three years since the previous contest for reasons unknown, and Board 8 was allowed massive influence over the entrants. It was the biggest single-board influence over a contest since Current Events had free reign over who got into the Summer 2002 Contest. We also didn't have to deal with the nonsense of vote-in polls this year, because 243 characters got in. Allen was clearly very excited about this contest, because he was in constant touch with us and spoiled everything for us first. The short of it is that he released one seed at a time, outsourced all the character bios, and revealed a massive 243 character, 12-hour threeway poll contest, with 24 hour polling from round 3 on. There were also a ton of cute touches to it, namely the Noble Nine being the nine 1 seeds, an homage to the 3 seed curse with all the 3 seeds being newcomers, and the 8 seeds all being rallied Board 8 characters. I'll save my opinion of the setup for when all the writeups are done, but I will say that this was a cool idea to try once. It meant for some crazy situations where characters could lose matches that they would never lose 1 on 1, and this contest would definitely deliver on that front. Lastly, there were tons of new features to the poll results page. New maps, new results screen, new stat pages, a new expert challenge... pretty much everything was balls-to-the-wall this year to account for the massive layoff. And despite what everyone will say about this contest in the coming years, this was a VERY fun contest much like Summer 2003 Contest. ## Ulti's Post-Contest Analysis There's a lot I could say about this contest, but I'll keep it simple and positive. Everyone knows about Reddit and Draven, but even without them this contest was completely nuts. The Vivi \> Mario upset, Pokemon going crazy, Mega Man beating Charizard even with Zero in the poll, and Final Fantasy 7 tanking are a few examples, but not to be forgotten in all this is how threeway polls were a cool new idea. Once. Unlike fourways, this is not an idea that should ever come back, simply because it was just way too much. 243 characters is insane, as is 121 matches, 125 if you include bonus polls. The less is more philosophy should be used more often, and the 128 character format with 12 hour polls in the early rounds was really good. Allen had it right with starting the 24 hours polls in round 3 instead of round 4, too, so full marks on that. That being said, ranking this contest is very difficult. Some matches were awesome, some left me wondering how the site's administrator could turn his back on it when the opportunity to stop the rallying was right there. Allen was nice enough to make a topic explaining everything though, finally, and I saved it for archiving purposes: SBAllen posted...I was planning on doing a big writeup at the end of the contest, but since everybody is asking for one now, here you go. 1\) The /r/leagueoflegends factor The 70,000 difference in votes from Link/Shepard/Draven to Sonic/Mewtwo/Bowser is 99% accountable to Reddit users, according to Google Analytics and our own internal tracking. New voters (most of whom were Reddit users, although we don't track where someone visited from to how they vote) voted 3:2 for Draven over Link. They did not 100% for Draven, as many seem to assume. However, those 70,000 visitors from Reddit are a drop in the bucket to our overall site traffic. Reddit accounted for less than 5% of our traffic that day, which is a whole lot more than they normally do, but for comparison, weekends this time of year give us a 16% boost in traffic over weekdays. The poll page, even with the increase in traffic from reddit, wasn't even the most popular page on the site on Labor Day (that was the home page, as always). A lot of people seem to think that I'm doing everything possible to keep Draven in the contest so we keep getting the boost in traffic, but it is simply such an irrelevant boost that it wouldn't be worth the effort. We aren't interested in people who hit the site and never come back. Oh, and one last thing about those visitors. According to Google, from the first Draven rally in July, it was their first visit to GameFAQs for less than half of them. By the Labor Day rally, 80% of them had visited GameFAQs previously, which is what you'd expect from the same people coming back again and again to vote for Draven. 2\) Cheating, rallying, and conflicts of interest I'm not going to define conflict of interest here, but the only way to avoid them in something like this is to be consistent, and to not intervene in the contest except as absolutely necessary. The rules state that we can intervene in case of vote stuffing, which we did, or that we can even just shut down the contests or make massive changes in case of unauthorized intervention or fraud, but that simply didn't happen. First of all, there was no DDoS, from Reddit or anywhere else. Our load balancers/proxy servers for our web servers had an out-of-memory issue after 300+ days of uptime. This had happened before to the load balancers for our database (back on December 26, also during a holiday, when the boards were down for an hour or two), but this was the first time it happened to our web servers, catching everybody off guard due to the holiday. Because the site was slow but still responding most of the 90 minute "outage", the first "site down" alert didn't come for over an hour. Once the operations team was finally paged out, restarting the servers fixed the issue immediately. One thing we absolutely failed to do was to have a clear policy in place in case of outages. If we had one, it would have been very clear and wouldn't have come into effect unless there was a massive failure (something like a full outage preventing or impacting votes for more than six hours). We didn't though, meaning that any action we took in the Link/Shepard/Draven battle was going to be seen as (and may have actually been) a conflict of interest. Without any policy in place, all we could really do is let the battles play out without any intervention, unless there was vote stuffing. This won't be a problem in future contests(?) as we'll have a contingency plan for site blackouts in place before they happen. We state up front that we reserve the right to adjust vote totals in case of vote stuffing, which is one person voting many times. We did just that in several battles where there was clear evidence that one person, using a VPN, was registering hundreds and hundreds of votes all by themselves. We caught that person red-handed, banned them, zeroed out their contest entry (they were on the leaderboard), and adjusted our anti-vote-stuffing code over the course of the next few days to prevent it from happening again, as that same person still kept trying new methods of stuffing votes. The huge boost in the number of votes in Draven battles matches up with both our internal and external traffic numbers, and everything about those voters looks distinctly human. There's not one person spamming thousands of votes (like we caught and stopped), there are thousands of voters visiting the site and voting once, and everything from our internal tracking to Google to ad serving rates confirms that. Last night, I was watching Netflix with my wife and Devin was playing Final Fantasy XIV. I decided to check in on things before I went to bed. I was shocked when I visited this board to find myself being accused of rigging the contest, being a hypocrite, and much worse. I found out that the mods of the /r/leagueoflegends subreddit were shutting down rally topics, at the request of GameFAQs staff. I messaged them with my official reddit account that I used for my AMA, and asked exactly who it was they talked to from our site, confirming that we do not have any restrictions on external rallies. They simply reinstated the rally topic, not mentioning anything else, and that was it. That's all that I know about the topic. Now, if I were to go to reddit and demand that /r/leagueoflegends stop rallying for Draven, then that is a conflict of interest, unless I go out and demand that every other site that mentions the contest stop doing so as well. I'm not the Internet police and the rules on rallies aren't so much that we want other sites to come in and rally votes for their favorite characters, it's that we really have no technical or legal means of stopping it. If a site started rallying, I asked them to quit, and they didn't, what then? Do I shut down the contest, or just award the victory to my favorite character? What if they were rallying to force the other character to win by default? Where does my interference on the outcomes of the battles end? Unless a single person is stuffing votes, which we specifically disallow and try to prevent, I have to let the battles play out. That's the only thing I can do per the rules of the contest, not to mention ethically and legally. 3\) Changing the rules This contest, like any other contest, has a legally binding set of rules, and we can't change the rules, voting restrictions, or guidelines on external rallies in the middle of it just because we don't like the way things are going. Nobody complaining about the rules now complained before the contest started, and those have been the exact same rules for our battle contests for many years now. That being said, we did not expect /r/leagueoflegends to rally like it has. When the contest was being built, we were hoping to get both minor and even major publishers boosting up their games, and even independent game fanbases to rally up for their characters. The real problem is that it only happened once, for Draven, and nobody else, and it happened with such a force that not even Link could survive it. If other companies or fanbases had rallied their characters as hard as League of Legends fans did, there wouldn't have be an issue, but it's hard for any other group to stand up to such a massive and organized group of fans. And let's face it, they are fans. They're not coming to GameFAQs to ruin things (well, a few of them are, and they're very loud and gloating about it, but they're definitely not representative of the whole). 4\) Registered users only If, hypothetically, we were to restrict the contest voting to registered GameFAQs users (which we can't do in the middle of the contest, and which we couldn't get a budget or justify the hours for an entire contest), then we'd have a lot fewer votes (registered users only account for around 1/3 of the total), and a lot of different results: 5149: Jak over Draven 5171: Falcon over Alucard 5220: ?-Block over Rikku 5227: Mega Man X over Draven 5232: Luigi over Big Boss 5246: Mario over Vivi 5247: Missingno over Squall 5251: Zelda over Charizard 5253: Link over Draven 5255: Kirby over Sephiroth 5261: Charizard over Mega Man It's not all about Draven. Non-registered users impact quite a few battles, and would leave us with completely different results. 5\) This contest proves GameFAQs is dying Nope, we're stronger than ever. More users, more traffic, etc. it's just that the Internet has grown around us. Fifteen years ago, the Internet was reserved for the technically literate, five years ago, your parents were using the Internet, and now even your grandparents are online all the time. This contest does show how much the topography of the Internet has changed. Before, if someone needed help on a game, our average visitor came to GameFAQs via the home page, and then searched for their game. Today, the average visitor does a deep search on Google ("How to beat Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts"), and they're directed to one of many different pages on GameFAQs: a FAQ, a board topic, or even a question in GameFAQs Answers. The home page of GameFAQs today gets half of the traffic it received five years ago, and that's reflected in the Poll of the Day totals. Fewer people hitting the home page means fewer people voting. The rest of the site gets a lot more traffic, but they're not even seeing the polls. Even a lot of long-time registered users skip the home page and go straight to the Boards page. Our home page just doesn't have a lot of compelling content and never really has. The Poll of the Day is actually one of the big draws to it. This is something that we actually plan to address in the near future, attempting to make the home page an interesting landing destination for our users. 6\) Is it worth it? That's the big question. This contest was truly created with a lot of love for Board 8, but the rest of the Internet gets to participate, and at that point it's out of our hands. This isn't the first time that outside forces have rallied for a character, it's just the first time it's been such an unpopular one. Future character battles could suffer the same fate. Or, they could just be boring snooze-fests where the Noble Nine reign supreme and Link is unmatched. I don't know which is worse. I was hoping with that between the three-way battles, expanded roster, and the ability to vote from (and promote) the poll page itself, that the old boring Link-always-wins contest would be different this year, but... Despite all of the conspiracies, this contest doesn't really make us any money or bring in very many new users. In fact, when you take into account all of the time spent building it up, checking for vote-stuffing, doing writeups like these, and just trying to keep things running, time arguably better spent actually adding new content and features to the site, it's hard to argue that it's worth the trouble anymore. But it's fun. Or at least, it was. In previous contests, there simply wasn't a dedicated force like /r/leagueoflegends that could singlehandedly swing the outcome of the contest, and it's just going to get worse from here. If we have a Best Game Ever contest in a few years and League of Legends (or whatever the MOBA of the moment is years from now) fans rally their game to win, it's not really fun for the GameFAQs members who enjoy these contests, including me. So, is this the last of the Character Battle (and Best Game Ever) contests in their current format? Maybe. There aren't going to be a lot of good memories from this one, and the issue of large external communities rallying is only going to get worse. Online games are getting bigger and more dedicated fanbases that are making the old Starcraft (Blizzard.net) and L-Block (4chan) rallies look rather tame. The problem is that there isn't really any fair way to limit who can vote. If we require registration to vote, we'll just get flooded with novelty accounts that are abandoned. It won't slow anyone down. If we only allow votes from people with X karma, it's unfair to the normal influx of new users who join our site on a daily basis to tell them that they aren't trusted enough to vote in our polls. But, all is not lost. We've got some ideas for at least one more home page bracket battle that (probably) shouldn't lend itself to such huge external rallies, and some other ideas on keeping the spirit of the Character Battle alive while giving the users of GameFAQs control over the outcome. Whether or not those ideas come to fruition depends a lot on you, the members of Board 8, and what you want to happen. You're some of the oldest and most dedicated users of GameFAQs, and a lot of the most enjoyable, but the amount of hate and vitriol over the past few weeks has been unacceptable. You can disagree with what I did (or didn't do), but the personal attacks don't really help the situation at all. But, I'd like to think that's just a small and vocal minority, so we'll see how it plays out from here. So with that said, it's good to know that Allen was as seemingly annoyed with everything as we were, and Board 8 would be lying to themselves if they tried saying they weren't acting just as bad as Reddit in some avenues. I also did promise the dude in private a fair evaluation in the PCA, so here goes. I'd give him a straight B, since while overall he did a good job, the lack of any foresight or backup plan in case of an outage isn't exactly acceptable -- especially given such outages have happened before and have caused either match restarts or full 24 hour extensions. Technology has gotten out of control, but that doesn't mean it can't break. There should have been a plan in place. I'm also willing to honestly believe that Link/Shep/Draven was a coincidence, but that doesn't mean I think it was handled well. Neither were Draven's last two matches. That being said, I'm okay with rallying from outside sources. Truly, I am. But Allen needs to actually take a stand with it instead of waffling like he did. Once the personal attacks started, he checked out. I don't blame him and I will never defend the idiots who went after him, but I do hope he learned something from the experience beyond "contests aren't fun". Not the least of which should be that he needs to make a decision and stick with it, and people will agree even if it's a decision they don't like. That's what goes into making leaders and men that are respected. If you like rallies, say so and be okay with them. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's no need to explain away people who don't do it. If r/LoL is the only thing that shows up in force, good on them. With that being said, the forums need to be moderated a LOT more heavily during contest time if blatant invasions are going on. The crap Reddit got away with on Board 8 during Draven's last three matches was unreal, and mods really need to stop hiding behind the "if you don't mark it, we can't do anything" excuse. I'll guarantee these people didn't sit around waiting for things to get marked when Reddit spammed for Cory in the House. Why then does Reddit get away with invading Board 8? I don't understand. So in conclusion, I hope Allen starts having fun with contests again. And for the love of all things, can we PLEASE get a 128 game bracket, 12 hour matches for the first two rounds, no division by era? You can even remove FF7 and Ocarina of Time and hold a tournament of champions, though it may not be necessary since League of Legends will be the favorite. That contest would be amazing! You want to prove you listen to us and are a man of the people, Allen? We've been asking for that contest for nearly 10 years. Give us what we want. People look forward to my contest ranking every season for whatever reason, and here it is: Fall 2010 (GotD) Spring 2004 (Games) Summer 2002 (Characters) Summer 2003 (Characters) Summer 2013 (Characters) Winter 2010 (Characters) Summer 2005 (Characters) Fall 2009 (Games 4-way) Summer 2007 (Characters 4-way) Summer 2006 (Females vs Males) Spring 2006 (Series) Summer 2008 (Characters 4-way) Summer 2004 (Characters) Spring 2005 (Villains) Fall 2011 (Rivalries) Last, but not least... The Ultimate Loser™! Adol Chrisin! Going by first place \> last place.... Draven \> Samus \> Red \> Squall \> Amaterasu \> Adol First place \> second place just for fun.... Draven \> Snake \> Pikachu \> Sora \> Gilgamesh \> Booker Thanks and see you next year! Also, sorry for taking so long to finish this. I got super burned out right in the middle =/ ## Bracket
Contest Bracket
Division 1
\(1\) Link (18) Isaac (Binding) (27) Tingle Link Raiden Yoshi Link Shepard Draven
\(6\) Raiden (13) Waluigi (22) Alan Wake
\(9\) Yoshi (10) Solaire of Astora (19) Demi-Fiend
\(2\) Commander Shepard (17) Captain Olimar (26) Kain Shepard Tharja Aerith
\(5\) Tharja (14) Juliet Starling (23) Tiny Tina
\(8\) Hero (11) Rinoa Heartilly (20) Aerith Gainsborough
\(3\) Draven (16) Chie Satonaka (25) Jak Draven Ryu X
\(4\) Yuri Lowell (15) Ryu (24) Face McShooty
\(7\) Mega Man X (12) Welkin Gunther (21) Jigglypuff
Division 2
\(1\) Sonic the Hedgehog (18) Fei Fong Wong (27) Dan Hibiki Sonic Dracula Barret Sonic Mewtwo Bowser
\(6\) Lucina (13) Dracula (22) Caim
\(9\) Professor Layton (10) Barret Wallace (19) Reimu Hakurei
\(2\) Phoenix Wright (17) Marth (26) Nightmare Phoenix Vincent Mewtwo
\(5\) KOS-MOS (14) Dunban (23) Vincent Valentine
\(8\) Chester (11) Mewtwo (20) Zero (999)
\(3\) Chrom (16) The Boss (25) Heavy The Boss Sub-Zero Bowser
\(4\) Garrus Vakarian (15) Sub-Zero (24) Frank West
\(7\) Bowser (12) Archer (21) Meta-Knight
Division 3
\(1\) Sephiroth (18) Midna (27) Little Mac Sephiroth Morrigan Spyro Sephiroth Big Boss Kirby
\(6\) Morrigan Aensland (13) Miles Edgeworth (22) Agent 47
\(9\) Spyro the Dragon (10) Clementine (19) Reyn
\(2\) Luigi (17) Balthier Bunansa (26) Jade Luigi Big Boss Ness
\(5\) Big Boss (14) Peacock (23) Captain Viridian
\(8\) CATS (11) Ness (20) Locke Cole
\(3\) Elizabeth (16) Poison (25) Thrall Elizabeth Kirby Crash
\(4\) Kirby (15) Terra Branford (24) Princess Peach
\(7\) Wheatley (12) Crash Bandicoot (21) Tommy Vercetti
Division 4
\(1\) Solid Snake (18) Isaac (27) Commander Keen Snake Alucard Bayonetta Snake GlaDOS Kefka
\(6\) Alucard (13) Captain Falcon (22) Rydia
\(9\) Bayonetta (10) N (19) Wander
\(2\) GlaDOS (17) Cole (26) Ragna the Bloodedge GlaDOS Ike Epona
\(5\) Ike (14) Protoman (23) Dr. Robotnik
\(8\) Epona (11) Mordin Solus (20) Niko Bellic
\(3\) Shulk (16) Ratchet (25) Altair Altair Lara Kefka
\(4\) Lara Croft (15) Yuri Hyuga (24) Slime
\(7\) Kefka (12) Zack Fair (21) Ryu Hayabusa
Division 5
\(1\) Cloud Strife (18) Steven Armstrong (27) Prinny Cloud Frog Lugia Cloud Squirtle Leon
\(6\) Handsome Jack (13) Frog (22) Viewtiful Joe
\(9\) Sly Cooper (10) Francis York Morgan (19) Lugia
\(2\) Dante (17) Laharl (26) Raz Dante Squirtle Zidane
\(5\) Squirtle (14) Ramza Beoulve (23) JC Denton
\(8\) Spring Breeze Dancin' (11) Zidane Tribal (20) Ridley
\(3\) Yu Narukami (16) Shadow the Hedgehog (25) Kat Shadow Leon Gordon
\(4\) Leon Kennedy (15) Albert Wesker (24) Oliver
\(7\) Gordon Freeman (12) Hades (21) Simon Belmont
Division 6
\(1\) Crono (18) Sarah Kerrigan (27) Missile Crono Pikachu Magus Pikachu Sora Blue
\(6\) Pikachu (13) Lloyd Irving (22) Big Daddy
\(9\) Magus (10) Hal "Otacon" Emmerich (19) Jade Curtiss
\(2\) Sora (17) Scorpion (26) Aya Brea Sora Gilgamesh Yoshimitsu
\(5\) Booker Dewitt (14) Gilgamesh (23) Kaim Argonar
\(8\) Groose (11) Lu Bu (20) Yoshimitsu
\(3\) Lee Everett (16) Meat Boy (25) Mr. Game and Watch Mr. Game Drake Blue
\(4\) Nathan Drake (15) Steve (24) Pac-Man
\(7\) Fox McCloud (12) Pokemon Trainer Blue (21) Wolf O'Donnell
Division 7
\(1\) Samus Aran (18) Isaac Clarke (27) Sandbag Samus Catherine Knuckles Samus L-Block Tifa
\(6\) Neku Sakuraba (13) Vaas Montenegro (22) Catherine
\(9\) Knuckles the Echidna (10) Seifer Almasy (19) Celes Chere
\(2\) Ezio Auditore da Firenze (17) Miles "Tails" Prower (26) Bomberman Ezio Auron L-Block
\(5\) Auron (14) Revolver Ocelot (23) Roxas
\(8\) L-Block (11) Teemo (20) Palutena
\(3\) Dragonborn (16) Tom Nook (25) Pyramid Head Dragonborn Yuna Tifa
\(4\) Master Chief (15) Yuna (24) Claire Redfield
\(7\) Tifa Lockhart (12) Cirno (21) Chun-Li
Division 8
\(1\) Mario (18) Duke Nukem (27) Fawful Mario Vivi Ganondorf Vivi Squall Red
\(6\) Vivi (13) Adam Jensen (22) Marisa Kirisame
\(9\) Ganondorf (10) Guybrush Threepwood (19) Max Payne
\(2\) Squall Leonhart (17) Rayman (26) Commander Video Squall Amaterasu Missingno
\(5\) Amaterasu (14) Vyse (23) Adol Christin
\(8\) Missingno (11) Tidus (20) Banjo
\(3\) Creeper (16) Wario (25) The King of All Cosmos Wario Red Wrex
\(4\) Pokemon Trainer Red (15) Corvo Attano (24) Sissel
\(7\) Pit (12) Urdnot Wrex (21) Cecil Harvey
Division 9
\(1\) Mega Man (18) Geno (27) Magikarp Mega Man Kratos Jill Mega Man Zero Charizard
\(6\) Kratos (13) Travis Touchdown (22) Recette Lemongrass
\(9\) Red Bird (10) Mike Haggar (19) Jill Valentine
\(2\) Zero (17) Kratos Aurion (26) Boko Zero Cube Rikku
\(5\) Lenneth Valkyrie (14) Claptrap (23) Weighted Companion Cube
\(8\) ? Block (11) Lyndis (20) Rikku
\(3\) John Marston (16) Zelda (25) Sackboy Zelda DK Charizard
\(4\) Lightning (15) Donkey Kong (24) Falco Lombardi
\(7\) Charizard (12) Riku (21) Nier
Final 9
Draven Mewtwo Sephiroth Draven Snake Samus
Snake Squirtle Pikachu
Samus Red Mega Man
--- ## (1)Link vs (18)Isaac (Binding) vs (27)Tingle 2013 _source: (1)Link vs (18)Isaac (Binding) vs (27)Tingle 2013 (revid 88697)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I'll spare the old lecture about Nintendo always having the overall 1 seed and stomping, because going over that for the 218th time is boring. Instead, I'm going to defend Tingle. Seriously, Tingle is a good character. Japan created him to make entirely fun of the American weaboo, and somehow the weaboo crowd hasn't caught onto this. He's fat, creepy, can't dress, is probably a literal pedophile in-game, and might be one of the most annoying characters ever. The joke caught on so hard in Japan that Tingle got his own game, and the Americans obsessed with all things Japan still can't figure it out. The best irony is self inflicted, and anime-obsessed western audiences are the best example. For that, Tingle is awesome. Hey anime fans: every time you're spending more money on anime than most crackheads will ever spend on their fix, look at Tingle and realize it's what Japan thinks of you. Oh yeah, there was a match here too. The new expert challenge made the placement of all three characters matter rather than only the winner, so while Link winning was obvious, second place mattered. Tingle was actually doing pretty well for himself early, before the SFF kicked in and Isaac, uh... "cruised" to a 1000 vote win. And no, this was not Golden Sun Isaac. Yeah, this contest had complete garbage all over round 1. Seriously, go look at the bracket and look at all that fodder nonsense. The last thing to take from this match, and we've known this for years, is that Link has lost a step. It's just that everyone else has lost a step too, so it hasn't been as easy to notice. But Link not completely obliterating Tingle and Tingle almost getting second here was embarrassing. It was a reminder that Link 2004 is probably the strongest Link. That Link got 88% on Ganondorf, 82% on Yoshi and just obliterated Cloud. 86% on Tingle compared to 88% on Ganondorf is honestly kind of hilarious, all things considered. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis ok yeah it's Link. He got 73% in the opening round against Tingle and Isaac. Does that mean Link is weak? Snake confirmed new strongest Noble Nine member? People jumped to a lot of conclusions because Link didn't absolutely stomp Tingle in this showing. A lot of people said that Link was just past his prime, but I really blame the dip in votals and general lack of interest in contests. Link thrives on that casual vote. The only people left on this site are weirdos like us, and Isaac and Tingle are weirdo icons. Plus, I think the last Zelda game to have come out at this point was Skyward Sword, the one we don't talk about anymore because it was so bland. Hey, remember that time Miyamoto tried demoing SS at E3 and he couldn't get it to work and it was super embarrassing? something something metaphor for this match Also Isaac showed up I guess. The only thing people debated here was whether or not he'd be so weak that he would lose to a heavily SFF'd Tingle. There was an "Expert Mode" this year or w/e it was called so that you'd get more points if you predicted who got 1st, 2nd and 3rd correctly. It was a cool secondary contest and might have been more fun than making a bracket. It kept people interested and debating all the way through. Anyone nominating Isaac this year? I know people still play his game, it's on every system ever. Let's see him come back and get his ass kicked again. --- ## (6)Raiden vs (13)Waluigi vs (22)Alan Wake 2013 _source: (6)Raiden vs (13)Waluigi vs (22)Alan Wake 2013 (revid 82106)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, July 8th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis The only entertaining part of this match was the picture, because once giant-ass purple Waluigi stuck out like a sore thumb, the debate went from whether Waluigi or Alan Wake would get second place to whether Waluigi could actually upset Raiden for first. As it would turn out, there never should have been a debate on either front. Waluigi got some joke votes early, and I'm sure 4chan got involved in some way, but it was a completely negligible boost. It wasn't long at all before Raiden put this match out of reach, and Waluigi was never going to be threatened for second place because no one cares about Alan Wake. A running joke of this contest is GameFAQs not playing any games after like 2006, and it held true more often than not when it came to weeding out 162 characters from round 1. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Alan Wake is literally just "white dude plaid shirt" holy shit. I've never played his game but I saw my friend playing it once and it looked alright. I think those devs made that game, uh, Quantum Break. That's the name? Right? Is the protagonist also a bland white dude? is that fucking Iceman? what the hell happened to you? X-Men 3? good excuse shit just keeps getting sadder. Anyway, Alan Wake showed up, yeah, but the real match here was Waluigi vs Raiden. I remember there was a tiny bit of debate as to whether or not Waluigi could be the next L-Block or something, but nobody was super serious about that. Fast forward to 2018 and people are super serious about that, but more in a Draven context than L-Block. Poor Sakurai has to endure all this harassment because he doesn't put Wario's doubles partner in a video game representing Nintendo's all-stars. Christ, Waluigi is even on ice skates in his match pic. Raiden was coming off of (cult?) smash hit Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which still has a huge legion of fans. He didn't exactly impress against Waluigi, and if this match had happened now, it might have been much tighter. What can we expect from Waluigi this year? Well it depends on the anti-rallying measures Bacon puts in place, but I guess he could get a big push from 4chan and reddit. I think people are over the initial outrage of his snubbing from Smash 5, so it would be hard to stir up the pot again unless a portion of tomorrow's Nintendo direct is pre-recorded footage of Sakurai taking a dump on a picture of Waluigi while looking straight into the camera. --- ## (9)Yoshi vs (10)Solaire of Astora vs (19)Demi-Fiend 2013 _source: (9)Yoshi vs (10)Solaire of Astora vs (19)Demi-Fiend 2013 (revid 82107)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Friendly reminder: Link's round 1 match scored 28930 votes. Anyway, this was another of the many round 1 matches where first place was predetermined and the only actual debate was for second place. And thank you based Expert Challenge for that. Unfortunately, second place wasn't much of a debate either. As popular as those Shin Megami Persona Tensei 2387a III games are on this site, the specific characters are a different story entirely. There's a reason they all lost early this contest, Also, any debate there may have been ended once the picture happened. Solaire looks like more of a demi-fiend than Demi-Fiend ever will. Worth noting here is Yoshi got a horrible draw this contest. In a field where Vivi beat Mario, L-Block beat Auron and crazy runs were happening all over the place, Yoshi put up 60% in a match before getting Link in round 2. Yoshi really could have done damage this year if he were put somewhere else. Poor guy :( People talk about characters like Tidus and Dante always losing early and always getting screwed. Yoshi has never been past the third round in one of these things, and knowing what we know now, this could have been the year. And yes, I mad. Yoshi \> your favorite Mario character. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Demi-Fiend got into a contest?? Holy shit I really don't remember anything about 2013 at all. Listen to this track. It is absolute fire and I am too white to be saying that convincingly. Yoshi's unimpressive contest history continues. He's given a round 1 match against two jobbers so that he can march off to get spanked by Link in Round 2. I vaguely remember Ulti once saying Yoshi has never been out of R3 and he never will. I kind of believe that. He's Yoshi. People know him. Girls play as him in Mario Party. Nobody really cares, though. Most people use him as an extra platform to jump off of. I think the real thing to talk about now is Solaire in 2018. Dark Souls has absolutely blown up. Normalcools talk about Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Who would have thought a difficult game could be well received by audiences of all kind? Could Solaire have entered the realm of a low-midcarder? Could he ever be rallied into winning a R1 match? Actually... He might. GameFAQs hasn't played any games past, what, 2007? It seems the big exception is Dark Souls. If Solaire or another DS rep pulled a high seed and a decent matchup he might be able to just pull it off, especially if the votals are low. I legit forgot who the third character in this match was for a second. I sat here trying to remember without scrolling up. It was Demi-Fiend. I have that fire track paused in another tab. How did I forget already? Demi-Fiend is cool but there are way better reps for the SMT series... If you count Persona characters. I don't know if anyone from Apocalypse or SMTIV would be a better rep but I can't imagine they'd do much better than the Fiend. Persona is its own thing now and everyone loves it, but its parent series remains decidedly niche. Maybe we'll see SMT break into the mainstream someday like its counterpart, but without high school handholding hijinks, that may just be the dream of an ideal world. --- ## (2)Commander Shepard vs (17)Captain Olimar vs (26)Kain 2013 _source: (2)Commander Shepard vs (17)Captain Olimar vs (26)Kain 2013 (revid 82108)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Another match where only the picture mattered because FINALLY WE GOT FEMSHEP AKA THE ONLY SHEP THAT MATTERS IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER in a match picture! I know things like voice acting and music are completely subjective, but there are cases where one can be factually incorrect and Jennifer Hale \> Mark Meer by eons. Before things like advanced metrics, Wikipedia and imdb, some idiot might actually be able to make a case for Meer. Now? You have people like me that literally have done professional theater who would just laugh at you for being dumb. Jennifer Hale actually brings emotion to the character, Meer is terrible, the end. Period. Any other opinion is wrong and people who like him don't know anything beyond the nose on their own face. I could keep the joke going and credit Jennifer Hale for why Shepard scored 54% here instead of something way lower because Maleshep is useless trash (especially the renegade version, jesus christ he sucks and quite literally sounds like he's reading lines off a page, he makes me want to stab out my own ear drums with chopsticks), but Shepard blows this match away no matter what. So does Olimar for second place thanks to Brawl, really. But seriously, Mark Meer? We couldn't get a better voice actor for arguably the best next-gen character out there? I'm not even asking for anything crazy like Keifer Sutherland or David Hayter. But Troy Baker (Yuri Lowell, Snow from FF13, Booker from Bioshock Infinite) and Jamieson Kent Price (Iron Tager, Lu Bu) couldn't be found? I would even take Quinton Flynn. But they go for a guy whose biggest accomplishment is staying awake for 53 hours in a row, something any gamer with Dr Pepper could do. Thanks, Obama. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Jeez, these matches are getting more votes than the opening one with Link. He just can't pull in a crowd anymore, huh? iirc Ulti was obsessed with getting a pic of Femshep on the front page. She had just received official art in ME3 for the first time so he finally could do it. I think he has a crush of Jennifer Hale or something. This was a pretty respectable outing for Shepard, I guess. He couldn't double a low-tier Smash character, which is sad, but lesser Western characters would have fallen in this same spot. Like Kain. Why Kain? Why not Raziel? Who nominated Kain in 2013? We hadn't seen Kain since 2004, and he hasn't had a game since... that cancelled 360 game that got leaked to the internet. How did Kain get more noms than Liquid Snake? Does anyone want to talk about Mass Effect 3's ending still? I do! At the time I was super upset by it, but it's been 6 years, and now I can barely remember what got me so mad. I still remember the worst parts and I remember Kai Leng being awful, but it all seems so distant now. In 2013, the hatred was still strong though, and Ulti choosing a picture associated with the cover of ME3 probably didn't do Shepard any favors. Anyway, this was a match that happened. --- ## (5)Tharja vs (14)Juliet Starling vs (23)Tiny Tina 2013 _source: (5)Tharja vs (14)Juliet Starling vs (23)Tiny Tina 2013 (revid 88778)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was our first match that was a true match from beginning to end. No one had any clue what any of these three characters would do, the picture shed no light on anything, and a legit argument from boobs to game quality could be made for all three. The only real standout factors were Fire Emblem (Nintendo always does well) and Borderlands 2 winning our Game of the Year poll, though games =/= characters is a pretty big rallying cry in these contests. Come match time, Tharja jumped out to a big early lead, while second place was way up in the air. Juliet led by 60 early, but Tina left her in the dust pretty quickly and Juliet was ultimately stuck in last place rather early. (I feel like I'm announcing a mud wrestling match, this is so dumb.) Once Juliet was out of the picture for good, the match seemed over. We have a line on Board 8 called the Nintendo Power Hour, and Tharja used that to build up a 400 vote lead in this poll. That lead got up to 437 pretty quickly, too, before Tina started her long (very long) and slow (VERY slow) march toward coming back. To put this in perspective, Tharja's lead was 437 at 1:30. At 4, it was 383. I don't know how many of you play Magic the Gathering or did any M14 limited, but That card's nickname is "Wall of Stall", because f\*\*\* that card in limited. It continued on like this for a long time, though Tina was overall getting the lead down. Then the morning vote came, and the lead went from 300 to tied in about 3 hours. Under normal trends, Tina probably would have gone on to win this match. But this was the Contest of Rallying, and it didn't take long for 4chan to notice the match and push Tharja over the top to hold on for a close win. It's hard to really say if Tharja flopped or Tina performed really well, because we have no data here. This is also a good match to get into my opinion on 12 hour matches. For the most part, they're a great idea in early rounds to weed out all the garbage quickly, because no one wants to see 24 hours of Link, Tingle, and Isaac doing nothing. But every now and again, you get a match where 24 hours would have been awesome, and this was one of those matches. But even still, 12 hours for 2 rounds and 24 hours from 3 on is the exact format we need from now on. Hopefully Allen sticks with it. The 1 match in 10 that needs to be 24 hours is not worth making the other 9 suck for 24 hours. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I don't remember exactly how people were predicting this match, to most people it was a battle of TJF between Tharja and Juliet, with people giving Tharja the nod because she was the hot new Nintendo girl at the time. And I mean hot [yowza](https://www.ubuy.com.br/productimg/?image=aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWFnZXMtbmEuc3NsLWltYWdlcy1hbWF6b24uY29tL2ltYWdlcy9JLzUxaHRZc2lKUW1MLl9TUzQwMF8uanBn.jpg) That is the only time an officially licensed Nintendo product has made me sweat other than [this:](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zQQAAOSw545oRyCN/s-l400.jpg) Ganondorf action figure I blame you for the present-day mess that is my sexuality Anyway, back on track. Kind of. I recently replayed Borderlands 2. All of it. By myself. I had a ton of free time and I remembered that I had never played the DLC, so I got the Handsome Edition and gave it another shot. Is there anything, anything more dated than Borderlands 2's humor? People voted for this character. People think this is funny. To be fair, Tina's voice actress is pretty funny. Or at least she was in 2011 internet humor: Mike Haggars' mustache I blame you for the present-day mess that is my sexuality Anyway, back on track, Borderlands was a surprise hit on the FAQs, and it shows here. I meant, Shooty McSplodeFace or whatever his name was made the field this year. The games are good! The writing is kind of bad though. I wonder if anyone will nominate a Borderlands character this year seeing as the series has been on the backburner while Gearbox throws away its money putting the iconic Battleborn characters into Ready Player One. Juliet Starling was the main character of the flavor-of-the-month game Lollipop Chainsaw which got mediocre reviews but was (and still is) the best-selling Suda51 game. It had a huge marketing campaign and Juliet was at the forefront. There's an embarrassing picture of me with Jessica Nigri dressed up as Juliet Starling floating around the internet somewhere. [Jessica Nigri as Juliet Starling](https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2910/13993734609_a795fb2caf_b.jpg) I blame you for the present-day mess that is my sexuality So yeah this match was way closer than anyone thought it would be but these three are all basically fodder anyway. People overestimated Tharja but she still pulled it off. There's not much to say here, it seems like a close and interesting match but when you try to break it down you end up analyzing your sexuality instead. --- ## (8)Hero vs (11)Rinoa Heartilly vs (20)Aeris Gainsborough 2013 _source: (8)Hero vs (11)Rinoa Heartilly vs (20)Aeris Gainsborough 2013 (revid 82110)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Chris single-handedly has been trying to get DQ5 Hero into a contest for years. In a contest where Board 8 decided all of the 8 seeds by ourselves, this was the contest for it to finally happen. But actually winning a match? Nah. Aeris \> Rinoa \> Hero was bound to be a lock. Look at Dragon Quest's contest history: Unless some character got into a character battle that I forgot about, that's the entire list. Three matches of absolute crap. So when Aeris blew the poll away and Hero's joke votes got him into second place early, no one really batted an eye. Even later when Hero built that lead to 250 in an hour, it was still seen as a joke. It wasn't until the realization that he wasn't actually slowing down did people realize what was going on here. Dragon Quest 5 Hero was actually winning second place! Yeah it took a massive series of related events, like Aeris being in a poll with him alongside one of the most hated FF females in the series, but who cares! Hero, freaking DQ5 Hero, got into a contest and busted some gurus upside the face. No one can ever take that from the little guy. Also since Rinoa might never get into another poll, it's worth noting how much she sucks as a character. Seriously, she is absolute whore garbage that should have been killed during two different spoilers in that game, and to this day I'm convinced she was never killed because of FF7 disc 1 backlash. But her not being around would have at least made her tolerable. I'm still convinced that all the Squall hate for years and years was just Rinoa hate channeled onto him because of his idiot beta male ass going out of his way for her over and over again no matter how many times she didn't appreciate it. Screw Rinoa, most deserved victim of a contest upset in recent memory. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I'm going to take a second before I get into this match to point out just how awful the font is for the character names in these match pics. It's hard to tell what exactly I mean but having 3x3 little boxes for each letter makes the some letters really ugly and hard to see. I'll point out specifics if I see them. "Tina" in Tiny Tina's pic looks pretty bad. Here's a fun fact, the font used in [R1 of 2008](https://imgtc.com/i/ui7XNcw.jpg) is called "Acquaintance" and is also the font partially used in [the Angry Video Game Nerd logo](https://imgtc.com/i/po0ZjBF.png). yes these are the things zenofthunder remembers but he doesn't remember anything about 2013 OK here is an actual match anal-ysis: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Getting Hero into a contest was not only a victory for long-time B8er Chris but also for everyone ever who has nominated someone that has a name like "protagonist" or "demi-fiend." Seriously, I can't believe we got multiple characters into this contest with BS names like "Hero." So yeah DQV Hero finally got into a contest after a decade of rallies. All it took was a field of almost 250 characters for it to happen! I remember thinking he wouldn't break 15%. Who cares about Dragon Quest in America, right? Especially one as old as V. But thanks to the low votals, Hero was able to ride the Final Fantasy Girl train all the way to second place. He even (just barely) managed to avoid getting doubled by Aeris. Was Aeris always "Aerith" in these contests? Was Ceej a weeb that used the proper name or did Allen bring us into the Age of the "th?" Yeah so Rinoa got SFF'd pretty hard and a lot of people's Expert brackets got ruined. In retrospect though would she have ever had any power in these things? She's a tertiary FF character at best, from a game people have been turning on more and more each year. Can @LeonhartFour tell us what he thinks about this girl that launches a dog like a rocket with her wrist? --- ## (3)Draven vs (16)Chie Satonaka vs (25)Jak 2013 _source: (3)Draven vs (16)Chie Satonaka vs (25)Jak 2013 (revid 82111)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, July 11th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This picture actually got changed from Draven's baller blue skin because people are whiny crybabies. The skin looks far better. This was the first of Draven's matches, but certainly not the last. Under normal circumstances, the debate behind this match was simple. Either Jak or Chie would get first, unless Draven's League of Legends rally power came through. That was the entire debate, and I would even argue Chie never stood a chance because no one cares about Persona's characters nearly as much as the games themselves. Even Draven's fans knew he would suck without rallying. And for almost four hours, that's exactly how this match went down. Jak tore into first place, Chie was easily in second place, and Draven was well on his way to being bottom 5 in the LOL, X-stats. Then the rallies started on the League subreddit and all hell broke loose. For those reading this years later who have no idea how Draven did so much damage, in 2013 the League subreddit had 350,000 subscribers and a constant 12,000 people on the board at any one time. Draven had a massive number of people to tap into at any one time, and once the topics went up this match was over. No other rally outside of L-Block 2007 will ever be more successful than this one. Draven went from being dead last by 2500 votes to winning in 3 hours, and never looked back. Literally. He would end up riding that momentum through this entire contest, though the belief at the time was that he needed the largest legit comeback ever to beat friggen Jak, of all people. This was also the match where Kanz stopped being a Board 8er, more or less. I'm cool with people rallying, it's whatever, but talking s\*\*\* on a board you've visited for years with some of the most offensive insults there are will mean he's never welcome here again. Nor should he be. No one gets to cry "I have a mental disability" in defense of their own being a tool, either. Being a tool is being a tool unless you have something that removes the element of lucidity and choice. Supporting Draven is one thing. Literally calling the entirety of Board 8 r-word and deranged and so on is quite another thing entirely. Good riddance to him, I'm sure the guys on Reddit are more suited to his intelligence level anyway. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis it begins kind of, just slowly at first. I remember stat junkies trying to cobble together some kind of x-stats but because of Draven's snowball rally it put Jak and Chie in like the top 5 strongest characters, I think stronger than Link even? somewhere out there in the multiverse there is a reality where Jak really is that strong and everyone loves him and name their babies "Jak" which I bet is actually a thing that happens anyway **What does Jak mean?** God is gracious - looks at results\* is he tho I think I went on the Show after this match and talked about how I thought the Draven thing was gonna blow over cuz he couldn't double Chie, and if that was the extent of the rally then how dangerous could he be? I am going to Star Wars Holiday Special that shit and hunt down every hard drive with that episode of the Show on it and destroy it Draven started out incredibly weak but the rally was swift and effective. This match only had 7000 more votes than the previous one, and because of that "weak" turnout I don't think anyone expected this to get as big as it did. I mean, Draven wasn't L-Block, right? Looking past Draven, I wonder how Chie would do now that Persona 4 has had a billion spinoffs and an anime and a half. Has the fanbase completely moved on to Persona 5? Will we ever see anyone outside of Yu from P4 in a contest setting again? Will we even see Jak? What's that guy up to? Will he be stronger than his new Naughty Dog brethren? Jak / Ellie / Nathan Drake, who ya got --- ## (4)Yuri Lowell vs (15)Ryu vs (24)Face McShooty 2013 _source: (4)Yuri Lowell vs (15)Ryu vs (24)Face McShooty 2013 (revid 82112)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, July 11th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I know this technically isn't a "win" for Yuri, but I don't even care. Yuri is the best JRPG lead ever, and getting second place when second place matters is something I'll gladly take! Yuri is not a typical lead. Rather than some stupid lecture and boss fight, he just kicks ass and takes names in-game. It's quite a treat to see when a character could tear something in 29478 in-battle, but in a scene he's a candy-ass. Yuri is the best. There was some debate here about whether Face could upset Yuri for second place, given Tiny Tina's good showing, but that went out the window very very fast. And once the match was almost entirely decided in minutes, we thanked the based gods for fourway polling in early rounds. Can you imagine 24 hours of this over and over and over again? I should probably discuss Borderlands somewhere in here among all the good showings, even if none of the characters outright shocked us with upsets. My best friend plays it all the time, and it seems like a first person Diablo 2, only with much better item drops for loot and specific enemies that can drop specific things if you farm long enough. Seems really neat and I should try it once day. It also has pretty cool music. The humor and plot seem unbelievably stupid and forced, though. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Is Yuri the second-strongest Tales character after Lloyd? People love this dude even though Vesperia was a billion years ago. I think it got a PS4 re-release recently, so maybe his strength will stay consistent. Anyway, not much to say here except that Face McShooty got in and finding a picture of a random side character from a miscellaneous Borderlands 2 quest was a huge pain in the ass. Seemed like any rally no matter how small paid off in some way in 2013. Gives me hope for Metal Sonic! Yuri did pretty bad here, he couldn't double Face and got doubled by Ryu, who is a high-midcarder, yeah, but GameFAQs likes Tales a lot, and it's nice seeing these characters get a chance to spank fodder like Face. --- ## (7)Mega Man X vs (12)Welkin Gunther vs (21)Jigglypuff 2013 _source: (7)Mega Man X vs (12)Welkin Gunther vs (21)Jigglypuff 2013 (revid 82113)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, July 12th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was another completely dead match, but there are two things in it worth talking about anyway. One, JIGGLYPUFF FINALLY MADE A CONTEST HOLY S\*\*\* IT ONLY TOOK 11 YEARS AND I'VE BEEN NOMINATING AND RALLYING FOR HER (AND SCREW EVERYONE IT IS A HER, I DON'T CARE IF IT CAN HAVE GENDERS IN-GAME) SINCE 2002 OH MAN I WAS SO HAPPY THE ORIGINAL 12 IS FINALLY FINISHED!!!!!!! Ahem. Two, is Mega Man X Noble Nine strength at this point? 65% in a threeway poll is no joke, and I feel like he should absolutely be able to give Sonic or Crono a match 1 on 1 at this point. I know the Noble Nine is a winning streak, but he has to be at the lower level of them by now, right? Dude's a complete beast. But JIGGLYPUFF GOT IN JIGGLYPUFF GOT IN JIGGLYPUFF GOT IN JIGGLYPUFF GOT IN JIGGLYPUFF GOT IN. For those who wonder why fodders gets in every year, this is why. We don't care if a favored character gets creamed. We just want them in. And Jigglypuff got second place instead of last so poo on you. The next step is to finish up the Melee characters! Dr. Mario Popo Young Link Pichu Roy Young Link and Doc Mario probably aren't eligible, but someone get on the other three. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis who the hell is Welkin Gunther and how did he get a 12 seed? I know very little about Valkyria Chronicles, but why didn't people just focus their noms on the girl from the cover? With red eyes? I think that's a thing? Here's another question mark? The votals here were pathetic, and Mega Man X cleaned house, almost tripling the Puff. Maybe all the theories that any Gen 1 Pokemon would be good are bullshit, cuz Jigglypuff has Smash behind her as well. Maybe Mega Man X SFF'd her? Is there Mega Man and Pokemon crossover? Who knows anymore, with this few people voting I guess everyone on this nerdo site has played everything. Welkin was so close to 3K votes. Getting doubled by Jigglypuff and... sextupled by Mega Man X means you ain't shit. I wonder what obscure JRPG character is going to show up this year? Who will be our Welkin Gunther? ps nominate Shellder pps I just took a long look at Welkin's pics and boy is he lame, if he were 1 v 1 with Alan Wake I'd vote bland plaid white man any way --- ## (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (18)Fei Fong Wong vs (27)Dan Hibiki 2013 _source: (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (18)Fei Fong Wong vs (27)Dan Hibiki 2013 (revid 82114)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, July 12th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Honestly, I had no idea who would win between Dan and Fei before this match started. I picked Fei entirely because 1990s Square still has some respect on this site, while Dan/Sagat was one of the biggest flops to me of the entire Rivalry Rumble. Maybe I overrate Street Fighter characters because of how much I love Super Street Fighter 4? I dunno. But C to Shining C in that game is my favorite trophy in any game I've ever played. I half wish the online population for PS3 wasn't dead so I could do it all over again. Getting 1000 on every character in SSF4 was soooooo fun. I actually ranked the SSF4 characters awhile back: 39 - Ryu 38 - Evil Ryu 37 - C. Viper 36 - Makoto 35 - Sakura 34 - Ken 33 - Dudley 32 - Dhalsim 31 - E. Honda 30 - Dee Jay 29 - Guile 28 - Blanka 27 - Juri 26 - Rufus 25 - Cody 24 - Abel 23 - Chun-Li 22 - Yun 21 - Fei Long 20 - Rose 19 - Cammy 18 - Guy 17 - Gouken 16 - Balrog 15 - Yang 14 - Dan 13 - Seth 12 - Adon 11 - Ibuki 10 - Hakan 9 - Zangief 8 - Vega 7 - Gen 6 - El Fuerte 5 - Akuma 4 - Oni 3 - Sagat 2 - M. Bison 1 - T. Hawk The only thing I'd even change now is Akuma up to 4, and I only outright despise the last three characters. Point is, Dan rocks. Fei is awesome and deserved second place, but SSF4 deserves as much love as possible at all times. Beyond that, not much to say about this match since it was over in 10 seconds. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Wow I don't remember half these matches, I think everyone was caught up in post-Draven fever to pay any attention to this low votal jobber matches. At least Sonic pulls in more votes than X. I remember some mild debate about Dan and Fei, both had been in contests before and both had looked like trash, and some people believed that Dan would win on recognizability. But with votals this low that logic gets tossed out the window and Fei was able to take the win pretty easily. GameFAQs really doesn't seem to care about fighting game characters outside of the mascots. Ryu, Chun-Li, Akuma, M. Bison, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Morrigan, Nightmare, and... uh... are there any other fighting game characters people vote for here? I must be missing some. Leave a comment on my webzone if you know what fighting game characters people care about here. Sonic has a great match pic here, wow. People have it in their heads that the only good Sonic is Classic Sonic, which is a bad opinion but it is a prevalent one. Nothing else really to say here, I think. It's more interesting to speculate on what you average voter feels about Sonic post Mania and Forces. Did they cancel each other out? Did the great reviews and sales overshadow the awfulness of Forces? We'll find out soon, I guess. --- ## (6)Lucina vs (13)Dracula vs (22)Caim 2013 _source: (6)Lucina vs (13)Dracula vs (22)Caim 2013 (revid 82115)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, July 13th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis There was a minor debate about Lucina winning this match until Tharja's awful performance in her earlier match, but for the most part Dracula winning this was a lock. There was too much going for him, namely his showing in the Rivalry Rumble and this being a night match, and Lucina didn't have much going for her. This match was mainly notable for Caim's historically awful performance, even among a field of 243 loaded with historically awful performances. For a time, Caim was threatening being the worst character in contest history. But he, uh...." recovered" his percentage later in the match to get up to a "respectable" level. He still set all sorts of horrendous records though, because it takes a special kind of suck to only score 1586 votes in a contest match. And even with all of that, Caim wasn't even bottom 5 in the raw LOL, X-stats. This contest had some horrible characters in it. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis My boy Drac!! He was shown off in Smash today as a stage boss, and if the rumors about a new story mode is true, he might get some more screen time. Abysmal votals here, and even then almost none of them were for Caim. 1586 votes. Holy shit. Holy shit. I think Caim was the biggest loser this tournament, right? Freaking 1586 votes. My girlfriend just came over and asked what I was typing, I asked "what would you think of a character that looks like this?" and showed her the match/bio pictures, and she responded "these are bad pictures" and gave me my laptop back. Caim is an obscure character from the cultest of cult games and he doesn't even look that cool. Is there even art for this dude? I think his claim to fame is that his series is distantly related to Nier. There was some LP on SomethingAwful of Drakengard at the time and it made Caim into a minor meme. I thiiiiink KamikazePotato was into it? I read some and it was pretty funny, but it didn't make me want to... nom... Caim. Shit, did I nom Caim? I might have. What a waste. Should have been Liquid here. Liquid/Lucina/Drac? That's a match, baby. People thought this performance made Drac look good, but really, with votals as low as this and Caim in the match, how good of a look can you possibly get from this? Dracula is a decent midcarder and it's cool to have him in a bracket but I doubt without the power of Alucard he could ever have a run like he did in Rivalry Rumble. For someone that we tried to rally in for a while and had to get special permission from Bacon to even nominate him, was it really worth the effort? --- ## (9)Professor Layton vs (10)Barret Wallace vs (19)Reimu Hakurei 2013 _source: (9)Professor Layton vs (10)Barret Wallace vs (19)Reimu Hakurei 2013 (revid 82116)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, July 13th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Normally a 50% performance in a multi-way poll is decent, but not in this case. Not with Final Fantasy 7 during a day match, with its very good day vote. Barret only putting up 50% against absolute fodder garbage, and starting well below 50% and having to build that percentage up no less, was very very bad. It was yet another sign of Final Fantasy 7's huge downward spiral that we've seen play out in contests for years. Not to sell the other two characters short or anything, but Layton and Reimu aren't exactly murderer's row. Also, can someone explain to me the Touhou obsession? I understand pedophiles with their lolicon and tiny anime girls slapped on everything to increase sales (more accurately, mass pirating) among the weaboo audience, but are these games actually good or are R-Type and Gradius still the standard for shmups? ***Tsunami replies:** As one of the Board's Touhou fans...well, the explanation would probably come close to the actual analysis in length so I'll put it on the Talk page instead.* ## Zen's (Late) Analysis do you remember when someone made a joke topic about how "chair from Final Fantasy VII could win a match" and people unironically agreed? this match shows how dated that statement is, here we have one of the iconic FFVII party members who is right there with you from second 1 and he can't double Professor Layton. In fact he can't even triple a Touhou girl. I believe Barret had won the Nomination Rally Tournament, and we thought for sure he'd be the next big thing, and some people thought that Sonic had fallen so far that Barret might be able to squeak by. Then he performs like this. Let's talk about RacistFAQs for a bit. Does it exist? Yes. GameFAQs doesn't care about black people. Actually I have no idea if GameFAQs is actually racist, I mean, probably, but eh, there's no actual proof other than the results of a video game character popularity contest. It's more of a funny meme than anything. If there was ever a highly debated match with a black guy in it maybe I would actually take the other dude cuz I fear the level of racist contained within the FAQs. I think what this comes back to though is that FFVII was no longer the shit on this site, it had fallen and fallen hard, and Barret probably wasn't strong to begin with. People had been trying to get him into a contest for years, and it took a field of 200+ and an NRT win for it to happen. Now he's finally in a contest when FFVII is at its lowest. What did people expect? --- ## (2)Phoenix Wright vs (17)Marth vs (26)Nightmare 2013 _source: (2)Phoenix Wright vs (17)Marth vs (26)Nightmare 2013 (revid 82117)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, July 14th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Like a lot of Phoenix Wright matches, it felt like the pre-match debate was how any of the three characters could win this. Phoenix and Marth have been close in the stats for years, and Soul Calibur's scare of Kingdom Hearts in 2004 paired with fighting game characters being unpredictable made a decent case for Nightmare doing something here. Personally, I never felt like this was going to be much of a match. Phoenix Wright having joke trends ended awhile ago, and him getting popular enough to get into Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 really ought to speak for itself. I think Marth being in Smash makes hype for him grow higher than it should be; Marth isn't really a strong character, and he sucks as a lord in Shadow Dragon anyway so screw him. When the match finally hit, the first thing that stood out to me was Nightmare being so unbelievably awful. This gave credit to the theory of "last place factor", which is the theory that unless a character can threaten to win a multi-way poll, they will underperform. I actually do put a lot of validity into that theory, because it does show up a lot. It's hard to back up statistically, but the eye test speaks for itself in a lot of these multi-way polls. Doesn't it often feel like the character in last place sucked more than they should? The other thing was Phoenix Wright not really slowing down once the "joke phase" ended. He started well, and even though Marth scored 44% on him by match's end, this was never close. The fact is that Phoenix Wright is no longer a joke character, which he would end up proving a hundred times over in round 2. Because while a few select people had the big Mewtwo \> Vincent upset, a third character did have to share the poll with those two ;) ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I thought people on this site liked Fire Emblem? I guess there's some crossover with Phoenix Wright? Jeez, look at those votals. It's nice seeing an "upset" from Phoenix, I know some people were putting him below Nightmare for some reason. Nightmare has had some decent showings before, but it was mostly decent bracket placement and taking advantage of a multi-way format that helped him out. In the end, Phoenix's loyal fanbase (mostly us) were able to give him the win. If this match happened in 2018, who knows what would happen? I'd say these dudes are pretty close in strength, so it would be hard to predict if this happened again. Phoenix's rabid fanbase has dissipated a bit but Fire Emblem has all those games where you can make cousins fuck or some weird anime BS that people like. Side note: I made this Nightmare pic and people HATED it because his arm wasn't in it enough and they said it would ruin his chances. I ask anyone, ANYONE who makes pics to make a Nightmare pic in those tiny, slim dimensions and make that arm the centerpiece without it looking like a weird brown blob. People are too fickle with these things, Nightmare looks like a goddamn lump most of the time anyway: --- ## (5)KOS-MOS vs (14)Dunban vs (23)Vincent Valentine 2013 _source: (5)KOS-MOS vs (14)Dunban vs (23)Vincent Valentine 2013 (revid 82118)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, July 14th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis In retrospect, the writing was on the wall for Mewtwo \> Vincent during this match. But we had no way of knowing that at the time, so this performance was chalked up to all three characters being JRPG types. Be that as it may, and even with this match destined to be predictable, this was a very bad match for Vincent. Like Barret earlier in round 1, Vincent failed the eye test despite breaking 50% in the poll. Like Barret, Vincent was doing very badly early but rode the FF7 day vote to a percentage recovery later. Like Barret, excuses were made for Vincent. And like Barret, there was some serious FF7 decline going on here. I know stats for fourways are for entertainment only, but KOS-MOS's last contest was 2008. In 2008, Vincent was projected to score 71% on KOS-MOS. In 2013, five years later, he gets 60%. There is no amount of hindsight wizardry that can possibly defend that. When I originally made my Sonic \> Vincent \> Bowser, my logic was FF7 decline. Why people thought Vincent would be immune is something I'll never understand. I just didn't realize it would decline this much. FF7 across the board completely flopped this contest. Oh and as a complete aside, Adventure in 2004 was our total votes futility record for years. Seeing Dunban only score 3233 and still break 10% was kind of funny. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Once upon a time Vincent/Kerrigan was a highly debated match, then he quadrupled her, and everybody laughed. Now it's 2018 and if Vincent/Kerrigan happened again it would be a highly debated match because lawd look at those votals Here's Vincent Valentine who was once thought to be a Noble Nine-breaking monster not being able to double KOS-MOS. And damn, look at his match pic! It's dope as hell! Not that it mattered much because most people just voted from the results page anyway. Picsmithing is a dying art. RIP. Speaking of pics, look how anime KOS-MOS is in her pic. She just looks straight out of Evangelion. Dunban looks pretty good. Wait, who? Here comes Dunban from Xenoblade, a game I played for 20 hours, then the game froze and I realized I hadn't saved in 5. So I never touched it again. Dunban was cool but he was one of those party members that was an early-game badass that eventually left and you wouldn't get him back 'til later. I remember I played the game after this contest and I was shocked that he managed to make the field as a 14 seed (versus Vincent's 23, go figure) despite barely being in the game. But I never did beat Xenoblade, which is a shame because it was great. Took me forever to find a copy too, fuck GameStop for charging \$90 for it. Anyway yeah FFVII is pee pee poo poo now --- ## (8)Chester vs (11)Mewtwo vs (20)Zero (999) 2013 _source: (8)Chester vs (11)Mewtwo vs (20)Zero (999) 2013 (revid 88764)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, July 15th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Mewtwo scoring the contest's biggest blowout will get its just due in future writeups, I promise. It's also getting harder with each passing contest to sing the praises of a blowout we all saw coming. It was a blowout. It takes a series of circumstances. Mewtwo took advantage of those circumstances and crushed, as we all saw. Woohoo. But this was all about Chester. Chester holds a special place for us at Board 8, because favored user Icehawk named his dog Chester. The very short story is that another favored user who goes by aga made a neat little indie platformer on Xbox Live to honor Icehawk, Board 8, and most notably, Chester the dog. If this was Board 8's contest, and if the 8 seed line was Board 8's tribute, then this was Board 8's match. More than anything Phoenix Wright, L-Block, Link, or anyone else has ever done. So for those looking at this in a few years who don't "get the joke" as they see that 3.51%, this was never about Chester doing well, or winning, or whatever else. This was about making history. We WANTED Chester to get the lowest score ever and be remembered as the weakest character ever. To compare, just look at Zero in this same exact match. Who is ever going to care about his second place score, bad as it was? Chester is way more memorable in his own special way, and it's stuff like this that really makes me look back at this contest and hope that people give Allen a break. He did a lot of stuff for us this year. No, this was about Icehawk's dog -- our dog. This was about Tanner's projection to actually win a match now. This was about Chester being a new unit of measurement for stats now. I'd dig up a picture of the actual dog, but I respect Icehawk's privacy more than that. If he wants to put a picture on the wiki later, that's up to him. Just know that we love you and your dog forever in our own special way, buddy. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Board 8 legend aga created a game called Chester, and we decided to get him in because the only thing Board 8 loves more than Character Battles is getting obscure Board 8 in-jokes into Character Battles. And that was the entire plan, because nobody thought Chester would make it in, and due to getting an 8 seed he was actually given... a... winnable situation? What? Now people were conflicted: Originally the idea would be that none of us would vote for Chester so that he'd come up worse in the X-Stats than Tanner, therefore entering the pantheon of Fun Contest History Trivia, but now he was up against big time nobody and obscure visual novel villain Zero. The day came and some people voted for Chester and a lot didn't. He ended up getting over 900 votes, some of which I guess were peeps who thought his match pic (an aga original!) was funny or to anti-vote Pokemon. There aren't 900 B8ers, right? It all worked out though, Zero still quadrupled him, and Chester is definitely the weakest character ever in these things. Could he beat someone (Caim) someday? Maybe. Will we ever see him again? I don't think we need to. You know, I made a game. I got it indexed on this site: The site to download it doesn't exist anymore though so I guess it's just lost media. Maybe in another reality Misplaced Max would have gotten in in Chester's place, but my legacy cannot compare to that of aga's. --- ## (3)Chrom vs (16)The Boss vs (25)Heavy 2013 _source: (3)Chrom vs (16)The Boss vs (25)Heavy 2013 (revid 82120)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, July 15th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was another of the many matches in round 1 where only the picture was relevant, because anyone who has played Metal Gear Solid 3 will find that picture hilarious. The Boss is many things, but a TJF sex symbol is dead last on her list of character traits. As for the match itself, it was nothing worth writing home about despite how close the numbers look. The Boss was never going to miss out on first place, and Chrom was never threatened for second. Fire Emblem is in a weird place on this site, because while it feels like everyone on here is obsessed with it (myself included!), it doesn't often do that well in contests. Whenever it wins, it usually feels like more of something else doing badly instead of Fire Emblem's own strength. Tharja being the only one in the 3DS Fire Emblem brigade to do anything this contest, which required an outside rally no less, is telling. But a win is a win is a win, and I suppose second place in this contest counts as a win. Not that beating Heavy is some huge accomplishment. Here's the entire list of everyone ever in a poll with Heavy: Kratos Jill Valentine Revolver Ocelot Roxas The Boss Chrom Yep. Heavy has finished dead last in every contest poll he's ever been in, too. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis [look at all these anime boys](https://imgtc.com/i/QnabDsi.png), they are all like... the same thing. why did you do this Sakurai. ps thank you for k rool \<3 I played one Fire Emblem ever and it was the first one for the GBA specifically cuz I thought Marth and Roy were dope in Melee. I think that might have been the gateway drug for a lot of people. But unlike most people, I ended up really not liking Fire Emblem. I don't like anything with an overhead grid. FFT, Disgaea... Just not my thing. I don't like to think when I play games. Give me big dumb Gears of Halo any day. I get why people like it, though, past the weird breeding mechanic I mentioned earlier. They're cool games. Chrom is actually pretty dope, and now he's in Smash. This match would probably be different today. Worth mentioning is The Boss having her boobies out. Who made that pic? Why did you do it? Why? Why would the Boss need TJF? I believe this match was debated a little bit because the Boss wasn't seen as a particularly strong character and hadn't been the focus in an MGS game in a while. Regardless, Snake was a powerhouse in this contest, and his friends benefitted. The votals here were somehow a little better than some of the fodder matches, but they were still low enough that the Boss looked good. I wonder why Team Fortress fans never rallied their boy Heavy at all, that community is pretty crazy for those characters. I think someone tried getting Saxton Hale into a contest once but he hadn't appeared in the games first. Team Fortress is rad. The characters might not do well but it makes me smile whenever they pop up. I don't know if we're going to get one this contest, though. F Will the Boss keep her strength in 2018? Probably not, MGS has died since this contest happened, and I'll talk about the effects of that when I get to a Snake or Big Boss match. --- ## (4)Garrus Vakarian vs (15)Sub-Zero vs (24)Frank West 2013 _source: (4)Garrus Vakarian vs (15)Sub-Zero vs (24)Frank West 2013 (revid 82121)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 16th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Given how well the Mass Effect characters did this contest, this match is just depressing. I like Sub-Zero, I really do, but Garrus is arguably the best character in the entire Mass Effect series. I play a female renegade, too, which really lets you see Garrus's character a lot. I won't get into spoilers, but those who have played the series know what I mean. So while Shepard gets to go on a run and be involved in possibly the greatest match ever, and Wrex gets to pull one of the biggest contest upsets ever, Garrus... gets fed to Sub-Zero. I try not to be too biased in these, but that's just a kick in the nuts. That being said, Garrus did very well for himself and deserves to get in again. I normally don't care if my favorite characters get in and lose, but Garrus really, really needs to get in and win a match. So does Tali, really. But not Liara. She can burn. The asari in general all suck, and there is nothing better than Javik just punking the f\*\*\* out of that idiot on Thessia. I'll resist the temptation of turning this into a Mass Effect writeup, but I'll make a topic for that eventually. It's worth noting here that given the rest of this contest and how well Mass Effect did, Sub-Zero did REALLY well for himself in this match. It's a shame he didn't get into the 2002 contest, because he could have done every bit as much damage as Scorpion did. Subby was always the cooler of the two. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Here's a match that I remember got people into some heated debates. Shepard had done pretty well in previous contests, and seeing as Garrus was a (if not the) fan favorite, he should probably retain that strength, right? Well, Sub-Zero is Sub-Zero. He's the dude who made his contest career dunking on lesser-Final Fantasy characters like Rydia and Tidus. Mass Effect is a classic western RPG, right? The Final Fantasy of America, perhaps? Just with more kissing and Seth Green. So would Garrus beat Tidus? That's a good match. FFX has had a bunch of re-releases and has some newfound respect. Hard to believe it's now a retro game people play for nostalgia. Damn, I'm old. Mass Effect, meanwhile, has moved past the Shepard trilogy which went out with a whimper as opposed to a bang, although Garrus had some great moments in ME3. Now we have Andromeda, which... you know. I know you know. Everybody knows. Here's hoping Anthem won't be loot box-riddled garbage (spoilers: it will be) This contest was Garrus' one shot and he blew it to Sub-Zero. I blame it partially on the Klassic Kostume pic. Sub-Zero is like 200% more deadly with his old duds on. Speaking of pics, I made this one for Frank, I was determined to not use that one piece of art everyone always defaults to (see: his bio pic), so I used some art from Chop 'Til You Drop. I thought he looked too bland though so I added blood to his face and shirt. It came out terrible in retrospect, did I just use the spray tool? What was I thinking? I guess I technically turned it into non-official art by doing that but I slipped it past Allen and it seemed like a small victory to me at the time. Who cares? Someone give young Zen a swirly, what a nerd. --- ## (7)Bowser vs (12)Archer vs (21)Meta Knight 2013 _source: (7)Bowser vs (12)Archer vs (21)Meta Knight 2013 (revid 82122)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 16th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis As a Meta Knight fan who loved him for Kirby games first and Brawl second, can someone please explain this crap to me? -2007 round 1, his ONE contest "win", he shares a poll with Peach and barely gets second place in a fourway poll that Sephiroth just demolishes. -2007 round 2, he's in the poll with Sephiroth again, but also shares with Fox and Wario. -2008 round 1, he gets third place in a poll featuring Ryu, L-Block, and the dog from Duck Hunt, in a contest that tried way too hard to take advantage of 2007's joke momentum. -2010 round 1, loses to Luigi in the first poll where Board 8 learned about Spirit Tsunami's special brand of spam. -2011 round 1 of the rivalry rumble, he and Kirby beats Jill and Nemesis, and in round 2 they lose to Sonic and Robotnik. The point here is that outside of MAYBE 2008, we have never once gotten a good read on Meta Knight. Can we one time, just once, get Meta Knight in a legit poll in a non-gimmick contest without a bunch of jokes or Nintendo characters dragging him down? I'm not saying he's some hidden powerhouse, but good lord. Also I'm not much of an anime guy, but Archer is neat. On top of looking like Dante pre-Ninja Theory, the dude fires swords instead of arrows. How badass is that? He's one of the few characters the anime crowd rallied in that I can actually get behind, because not many things are more badass than an archer firing swords instead of arrows. You don't see Link doing that s\*\*\*. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis oh man, did KP single-handedly get half these characters into the bracket? Like three Xenoblade characters, Archer, Zero (999), Caim... I remember having extensive conversations with him about all of these. KP tell people to nominate Metal Sonic you clearly have some kind of magic nominating power. When is that quirk going to show up in My Hero Academia? The only thing worth talking about here is how Meta Knight has never had a fair shake in these contests, he's always getting SFF'd in Round 1. Poor dude. He's super cool. He's freaking META KNIGHT. He does that thing where he goes "AIYAYAYAYA" and swings his sword super cool and fast and then he wins every Brawl match ever. My dad thinks Meta Knight is cool. Why doesn't GameFAQs? I must also mention that my dad calls him "Mega Knight" but w/e Bowser stomped Meta Knight so hard here that it made Archer look respectable. That's also because Fate/Stay Night was the current Board 8 darling and the games and anime have a big cult following. I played the first one! It had a sex scene that was super jarring! I don't remember why it exists! It's funny how little impact Zero and Archer made here, people were just asking the other day if Visual Novel characters were eligible as if there wasn't already a precedent set. Yeah I'm out of things to say here, if I spend two lines talking about my dad you know the match is boring. --- ## (1)Sephiroth vs (18)Midna vs (27)Little Mac 2013 _source: (1)Sephiroth vs (18)Midna vs (27)Little Mac 2013 (revid 82123)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, July 17th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I've already gone into FF7's decline like 26 times in the first round alone, so instead I'll pull up some funny 2007 stats. 2007's Little Mac projection on Sephiroth? 15.39%. He got 24% here, which is nuts for a character in last place that wasn't even going to benefit from the Sephiroth anti-votes. The truly funny one is Midna. 2007 has her getting 20%, and here she gets 30. The jump from 15% to 24 is far easier than 20 to 30, especially given Twilight Princess is a post-Wind Waker Zelda that gets mixed reviews. Yeah Sephiroth won and yeah it was easy, but those numbers can't really be ignored. If we somehow still have contests six years from now, this will only get far worse. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I think I remember in 2006 when Twilight Princess came out and Inviso and I discussed Midna's midriff at length. I was 15. This is a very vivid memory I have and I am horrified that I am so comfortable posting about it on this message board. I am friends with some of you on Facebook. I am ashamed. But not as ashamed as Sephiroth should be of these results, holy shit what an abomination of a match for the former contest champion and member of the Holy Trinity. It's Midna. And Little Mac. This was before Little Mac was even in Smash. Sephiroth should be quintupling these jobbers. I don't care about low votals. I don't care about anti-votes. Sephiroth couldn't break 60% against two Nintendo C-listers. Also his match picture is god awful, just this gray anime smear on a gray rectangle over a gray background. Little Mac really popped here. Good job whoever did that. --- ## (6)Morrigan Aensland vs (13)Miles Edgeworth vs (22)Agent 47 2013 _source: (6)Morrigan Aensland vs (13)Miles Edgeworth vs (22)Agent 47 2013 (revid 85573)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, July 17th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Morrigan is truly the queen of TJF, and has been since our second match ever all the way back in 2002. Good lord. This was one of those debated matches that really confused me, mainly because I had no idea why there was a debate at all. Edgey was supposed to beat Morrigan with Marvel vs Capcom 3 behind her? even funnier, Agent 47 was supposed to do it with a series no one will ever care about on GameFAQs? That just floored me. Not saying my picks were much good this contest, but there are still some matches where the debate really has me at a loss. This was one of them. But there you have it, 36 gurus actually picking Morrigan to lose this match. Once the early pro-Edgey board vote died down, this was never a match and Morrigan was rather impressive throughout. It makes me wonder how some other MvC3 characters would do. It's a trash game, but there's clearly some boost potential there. Also, I suppose Edgey getting second place in a day match against a casualbait character, even one as weak as Agent 47, stands for something. Oh and this is as good a time as any to mention Ace Attorney Investigations absolutely blew. Bad music, absurd cases even by Phoenix Wright series standards, the no-courtroom thing really hurts it, and in a way it cheapens Phoenix Wright's character. AAI makes Edgeworth out to be an inexplicably perfect genius, yet in other series games he can't get past Phoenix because of deus ex machina garbage. This is typical Capcom oversaturation gone berserk, and there really isn't a series they aren't willing to ruin. Just wait until I get to Dante's round 2 match, too. F\*\*\* Capcom. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis oh man, it's my girl Morrigan. If you're reading this and don't want to pledge a nom to Metal Sonic, please throw one in for Morrigan instead. She beat Spyro once! Then did OK against Mario! Then was not in another contest for a decade! Then she beat Spyro again! I don't think Morrigan's win here was debated, although being that Board 8 is the Worldwide Phoenix Wright Fanclub, some users were adamant Edgey would pull the upset. Hey, remember how we got a nomination rally posted on the Objection! site for Phoenix's first ever contes? are you guys over that yet, do you love me again was it ever truly love Yeah Morrigan's appearance here was to set up a rematch with Spyro in Round 2. Really boring match, somehow broke 30k votes even though nobody is really notable here. Agent 47 might do better in 2018, people really like streaming his games now, especially the new one and I assume the upcoming Hitman 2. Wait, wasn't there already a Hitman 2? Naming conventions for reboots suck. The only other notable thing about this match is that Ulti and I submitted the exact same Agent 47 pic but because he submitted his like an hour before mine Bacon used Ulti's even though it was a really awful render. Just look at that head! It's lumpy! Ulti, step your game up! --- ## (9)Spyro the Dragon vs (10)Clementine vs (19)Reyn 2013 _source: (9)Spyro the Dragon vs (10)Clementine vs (19)Reyn 2013 (revid 82125)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, July 18th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis RacistFAQs strikes again! Assuming Clementine is even black, anyway. I know nothing about The Walking Dead beyond it having zombies, nor will I ever care to find out. The whole zombie fad needs to go the hell away A lot of people think good ideas die in Hot Topic. Good ideas actually die once women jump on board. Seriously, name me one good thing that wasn't ruined once girls started massively liking and accepting it. Zombies, vampires, BDSM, the Democratic party, Boston sports, pop music, rap music, music in general, Las Vegas, a hell of a lot of video game genres, marriage, foreign policy, and even feminism are some great things that they ruined just off the top of my head. There are thousands of other examples, and spare me the garbage about how girls running the world would fix all our problems. Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, and Diane Feinstein are all over most of why Obama's approval ratings are catastrophic. Point being, I was beyond happy Clementine flopped and I don't understand why people didn't see this coming. She was seriously a 50-50 guru pick to win this match? Did I miss a memo somewhere? Maybe I'm biased toward old contests and really wanted to see the Morrigan/Spyro 2002 tribute rematch, but I really don't understand why Clementine was so widely picked in this match beyond "WALKING DEAD ZOMBIES ZOMBIES FAD FAD FAD". Give me a goddamn break. This also clued people in on how badly Lee Everett was going to crap the bed against Game & Watch, which also pleased me beyond all belief. To put Spyro's domination in a bit of further perspective, here's some characters that failed to break 56% in round 1 wins: Barret Aeris Commander Shepard Kirby Frog Zidane Leon Kennedy Gordon Freeman Pikachu Wario Mega Man (lol) Kratos Does Spyro even break 40% on any of those characters 1 on 1? Does he even break 35%? ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I just realized I've been copy/pasting the "2013" from the title of the Wiki pages, whoops. I guess you all know I'm a fraud. I know I was on the Show during the episode where they talked about this match and there was some debate as to whether or not Clementine could pull off an upset here because SERIOUS CHILD CHARACTER I made the point that Clementine was black and that GameFAQs was too racist to vote for her and there was this really awkward pause and I think YoBlazer just said "she's black?" [Yup!](https://imgtc.com/i/ibdCHCf.png) My follow-up explanation was that GameFAQs voters would do their proper research in order to "vote racistly" but obviously I was joking. The real debate here was around Spyro's match pic. This was post-Skylanders, the series Activision threw Spyro into because they didn't think Toys-to-Life was a surefire hit. Which it turned out to be! Thanks to Skylanders we now have mega-franchises like LEGO Dimensions, Disney Infinity and amiibos! One of which still exists!! Wow!!! What a time to be alive!!!!!!!!!! Back to the point, people were terrified Spyro would get a pic where he looked like this: Which none of us Picsmiths wanted to make. I don't think anyone submitted a Skylanders pic, even as a joke. What Activision did to Spyro was low, even for Board 8's standards. Regardless, Walking Dead was just a game getting some decent buzz at the time, this was just before Telltale was at its peak. They've kind of fallen apart in recent years, I think they fired a ton of people. They're only just now remaking their Telltale Engine after everyone on YouTube started shitting on it. Clem never had a chance here, regardless of the picture. She and Reyn (who?) getting crushed by Spyro this hard shows how bad the field was in 2013. More is not necessarily better. also pics don't matter everyone voted from the results page anyway This match was pretty fun tho cuz everyone was spamming "NOW IT'S REYN TIME" on the board. I love it when we can come together and scream all our favorite video game in jokes together. --- ## (2)Luigi vs (17)Balthier Bunansa vs (26)Jade 2013 _source: (2)Luigi vs (17)Balthier Bunansa vs (26)Jade 2013 (revid 82128)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, July 18th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was another of the many "thank god for 12 hour matches early" kind of polls, because this was one of the most predictable matches of the entire contest. You'll get that a lot in any seeding contest, but the craziness of Summer 2013 definitely did not happen early. Luigi crushed, the end. I will however use this space to defend FF12 a little bit, since Balthier is the s\*\*\*. Yeah, the plot sucks until the Occuria reveal what's up. Yeah, the licenses are stupid. But the gameplay is fun, the music is decent enough, Balthier is Balthier, and FF12 has the best optional content in the entire series. That counts for a lot, especially the hunts. Doing all of those was a BLAST, and by itself is almost convincing me to replay the game again. Doesn't make for a good contest match, but hey! ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I always forget Balthier exists. Most of the time I forget Final Fantasy XII exists. You know I once had to explain to a kid in high school that no, Square Enix didn't skip from FFVIII right to FFX, there was in fact a full FFIX and it was really good. I had to show him on Wikipedia before he believe me. That's sad. Like FFXII! Even sadder: The state of Beyond Good & Evil 2! It's been teased so many times and it's just now showing up at E3 with a full trailer. Still no real gameplay, though. Like most Ubisoft games it's probably going to be a fair-to-good open world game where you explore and collect feathers or something. [But Jade looks cool now!](https://imgtc.com/i/Wpiunsw.jpg) That's about it for this match. Luigi does his thing. Did anyone play that remaster of FFXII? Is it better? I remember this board was torn apart when it came out. It was like a mini B8 Civil War. A lot of people loved it but others hated it. At least people actually liked it, though. Unlike FFXIII. --- ## (5)Big Boss vs (14)Peacock vs (23)Captain Viridian 2013 _source: (5)Big Boss vs (14)Peacock vs (23)Captain Viridian 2013 (revid 82129)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, July 19th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was such a weird match, even if it was a Big Boss blowout. First off, what in the world is going on in that match pic? I have no idea where that Boss picture even came from, and I'm a pretty big MGS fan. Viridian has like one picture, but he's facing the wrong way for the match pic. Awesome. And then you get some girl wielding a huge gun, looking like she wants to literally eat Big Boss for lunch. Ooooooo-kay. Skullgirls does honestly look fun, but those characters are damn weird. As for the match itself, I've always been hesitant to call fodder upsets true upsets, similar to Valkyria Chronicles beating Disgaea in Game of the Decade. So few people are attached to VVVVVV or Skullgirls that no one really got upset or anything by Viridian upsetting his way into second place with a massive 450 vote win. Peacock attempted the most boring comeback ever at one point in this match before folding, and even then I'm not sure anyone cared. This was all about Big Boss crushing and people actually having heard what VVVVVV is. Not sure anyone knows Skullgirls beyond some internet voting-for-the-character.... thing. That subject had a topic on Board 8 for every vote and I couldn't tell you what it was, which might explain why Peacock lost. Oh, and this match also made idiots like me who picked Luigi \> Big Boss look especially stupid. I know Balthier and Jade are stronger than these two losers, but good grief. How I forgot about Ness being in that poll, I'll never know. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis oh snap, is that a Venom Snake pic for Big Boss?!?!?!? who is responsible for this egregious error???? [shit](https://imgtc.com/i/kVFPQet.png) Well, we couldn't have known. This match was pretty cut-and-dry, I don't know how Peacock even got in seeing as people on GameFAQs seem to go out of their way to hate fighting games. Do they hate eSports as much as real sports? It was nice seeing a Skullgirls rep get in. Maybe next time we can get in Valentine or Filia? Someone with boobs. All the other Skullgirls have boobs, I think. Except [Beowulf.](https://imgtc.com/i/yrhRYHG.png) oh, that's nice. that is very nice. wait, I guess there's [Big Band](https://imgtc.com/i/RpAr1qf.jpg), too mmmmmmmm What was I talking about? Oh right, yeah, Big Boss cleaned up here. I don't even know what Captain Viridian is from. VVVVVV or something. I only know it cuz KP recommended some music from it to me once. Dope soundtrack. Good on Cap'n V for getting a win here, even if the character he's beating is really bottom-of-the-barrel. Not much else to say here. I'm wrapping it up for the night, I gotta get up kinda early tomorrow. I'll post more when I get back from work. Nominate Metal Sonic! --- ## (8)CATS vs (11)Ness vs (20)Locke Cole 2013 _source: (8)CATS vs (11)Ness vs (20)Locke Cole 2013 (revid 82130)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, July 19th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was one of those matches that seemed difficult on paper pre-contest, with loads of people not knowing what was up, to becoming a fairly easy match to predict once people actually bothered looking at it. For one, CATS is fodder garbage and always will be. He'd probably even lose a match intentionally set up for him to win-- Oh. The other debate was Locke vs Ness, because Old Square has boosted like anything since Dissidia happened and people thought Locke could pull off the upset. But there were two issues with that. One, Locke was not in either Dissidia. And two, I'm not sure Locke wins this even if he was in Dissidia. We only have what we have, however, so you get Ness against no-Dissidia Locke, which I would equate to Celes. 2010 Ness vs 2006 Celes gets us with 70%. I know cross-referring old stats is unreliable, but Ness would ultimately end up scoring 60% on Celes in this poll and we're only concerned about who wins. This match was done within 5 minutes of it beginning for a reason: without Dissidia, Old Square still sucks in contests. Oh and I don't usually like defending my own pictures like this, but the people who were complaining about Locke's picture are absolute idiots. There are no good pictures of Locke beyond fan art. Zero. That might actually be the only good official picture Locke has, and it comes from some card game. People should really learn to stop complaining once in awhile. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis @GANON1025 can you explain your choice of match pic here? Locke looks like a keychain you'd get out of a capsule machine at the trendy boba tea spot in the gentrified part of downtown that's right across from three identical trendy boba tea spots and eight ramen places. There was some non-debate before this match because Ness had been punked by Big Daddy recently and people thought some rando FFVI party member would be able to take him down because of that. Which is not the case, Ness was able to beat Zidane once, why would he struggle with Cole? In fact, Locke was closer to CATS than he was Ness. Speaking of CATS, remember how he beat Nathan Drake in 2008? Good times. I wonder if he'll ever get another shot at a real win. --- ## (3)Elizabeth vs (16)Poison vs (25)Thrall 2013 _source: (3)Elizabeth vs (16)Poison vs (25)Thrall 2013 (revid 82131)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, July 20th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis After Elizabeth jumped out to an early lead, Poison made one huge 50 vote cut due to an early 4chan rally. But after that, this match was not remotely interesting despite what final numbers might suggest. Elizabeth \> Poison \> Thrall was set about 30 minutes in, though the final percentages being fairly close was an early warning sign of Booker being completely f\*\*\*ed in his opening match. Does Gilgamesh beat Elizabeth's score if he replaces her in this poll? Does he break 50%? I actually think he does. Gilgamesh has the Dissidia boost and no one gives a crap about either of the other two characters. That goes for Thrall by the way, you World of Warcraft crybabies. Thrall's picture was fine, it is 100% recognizable as Thrall -- unlike paulg's atrocious and intentional Vincent round 2 sabotage -- and no other picture would have even gotten him into second place, let alone first. Stop whining about everything, get out of your mom's basement, stop spending all of your mom's money on your monthly Skinner Box crack fix, and get a job. Is any other fanbase as whiny, elitist, or socially inept as World of Warcraft fans? Even such social reject classes as bronies, furries, the anime-obsessed, and LARPs will actually bother leaving their house once in awhile. Cry more, crybabies. Thrall lost, your game sucks. It's over. Accept it and move on. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Whoa, POISON was in a contest? What the hell was going on in 2013? Was it the comeback year for fighting games? Actually... Yes. Fighting games had a resurgence around 2010-2014, but then Capcom flooded their own market and ruined it again. There's another small renaissance going on right now, actually. We'll see who makes the field this year. There was a lot of pre-match debate on where Thrall would fall here, he could be in first, second, or third, but Elizabeth was definitely stronger than Poison, so it really depended on your perception of Thrall's strength how to make your Expert picks. The match pic finally dropped and, shit, what is up with Thrall's pic? He looks awful. He's definitely recognizable, but surely there's some better art of him... [oh](https://imgtc.com/i/l8JbXF4.jpg) [oh](https://imgtc.com/i/AIl0gzL.jpg) [ooooooooh](https://imgtc.com/i/u4R8iD1.jpg) I'm being facetious, of course. Thrall actually does have some good art, it's all just like this: Art like this is really hard to work with, it's not meant to be rendered, the lighting and angles don't lend themselves to a clean cut out. It seems obvious to me what kind of art would or would not be good in a match pic, but I guess that logic isn't too common, because any time a character got a bad or mediocre pic you'd get people posting "WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU USE THIS ONE" and linking to shit like this: and not realizing how bad it would look in a tiny match pic box then getting offended when we would tell them to use their brains Back to the topic at hand, yeah, Thrall and Warcraft in general is pretty weak, the characters aren't like Diablo where they have a series named after them and they look badass. To most people Thrall is just some Warcraft orc. Perhaps Hearthstone will change that? Poison impressed here, she has boobs, yeah, but other than that she's fairly iconic even outside of the FGC because of the whole "lol did poison have a penis once" thing that people just can't seem to get over. It's like the most surface level video game trivia and people love to put it in their crappy "6 CRAZY facts about the Street Fighter Universe!!!!" clickbait videos. ps I denied it at the time but I did purposefully sabotage Elizabeth's pic here to remove her TJF and iconic outfit to give Poison a fighting chance. I am despicable. Don't trust anything I say. Close this tab and go read one of the three other threads on this board that are actually about discussing contests. If a Zen bullshit topic is the only place to get your contest fix then it's a sad time to be a stat junkie. --- ## (4)Kirby vs (15)Terra Branford vs (24)Princess Peach 2013 _source: (4)Kirby vs (15)Terra Branford vs (24)Princess Peach 2013 (revid 82132)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, July 20th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I know what you're thinking! "ALL THAT PINK, THE PICTURE IS SO PINK!" And you would be right! But is it the pinkest a match picture has ever been? BAM! No it is not! I don't usually advertise my own pics, but I will find any excuse I can to post that thing. I love that picture. As for this match, it was bound to be predictable, but Terra doing this well was just nuts. We all kind of had a feeling Peach would leech from Kirby pretty hard and Terra would do well thanks to Dissidia and her recent history of overperforming, but even then this was just silly. I hate using the 1 on 1 logic with 3ways here, but does anyone have Kirby only getting 56% on Terra 1 on 1? I know Peach messes up those stats, but even 60-40 just seems crazy. Terra has been beasting since Dissidia, although Kefka getting all the upsets instead of her kind of sucks. Terra is awesome, Final Fantasy 6 might be the best game in that entire series, and Terra's design upgrade from FF6 to Dissidia is one of the best upgrades ever. I know it's technically the same colors, but man does she look good in 3D. I love Terra, and I loved this match. We should set up Terra in some winnable upset and laugh. Actually, does Draven go sophomore slump and get no rallies next time? Draven vs Terra, let's do this. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Even when the match pic is aggressively pink all-around, Kirby still manages to stand out by just being so spherical. Does anyone have more of a pic advantage than Kirby in any scenario? Coming off of Dissidia, Terra was able to take advantage of Peach LFFing Kirby to look really respectable here. She definitely looked much better than Kefka did losing handily to GLaDOS. Terra should be Sakurai's next pick for Smash. I know a lot of people are on team Vivi/Black Mage, but Terra just feels right to me. FFVI is one of the biggest and most beloved SNES games. If Cloud can make it in just cuz he walked on screen once in Chain of Memories, then Terra definitely deserves a spot. Coming off of Mario Odyssey, Peach should have gotten a tiny boost, but probably nothing substantial. It's been a long time since she was in the spotlight. If 3D World had been more recent she probably would have been a bit stronger due to actually being playable. The biggest question is whether or not Daisy makes it in again now that she's an Echo in Smash. --- ## (7)Wheatley vs (12)Crash Bandicoot vs (21)Tommy Vercetti 2013 _source: (7)Wheatley vs (12)Crash Bandicoot vs (21)Tommy Vercetti 2013 (revid 82133)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, July 21st, 2013 ## Ulti's analysis All the credit for this match and this upset goes to yoblazer and Leonhart4. Those two went on The Show and banged for the Crash upset hard, and he came through. Their logic was that Portal 2 was not nearly as big or "meme-y" as the original Portal, that people don't have the connection to Wheatley that people have with GLaDOS, and that Crash being the most recognizable character in this poll would get him the casual vote. They even called that this match meant nothing for GLaDOS's popularity and that she would still do just fine in her own matches. Of course I'm probably done listening to or ever mentioning events from The Show ever again, because Ngamer had the bright idea to not have me on one time this entire season, and doesn't even have the nuts to explain why -- or why multiple other people were getting on multiple times each, or why none of my PMs were never answered, or anything else. Putting that into a PCA is a small form of protest, but it's getting in here nonetheless because that s\*\*\* is so stupid. And yes, "i mad". I probably never will stop being mad, either. Oh yeah, there's a match to discuss here. People who picked Wheatley had a really good reason. Lots of them, actually. Summer 2002 - Crash beats Ulala in round 1, loses to Sephiroth in round 2. Summer 2003 - KOS-MOS \> Crash in round 1. Summer 2004 - Master Chief \> Crash in round 1. Summer 2007 - Magus \> Phoenix Wright \> Bomberman \> Crash in round 1. Summer 2008 - Samus \> Nightmare \> Crash \> Raz in round 1. Fall 2010 - Ryu Hayabusa \> Crash in round 1. Rivalry Rumble - Pac-Man/Blinky \> Crash/Cortex in round 1. Crash's contest history is so bad that everyone completely forgot he actually has won a match in the past. This upset was billed as CRASH IS FINALLY GOING TO GET HIS FIRST CONTEST WIN, and no one actually bothered looking up the Ulala thing from way back in 2002. I even completely forgot about it until looking it up myself just now. He is seriously that forgettable in contests. So if anyone ever deserved to score a close upset in memorable fashion, it was Crash. Wheatley held him off early, and he tried holding serve for half an hour, but Crash finally put him away for good about an hour in. The cool thing here is contest vets were really happy for Crash, and no one was really upset at the little guy finally turning heads. This was really cool for contest historian types, even if we did completely forget that he won a match before LOL Pop some champagne, Crash. You've earned it. Oh, and Tommy Vercetti was also in this match but literally no one gave a s\*\*\*. That dude has fallen so far, so fast. He went from epic matches against Donkey Kong and Kefka to getting doubled by Crash f\*\*\*ing Bandicoot. And good, because screw that terrible casualbait series and all the idiots who are currently mugging people for a copy of Grand Theft Auto 5. I read a story about some mentally challenged guy saving up money for months to get GTA5, getting mugged for it, and it made me absolutely sick to my stomach. People donated the game to him once the media caught wind of that story, which gives me some faith in humanity, but I still can't believe the sick freaks that live on this planet sometimes. People really need to read The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. If you're more interested in baubles than being a decent human being, you can go to hell. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I was trying to find words for describing how flash-in-the-pan Wheatley was at the time, but that just put me in a melancholy mood. Wheatley is great. GLaDOS is great. Cave Johnson is great. Portal is great. Valve... was great. Now you can buy the use of their assets and IPs for a nominal fee. Portal Bridge Builder, anyone? What a timeless classic. Dozens of people are sure to have fond memories of that fun-filled two hours when they played Portal Bridge Builder before requesting a refund. I'm being really sour, but I think we all kind of are. Valve now gives bonuses based on how much of a profit you can turn with whatever you're working on. They encourage their employees to do whatever they can to make money as fast as they can. What takes a ton of employees and a lot of time? Making full Portal and Half-Life games. You know what takes just one or two dudes and a week? Making Team Fortress 2 hats. We're probably not going to see Wheatley again, we might see GLaDOS, but we're definitely not going to see Cave Johnson. Who knows where Gordon will even be? I'll get to him in a bit, there's a lot to say. Alright, rant over, Crash Bandicoot was here and he won, as expected. The only kind-of surprise to people not familiar with these things was Tommy losing to Wheatley and losing pretty hard. This was the guy people had once taken over Crono. GTA protagonists ain't shit on this site. During the big hiatus in between contests, people speculated if Michael, Franklin and Trevor from GTAV would be worth anything. Short answer: No. Long answer: Let's just stick to nominating GTA games into Games Contests and keep the characters out. Because no. Especially not after this long. Crash had a remake of his first three games on PS4, XBONE and, recently, Switch. It got a lot of great buzz and people even started speculating he would be in Smash for some reason. That's... OK. Sure. I also saw a long 4chan post yesterday detailing how Ashley is still in Smash despite being shown as an Assist Trophy and that Sakurai is just pulling one long con to punk us. Hell of a community Smash has. We'll probably see Crash back this year, and maybe thanks to his resurgence in popularity we'll see him get a third win. He deserves better than Wheatley and Ulala. --- ## (1)Solid Snake vs (18)Isaac (Golden Sun) vs (27)Commander Keen 2013 _source: (1)Solid Snake vs (18)Isaac (Golden Sun) vs (27)Commander Keen 2013 (revid 82138)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, July 21st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match, like most 1 vs 16 or 1 vs 8 or 1 vs 18 vs 27 vs 294564 matches, was very predictable. These usually serve as a tribute to the 1 seed, unless we're talking about LOLHALOLOL, and Snake delivered well. So did Isaac, all things considered. The only thing to really take from this match was whether or not Snake would be able to challenge Link, and this match absolutely proved he could. Link didn't look particularly dominant in his round 1 match, while Snake went out and took care of business. This didn't mean Snake would be able to take Link down 1 on 1 or anything, but the numbers after this match were absolutely close enough to give Snake the win if you throw Mario in there, like we all thought he would be. It would end up being Samus in that spot, and there is not a doubt in my mind Snake wins this contest if the final is Link/Snake/Samus. Cloud probably scores something like 45% on Link these days. Snake can't make that up with an assist from Nintendo? Come on. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Snake comes out of the gate dick first, asserting his dominance over Link and smacking Isaac so hard upside the head that he knocked him out of the Smash roster forever. Hey let's take a trip over to the Smash Ultimate board, shall we? [Wow!](https://imgtc.com/i/Zu79qbn.png) People seem to really want this Isaac guy. They want him so much that Sakurai took him out as an Assist Trophy in Smash 4, the only time that has ever happened ever. Remember how close Felix got to Master Chief back in the day? Look at Isaac now, unable to triple Commander Keen. No wonder Sakurai isn't putting him in Smash. What does he owe to the 6637 people asking for him? I want to take a moment to talk about Solid Snake and ZenOfThunder's newly-coined Martyr Factor (or the MFer): Konami spent the years post-Summer 2013 taking big, steamy dumps all over Kojima, Kojima Productions and Metal Gear Solid V. The franchise itself is in ruins, and everyone is aware. The developers of Metal Gear Survive, the heavily-panned, poorly selling Rust-like spinoff of MGS, were even in on the hate, hiding easter eggs in their own games dissing their Konami producers and crying out for their lord and savior Kojima to save them. But what does that mean for Snake? Well, obviously he's not going to be in any games outside of Smash Ultimate anytime soon. Hayter would be willing to voice him but outside of Sakurai asking him to reprise the role in Smash, Konami doesn't seem (Commander) keen on bringing him back. Keifer Sutherland has such a busy schedule filming such classic new films as Pompeii and Flatliners that there's no way Konami could get him back to record three more grunts for a new MGS game. So where am I going with this? Shouldn't Snake be weaker with less appearances? Well, yeah. Yeah he should. That's where you mix in a vial of concentrated Zen "kind of reaching there, buddy" juice. The downfall of MGS, Kojima and Snake was so highly publicized and Konami was villainized to such an extreme degree that I believe love for Snake has reached a new level, and the story of his fall will be etched into gaming history in such a way that people will vote for him not only out of love but respect and a little bit of pity. Even though MGSV was pretty polarizing, the fate of Kojima offsets all the negative feelings, because even if the game was lacking, it was not Kojima's fault, not Snake's fault, it was Konami's fault, and FucKonami. The MFer. You heard it here first. Snake \> Link 2018 let's go boys --- ## (6)Alucard vs (13)Captain Falcon vs (22)Rydia 2013 _source: (6)Alucard vs (13)Captain Falcon vs (22)Rydia 2013 (revid 82139)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, July 22nd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was our first photo finish of the contest, depending on how close you thought Tharja winning was. But it goes a bit deeper than that. Until this match, you know what our last true photo finish in a contest was? Not RBY beating the FF7 dudes, that was a bonus match. It was Ryu upsetting Dante all the way back in 2010 with HOCKEY FACTOR. And even then, one could argue that match wasn't crazy close late because Ryu pulled away to win by 500. So you'd have to go back to Crono/Missingno, which was much closer than the final vote margin but Missingno went berserk late. You could go back to Wesker/Ken, but that match wasn't really in doubt for the last few hours. Meaning our last legit, mash-F5 photo finish was Red's comeback on Ocelot in 2010's third match. Point being, it was a freaking long time for us in terms of a balls to the wall match where everyone went nuts at the end. Make fun of us all you want, but this is our Superb Owl and we love it. Alucard and Falcon were close in the stats, but Alucard was the favorite simply because of this being a night match. Except that logic went south really fast, as Falcon built up a 500 vote lead in 3 hours and made this match seem all but dead. Alucard would not only have to come back, but survive the inevitable Nintendo day vote to win. Yet somehow, he did just that. It was just weird, and to this day I have no explanation for it because it defies all the trends we know. I can see Alucard going nuts at 3 am to erase the 500 vote lead, but come the morning vote, Falcon just.... didn't do anything. The match stalled and stalled and stalled, which is weird when thinking about how badly Sora beat Alucard with the morning vote a few years back. Yet there it was, Alucard and Falcon tied in the morning and Falcon doing nothing whatsoever to win the match. From there, Alucard made the slowest of pushes. It only lasted two hours, but this was a 12 hour match and 2 hours was enough to win. He would end up winning by 103 votes, in one of the weirdest first round matches I can remember. It's lame to have no explanation for these trends in a PCA, but I really have no idea what happened. It's probably better that way, because every close match being decided by trends would get really boring. It's part of why we went so long without a nailbiter; we just kind of look at trends from the past and pick out exactly how everything will finish before it happens. Taking things in at face value is kind of lost on us, so a match like this once in awhile is good. It was also a good example of 12 hour matches being better, but I'd rather early round nailbiters be cut in half than deal with Snake/Isaac/Keen for 24 hours. I haven't forgotten Rydia by the way, but the big writeup about FF4 continuing to s\*\*\* the bed will come during Cecil's match. ## Zen's (Late) Write-Up It was here at our 30th match of the contest that we finally got something balls-to-the-walls entertaining. Not counting Draven. Every ingredient for a successful match was here: A reliable contest all-star, a four-time Smash vet and crowd favorite, and a classic, semi-proven Final Fantasy character with titties that, uh, beat Marcus Fenix once. Yeah, Rydia wasn't a lock to pull any upset here, but people always overestimate FF characters. Actually, I don't remember much intense debate here. People dismissed Falcon pretty easily. Alucard, again, has proven himself as a strong competitor in these things. He's no jobber. But thanks to low votals Falcon was able to come dangerously close and the two were able to trade blows throughout the day. These are the matches Allen should aim to create. I was on the edge of my seat all day. My bracket said "Alucard" but my heart said "Captain Falcon" and I suppose my dick said "Rydia" so no matter what I was a winner. --- ## (9)Bayonetta vs (10)N vs (19)Wander 2013 _source: (9)Bayonetta vs (10)N vs (19)Wander 2013 (revid 82140)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, July 22nd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I originally picked N to win this match out of POKEFEAR, but then I remembered that no one cares about the avatars past RBY. They only care about the Pokemon themselves, and even then only the RBY generation will ever truly go nuts in contests. Bayonetta also has a decent buzz about her, which is probably enough to win a match where few people care about any of the characters involved. True to form, Bayonetta staved off the early Pokemon board vote -- a day vote, no less -- and won this poll with ease. It was a nice relaxing comedown following the Alucard/Falcon match. Bayonetta ended up getting nearly 50% here, which is nothing to slouch at no matter how bad the competition is. And when Wander, one of the absolute stupidest characters in the history of gaming and someone who deserved every bad thing that happened to him, can get a decently respectable last place score, you know the competition was garbage. But any poll where Shadow of the Colossus or its idiot main character gets last place is bound to be a good poll in some way. Awful game plus pretentious fanbase makes for good times whenever it loses, and true to their typical selves, Shadow of the Colossus fans (especially LinkMarioSamus) whined like little girls all throughout this match because ART IMITATING LIFE AND COLOSSUS IS ART AND OHMAN SUCH A GOOD ARTSY ATMOSPHERE ART ART ART ART ART. Apparently watching Shadow of the Colossus LPs is a MASTERPIECE and AMAZING EXPERIENCE because Unikgamer has it on various top 2297645137 lists! I often wonder how the American unemployment rate is so high, but then I go on the internet and realize who is actually out there applying for jobs. No wonder. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Of all the matches that were highly debated in Summer 2013, this one baffled me then, and it still baffles me now. How did N get into a contest? At a 9 seed? Instead of Brock and Misty? Instead of Blastoise? Instead of... There's so many better choices. Who the hell is N? Does anybody stay awake at night with visions of N dancing around in their heads? If you're just reading about this match for the first time ever in 2018, you may be shocked to find out that, yes, many, many people took N here because Pokemon. That was the only reason. Seeing Bayonetta rocket way out ahead right from the start was so satisfying. N isn't even in my top 20 letters. Give me Z or Q any day. Actually I am turning this topic into a [Q](https://imgtc.com/i/u2Qplod.jpg) nomination rally, sign up here: Round 1 match Q / N / Zed from Pulp Fiction, who ya got? Wander showed up here as well, and I guess N was too big of a colossus to climb. I did just dump all over N, but due to recency and being one of those hot characters of the moment, N was able to secure a win over Wander. Something tells me that a 1-v-1 between the two today would go differently. Remember everyone Tweeting at Roger Ebert that Shadow of the Colossus is true art? Then he died. I cut that train of thought short because my girlfriend just came home and asked why I am typing so furiously (I do that when I'm typing about the highest expression of art, ~\*~Shadow of the Colossus~\*~) and I asked "do you remember what game 'N' is from?" "Pokemon?" "Do you remember what he looks like?" "Green... green hair." "Do you remember anything else about him?" "Uhhhh..." "Anything at all." "..." But hey at least she remembered him, I can count on one hand the amount of times I've thought of N this year, or his dumb green anime hair. --- ## (2)GLaDOS vs (17)Cole vs (26)Ragna the Bloodedge 2013 _source: (2)GLaDOS vs (17)Cole vs (26)Ragna the Bloodedge 2013 (revid 82141)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis We had just seen Wheatley crap the bed, so seeing GLaDOS come out and take care of business easily was nice. It definitely shows a huge disconnect between Portal 1 and Portal 2 fandom. inFamous also has a lot of fans for whatever reason, so I guess Cole getting second place was good for them. But you know what needs more fans? F\*\*\*in BlazBlue, son. Ragna finally getting into a contest was awesome as hell, and so is the series. If you've played Guilty Gear at all, you've basically played BlazBlue. If you've never played either but love fighting games, it's worth a try. Very phrenetic, very fun, and combos out the ass without having to rely on the gimmickry of Marvel vs Capcom to do them. Ragna isn't the only great character in those games, either. You get a living cat chick, a giant magnetic robot, an ooze who is beyond insane and thinks everyone else are the crazy ones, a teacher with GGGGGG boobs wielding a giant staff, and so much more. And Hazama. That guy is too nuts for a description, just look him up. The point is, play BlazBlue. It's fun! ## Zen's (Late) Analysis You know nobody on this site cares about your anime fighting game when the main character can't beat freaking Cole McGrath. Of course, Cole is an absolute powerhouse in these things because he had two whole character slots in this site's favorite Smash game, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. The game with [Emmett Graves](https://imgtc.com/i/Dx5d2dx.png) in it. You know Emmett Graves, the star of hit PlayStation exclusive StarHawk. Truly deserving of the title "PlayStation All-Star." GLaDOS looked good here but only because of that Portal 2 recency and also who the hell is Cole and why is that other guy named "Ragna the Bloodedge." That sounds like a Sonic fan character. A pretty good one, actually. Take notes. --- ## (5)Ike vs (14)Proto Man vs (23)Dr. Robotnik 2013 _source: (5)Ike vs (14)Proto Man vs (23)Dr. Robotnik 2013 (revid 82142)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match was basically the Whiskey Nick/Black Turtle special. Those guys have been slamming Proto Man fandom for years in contests, and they came sooooo close to a massive upset. But even in a loss, you have to hand it to Proto Man here. Because until this match, the only thing he had ever done was lose to Solid Snake, and barely lose out to Ridley in a vote-in poll for the rights to be annihilated in round 1 a few years back. So basically, we've never really had a read on the guy. When this match began, Ike built a lead slowly, Proto Man made one big cut, and then Ike slowly (very slowly) built up a lead to 450 or so. Then Proto Man stalled for hours before making a comeback attempt, but there was just too much stalling all over the place for any character to make any true headway. Proto Man would ultimately end up only losing by 170, but this match was never really in doubt once we realized how slowly everything was happening. But even still, this was one hell of a good match for Proto Man, and a very bad match for Ike. Also, am I crazy for thinking Mega Man and Sonic have some overlap in the fanbases, and that Proto Man might have won this 1 on 1? I feel like if you remove Robotnik from this poll, and he did damn well in his own right, that Proto Man actually pulls this off. I also feel like Robotnik being in there and doing so well is why the headline for first place was happening so slowly. We had two guys fighting for first place while the guy in last was getting 29% of the votes. That's a lot of Robotnik love, so the question of who wins if he's out has to be asked. I'll get more into how overrated Ike is in round 2, because that's where we really finally saw what a fraud he is. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Over the past few years the line between the Nintendo, Mega Man and Sonic fandoms has definitely become was more blurred. While Eggman had no shot to beat either of these guys, it's interesting to speculate how many votes he pulled from the other two. Having a match this close a day after another close one was a real treat, and if you still weren't feeling in a contest mood post-Draven, this string of matches was a pick-me-up for sure. In the end Ike barely won, but he didn't really struggle, just fell flat on his face. I don't think he lost the lead at any point, just had to put up with little cuts here and there. Which overall was a bad look for Ike. Proto Man has never been good in these things and Ike is a national treasure and a real sweetheart. He even got his big dick adult Ike pic. I'm not even a Fire Emblem fan and I like Ike. As for Eggman, you know who would have done better here? Metal Sonic! --- ## (8)Epona vs (11)Mordin Solus vs (20)Niko Bellic 2013 _source: (8)Epona vs (11)Mordin Solus vs (20)Niko Bellic 2013 (revid 82143)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, July 24th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Pre-contest, it was hard getting a read on Epona because some people thought she (at least I'm assuming it's a "she") would get Link in match pictures. As-is, she would end up being a decent midcarder and relatively funny joke entrant. That didn't sit well with some people, and it reminded me of the days where people complained that we might as well start nominating Tifa's Orthopedic Underwear because people like FF7 so much. That hate is turning on Zelda these days, which I suppose is pleasant to see but Epona is not the right character to bash. Epona is awesome, and so are horses. I got to work with one when I did a workshop at Purdue in May, and it was such an incredible experience. Horses are such beautiful animals, and everyone should spend time with one just once in their lives. So even though I'm a huge Mordin fan and got bummed out at Garrus being screwed in the bracket, I didn't mind too much when Mordin got a raw deal. Epona deserved the win, HaRRicH deserved the win for rallying THE STABLE for years and years, and don't mess with us animal lovers. We're insane. Not even talking about PETA, either, because screw them. At their high-level board meetings that people like Bill Mahr attend, they laugh about slaughterhouses while eating steaks. I mean true blue animal lovers. You all know at least one. We're nuts. Right now I have 5 rats, 4 guinea pigs, and 11 hamsters. was only supposed to be 7 hamsters, but one was pregnant when I adopted her and I could easily afford to keep the babies. The point here is Epona winning wasn't some giant affront to contests. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I completely forgot that we rallied a horse into this contest. It's all coming back to me and I want to vomit. We're all anti-rally now, but back in the day we were doing nothing but cramming our bad jokes into this contest and hoping they took off. Everyone wanted to guess what the next L-Block was gonna be. Is Epona a classic video game character? I... guess. Does she deserve a spot more than Ragna the Bloodedge and Commander Keen? Maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure why I'm worked up about this. I fucking made Epona's picture, so who am I to talk? Speaking of Epona's picture, it took forever to render and the end result looks awful. You can see the 1-point brownish-red stroke I put around her mane because I couldn't get the render to look good. Really phoned that one in. I feel awful for Mordin, here's this beloved tertiary Mass Effect character who people legit love. Yeah, he didn't put up great numbers against Niko, but in the right scenario he might escape round 1. Epona looked good here, I remember people posting "SHAPED LIKE A HORSE TO KICK YOUR ASS" or some other really awful jokes all day and it was all just so derivative and forced. L-Block somehow felt more natural. Also, L-Block didn't need a field of 247 characters to finally get in. This wasn't the first time we had try to get Epona in, either. Nobody REALLY wanted a horse in the bracket. Again, it all felt forced, and not very fun. For me, at least. This thread is about me. --- ## (3)Shulk vs (16)Ratchet vs (25)Altair 2013 _source: (3)Shulk vs (16)Ratchet vs (25)Altair 2013 (revid 82144)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, July 24th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis It's not easy to have a cooler picture or cooler "look" than Altair, but Shulk managed to pull it off. I really need to play Xenoblade one of these days if all the characters look that hard. Is it similar to Xenosaga or Xenogears or whatever? I feel like once I play it, I'm going to look back at this match and be kind of mad. Altair was not a true 25 seed, and I'll never forget how mad the Xenoblade fans got when they saw this bracket first revealed. Never mind that Ratchet ALSO beat Shulk half to death \<\_\< The actual match wasn't particularly interesting beyond 44-33-22 being pretty neat, so I'm hoping people take it upon themselves to tell me how good Xenoblade is! Was Nintendo getting all that hate worth it? I really do want to know, it seems very long and I want some motivation to play it. How's the battle system? ## Zen's (Late) Analysis If I told you that there was a secret pic Shulk could get that would instantly double, nay, triple his expected vote total, would you believe me? Would anyone on this board believe a pic could be that strong? KamikazePotato and the rest of the Xenoblade fans on this board would have you believe that [this](https://imgtc.com/i/qWsZGbM.jpg) was the key. Yes, the key to Shulk's victory was-- Shit, I should be more specific here. It wasn't a bad child-size cosplay of Shulk. It was [this thing.](https://imgtc.com/i/aiyZDBd.jpg) The Monado! People were convinced that if someone could squeeze this giant red phallus into a match pic with Shulk that he would at least be able to beat Ratchet, perhaps even proven multi-way contest veteran Altair! After a few days of bad pic submissions, [KP found the best Picsmith for the job: KP](https://imgtc.com/i/K7xVheY.png), the ultimate weapon wasn't the Monado, it was your heart all along. So Shulk got what was considered the best possible picture, and... lost. Lost pretty hard. I had fallen for all the Shulk hype and taken him over Ratchet in my Expert bracket. Whoops. To be fair, KP is right a lot of the time and he's pretty convincing, and that XENOFEAR got to me. It actually wasn't crazy to consider Ratchet weak enough to lose to Shulk. He had lost to Thrall once, and failed to double Eddie Riggs. Since 2013, Ratchet has received a bad movie and a good, albeit short, movie tie-in game. Where is his strength now? Probably the same, but I don't mind seeing him in these things. Altair once again has a decent contest showing. It's astounding that the basically personality-void protagonist of the first ever Assassin's Creed game is still one of very few reps the series has had in this contest. People don't even like the first AC or Altair in general anymore. Outside of Ezio, there really isn't any better pick, though. --- ## (4)Lara Croft vs (15)Yuri Hyuga vs (24)Slime 2013 _source: (4)Lara Croft vs (15)Yuri Hyuga vs (24)Slime 2013 (revid 82145)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, July 25th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Hold up, a match pic without Lara having DDDDDDDDs? I'm confused. I'm also mega confused by this match. I expect Yuri Hyuga to be really weak, but I was not expecting Lara Croft to be a beast. I guess people liked her series getting a reboot, or something? This was the first time Lara looked even halfway decent in a contest in six years, and barring that pointless female contest, this was the first time Lara completely crushed a match since 2002. That's a long period of contest futility there, and to randomly see it turned around was odd. Oh and let's throw Slime some love. Dragon Quest is a good series, but this match really showed that Slime is the mascot for that series. Lara may have rocked this poll, but Slime did not embarrass himself. We've all killed hundreds, is no thousands, if not even higher numbers of Slimes, but we all love the little guy. Long live the Slime! But not the Metal Slime, that guy is a coward and a dick. You take 1 damage from everything, y u no fight me? =( ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Poor Yuri, he almost got septupled by Samus in his first ever appearance then took a loooong nap and got woken up with Lara Croft's gun in his face. Stick him in the freezer, Lara! Lara was coming off of her hot new reboot game where she looked like Alicia Vikander, the only woman worthy of Michael Fassbender's love. Wait, I think I got my timeline wrong... Regardless, people now take Lara seriously now despite ridiculous scenarios like her murdering 300000 people then getting real real sad cuz she killed a deer. I get it, it's a video game, but other video games do "being a video game" way better. Having Lara grunt a lot and talk to herself sarcastically is enough to get her onto Nathan Drake's level I guess. Should have gone all the way and gotten Nolan North to voice her. Slime finally made a contest appearance and even though it was nice to see copious Dragon Quest reps make the field, unlike Final Fantasy people don't seem to particularly care for that series' characters here, even its mascot. Maybe Jessica from DQVIII would do alright? Boobs. --- ## (7)Kefka vs (12)Zack Fair vs (21)Ryu Hayabusa 2013 _source: (7)Kefka vs (12)Zack Fair vs (21)Ryu Hayabusa 2013 (revid 82146)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, July 25th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis So hey, remember when we looked at this match and all picked Zack to win twice? And how those who thought Kefka would leech Zack to death picked Ryu Hayabusa instead? No, really, this happened: There were stragglers and legit brilliant people who picked Kefka, but the MASSIVE consensus was Zack or Ryu Hayabusa winning twice. Then this match started, Kefka kicked the crap out of Zack and Ryu, and people realized what a godtier-level contest troll Kefka truly is. It isn't just that he won; it's that he easily won with a Final Fantasy 7 character also in the poll, against a third character that, in theory, should have easily taken advantage of this for the win. Everyone knows the list by now, but I'm busting out the ol' poll search feature and bringing it up one more time. Kefka's contest history might be the most insane thing ever. Look at this. Summer 2003 Round 1 - 50.95% against Pac-Man in a match he's heavily favored in, Lettuce Kefka is born. Summer 2003 Round 2 - SFFd into the ground by Crono. Summer 2004 Round 1 - Leads Knuckles for hours before the Sonic day vote crushes him. Villains Contest Round 1 - 64% on Mithos, people credit Kefka having a good picture. Villains Contest Round 2 - 70% (!!!!) on Wekser, people credit the God Kefka picture. Villains Contest Round 3 - 46% on Diablo after leading for 3 hours. Summer 2005 Round 1 - Kefka leads Vercetti by 1100, loses lead, CJayC removes 1500 Kefka votes, then Vercetti cheats like hell at the end just because. Summer 2007 Round 1 - Second place, Marcus Fenix in first, some people expected Kefka to lose outright. Summer 2007 Round 2 - Kefka almost gets second place even with Cloud in the poll. Summer 2008 Round 1 - Last place against Duke Nukem, Marth, and Niko Bellic in a poll where all 4 characters led at some point. Fall 2010 Round 1 - 60% on Arthas as a massive underdog, people credit Dissidia. Fall 2010 Round 2 - 38% on Bowser, possibly the first Kefka match ever where something dumb doesn't happen. Rivalry Rumble Round 1 - Total blowout of Vyse and Galcian. Rivalry Rumble Round 2 - 39% on Samus and Ridley. And then this happens. I understand the FF7 decline, I really do, but still. Kefka could do anything at this point from beating full-strength rallied Draven to losing to Soap MacTavish, and nothing would surprise me. That dude does something nutty in every single contest he's ever been in other than the Rivalry Rumble. The explanation is easy enough -- he has a Dissidia boost plus pictures that aren't garbage -- but it feels so odd that he's done so much more with Dissidia than other characters that also should have benefitted from Dissidia. Final Fantasy 4 for example has yet to win a match in any capacity, and F that. You talk about something that deserves a win in the worst way, FF4 is it. The crazy thing is Kefka wasn't even done trolling us this contest. You think one crazy upset is enough for that dude? Oh no. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Kefka always gives me writer's block. I never know how the hell to talk about this guy. He's the king of inconsistency. In my last writing project I stalled for almost two weeks trying to think about what to say about Kefka. So instead I'm going to talk about how cool it is that Allen made the dimensions of the match pictures 299 x 187. He could have made it 300 x 187 but Character Battle IX whoa what an easter egg better put it in my shitty clickbait article with a picture of Morrigan's boobs and a giant red arrow pointing to nothing Let's talk about how great Zack the Living Buster Sword looked here. I went on a big rant last post about how the Monado ended up amounting to nothing, but here's the Buster Sword pulling so much support from Kefka that it managed to get Zack into second over Ryu Hayabusa, a proven contest vet that's looked good in a ton of situations over the years. Maybe Kefka was really just that weak, or maybe Zack really is just that strong. I find it hard to get reads on either of them, because FF looked so bad this contest that I feel like I can't be sure of anything. Usually Ulti and Leon are better at analyzing FF's popularity trends. At least this was an entertaining match. Kefka never fails to disappoint. I remember having some big projects due in college this week so my memory is a little blurry for some of these matches, so if anyone has personal anecdotes relating to them please jump in and share. --- ## (1)Cloud Strife vs (18)Senator Steven Armstrong vs (27)Prinny 2013 _source: (1)Cloud Strife vs (18)Senator Steven Armstrong vs (27)Prinny 2013 (revid 82147)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, July 26th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was yet another predictable 1 seed blowout match, though Prinny getting 26% on Cloud is something that never would have happened back in the mid-2000s. But regardless, it was a good beatdown for Cloud. Not good enough to be on Link's level, but still good. What I don't understand here is Armstrong. Is this seriously what the Metal Gear Solid series has become? A glorified Ninja Gaiden with a boss shouting "NONMACHINES BRO!"? I watched a video of the boss fight in whatever game this dude is in, and it was an embarrassment. I really, truly hope Metal Gear Solid 5 doesn't suck. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Imagine coming to this site not having played Metal Gear Rising and trying to figure out why the fuck a US Senator with a big cigar and a nice suit is in a GameFAQs character battle. Then you go to the totals page and see his bio pic with the weird Resident Evil growth all over his chest. What the hell is up with this guy? Short answer: **NANOMACHINES, SON.** As far as video game memes going around in 2013, that was one I really liked. I didn't even play Revengeance; I don't have patience for parrying or anything, but shit, Armstrong and Jetstream Sam are the raddest characters and I wish they were canon. Then again, nothing in MGS is really canon anymore, right? It's hard to believe it's been so long since Revengeance dropped. It feels like just yesterday. Yet the more time goes on the more it seems to become overlooked and forgotten. You can't even play it legally on Macs anymore: Back to the point: Armstrong is cool but not cool enough to be doubled by Prinny of all things. Is Prinny stronger than Laharl at this point? Would Etna play to the pedo crowd of GameFAQs and pull in more support? Will any Disgaea rep even make the field ever again? The big takeaway from this match is how Cloud couldn't pull off 70% in a Round 1 match against two of the most bottom-of-the-barrel fodder characters this contest has ever seen. Yeah, there were low votals and yeah, FF gets anti-voted, but it shouldn't matter much. If you hadn't already lost faith in FF by this point, now was the time to worry. --- ## (6)Handsome Jack vs (13)Frog vs (22)Viewtiful Joe 2013 _source: (6)Handsome Jack vs (13)Frog vs (22)Viewtiful Joe 2013 (revid 82148)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, July 26th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis So hey, remember this match from way back in the day? (5)Viewtiful_Joe_vs\_(12)Miles\_"Tails"\_Prower_2004 That was the one time Joe was ever favored to win a match, and he lost. He made some other 4way contest and got creamed. For Viewtiful Joe fans, this match was a bit of vindication. Handsome Jack was favored to get second place once Tiny Tina had a good round 1 performance, but Joe more or less pulled off an upset here to finally have something of note of his own in a contest. I'm sure Marvel vs Capcom 3 had something to do with that, but every now and again you have to make a deal with the devil to get what you want in life ;) I know Frog got first place easily and second place was never really a slobberknocker, but I like the little guy and was happy to see Joe do something -- anything -- besides getting last place in a poll. This was also a referendum on the Borderlands characters in the bracket. Tiny Tina doing well overrated them across the board for us, but the rest of them showed how weak the characters are as a collective in contests. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Here's a fun match that was kind of debated for a bit. I say "kind of" because most people assumed Borderland 2's main antagonist, Handsome Jack, would easily beat Viewtiful Joe, the dude who let everyone down when he lost to Tails in 2004. Since 2004 Joe had made a few sparse appearances, the most recent at that time being Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. He wasn't really used competitively and nobody cared. On the flip side, Borderlands 2 did really well in the GameFAQs GOTY polls. No brainer, right? Well, Frog was in the match (good on him for breaking 50%), so by law, it needs to be entertaining. Handsome Jack was the jobber this time, and Joe once again fucked over a lot of brackets. In other news, I recently did a playthrough of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel as Jack's body double, and holy shit is that game so much worse than Borderlands 2. It's amazing how adding one mechanic can ruin a game. Yeah, let's set the game on the moon and give the player a limited oxygen supply that also drains when they double jump or do slam attacks. Let's limit exploration by making players have to run from oxygen supply to oxygen supply. They'll never be able to relax because they'll always be thinking about the ever-diminishing number in the bottom left of their screen. Some people defend this mechanic and say it adds to the game. What a crock of shit. Also [this incredibly annoying 7-second voice clip would play CONSTANTLY as Jack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jdnJkU9Z5M). I almost quit and started over to get a new character. I'm happy Jack lost here. Hope Borderlands 3 doesn't suck! And that it comes out! Gearbox is probably looking for more companies to scam like they did with SEGA and Colonial Marines. Maybe they'll buy another game in development hell and cobble together a poorly-coded release like they did with Duke Nukem Forever for some quick cash to make up for the millions they lost on Battleborn. --- ## (9)Sly Cooper vs (10)Francis York Morgan vs (19)Lugia 2013 _source: (9)Sly Cooper vs (10)Francis York Morgan vs (19)Lugia 2013 (revid 82149)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, July 27th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis You know Pokemon is becoming truly dominant when characters from beyond the RBY generation start rocking out in our contest polls. I'm willing to bet most of the Lugia voters are Smash Bros fans, which was frankly enough to blow out complete garbage. The more polls I see, the more convinced I am that Average Joe characters with Average Joe names are always going to clog up the bottom of our extrapolated standings. To this day, I have no idea how Nathan Drake has any contest strength whatsoever; he seems like exactly the kind of guy GameFAQs would put to 10% in any poll. This was also the second match in a row where I got to see someone I like from the Gamecube/Playstation 2 era get second place in this contest, and second place in the early rounds might as well be a feel-good win. I like the Sly series, and his lone contest match being a blowout at the hands of Sephiroth in 2004 kind of sucked. I don't agree with 243 characters and Allen's more-should-play theory, but I do respect seeing that theory in action. There's nothing wrong with seeing Sly get second place if we have to deal with a 243 character contest, right? ## Zen's (Late) Analysis [Please keep this looping while you read, thanks.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzvXBFwcyek) Board 8 was super into Deadly Premonition at the time of the nom period. Well, maybe not all of Board 8, but enough to get York a decent seed. The game burned bright and as far as I can tell it isn't burning anymore. There's been no word of a sequel but I really don't think it needs one. It's astounding that a game as bizarre as DP even made it to a commercial release and any more would take away from the magic. That said, York only managed to get around the same amount of votes as Armstrong, but they were both happy just to be on the front page for a day. Wait... [Did you see that, Zach?!](https://imgtc.com/i/SgLspCX.jpg) Clear as a crisp spring morning! "Lu Gia"...in the contest! [I knew I could count on it. Never fails.](https://imgtc.com/i/64j8iB4.gif) Whose idea was it to get freaking Lugia into a Character Battle? Was he a Guru nom or something? Why? Was it to make a statement? I'd argue this is worse than N but they're both pretty bad. There was a little bit of debate as to whether or not Sly could sneak past Lugia to win this, but when you remember he got quadrupled by Sephiroth in his debut appearance, this result was pretty obvious. This much of a slaughter, though? If you hadn't figured it out by now, Pokefear was very, very real. I'm not sure how widespread that term was before and after this match, but there was no doubt denying it existed after this. Also I think Sly has a movie coming who cares --- ## (2)Dante vs (17)Laharl vs (26)Raz 2013 _source: (2)Dante vs (17)Laharl vs (26)Raz 2013 (revid 82150)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, July 27th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Given the entire debate surrounding this match was whether or not Dante could perform well enough to beat Squirtle in round 2, it was hard to really judge this match. See, Dante has scored round 1 blowouts before choking in round 2 before, except for the one time he got lucky and had to face Tails. 70% on Q\*Bert. 77% on Ryo Hazuki. 80% on Ratchet. 71% on Terra. 65% on Ryu Hayabusa. 70% on Axel. And now, 70% on Laharl. At this point, for Dante to make me believe he wasn't destined to choke against a strong character in round 2, those round 1 percentages would have to start being in the 90s. Every year, we see Dante perform well in round 1 and think he's fine. And every year, he gets his ass whipped early. This year was especially risky because of the whole DmC Donte nonsense, but at least he has his blowout win on Laharl. Congrats, I guess? ## Zen's (Late) Analysis iirc I used a Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne pic for Dante just because I wanted to post it in the Picsmith thread with [this](https://imgtc.com/i/8Wn4BxF.png) under it. I think I got one person who humored me with a "haha" and then Allen used the pic. Kids, never meme and pic. Although it does look pretty dope. We were coming off of DmC: Devil May Cry by this point and the wounds were still fresh. I hear that game got reworked a bit on PC and is actually really good, but it was so divisive that I doubt its original band of haters would ever admit that. But back in 2013, we were all worried that a potential bad pic paired with bad buzz would ruin Dante's chances to beat Squirtle in R2. Again, Pokefear was super real and Dante was the king of letdowns. He's had some good runs, but he also choked to Yoshi and Ryu, lost to Master Chief, and performed like shit against Tails. So he got 70% on Laharl, but that doesn't mean much if you can't beat Yoshi. It was assumed that Dante would have a rough time and if he beat Squirtle it would only be by a little. Nobody knew how bad Squirtle would expose Dante in R2. Also, nice to see Raz. Hot damn does he look ugly. He's just a big sack of potatoes getting used as a punching bag. I hear he has a VR game now and my only thoughts on that are "why would you want to get that close to Raz." This is Laharl's third win, and I think it's a good way for him to end his contest run. He now has the unimpressive heads of Nathan Hale, Neku and Raz mounted on his wall. I don't think he'll ever be more successful than that. Laharl vs Vyse Grudge Match 2018, who ya got? --- ## (5)Squirtle vs (14)Ramza Beoulve vs (23)JC Denton 2013 _source: (5)Squirtle vs (14)Ramza Beoulve vs (23)JC Denton 2013 (revid 82151)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, July 28th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis At least we didn't have to wait until round 2 to compare Squirtle to Dante. We only needed 12 hours and a little common sense to see what was coming. What would you rather have, 70% on Laharl or 64% on Ramza? I'm pretty sure Ramza would kick Laharl's ass in any contest setting. People tried pointing to the 2008 contest involving Ramza and Dante in a match (http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Dante_vs_Hogger_vs_Laharl_vs_Ramza_Beoulve_2008) to defend Dante's position here, but that was a different time. That was before DmC happened, before Pokemon started running roughshod over our contests, and before Dante's reputation as a huge choke artist. Dante is at a weird place right now; he's a strong character, but no one will ever pick him in a remotely debatable match ever again. To be fair, this wasn't really Squirtle-gone nuts either. Squirtle would end up beating Cloud this contest. Would you have known that only look at this match? I doubt it. It took some momentum to pull that one off, but I maintain that Squirtle \> Dante was easy to see coming from day 1. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis JC Denton finally gets a second shot in a contest setting and gets paired with a Pokemon and a fan-favorite Final Fantasy character. Ramza's since been in a Dissidia game or two, in 2018 he'd probably still do OK. It's not like he impressed here or anything and he did get doubled by a cartoon turtle, but at least he didn't lay down and die. People were expecting much worse of a blowout, which lead to people still championing Dante \> Squirtle in R2 as if DmC and Pokefear didn't exist. Another note on the pic side of things: This is one of the first appearances of "anonymous" being credited as the contributor of a pic, AKA "we submitted nothing but shitty meme pics so Allen had to make one himself." In this case it was for Squirtle. I think all the Picsmiths submitted for Squirtle were anime pics of him wearing his Kamina sunglasses as if he needed even more help. Sometimes I think sometimes we get too caught up in seeing what we can get away with instead of thinking what's best for the contest. --- ## (8)Spring Breeze Dancin' vs (11)Zidane Tribal vs (20)Ridley 2013 _source: (8)Spring Breeze Dancin' vs (11)Zidane Tribal vs (20)Ridley 2013 (revid 82152)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, July 28th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I'd love to think Ridley could beat Zidane during a day match if Spring Breeze Dancin' were removed from the poll, but even if you gave ALL of... whatever the hell that thing's votes is to Ridley, he still loses. Ridley is one of my favorite characters ever, and it would be nice to see him pull out a win without having to rely on a gimmick like the Rivalry Rumble. I'm also in the same boat with Zidane. He usually wins a match, but he's never been past round 2 and very much deserves to be. Final Fantasy 9 is such an amazing experience, an amazing throwback to the Final Fantasy series itself, and you can just feel how much fun the team had when making the game. Games now are too serious, you'll never see a company make fun of themselves and tribute themselves in the way Final Fantasy 9 does. I always like matches where I like more than one character for emotional hedge purposes, but it does suck when looking at the contest history and realizing a deep run may never happen. But with that said, Vivi took on the role of "Final Fantasy Underdog" and really fought for old Squareheads like me. But we'll get to that later. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis It always bothered me how blue Spring Breeze Dancin' is in his pic, so I went and [threw an auto-level adjustment on it](https://imgtc.com/i/redqSBp.jpg). It's kind of blown out now but do you see what I mean? \[Imagine 5 minutes passing\] Alright, I can't find the fucking video of Spring Breeze Dancin's performance, but [this came up in YouTube search instead??](https://imgtc.com/i/DTgtVSb.png) 17 million goddamn views and her name is EVERLEIGH. What the fuck kind of name is this? It's somehow worse than every kid being named some hipster variant of "Aiden." Let's adopt this garbage naming convention for the next contest. "Lyyynk," "Claughd," and "Sefeighroughth." Spring Breeze Dancin' is apparently the bottom of the X-Stats this contest, and I'm not surprised. As far as Board 8 in-jokes go, this one is the deepest cut I think we've ever seen actually make it to the front page. Way deeper than Midgar Zolom. .\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ \|......O....\_\_.....O......\| IS SOMEBODY POSTING ABOUT ME IN 2018? \|\_\_\_.....\<\_\_\>.....\_\_\_\_\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| Yes, but now I am posting about how respectable Ridley looked here. Zidane was never the strongest but Ridley had been comfortably beaten by Vivi back in the day so it was strange seeing him come within 2000 votes of Zidane. I'm not going to reiterate how bad FF looked outside of the really obvious exceptions. .\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ \|......O....\_\_.....O......\| I BET I WOULD HAVE LOOKED GREAT IN 2013 \|\_\_\_.....\<\_\_\>.....\_\_\_\_\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| ......\|.................\| Sure, Zolomy. Now sleep. I'll repost you in 2023 when I do my 5-Year-Late analysis of Summer 2018. --- ## (3)Yu Narukami vs (16)Shadow the Hedgehog vs (25)Kat 2013 _source: (3)Yu Narukami vs (16)Shadow the Hedgehog vs (25)Kat 2013 (revid 82153)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, July 29th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Matches close to 50-35-15 in a 3way poll is about as boring as a 65-35 1v1 match, but these are the sorts of things we had to sit through to get the early round fodder out of this contest. Shadow the Hedgehog didn't win this match through being popular -- far from it, as almost everyone hates the dude -- he won it by default. No one cares about Persona's characters, and no one knows who in the hell Kat even is. It's as simple as that. Although for Shadow's 7 fans, this was better than the garbage showings he usually puts out. Even through this contest, the only thing Shadow has ever done of any relevance was score 45% on Mario all the way back in 2003. But hey, he managed to get 50% in a poll against two people no one cares about before getting crushed in round 2, so there's that. I'm still confused as to how a guy that started out with so much promise is just LOATHED, even by his own fans. Did Sega really drop the ball that hard? ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I usually only skim Ulti's analysis of each match because I don't want to sound derivative of his writing. Ulti has way more technical information and reading his write-ups for close matches are super entertaining. I skip over the analysis for matches like this one, though. But I did read what he had to say here: "I'm still confused as to how \[Shadow\], a guy that started out with so much promise is just LOATHED, even by his own fans. Did Sega really drop the ball that hard?" I have some things to say about Shadow's popularity in the fanbase. GameFAQs is definitely not a haven for hardcore Sonic fans, but wherever I find pockets of the fandom, people love Shadow unironically. He's really the only character in the series with any kind of depth. Sonic fast. Knuckles punch. Tails smart. Shadow has a tragic past, and as basic as his origins are, at least there's some conflict there. Yeah, there's a ton of "ow, the edge," but that's pretty unique in the franchise, and you can't fault SEGA for trying to do something different with these furry weirdos. They just went too early-2000s with it, because it was the early 2000s. People loved it then, then were ashamed, but now people love it again. Like Pokemon? As for the "7 Shadow fans," I'm living with one, and wake up to [this](https://imgtc.com/i/Dpm44bv.jpg) every day. I'm not in complete defense of how ridiculous Shadow is, though. If you want a laugh, like a real hearty belly laugh, watch this video from the 9m30s mark for about 45 seconds: It's fucking terrible. SEGA knows people like Shadow but they aren't willing to spend more than like \$20 and a pack of Skittles on his DLC pack. [But you know who knows how to treat a franchise right?](https://imgtc.com/i/5hW9E61.jpg) There's a ton of evidence pointing to Shadow being included as an Echo of Sonic in Smash Ultimate. If it all works out, Shadow will probably get a tiny boost in power. Also if he doesn't say "THIS IS THE ULTIMATE" before his Final Smash it'll be the biggest missed opportunity in gaming history. Yu was repping a game that came out in 2008, and because he really didn't have a name and his game was still pretty cult, he didn't make it in 'til 2013. He didn't perform great here, yeah, but Persona has slowly moved from being a Board 8 sweetheart to a GameFAQs sweetheart and now a mainstream sweetheart. If Joker makes the field this year, he might be able to escape Round 1. As for Yu, yeah, he's still around, but P5 characters have recency and cooler designs. As for Kat, her franchise is basically dead before it began. Due to poor sales, Sony decided to shut down the online servers of Gravity Rush 2 after a little more than a year, leading to backlash from the 7 fans of the series: Kat has a great design, I did her pic here, and I remember spending a ton of time touching it up and making sure she looked good for her only contest appearance ever. If we ever see Kat again it would be a small miracle. I'm not a big Gravity Rush fan, I only played the Vita one for a bit then got the PS4 version on PS+, but the games look pretty cool and have a great aesthetic. The controls are fucking weird and gimmicky though and I can see why it never caught on. I hear GR2 is a big improvement, but it's already destined to fade into gaming obscurity. Also the games are called "Gravity Daze" in Japan but Americans don't know that word and "Rush" is more EXTREME ps make Kirby look angry those fat ugly Americans love that --- ## (4)Leon Kennedy vs (15)Albert Wesker vs (24)Oliver 2013 _source: (4)Leon Kennedy vs (15)Albert Wesker vs (24)Oliver 2013 (revid 82154)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, July 29th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Resident Evil fans were upset at this match for the same reason Fox fans were upset at his draw. Wesker could have drawn 242 opponents, and he gets Leon Scott Kennedy in round 1. There was mild upset buzz, but then people realized that hero \> villain almost always on this site. I can't even think of an example that proves otherwise offhand except for maybe Final Fantasy X, and even there I'm not totally sold on Jecht not being able to beat Tidus. Then again that game has multiple villains that we can't really discuss without getting into major spoiler territory, so we'll drop that one. Seriously, I can't think of any without really stretching the rules or using FPS games as examples. Yeah you get Bioshock and Portal, but no one identifies with the main characters of those games. The fact we'd have to think long and hard about a non-FPS character who could beat their villain shows how screwed Wesker was, then the match started and Resident Evil fans wanted to forget about this as soon as possible. I'm a Wesker fan. His Mercenaries theme in Resident Evil 4 might be the best gaming song ever. He got absolutely f\*\*\*ed in this contest. There is no other explanation. Stuff like this was bound to happen once or twice in such a massive field, but having it happen to Wesker just blew. And given Capcom is fully enthralled in ruining the Resident Evil series beyond repair (much like they do with every series they touch these days), he may never have another shot of making a deep contest run. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I'm not a huge Resident Evil fan but good god does the very idea of this match enrage me. Imagine being FFD or ExTha and looking down the bracket for the first time and seeing that Allen matched up fan favorite and ultimate villain Wesker with the strongest possible RE character in a contest setting. What the hell, Allen? You can only wonder what happened here. Something tells me this was the last match he made for the 4 / 15 / 24 seed pairings and he was probably like "shit, I have two RE characters left over, oh well, fuck it, does anyone care about Wesker? I have to give OLIVER a shot to get second." I cut Allen a ton of slack and I'm usually one to defend his actions but this is really lazy. Oliver who was so weak he couldn't get ahead of a heavily-SFF'd Wesker. Wesker who has done nothing but lose close matches is given nothing to work with here. Yeah, if he was given a real winnable situation he probably still would have lost, but we would have at least had something fun to watch for half a day. I have nothing to say about Oliver but if we ever do get an "all characters" tournament we should get Totoro in. Fuck it, why not? People are ravenous for Ghibli shit. Yeah it's great and yeah the movies make me cry like a bitch but only sometimes. Also this match was the return of the Anonymous Picsmith, meaning nobody actually made a pic for Oliver and Allen had to do it himself. Why nom a character nobody even wants to take 5 minutes to make a pic for? --- ## (7)Gordon Freeman vs (12)Hades vs (21)Simon Belmont 2013 _source: (7)Gordon Freeman vs (12)Hades vs (21)Simon Belmont 2013 (revid 82155)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 30th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis There was very minor debate here about whether or not Hades could upset Simon for second place, and then that atrocious picture came out and the buzz became a very legit fear. Conan the Belmontarian was ugly as s\*\*\*, and it was the second match in a row where I had to watch a favorite character of mine get screwed over, although this one was for a vastly different reason. I know Simon had no chance to win, but seeing him go down with dignity would have been nice. This match was also a decent enough warning sign of just how badly Pit was going to perform in his own match. Hades was supposed to challenge for second place, and never came anywhere close. As an aside, isn't it funny how far Gordon Freeman has come? He used to never win anything, then Phoenix Wright came along and he hasn't lost in the first round since. I know he technically "lost" in the Rivalry Rumble's first round, but that was all Mr. Breen's fault. Individually, I think he could still take Phoenix, and he would annihilate Edgeworth. But even with that, he's gotten out of the first round in 5 of his last 6 contests. That's pretty good for the guy that started the Gordon Freeman Never Wins fad, though he got stuck with Leon Kennedy in round 2, so he was destined for an early exit this year. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis THE ACTION FIGURE PIC RETURNS! This is the second time ever that an action figure picture has been used, the first time was in 2007 when I submitted an action figure pic for Kratos. I tried covering up that it was an action figure and thought I had slipped one past Allen, but in retrospect he was probably like "yeah whatever that's Kratos who cares" and just used it without any thought. I don't know why I was so obsessed with trying to bend pic rules. I'm personally a fan of [the First4Figures Simon statue](https://imgtc.com/i/t0XAPaV.jpg). Of course, now that Simon is confirmed for Smash and looks dope as hell, we won't need action figure pics for him anymore. I'd still take a figure over the truly awful Light Yagami-look alike art he got in his bio pic. With Smash, Simon probably could give modern Gordon a run for his money. Not win, but do a bit more respectably. But... I want to return to the MFer ("Martyr Factor," for those just skimming these writeups) for a second here. There's not many characters this could apply to, but I believe Gordon is one of them. Half-Life 3 is the video game joke as far as I'm concerned. It's the meme that keeps on giving. You think it's gone but then shit like this happens: Which, naturally, gets people riled up again. They look up and shout, "Save us!" And Gaben whispers... "No." So despite not having a new game and probably never getting a new game, Gordon will remain popular, and people will vote for him and his games out of respect and a little bit of pity. We may see Gordon at full strength in 2018, or maybe even stronger. Back to 2013, and Gordon looked pretty good here. This match was just set up to Gordon getting beaten by Leon in a rematch nobody asked for, but eh, they can't all be winners. Oh shit I forgot to talk about Hades uuuuuh unless we get an Uprising 2 within the next week or Hades is announced as an Echo Fighter of my ass then we're never seeing this jobber again. --- ## (1)Crono vs (18)Sarah Kerrigan vs (27)Missile 2013 _source: (1)Crono vs (18)Sarah Kerrigan vs (27)Missile 2013 (revid 82156)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, July 30th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis There are two major things to discuss here, and we'll start with the bad news. Kerrigan getting her ass kicked by a 27 seed nobody was perfect, and reminiscent of just how bad Blizzard has gotten. They, like Capcom, ruin every single thing they touch. They, like Capcom, are blinded by hubris and refuse to adapt with an evolving gaming market and much more savvy consumers. They, like Capcom, think outright theft from their fans are the way to keep making money. And they, like, Capcom, are going to one day go bankrupt or get bought out by this stuff. It isn't just Starcraft that they've ruined, but we'll get to that. World of Warcraft's success is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to Blizzard, because they stopped trying. Which I understand, you start out poor with a dream, make it big and human nature takes over. It happens to a lot of musicians, it can happen to other genres as well. I get it. Blizzard's problem was choosing to not accept this and roll with it like a parody. Metallica is a joke, but at least they're self-aware of how bad they are these days (a 3D movie, seriously guys?). Blizzard actually does think they're as good as they've always been, though. Just read my Diablo 3 review. Don't read it as an accurate gauge of the game itself, because I'm probably a little biased. Just look at the developer's quotes. These people think their s\*\*\* doesn't stink and are God's gift to gaming, after all these years of failure. In the irony of ironies, Diablo is probably the one series they have not ruined beyond repair yet. I say this because Diablo hasn't yet suffered from "Blizzard Syndrome", which is taking every proper noun in an entire universe and making something extra out of it. This is how Warcraft's lore was ruined beyond repair. This why we have Infested Alexei in Heart of the Swarm for NO REASON. This is why Blizzard's only hope is creating an entirely new IP to get the creative juices flowing again. Before Starcraft 2 ever hit shelves, way back when it was announced that that abomination of a video game would be released in 3 parts, and people laughably tried arguing they would all be worth full price, I predicted that all three thirds of the game would suck, that they would all have useless filler trash to pad out the product and dupe really stupid people into spending 200+ dollars on a 60 dollar video game, and that Stockholm Syndrome is about the only thing Blizzard has going for it in its current state. People laughed then, but I was proven right. Starcraft 2 is hated, just like I said it would be, and gamers being duped is one of the main reasons. If you've bought either one yet instead of just playing it at a friend's house to see how bad it is, you are a sucker and a chump -- the ultimate dream of any con artist salesman. Because those of us with common sense, who have realized how bad Blizzard has been for years and years, all saw this coming. Starcraft 2 is a goddamn joke. I could rant for hours about this, but I'll only get into Kerrigan's part of the plot since she is the symbol of why everyone hates that series now. Everyone knows her story in the original games; she gets betrayed by Mengsk, becomes infested by the Zerg, and then rules the Zerg en route to becoming Queen B\*\*\*\* of the Universe. Kerrigan was an amazing, if not sympathetic, villain. She was a villain done RIGHT. Then Wings of Liberty happens. Very long story very short, Raynor frees Kerrigan with some ancient artifact and turns her back into a human. OR SO WE THOUGHT, DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNN. Heart of the Swarm craps all over that in some of the worst retconning I've ever seen, and it's such an obvious attempt from Blizzard to make more money. I'll actually let our boy Anagram explain this one: Kerrigan Kerrigan is turned into a straight-up hero so that the zerg will be sympathetic instead of being ravenous space monsters. Kerrigan isn't just awful in this game, that would be one thing, she's not Kerrigan. Let me explain this: the half of WoL that wasn't filler missions about Tosh and Haven was about saving Kerrigan, and she spends the beginning of this game going back to being infested (by the way, if the infestation was designed by Abathur, why does the primordial zerg pool make her look nearly identical to Abathur's design?). What's the point of this? The only result is that Kerrigan is no longer the Queen of Blades (they even make her forget being her) but still controls the entire Swarm (by the way, you fight exactly one group of non-Primal zerg in the entire game, who then just rejoin you). So basically, my point here is that the only reason WoL exists (besides to make money) is to make Kerrigan sympathetic by making her not responsible for killing millions of innocent people. That's it. WoL serves no other purpose. The entire game exists to make Kerrigan not the same character people liked from SC1 and BW. So to this, I can only ask one question: Why? We know you can have a zerg campaign where you're the bad guy because we already had two such campaigns. I won't go into why BW Kerrigan was so much better than this mockery, but BW Kerrigan states, many times, that she's in full control of herself and just likes being evil, and they retconned that for this. Sure, you can say it's not a real retcon because Kerrigan was infested when she said that so it doesn't count, but the ultimate point is that they killed BW Kerrigan for Crazy Revenge Girlfriend Kerrigan solely to make her more sympathetic and for no other reason. And I mean it - make no mistakes. This is a Kerrigan who goes out of her way not to hurt civilians to a point where it jeopardizes her plans and consciously commands the Swarm not to kill fleeing enemies, who orders Abathur not to experiment on humans. She does exactly one morally questionable act during the entire game when she destroys that one Protoss ship, and even then she goes out of her way to justify it as a necessity (even while using the exact words "I justify nothing," she justifies it to the audience). And hell, why does Kerrigan even care about revenge this much? Of course Mengsk betrayed her and set her on her horrible path, but revenge is her only motivation in this game beyond rescuing her boyfriend. And \*\*\*\*, Kerrigan and Raynor were not that into each other in SC1, they just flirted a bit. Everyone Else The other characters are one-dimensional and awful Just kidding, there aren't any other characters! There are only cardboard cutouts for Kerrigan to talk at. Zeratul has a cameo to say "Hi, I'm Zeratul," Izsha has literally no personality, Zagara exists solely for Kerrigan to rant about "vision" to (by the way, I love how Abathur can weave abstract concepts into DNA), Dehaka exists to say "essence" fifteen times per minute, and I don't even know why Stukov is in this game at all. Not only does his presence raise the question of why Raynor doesn't mention him to that Protoss chick in WoL who said that infestation is incurable, but they inexplicably infested him again off screen. Just... why? What does he do except remind us of a better game? You could literally replace him with a new character named Larry who would say "I was experimented on but escaped, so I psychically called out to the Swarm's leader" and nothing would change. Mengsk is the worst off. Hey, remember when he was clever, ruthless, and brilliant, but not so strong that he could control the Sector on his own? Neither does Blizzard. Oh, Kerrigan will call Mengsk "the most cunning enemy we've ever faced" and claim that Korhal is her most difficult battle, but really, Mengsk does literally nothing except tell Kerrigan that Raynor is alive after she heard he was dead from the least reliable source possible (the Dominion news) and accepted it without question. \*\*\*\* this guy, the old Mengsk would have installed a gas system in the prison ship to instantly kill Raynor in his cell the moment Kerrigan's ship appeared outside. This Mengsk has a bunch of defenses for Kerrigan to destroy, but that's it. He's just an obstacle Kerrigan creates for herself. What do I mean by that? Well... The Ending This was pointless What was even the purpose of this game? Compare this fecal matter Chris Metzen calls an ending to the final battles of the other zerg campaigns, where they defeat a Protoss army and take control of Aiur, or Kerrigan defeating three enormous armies on her own (during which, by the way, she didn't care at all about Mengsk because revenge is a ridiculous and stupid motive) and becoming the most powerful force in the sector. What's accomplished in HotS? Kerrigan kills a dictator who wasn't even doing anything hostile to anyone outside of his empire (admittedly he was breeding those hybrids, but even then it's explicitly stated that he's just someone else's minion) and goes to fight Amon, a being she only knows exists because she was told by Zeratul (who was told by an Ancient Prophecy, so you know it's serious) and the Ancient One and about whom she knows literally nothing, not even why she should fight him beyond the vague warnings that he'll probably destroy everything, maybe. I know he's obviously the Dark Voice from WoL, but it's not like Kerrigan knows that or saw Zeratul's visions. Amon has literally no presence in this game. So basically: Kerrigan kills a tertiary character who was no longer important to the story in any way and then goes to fight someone whom she's never met based on the warnings of people she doesn't trust and a prophecy she explicitly does not believe, and she takes the entire Swarm to go do it. I'll admit that's a step up from WoL, which has not one but three storylines that are irrelevant (Haven, Tosh, and exposing Mengsk's crazy speech about destroying what he can't control, which does not come up again ever), but it's not actually impressive, it's just ascending from basement level 3 to basement level 2. This game is a crime. Starcraft 1 and Brood War were not the best written games ever, but they were infinitely above this mess. Why did Starcraft even need ancient prophecies at all? They ruined Star Wars, they didn't have to ruin Starcraft as well! So to recap, Heart of the Swarm ruins not only Kerrigan, but the Zerg themselves. It also changes the entire plot behind Kerrigan's original infestation, and basically craps all over the original Starcraft in the process, and makes Kerrigan's personality out to be pointless. She only cares about Mengsk, ignores Raynor who supposedly freed her, then listens to and trusts Zeratul's ancient prophecies as Zeratul is trying to kill her. Makes sense! The plot is trash, the gameplay is trash, Blizzard is trash. Maybe if they spent less time trying to turn Starcraft 2 into THREE GAMES LOL and more time actually writing a plot and designing gameplay that was good, fans wouldn't have completely turned on that company. As-is? Every single thing I ever said about Bobby Kotick running that company into the ground holds true. "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games." "I'd raise prices even higher." "In the last cycle of videogames you spent \$50 on a game, played it and took it back to the shop for credit," said the redheaded recidivist at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference. "Today, we'll \[charge\] \$100 for a guitar. You might add a microphone or drums, you might buy two or three expansions packs, different types of music. Over the life of your ownership you'll probably buy around 25 additional song packs in digital downloads. So, what used to be a \$50 sale is a \$500 sale today. "And the best of all margins -- the 25% operating margin business -- has the potential as we can see with World of Warcraft to be a 50% operating margin business. What used to be a low 20s return on invested capital business is now growing to a plus 40% return on invested capital business." The only people still in denial about Blizzard are hardcore PC gaming elitists like joyrock, who believe PC gaming can do no wrong ever. That tells you all you ever need to know about Blizzard, Activision, Bobby Kotick, or PC gaming in general really. Only PC gamers could ever come up with a ridiculous phrase like "PC Master Race", and it's no coincidence consoles started to suck when they began acting more like PCs and less like consoles. So thanks, Blizzard. Since Kotick came along, you have ruined literally everything you have ever touched. Oh, and all this stuff added together is why people could not wait to anti-vote the hell out of Kerrigan. Remember when people thought she could beat Vincent? Yeah. Kerrigan's loss here might be the most embarrassing, but well-deserved, loss of the entire contest. Gamers unifying to put Blizzard in its place on a GameFAQs poll may have been a small form of protest, but the message was heard loud and clear here: F\*\*\* Blizzard. The good part of this match was DogFAQs, because this was a hilarious first round blowout that had the best of both worlds. While people were arguing about PC gaming and Blizzard being garbage (not really an argument since the facts speak for themselves), other people were making topics discussing their love of dogs. Missile may be a Pomeranian no one has ever heard of, but who cares? Everyone loves dogs, and Board 8 was very pleasant that day. I'm a vet tech, so I'll get into a few breeds I like and dislike here. Why not? Everyone else was =p My favorite breeds are usually the big dogs, but there are a few small ones I like too. Pit Bull, English Bulldog, Boston Terrier, Siberian Husky, Alaskan Malamute, Dachshund, Pug, Chocolate Lab mixes (Labradors by themselves are meh, but when mixed with other breeds they're amazing), Rottweiler, Boxer, Great Dane, Chow Chow, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, and Doberman Pinscher all kick ass. Not many I dislike, but there are a few: Pomeranian (odd, given the match here), Yorkshire Terrier, Chihuahua, Shih-Tzu, Mini Pinscher, Beagle, Poodle, Bull Terrier, and Caine Corso. The common theme there is almost all of those dogs are obnoxious as hell, and the latter two are just too mean even for my taste. I like a dog that'll stick up for itself, but Bull Terriers and Caine Corsos are just nasty dogs. The others are either obnoxious, "I'm tiny so I bite everything herpaderpalol", or Beagle. I absolutely despise Beagles. Oh and if I took only my four favorites from the good list, it would be Pit Bull, Dachshund, Pug, and Rottweiler. One day I want a white female Pit Bull named Cupcake, a brown/white Bulldog named Pork Chop, a Pug named Biscuit, and a Dachshund. Haven't come up with a good Dachshund name yet. I'll probably name it after food like all the rest =p. I'd name it Pickle, but a coworker has a Dachshund with that name and stealing a name is just lame. I should probably close this writeup at some point, so I'll just mention Crono for a sec. He may have embarrassed himself in round 2, but he got to be a part of one of the funniest upsets ever so it wasn't a total loss. This was also his first win in a contest other than the Rivalry Rumble since 2008. Seriously, it's true. Look it up. ===Zen's (Late) Analysis== wow I completely forgot Kerrigan lost to a dog also what the hell is up with Blizzard character pics? They're universally awful. Like Kerrigan looks a tiny bit better than Thrall but slap some jugs on that orc and they're basically the same pic. I guess [Heroes of the Storm Kerrigan would look better cuz at least she looks like a Zerg.](https://imgtc.com/i/MI1VhgX.jpg) But after a result like this? We're probably never seeing Kerrigan again. That's not upsetting. She's done nothing but disappoint in these contests, and all the people ignoring the warnings that Missile would have the ultimate pic factor, people still took her to get second here. I don't have much investment in Blizzard, but as you probably may know from Ulti's recent "Blizzard made the two worst games ever" topic, here's pretty passionate about it, so I suggest giving his rant about Starcraft a read: All I remember about this match was the whining. The insufferable whining all day about Kerrigan losing to an adorable doggy. If Blizzard fans are so passionate, why couldn't they anti-rally Kerrigan past a small canine? Because the Blizzard fanbases suck ass and don't even like each other. Shit, I'm turning into Ulti. So will we ever see Missile again? Apparently Ghost Trick has a very devoted yet small fanbase, but unless someone gives them a call I doubt they'll rally Missile or Sissel into another contest. It's not like Missile was strong or anything, just that Kerrigan was incredibly weak and that the votals were so low they lent themselves to people tossing a vote at the cute dog. Crono was here he would later go on to lose to a Pokemon so we'll talk about that when it happens --- ## (6)Pikachu vs (13)Lloyd Irving vs (22)Big Daddy 2013 _source: (6)Pikachu vs (13)Lloyd Irving vs (22)Big Daddy 2013 (revid 82157)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, July 31st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was our first match of the contest where second place came down to the absolute wire, and this stuff matters with an Expert Challenge floating around. Pikachu had first place wrapped up before the match even started, but a random second place match between Lloyd and Big Daddy being awesome? Baller. It was hard to really pick what the consensus was pre-match, too because no one cared. Seriously. No one. People plugged Lloyd vs Big Daddy into the LOL X-stats calculator, saw Big Daddy as a 67-33 favorite and called it a day. But then Lloyd jumped out to a 300 vote lead in an hour and a half and threw a wrench into all that. Big Daddy would end up stalling overnight before making a push with the morning vote, but the 12 hour poll means he simply ran out of time. He probably wins second place going away if this poll was 24 hours, but again, I'd much rather a few more popular characters lose due to 12 hour polls than all the early round matches be 24 hours long. It makes for a better contest. Yeah it sucks as a huge BioShock fan that he only lost by 50, but I'll deal. It made sense for Big Daddy to be the favorite, given a recent huge BioShock release and Lloyd having to share the poll with a Nintendo character. It also makes sense why he lost. The novelty of the dude has simply worn off. Big Daddy is barely even a character in BioShock; he's just a random thing you fight, and it would be like pretending a Hammer Bro from Mario is some awesome character that deserves wins in contests. Big Daddy only has character if you play BioShock 2, but that game's plot blows so who cares. The gameplay improved on the original, but not the plot. Not that it could, to be totally fair. Big Daddy losing also wasn't all that painful given I am a huge Tails of Symphonia fan and think Lloyd is alright. It's not like he lost to freaking Wander, Touhou garbage or Donte. He lost to a good character, which anyone should be able to accept. Not sure that quite credits exactly how much Big Daddy bombed in that match. Pikachu scored as much on him as Link would have been expected to. The idea of Big Daddy being overrated due to Missingno. backlash had been thrown around but almost \*nobody\* saw it being by that much. -Karma Hunter ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Pikachu's design is second only to Kirby's in dominating match pics. Your eye just keeps wandering over to this cheerful yellow blob on the left. You can't even get halfway to the giant turd that is Big Daddy before your vision snaps right past the anime boy and back to the rat. Big Daddy was favored for second here, and rightfully so. Lloyd hadn't done much since his first game had come out, he had some cameos here and there and was in an unpopular SoulCalibur game. Big Daddy was in exactly three seconds of BioShock Infinite, the Citizen Kane of video games. You don't get [purer expressions of art](https://imgtc.com/i/nY9EZjN.jpg) than a game where the main character punches people in the face with a big spinning hook. Thanks, Cliff. How's Fortnite working out for your company? Oh, wait, you left your company because you thought Fortnite was the wrong direction only to release a bad knock off of Fortnite at your new company that was so poorly received that it caused you to go out of business? Yeah, Lloyd impressed here, Big Daddy isn't exactly the strongest in these contests but when you look at the timing Daddy had all the moment here to win and win easily. Both of them might make it back into a contest, Big Daddy is an icon of a good series that's on hiatus, and Lloyd has second life through the PC port of ToS and a very devoted fanbase. Maybe he'll even be in Smash 5? He was a Mii costume in Smash 4, and after that last Direct, I'm not taking any ideas off the table anymore. --- ## (9)Magus vs (10)Hal "Otacon" Emmerich vs (19)Jade Curtiss 2013 _source: (9)Magus vs (10)Hal "Otacon" Emmerich vs (19)Jade Curtiss 2013 (revid 82158)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, July 31st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis As a huge Magus fan, this match made me so nervous. I unapologetically love the so-called gothic characters that all the 13 year-olds want to be like. The Maguses and Sephiroths and anti-heroes of the world. Everyone knows how Magus has become a complete contest joke by now, but I'll give the recap anyway in case someone searches this up on the Wiki without knowing context. 2003 - Even with MASSIVE contest hype following Crono's 2002 performance, Magus only doubles Sam Fisher, needs almost all 24 hours to beat Ganondorf, then gets 35% on Link. 2004 - Blows out Luca Blight, gets blown out by Crono. 2005 - The year where he started being a joke, also known as getting hyped to win his division before losing in round 1 to Knuckles. 2007 - Low-scoring round 1 win before getting blown out by Big Boss for second place in round 2. 2008 - Joke status solidified by losing a huge lead to Sandbag for second place in round 1. This was doubly funny because once upon a time, Magus was projected as being able to outright beat Sonic the Hedgehog, who got first place in this match. 2010 - Blown out by Alucard in round 1, in a match that people were somehow questioning. I'm the biggest Magus fan on Board 8. I was telling everyone he had no chance. It's like asking me how the Colts are going to do, guys. 2011 - Rides his rivalry with Frog through two wins, and loses in round 3 to Alucard v Dracula. Two years in a row of Magus losing to Alucard. Which brought us here. People saw this and thought Magus would lose, but that was joke status gone nuts. I even bought into it for a second, but then I realized that Otacon is a bit loser character in the MGS series that almost no one cares about. It isn't Snake or Big Boss, and hell, it wasn't even Liquid or Ocelot. It was Otacon. Magus losing this would have been like him losing to Naomi Hunter or The Fury. Magus may be a joke, but he does have limits to how much he can suck. Even with Jade in there sucking JRPG votes away. (To be fair, a lot of the Otacon hype came from people that were justifiably pissed off about Crono/Magus in round 2 allowing Pikachu to just steal his way into a win he did not deserve. NOTHING got better draws in this contest than Pokemon, and we were perhaps one Draven rally away from Mewtwo winning this entire contest.) So I told people Magus was winning this. Was I confident about it? Hell no I wasn't confident about it! This is MAGUS we're talking about. But when the poll started and we entered 50-35-15-ville, I was quite the happy guy. A, I was happy Magus finally won a debated match, even if the debate was forced. And B, I was so happy about that round 2 Crono/Pikachu/Magus nonsense. It was both everything good and everything bad about this contest wrapped up in a neat little 12 hour package. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis This match was super highly debated because Magus had previously lost to Sandbag and Snake was on steroids this year, so his brainy best boy would probably get some of that rubbed off on him, right? Unfortunately for Otacon, he was up against the thing he loved most, and he crumbled at the start and never had a chance. Magus "impressed" here but we can't really get a good read on him or Otacon because Magus would go on to get SFF'd by Crono in Round 2. Dude absolutely cannot catch a break. This was not Jade's first contest appearance so I'm sure KP can extrapolate Otacon's relative strength based on that. I don't know how Jade keeps getting into these things, but I'm happy Board 8's everlasting darling Tales gets plenty of reps, even if they end up usually just being bracket filler. Also of note is Otacon continuing the trend of non-Pokemon NRT winners looking like trash. Barret, Otacon... who else won this year that wasn't shaped like a turtle? --- ## (2)Sora vs (17)Scorpion vs (26)Aya Brea 2013 _source: (2)Sora vs (17)Scorpion vs (26)Aya Brea 2013 (revid 82159)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, August 1st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis For a split second I thought Scorpion had a chance in this match, but then I realized this site has a hard-on for Kingdom Hearts for whatever reason. That series has two good games in it and only two: the original, and KH2. That's it. Everything beyond that is Tetsuya Nomura proving that he has no business making video games for any reason. Someone needs to just realize that Disney has become completely irrelevant to Kingdom Hearts and is shoehorned into every game now. Oh and by the way.... That is the most accurate description of that abomination of a plot you'll ever find, and it'll save you from ever having to play any of the games. You're welcome. I take gifts and donations, preferably peanut butter Christmas cookies with that colored sugar sprinkled on top. Also, are the Parasite Eve games worth playing? They're from the era when Square wasn't garbage, and I've always been curious. But they're a third person shooter, or something? Someone explain what those games are about, if you feel like it. Recipe for Parasite Eve -1 cup Squaresoft -2 cups JRPG -A tablespoon of guns and magic -Big pinch of Quest 64 combat system Mix together, make sure not to add extra playable characters, add to baking tray, bake for 30 minutes, let it cool, serve. -LazyKenny I'll take this guy's word for it! ## Zen's (Late) Analysis If Sub-Zero had been in this match there might have been something to talk about, but Scorpion has been around since the beginning of contest history and there was plenty of data to show that he had absolutely no shot. Kingdom Hearts III is finally coming out this year after two centuries in development, and even though Haley Joel Osment looks like he's one cheeseburger away from a massive heart attack, Sora will most likely be stronger than ever in this upcoming contest thanks to the continued KHIII hype train that pulls into the station every few months. It's like Snowpiercer, the hype train just keeps going through the frozen tundra of mediocre KH spinoffs while on board Haley Joel Osment is eating babies to gain strength or something. Not sure where I was going with that metaphor. I'm one to talk I literally had three burgers and eight beers and like five babies last night at my friend's place. Yeah this was a match that happened, Aya Brea got her time on the front page again, and some people argued she might LFF Sora because... Square Enix? OK, sure, yeah. That worked out great. In other news Mortal Kombat XI is probably coming at some point. Did we ever revisit the idea of getting Reptile into one of these things? Or Liu Kang, Johnny Cage or Shao Kahn? There's some kind of potential there. Maybe. Probably not. --- ## (5)Booker DeWitt vs (14)Gilgamesh vs (23)Kaim Argonar 2013 _source: (5)Booker DeWitt vs (14)Gilgamesh vs (23)Kaim Argonar 2013 (revid 82160)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, August 1st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This is the match that started Division 6 down the path of being the division of death (or so we thought), because it started a chain of one upset right after another. Although once the very early board vote wore off, this was barely a match and I hesitate to call it an "upset" more than Booker just being a complete and absolute flop. Losing close if fine, getting completely blown out in a match you're expected to win is quite another. I'm almost convinced that Gilgamesh would have won this even without a Dissidia 2 boost, but there's no way of knowing that. What we are sure of however is the main characters of FPS games have a very, very hard time finding contest strength. What's the strongest one we've got? Gordon Freeman? And it took him years to find strength, as well as Half-Life 2 being amazing. It's also amazing to see Gilgamesh win a contest match like this, because I love the dude. Is there a better mini-boss theme in the Final Fantasy series? Is there better comic relief? Is there a better cameo than what this dude pulled off in Final Fantasy 8? Is there a more fun character to play in Dissidia 2, even though the game is garbage? I think not! If you say Ultros, you are wrong. Gilgamesh appearing to find an ordinary sword of legend is so much better and so much more hilarious than DON'T TEASE OCTOPUS JAM OPERA LOL. Enjoy. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis There's a lot to talk about with this match, but the thing I want to highlight first is that Kaim got into a second contest and this time there was already a Caim in the field. People still chose to nominate him after he got doubled by Frank West. 2013 was a weird year. People were quick to discredit Gilgamesh as "too obscure" of a Final Fantasy character despite being in a ton of games in different cameo appearances that were all great. He was also in Dissidia, I think, but maybe not by the time this match happened? People thought Gilgamesh just looked like a weird Japanese blob and that Booker's recent smash-hit game would have enough recency and momentum to carry him past some obscure JRPG fodder that got rallied into the contest after many failed attempts to do so for years. I'm not sure if Gilgamesh was an NRT winner or just the product of a successful standalone rally, but it was nice to finally see him get his time on the front page. So of course Gilgamesh took a big shit on Booker. I know that Irrational Games tweeted out support for Booker but it didn't help at all because nobody cares about Booker. The twist in Infinite is such forced trash and tries so hard to be deep, but in the end Booker is just DudeBro McShooty from the cover of a highly overrated game. I played through that shit like 3 times and I barely remember it. Who would have thought we'd see Gilgamesh not only make the field but win a match? What a crazy time to follow these contests. Things were only going to get crazier from this point on. --- ## (8)Groose vs (11)Lu Bu vs (20)Yoshimitsu 2013 _source: (8)Groose vs (11)Lu Bu vs (20)Yoshimitsu 2013 (revid 82161)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, August 2nd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was an amazing match for Board 8 on many levels. I got to see a piece of trash character from post-Wind Waker Zelda embarrass himself. DpObliVion got Lu Bu into a contest. And most importantly, GANON1025 got his huge Yoshimitsu victory and was man of the hour. This was a fairly hyped match due to ZeldaFEAR, but I'm pretty sure no one would have bothered picking Groose if he wasn't from that series. Lu Bu and Yoshimitsu being from unpopular games didn't help, either. But Zelda vs Dynasty Warriors and Soul Calibur was a thing, so he was the favorite by default. There was a time early when it looked like any of the three characters could have won this, but then the 15 minute update hit and Yoshimitsu just took off. 10 minutes later, Lu Bu overtook Groose for second place and was never threatened. This could not have made me happier; if you're not a Board 8 regular, it's hard to really understand just how much I love pre-Wind Waker Zelda as a series, and just how much I despise Zelda and Nintendo for everything that's happened to both entities since. So yeah, Groose losing like this was amazing. I'll spare the massive rant about Skyward Sword being trash, but the game's own designer being unable to play it properly at E3 is really everything that needs to be said about it. That, and the game having a stamina bar and forcing Wiimote control garbage at the player for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Trash game, trash character, and such a trash series now. I'll never understand how it happened. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Theme for this post: I had been rallying for Yoshimitsu for three nomination periods and while I once got him into one of the vote-ins, I never had any success until the year I stopped rallying him and he mysteriously made it in. I like to think my years of petitioning helped somewhat. That vote-in was the point of contention for this match. Yoshimitsu came in second-to-last against such jobbers as Dan Hibiki and Alex Mercer. Can you name what game Alex Mercer is from without Googling it? I can but I'm the big nerdo writing this so I have an excuse. So naturally everyone assumed that Yoshimitsu was going to get stomped once the Groose was loose and the Lu Bu was... in... view? I'm not sure where people thought Lu Bu was going to get the strength to beat Yoshimitsu from. He had a half-serious, half-"Hitler got in let's see if this guy can get in too" nomination rally. I know I had seen Lu Bu rallies in the past but they didn't get really serious until Allen decided to relax a little on what constitutes a video game character vs historical figure. Most people had Groose \> Lu Bu \> Yoshimitsu, some had Yoshimitsu over Lu Bu, but almost everyone had Groose winning. Because Zelda. The thing about Groose is that he is a Zelda but he is a bad Zelda. Well, maybe not bad, but, y'know. Not great. Derivative. Polarizing. Nobody even talks about Skyward Sword anymore. The match starts, Yoshimitsu takes off, Lu Bu follows behind, and Groose falls flat on his face. Can I remind you that the 8 seed was given to Groose because primarily Board 8ers nominated him? Being a Zelda meme that Board 8 finds kind of funny does not equate to any kind of contest strength, not even enough to beat freaking Yoshimitsu and Lu Bu. --- ## (3)Lee Everett vs (16)Meat Boy vs (25)Mr. Game & Watch 2013 _source: (3)Lee Everett vs (16)Meat Boy vs (25)Mr. Game & Watch 2013 (revid 82162)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, August 2nd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was one of the few upsets I actually called correctly pre-contest. I freely admit to overrating Smash Bros as an influence, but I also feel like I properly underrate casualbait characters in contests. Lee Everett was never going to be anything, and the only thing that ever even gave me pause here was Meat Boy being in the poll with G&W. I know it makes no sense, but he feels like exactly the kind of character that can steal votes from G&W. Similar off-the-wall design, similar fan base, similar "look" and "humor", I suppose. But even with the final vote margin being 692, this match was never close and I'm convinced G&W just completely blows Lee out if you remove Meat Boy from the poll. Game & Watch took a lead early, slowly built on it, and that slow build kind of increased through all 12 hours of the poll even with the occasional stall from Lee. It was nice to see. I'm a pretty typical "average GameFAQs voter" that casuals like to complain about, after all. I like the early Zelda series, Final Fantasy, and have barely played anything released after 2006 -- and of what I've played from the current era, most of it is garbage. So yeah, I'm unapologetic about loving the Game & Watch upset here, just like I'm unapologetic about chain-grabbing with him in Brawl. It isn't my fault Brawl is designed like garbage and allows me to do it, although I vastly prefer the Melee version where he isn't broken to hell and back and has hitboxes that make no goddamn sense. And remember, help finish out the smash roster come next contest's nominations! ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I won't reiterate what I said in the Clementine match analysis, but I find it hard to believe how this was considered an "upset." Lots of people played TWD, yeah. You know what else people play a ton of? oh I don't know it's just an obscure game you might not of heard of called SUPER SMASH BROTHERS MELEE. Lee put the fear of the casual vote in people's hearts, and yeah, Game & Watch really doesn't have much going for him outside of Smash, but shit, once you see him in action you're never going to forget him. He's a really unique concept for a character and he stands out way more than blank-slate Lee Everett. Yeah, Lee is alright. Yeah, there's some really great emotional moments in TWD. And again, I will stress that while a lot of people did play TWD and it got great reviews, that doesn't translate into votes, especially when the votals were so pathetic. Meat Boy was here too, and I think he might still be getting games? He was one of the first ever "Indie Darlings," but now that market is really oversaturated and there's way better candidates for these things. Shovel Knight will probably do alright this year. He'd definitely have a shot at beating these two. also something something racist ha ha game and watch is black too ha ha haaaaaaa --- ## (4)Nathan Drake vs (15)Steve vs (24)Pac-Man 2013 _source: (4)Nathan Drake vs (15)Steve vs (24)Pac-Man 2013 (revid 82163)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, August 3rd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match was virtually a mirror of the last one, just replace Lee Everett / Meat Boy / Mr. Game & Watch with Nathan Drake / Steve / Pac-Man. You have casualbait, a character destined for last place stealing votes from the guy vying for the upset because of similar appeal, and.... the guy vying for the upset. Pac-Man \> Drake was a good upset pick here, but the difference is Drake has a good following behind him, whereas Lee Everett was a flash in the pan fad type who may never make another contest again. And even then, Drake almost lost. This match was basically tied for an hour before he slowly (very slowly) started pulling away, and Pac-Man was never able to make a push before ultimately losing by 700. If Steve is removed from this poll Pac-Man probably wins, but such is 3ways. Some characters are going to get leeched and robbed of wins, and Pac-Man was one of those characters in this contest. But Pac-Man will be back, he will get put into a similar upset position one day, and he will once again pull off a huge WTF on us, just like he did with beating Ocelot back in 2005. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Here's a match that was basically impossible to call correctly pre-contest. Nathan Drake was a AAA superstar by this point and had come a long way since losing to CATS in 2008. Uncharted 2 is well beloved in the gaming community, and is even well respected on the FAQs. On the other hand, you have Pac-Man, who is always pulling crazy upsets but has wildly inconsistent strength depending on the likability of whoever he is up against. He also got a pic with his less popular Ghostly Adventures design. Have you seen the opening for that shit? That design was "chosen" over three others thanks to [the results of a "fan poll."](https://imgtc.com/i/svVZZJ2.jpg) Which was fake, of course. This image went up and everyone voted for everything but A, but of course, when the results were announced, A had won and won by a lot. About a month later they showed off polished footage of the show and game using these designs. It was all a giant sham to make people think that this was the design people wanted. So who used it in a pic? Uhhh... who knows. Definitely not me. Under an alt. Why would I do that? (I actually have no idea why I did that I'm sorry) On the third hand you had Minecraft Steve who is from Minecraft so he should win because Minecraft. I didn't think MINEFEAR would ever be a thing but here we are. The only thing about Minecraft is that it's mostly played by actual babies who primarily use musical.ly as their primary social network. Those kids don't go to GameFAQs. The adults who play Minecraft are too busy making 1-to-1 recreations of Westeros to visit and vote. The match was a crapshoot and Nathan Drake was the one who won it. He struggled for a bit with Pac-Man but not much. Steve never had a shot, nobody cares about Minecraft characters. I also want to rant about how disappointing Uncharted 4 was and I hate how every game reviewer sucked its dick but I don't have much room left. The game was an Uncharted circlejerk that was a celebration of a series that had one good game, two mediocre ones and an OK Vita port. It reeked of self-importance and I think that took away from the experience. Also the grappling hook was not cool enough to base the game around. Bleh. --- ## (7)Fox McCloud vs (12)Pokemon Trainer Blue vs (21)Wolf O'Donnell 2013 _source: (7)Fox McCloud vs (12)Pokemon Trainer Blue vs (21)Wolf O'Donnell 2013 (revid 82164)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, August 3rd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was one of the most hyped round 1 matches of the entire contest, because the belief here is that whoever won between Fox and Blue would cause a chain reaction that decided the winner of the contest. If Blue won, it was believed that he would advance to the divisional final, where he would screw Pikachu and cause Sora to win, who would then screw Cloud and cause Snake to win, and then Snake would be in the final and ride Link/Mario LFF to finally winning a contest. If Fox won, it was believed Pikachu would win the division (without Blue there to jam things up), and then Snake would be screwed against Cloud because Sora wouldn't be there to drag Cloud down. Given Board 8 has wanted to see Snake win a contest for ages now, we wanted Blue to win this match, and badly. The funny part about all this is Fox drew the absolute worst possible third wheel he could have possibly drawn for a match like. Even Falco would have been better, because then we all know Blue wins and there's no debate. But as-is? Oh man. It would ultimately not matter much, which seems to happen when chain reaction slippery slope logic gets used in contests. First and foremost, Blue went well above pre-contest expectations and just blew Fox completely out of the water in this match. A lot of people believed Blue was weak enough to lose this even with Wolf sharing the poll, but Blue put that to rest really quickly even as Wolf rolled over and died in exactly the way he was supposed to do. It made the whole debate funny, because Blue's strength was in question before this contest began, and then gets Fox and Wolf in round 1 to help get a bandwagon going. I'm going to say this a lot during this PCA, but nothing and no one got better draws or more luck than Pokemon in this contest. The other reason this wouldn't matter much is because Pikachu ended up winning the Pikachu/Sora/Blue tilt, and Cloud would never even make it to the Snake match. But this match's hype was still really awesome to be a part of in context. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis A reminder that if you haven't seen A Fox In Space yet you totally should, it's the best Star Fox media we've gotten since 64: This is by far the dumbest match of R1, worse than Leon and Wesker in the same match. At least Wesker had a contest history, but Wolf was new, and he never was given any chance. Some of these matches scream to me that Allen wanted us to be aware the he understood SFF and LFF and wanted us to think he had set up some cool scenarios, but then you get dumb shit like this. Swap Wesker and Wolf and see how the matches play out. Everyone assumed Blue was going to be the next hot thing, especially after coming off of Rivalry Rumble with Red as no doubt the best looking pair that participated. People assumed that not only would he SFF Fox into oblivion, but Fox would look even worse due to Wolf LFFing him. Right at the start we knew something was wrong. Fox was dangerously close to Blue and Blue was not pulling away. Sure, Blue won by a decently comfortable margin and was never really threatened, but his balls were out on stream and everyone could see them. What should have been one of the biggest blowouts of R1 turned out to be... this. --- ## (1)Samus Aran vs (18)Isaac Clarke vs (27)Sandbag 2013 _source: (1)Samus Aran vs (18)Isaac Clarke vs (27)Sandbag 2013 (revid 82165)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, August 4th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis You really have to hand it to Sandbag here. Even though Dead Space is a series GameFAQs will never care about, an SFFd Sandbag getting second place in this match is still kind of impressive, and it probably pissed off some Expert Challenge folk. He even got to enjoy joke voting trends, which I suppose is something. Beyond that, not much to say about this one. 1 seeds beating up fodder isn't the most interesting type of match, but it is a necessity. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis are we over the sandbag thing yet it was not funny the first time, it is not funny now the only thing worth noting here is that Isaac couldn't beat an SFF'd Sandbag, although Sandbag's joke vote always seems a bit stronger than other weird Board 8 joke entrants. you look at him and instantly "get it," like L-Block but lamer also some funny contest trivia is that there were three whole Isaacs in this contest and all three were 18 seeds --- ## (6)Neku Sakuraba vs (13)Vaas Montenegro vs (22)Catherine 2013 _source: (6)Neku Sakuraba vs (13)Vaas Montenegro vs (22)Catherine 2013 (revid 82167)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, August 4th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was a very debated match pre-contest, which I never really understood. People make the biggest deal out of 1 point matches, when the late rounds mean the most. Even if Catherine pulled the upset, Samus gets to annihilate Catherine instead of Neku. Woohoo. That being said, matches where anyone could potentially win are always the most fun to talk about. the case for Neku was that he already went through his contest lumps, and was being given a fodder match that he was destined to win, similar to how Laharl was fed to Vyse, Neku was fed to Laharl, and so on. this stuff is conveniently in every bracket. Vaas was potential casualbait, for the children who only play recent games and/or pretend to play recent games by watching LPs on Youtube all day. Catherine was the most intriguing option here, which is why I chose her. I figured if Laharl could beat Neku, why couldn't Catherine? She was bound to have a huge picture advantage, and her game selling 500,000 copies at launch far exceeded any expectations Atlus could have hoped to have. It isn't enough to beat even midcarders, but fodder trash like Neku and Vaas? Surely a character with a cult following could beat that. And that is exactly how this match would play out, almost to the letter. Vaas went down early and was never in it, but Neku and Catherine had an absolutely amazing match until the evening vote hit. Neku took a very slim early lead, but was beaten down when he tried pulling away for the win. Then Catherine took a slim lead, and was also beaten down every time she tried pulling away for the win. The margin was never more than 100 votes for the first six hours of this poll, and then Catherine stormed up by 115 and made this look over. Then out of nowhere, Neku tied the poll before completely choking. I don't know if Catherine was rallied or Neku ran out of steam or what, but this poll was tied 7 hours in, and then Catherine beat face for the last 5 hours to pull off a 600 vote win. These are the types of things that happen when people only really care about one character in a fodder poll, and she really deserved to win this. Catherine is a really good game, though I'd be lying if I credited her game instead of her, erm.... assets, for winning this match. I'm sure she won because this game is every otaku nerd's fantasy dream, even though guys like me are the ones actually having crazy relationships with girls like that in real life. For the betas out there who have no experience with this, a word of advice: never see a crazy girl for longer than a month, no matter how good the sex is early in a relationship. No amount of good sex will ever outlast how truly insane a crazy girl can get, and the cutoff is usually a few months. Just get in there for a month and then get the hell out. And never, ever cheat on a girl you're with with a "crazy girl". I know I say all women are crazy, but there are levels to it and you never want a side piece girl you're cheating on to be crazier than the girl you're with. Not that I condone cheating, for the record, but there's also nothing wrong with getting out there and living it up a little. Just know what you're dealing with and how to get out early is all. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis oh man, I forgot how much effort I put into Catherine's pic here. It took me forever to render out those drills nicely. i wish i put that much effort into my day-to-day life. This was another case of "which obscure Japanese character will win and how will the face of a popular western game do comparatively?" A lot of people took Vaas here for the same reason they took Booker and Lee. That was a bad idea. We're probably not going to see Joel and Ellie in these contests now because all new-age Western characters have been exposed as worthless. I hope I eat those words, though. I want a contest completely opposite of this one to keep us on our toes. Neku had lost to Laharl once, and there were very few people who thought Catherine could be much stronger than Laharl, especially after K/Catherine only barely managed to avoid getting tripled by Sonic/Eggman. Catherine sold pretty well though and people love it on this board and site in general. It was even played at EVO for a while: So was this result really that surprising? Yes, kind of, Neku was the safer pick for sure, but in retrospect it seems obvious, and at the time people had very little faith in what was seen as niche Japanese fodder. Also I wanna call back to one of my fave pics ever, my Catherine Rivalry Rumble pic: Pretty sure I used hentai for Katherine's half. Whoops. I was really proud of that symbol in the middle, though. There was no clear version on the internet at the time so I had to pretty much remake it from scratch I think. Catherine is getting an HD remake this year, I encourage anyone who hasn't played it to give it a shot. --- ## (9)Knuckles the Echidna vs (10)Seifer Almasy vs (19)Celes Chere 2013 _source: (9)Knuckles the Echidna vs (10)Seifer Almasy vs (19)Celes Chere 2013 (revid 82170)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, August 5th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Knuckles winning this match was no surprise. He was never going to lose against two second-rate Final Fantasy characters. What floored the hell out of me was Seifer tanking so hard. I didn't think he'd have any trouble at all beating Celes, because even with Old Square going nuts, Celes didn't have the Dissidia boost going for her, and even FF8 haters seem to like Seifer. Or so I thought. Seifer not getting into a contest even after winning a spot from the Nomination Rally Tournament should have clued us in on how bad he is, quite frankly. Not to mention his god-awful Kingdom Hearts 2 appearance. I wish I had better explanations for him doing bad, but the simple one is just people still hating on Final Fantasy 8. Rinoa's showing helps prove that, and Squall being so strong in contests is pretty impressive given that. I think it's fair to say that only Squall should ever bother getting into contests from that game, though a joke option here and there certainly couldn't hurt. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Knuckles was bound to win this match. I talked about it a bit in my last writing project, but Knuckles is probably the most universally well-liked Sonic character. Nobody hates Knuckles. Nobody is capable of hating Knuckles. Well, before he was a meme. People seemed to really like that meme, though. So much that I heard it helped kill VR Chat. Second place was a pretty obvious choice: Our boy Seifer, NRT winner! Finally, after all these years, Seifer would have his time in the sun, we just had to hope Celes wouldn't hold him back too much. Oh, shit, wait, Allen didn't check the calendar before he scheduled this match! What an unfortunate coincidence. Well, Seifer sure did get his ass kicked. I have no idea why, again, I'm not an expert on FF strength in contest, but it just seems to me like Seifer is just a huge weenie from a game that is not particularly strong anymore. Seifer single-handedly wrecked what few perfect expert brackets were left. I'm pretty sure after this nobody had called everything right, and it was extra embarrassing because this match was supposed to be one of the obvious ones. After Seifer's loss, @LeonhartFour was devastated. To this day he is in self-imposed exile, leaving nothing but a note before he left. It read "when I finally pass from this world, have Seifer be the pallbearer at my funeral so he can let me down one last time." --- ## (2)Ezio Auditore da Firenze vs (17)Miles "Tails" Prower vs (26)Bomberman 2013 _source: (2)Ezio Auditore da Firenze vs (17)Miles "Tails" Prower vs (26)Bomberman 2013 (revid 82171)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, August 5th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis There was decent logic for picking Tails here, and it was because in the 2010 LOL X-stats, Tails wins with 55% and there wasn't much reason to doubt the number. His path was ultimately decided by how Charizard did, and Ezio's was ultimately decided by Zelda. We'd seen Samus beat Zelda before without SFFing her, so maybe 2010 was just a bad year for Zelda. Even with SFF though, 55-45 is a lot to turn around. Turns out that Charizard was overrated (he flopped like a stone in this contest), and idiots like me totally forgot about Bomberman also being in this poll. That whole thing about two characters with similar appeal stealing votes from each other really matters, apparently! So while Tails led for a couple minutes, Ezio would end up winning this poll with ease. It's one of those matches where I went against the easy pick for dumb reasons, but I can't help it. I love Tails and always look for excuses that cause him to win matches. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis What a bunch of winners we got here. I'm not being sarcastic, they each have a win! Ezio beat Simon, Tails beat Viewtiful Joe, and Bomberman beat a TV. Alright, maybe they're just "wins" by definition but not really "accomplishments." Some people had Tails winning here, but unlike Knuckles, there are a lot of people who don't like Tails. People with nostalgia for the 2D games usually like Tails, but recently SEGA has been shitting all over the guy. When Sonic "dies" in the opening of Sonic Forces, [Tails does nothing but cry in a corner](https://imgtc.com/i/s54d5Ip.jpg) while Knuckles, Amy and literally every other Sonic character step up to stand against Eggman. This did not go over well with the fanbase, and it probably wasn't winning him any new fans either. In the end, this match played out like most people expected it too. It's too bad Bomberman is deconfirmed for Smash, he's a low-level icon waiting to be taken to another level in these things. He did beat Crash in a close match once. If the outpouring of support for him post-Smash deconfirmation shows us anything, it's that the potential for another win is there. Ezio may actually be weaker than Altair, or they're probably about even. AC characters do OK in these things, mostly because of design. Lately, though, people have been really down on the franchise. Between 2013 and 2018 there have been 9 AC games released, with a ton being released [in a state of dubious quality.](https://imgtc.com/i/GvlsKhb.gif) Will we ever see a new AC character? Will Ezio and Altair be back? I'm going to say one, but not both, and probably not at a very high seed. Altair had a good run in his debut contest, so I don't think anyone is itching to see them go the distance once more. --- ## (5)Auron vs (14)Revolver Ocelot vs (23)Roxas 2013 _source: (5)Auron vs (14)Revolver Ocelot vs (23)Roxas 2013 (revid 82169)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, August 6th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was never going to be much of a match, which made that ungodly horrible Ocelot picture all that much more prominent. It's the only thing anyone bothered talking about during this match. Even if you wanted to play mental gymnastics and think Ocelot could win because of Square overlap, that picture...... god. I have paid no attention whatsoever to Metal Gear Solid 5 hype, but is the entire game that ugly? Seriously, all the amazing Ocelot pictures we could have had, and we get that. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I have some choice things to say about Ocelot's pic here. I made it. Everyone was really hyped about Snake and his friends' potential boost from the upcoming MGSV. That E3 gameplay demo was great. Everyone watched it. Everyone got hyped. So I made a pic from the gameplay demo. I went frame-by-frame and picked out the best angle of Ocelot and rendered it myself. I touched up the scarf so that the red would be eye-catching. And when the pic was revealed, people lost their minds. They couldn't believe Ocelot would get such a bad pic from the thing they said would be the reason he had a shot at winning! Now he had no shot at winning!!!! To this day I still can't believe that of all the bad pics I've ever made this (and the really bad one @LeonhartFour is going to post at some point I fucking know it) is the one people give me the most shit for. Ironically, if a contest were to happen, say, in 2018, people probably wouldn't have a problem with me using this perfectly recognizable picture of MGSV Ocelot. I'm just a Picsmith Futurist. I will defend this pic 'til the day I die. Ocelot never had any shot, and if anyone thought this pic made a character named "Revolver Ocelot," who is best known for being an old man in a beige cowboy coat with a red scarf, unrecognizable enough to bleed 3000+ votes from a potentially above-Auron level of strength, then they were out of their mind. I think Ocelot did pretty alright here. The problem is just how strong Auron is. He really stomped Roxas, I'd say he was barely affected by his presence at all. Sure, he could have broken 50% without him easily, but he still looked good here. Again, people seriously thought Ocelot, the dude who lost to Pac-Man, could ride Roxas LFF to victory. There's a dialogue going in Allen's sticky right now about who would win in a contest that is only post-2000 characters. It would probably be Auron. Dude is cool as hell. Also I really wanted to post this: --- ## (8)L-Block vs (11)Teemo vs (20)Palutena 2013 _source: (8)L-Block vs (11)Teemo vs (20)Palutena 2013 (revid 82173)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, August 6th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Also known as the rally that never was. This match is what base League of Legends strength looks like, and it was really funny watching everyone assume Teemo would take off without the little s\*\*\* ever doing it. For those wondering why Teemo was never rallied even with a topic on the LoL subreddit just as upvoted, it's because the League community hates Teemo. He is the most hated hero/champ/whatever of any MOBA ever made, and it isn't even close. Entire streams are dedicated just to watching Teemo die 24/7, all day every day. There are people who would rather study Teemo death stats instead of League itself. Ever go to a store and watch some obnoxious little s\*\*\* of a spoiled kid never get disciplined by their idiot parents because "every child is special"? That's basically how Teemo plays as a champion, and he's Riot's Mary Sue so he's constantly getting thrown in our faces as MASCOT MASCOT MASCOT MASCOT MASCOT MASCOT MASCOT MASCOT MASCOT. The only people who actually enjoy playing Teemo are trolls and bads. Every single one of his abilities is annoying as f\*\*\*, too. His passive lets him go invisible, his Q gets f\*\*\*ing 80% AP because what the hell, all his attacks slow, he gets a movespeed bonus because herpaderpa I'm Teemo, and his ultimate is the dumbest thing ever and thank god they finally patched it to give gold when killing the stupid mushrooms. At least with Techies in Dota, you needed a lot of skill and map awareness to play him well, otherwise the game is 4v5. Teemo is just overpowered garbage whose dad didn't beat the crap out of him enough. So glad he got blown out in this match. Draven winning this contest at least made sense. Had Teemo won, all the hate that GameFAQs gave this contest would have been fine. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Back in 2013, right after this contest, I went to PAX East with some of my buddies who were super into LoL. Again, the convention was right after this contest, so I thought LoL was lame as hell. Riot Games was having some contest where every day in the morning they would hide Teemo mushrooms all around the convention center. If you found one of these glowing green tchotchkes, you could bring it to any Riot Games employee at the foul-smelling LoL booth and they would give you a Teemo hat, free of charge! They'd also let you keep the mushroom. So in I strolled on day 2, my friends scrambled around the convention hall looking for these fucking mushrooms. I saw some nerds grab them from different non-affiliated booths and hold them aloft like it was a Piece of Heart. I had no interest, so I kept right on along to some game demo booth. I think it was Borderlands TPS? I was waiting in line and my eyes, still tired from waking up early, wandered over to some random clothing booth across the way. There, on the floor, under their table, I saw a glowing green mushroom. I looked left, looked right. Nobody was making a move. I made eye contact with the man at the booth. He saw that I saw. I wasn't interested but I felt obligated to get the mushroom for my friends. I got out of line, went over and took the mushroom. "Congrats," the man at the booth said, "A ton of people ran right by it. You must be pretty excited." I looked up and forced a smile. "Yeah," I mustered unenthusiastically, "I, uh, love Teemo." I got back in line. One of my friends caught up with me. "I couldn't find a mushroom anywhere! Maybe tomorrow," he said with a frown. I held up the mushroom. "HOLY SHIT!" He grabbed my arm and dragged me out of line and to the Riot booth. I handed the mushroom to a Riot rep. "Wow! That was fast," the rep said. He took the mushroom from my hand, popped the top off of the base, and put a small black "X" on the inside of it to mark that it had been turned in. He then went to the back and grabbed a Teemo hat and handed it to me. I said nothing during this entire exchange. "Congrats, man! Enjoy the con!" he finished. I turned and handed my friend the Teemo hat. We then walked back to the booth. I looked down at the mushroom. How anti-climactic. "Hey, man," my friend started, "I know you hate League cuz of that GameFAQs thing. You mind if I have the mushroom? You can keep the hat, they're worth like \$15 on eBay right now." Well, I don't like League, but I do like money. "Let me try something first," I said. I popped open the top of the mushroom, licked my finger, and slowly but surely rubbed off the black "X." I turned around. We went back to the booth. It was massive, bigger than Nintendo's, so I found another rep far from the one I first went to. I handed them the mushroom. They handed me a hat and marked the mushroom. I walked away. I did it again. I did it about ten times throughout the day. That mushroom and those hats paid for my PAX East ticket. I love Teemo. Also I don't feel bad because Riot got \#metoo'd yesterday, and I believe it. Fuck those guys: Oh yeah there was a match, people thought Teemo would get rallied but there was a 24-hour Twitch stream that was just clips of Teemo dying so yeah not even LoL people cared. How did he even get in? L-Block looked good here, he has natural meme strength. Palutena was hot off of being made into a real character. Post Smash 4 and 5, she might have grown in strength, but probably not enough to come back. --- ## (3)Dragonborn vs (16)Tom Nook vs (25)Pyramid Head 2013 _source: (3)Dragonborn vs (16)Tom Nook vs (25)Pyramid Head 2013 (revid 82172)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, August 7th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I know we all knew Dragonborn was destined to do nothing more than get his ass whipped by Tifa in round 2, but there was some hype surrounding him anyway since Elder Scrolls games always do well in game contests and Skyrim was a huge success on this site. And maybe if he was big enough, and if Tifa and Yuna overlapped... That all went out the window about an hour into this match, when everyone realized Dragonborn was a total flop. Tom Nook and Pyramid Head are not strong competition, and he managed to make them both look like high-end fodder instead of the trash they are. You could even make the case that if his face and the iconic helmet wasn't on every single Skyrim advertisement in existence, he may have actually lost this match. It makes some sense since Skyrim was not really about the main character, but the world itself. There was also a decent match for second here, even though it was never really close. I'm not sure if I should be impressed by Tom Nook getting second place here or not, but Pyramid Head turning a 650 vote loss into a 500 vote loss has to mean something, right? Dragonborn probably overlaps with Pyramid Head a tiny bit, too, so it's not like a 1v1 between those two losers would be predictable. We can only hope to never actually see a 1v1 match between freaking Tom Nook and Pyramid Head, though. There was a good bit of hype for the 3DS Animal Crossing game for some reason, which probably helped push Nook over Head. -Wylvane ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Picture this: Nominations for 2018 are over, we wait patiently for over a month, spam Allen's inbox with tickets asking where the "damn bracket" is, Allen finally posts a new sticky, says that the contest is taking on a new and exciting format, asks us to click a link. Our browsers go dark, then fade into a horse-drawn wagon on a dirt road. Slowly the title of the contest appears: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Now on GameFAQs. There was some serious DOVAHFEAR going into this contest, everyone assumed Dragonborn was going to be a powerhouse, although that was debatable. The guy was a blank slate, and the "mascot" version of him was pretty boring to look at despite being in all the CG trailers and promo art. We didn't know how people would respond to seeing a generic version of "their" character on the front page. As far as Skyrim goes, yeah, everyone on this site loves it, and I think it won the GotY poll, but "characters who represent big western franchises" usually don't do shit in a contest setting. See: Vaas, Booker, Handsome Jack, etc. But nobody was dumb enough to put Dragonborn behind Nook and Pyramid Head. Pyramid Head, who went from being sextupled by Bowser to beating pre-RE5 Chris to a close loss to Tom Nook. Tom Nook went from losing to Crono to beating Zelos to barely beating Pyramid Head. You know, neither are impressive contest histories, but they are at least histories. Animal Crossing and Silent Hill have polar opposite fanbases, but at least their characters consistently make appearances. Pyramid Head has two movies and a dead franchise whose last installment was a pachinko machine, and while Animal Crossing has had a "mainline" game in a while, it's still getting nods here and there, as well as a terrible amiibo-based Wii U game that nobody played which put a full-stop to the amiibo momentum. I'd say at this point it's time to retire K.K., Nook and Resetti in favor of Isabelle and Villager. Everyone is nuts for Isabelle, she got to be a costume in Smash and is a racer in Mario Kart. She's basically the new mascot for the series, and people are speculating she'll be Villager's Echo in Smash 5. So, these results weren't too surprising, people just used this match to gauge Dragonborn's strength, and he disappointed here. He definitely wouldn't be able to take down Tifa, even with Yuna in the match. In the end, Dragonborn wasn't a complete embarrassment, and he was overhyped to heck, but several years of concentrated meme-ing might end with a small Dragonborn comeback in 2018 if he's given a good bracket spot. --- ## (4)Master Chief vs (15)Yuna vs (24)Claire Redfield 2013 _source: (4)Master Chief vs (15)Yuna vs (24)Claire Redfield 2013 (revid 82174)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, August 7th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis We all saw this coming, but it was hilarious anyway. But just for the hell of it, here is Master Chief's entire contest history leading up to this match. 2003 - 53% on Felix, 40% on Aeris. 2004 - 71% on Crash, loses to Frog by 7 votes. 2005 - 69% on CATS, 51% on Donkey Kong but had to come back from down 2000 votes, 39% on Crono. 2007 - Gets all the way to the semifinals, may have potentially gotten to the finals if L-Block wasn't there. 2008 - Gets to round 3, third place behind Dante by only 3000 votes. 2010 - 60% on Spy, 47.5% on Ryu Hayabusa. And for posterity's sake, Halo's contest history: 2004 - Lost to Starcraft in round 1, as a 1 seed, even after coming back from the early night vote and leading most of the day. 2009 - Barely gets second place over KOTOR, with Diablo 2 barely getting first, in a very close poll. Then in round 2, Halo gets wrecked. 2010 - Beats Ninja Gaiden, Halo 3, and Uncharted 2 before getting 40% on Fallout 3. Halo and Master Chief don't really have "joke status" like a Magus, Kefka, Donkey Kong or CATS. He's just gotten some bad draws and is subject to very wild swings in popularity. 2007 was the peak of Halo 3 madness, and he has lost all of that momentum since. But he isn't the joke-level anti-vote lone ranger king like he was in 2004. A character that the so-called trolls should have rallied behind was this guy. Say whatever you will about Halo and how GameFAQs hates it, but he would have been a good joke champion this year, or even in 2007. It fits the modus operandi of pissing GameFAQs off, but the irony there is that he would actually deserve to be mentioned among the best characters ever. But yeah, he's sort of back to what he was with having minimal respect and a lot of anti-votes, yet people still respect him and he does decent in matches. It's a very weird place he's in, but sometimes we're able to predict it perfectly. Yuna \> Chief \> Claire just "felt right", it's what most of us picked, and that's what ended up happening. Nothing crazy involved or any weird vote swings, just a simple match with Chief losing to Yuna, but having enough support to beat Claire. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis It's nice to know that even when Final Fantasy is looking like shit for an entire contest that Master Chief will do his best to keep his title and choke hard for everyone to enjoy Everyone saw this coming, the result was not a surprise. 343 Industries doesn't know what the fuck to do with Master Chief. The Master Chief Collection was released as a broken, buggy mess with barely functioning online. Halo 5 was embarrassing trash everyone forgot about immediately. Microsoft doesn't even seem to care about releasing exclusives anymore, let alone good ones, so Halo is basically dead. Claire had Revelations 2 recently and it was pretty good. Will we see her again? Probably not, unless the field is huge. She's a fan favorite but it seems like every RE character is a fan favorite. Is Yuna stronger than Tidus at this point? She seems to have aged more gracefully. After a dozen re-releases of FFX and X-2 plus some serious nostalgia for those games and appearances in Dissidia, Yuna is probably going to do just fine in 2018. --- ## (7)Tifa Lockheart vs (12)Cirno vs (21)Chun-Li 2013 _source: (7)Tifa Lockheart vs (12)Cirno vs (21)Chun-Li 2013 (revid 82175)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, August 8th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis You can always count on Smurf to do at least one unbelievably stupid thing every contest, and for him this time around it was cheating for Touhou characters. Cirno's poll here wasn't the only match he bothered vote-stuffing in, either, which takes a special kind of pathetic person to even bother with. I can kinda sorta maybe almost understand cheating in a close poll, because some people will play mental gymnastics and equate it to rallying and "both sides doing it". I get that, I really do. But cheating for a character destined to get last place anyway? Smurf has always been one of those dudes where you can tell there are some serious screws loose and serious real-life issues, but holy crap. That's not even funny cheating like Kefka/Vercetti was, this here was just pathetic. I'd have sympathy for how sad a person he obviously is, but when you channel that inner sadness into trolling a Board with "multiple personalities" for 10 years, it's kind of to the point where you need to see a psychiatrist. Not a psychologist, oh no. A psychiatrist, who can prescribe hardcore things to fix whatever's up with him. Because seriously, cheating for loli bait garbage characters in a bad shooter series? I could almost defend Touhou if the games were actually good, but they aren't. It's 100 parts pedophilia, 100 parts loli nonsense, 100 parts bad shooter, and like 3 parts OH MY GOD HOW DOD I LIVE THROUGH THAT I AM SO AWESOME. If you want that feeling, play Gradius or R-Type. If you play and like Touhou, you're going to be lumped into the loli pedo category with Smurf and Albion (cheating for these losers is creepy and pathetic, and probably both). You were warned. As for the actual match, Cirno got 700 votes removed because Smurf thought he could get away with cheating. Beyond that, there's really nothing to say here. Any doubt about Tifa creaming Dragonborn went out the window with this match, because THIS is how you treat fodder if you're strong. Kind of sad to see Chun-Li as an also-ran to Tifa's dominance and Smurf's cheating, but what can you do. ## Extra Notes The original claim of Smurf vote stuffing during this contest came from Luster Soldier based on a series of emails sent back and forth between Luster, in addition to an investigation conducted by Luster in which he looked through leaderboard archives that came from TRE to see when Smurf dropped off the leaderboard. Smurf eventually claimed that he did not vote stuff for any Touhou characters, but this is a very dubious claim that does not line up correctly with other information regarding the demographics of the stuffed votes. Such as a sizable number of stuffed votes for both Cirno and Marisa coming from Ireland, the country that Smurf lives in. Whether or not Smurf was vote stuffing for Touhou is still a very debatable topic. When Luster announced that Smurf was the Touhou stuffer, he assumed that there were no other users who had the capability and technical know-how to vote stuff in a contest. Luster never thought about the possibility of a second person vote stuffing in this contest. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis If anyone was still doubting Tifa \> Dragonborn, those fears were immediately put to rest. It was good to see Tifa so dominate in this match when so many other FF characters failed. Perhaps TJF is the key to staying strong? Tifa straight-up annihilated Chun-Li, who isn't exactly fodder. Yeah, fighting games looked bad this year, but it's Chun-Li. She, Ryu and Sub-Zero are basically immune from any decline. Maybe Akuma too. also fuck touhou, I do not understand the appeal of those games. Cirno looks like a big diaper baby in her pic. I vaguely remember someone cheated for Touhou. Let me check. \[...\] Oh right, Smurf fucking vote-stuffed for Cirno of all characters. How sad. What motivates someone to cheat for a Touhou? Keep these things out of the contests. --- ## (1)Mario vs (18)Duke Nukem vs (27)Fawful 2013 _source: (1)Mario vs (18)Duke Nukem vs (27)Fawful 2013 (revid 82176)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, August 8th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was a standard boring 1 seed beatdown, but this would have been fun before Duke Nukem Forever happened. Maybe. It's hard to really care about whether or not Mario LFFs Fawful enough to the level of whether or not Duke Nukem could win, especially in the midts of the most boring three match stretch of the entire contest. And that made Mario's round 2 wtf upset at the hands of Vivi all the more shocking. There was no indication whatsoever that Mario could have possibly lost. This looked like another easy 1 seed smash through unchallenged for a long time type of matches, but it wasn't. Somehow. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I'd argue that Duke was once a beneficiary of the Martyr Factor, and the longer it took for Forever to come out the stronger he looked. In 2008 Duke managed to get to Round 3, which is pretty respectable, right? Then Duke Nukem Forever actually came out. As I mentioned earlier, Duke Nukem Forever was only released by Gearbox to make some quick money. They bought whatever 3D Realms had made (three failed iterations of the game that had been scrapped) and stitched it all together really quick, then packaged and released it with some really tacky junk and tried to sell as many Collector's Editions as possible. And it worked, kinda. I bought the shit. One of the worst purchases I have ever made. I think the CE was like \$80?? It came with "playing cards" (they were the size of my thumb), dice, two poker chips, postcards(??) and a bust of Duke. I still have the bust. I realized it shared a mould with my Duke action figure. Like, they took the mould of the action figure, blew it up, made it gray, took the arms and shit off, and it became a "bust." Fuck, I'm an idiot for buying into it. Now Duke will most likely be worthless in contests. He has a movie in the works starring John Cena, but knowing how these things usually pan out it probably won't see the light of day. Fawful made a second appearance here, and he was just happy to be on the front page again (probably for the last time). This match wasn't meant for anything more than seeing if Mario was strong enough to get to at least the semifinals, where he would either meet with Samus and Mega Man or Samus and Charizard. There was also talk of him getting into a match with Squall and Red, and Squall finally getting his time in the sun and riding Red LFF to victory. Yeah, sorry Leon. Nobody knew he would get knocked out in Round 2, especially after this performance. --- ## (6)Vivi vs (13)Adam Jensen vs (22)Marisa Kirisame 2013 _source: (6)Vivi vs (13)Adam Jensen vs (22)Marisa Kirisame 2013 (revid 82177)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, August 9th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis On second thought, maybe it was clear Vivi was going to pull that stunner upset! Vivi got 8% less than Mario, and you could maybe equate Duke Nukem with Adam Jensen and Fawful with Marisa! Eh? Ehhhhhhh? Okay, maybe not. But this was still a good win for Vivi, and an interesting match for all the wrong reasons. Because for the second time in three matches, Touhou's lolicon-obsessed pedophile creeper fanbase was involved in vote-stuffing the poll. The votes weren't removed post-match like they were for Cirno, but rather, Allen made a topic mid-match to announce the cheating and he removed the votes right then and there. Just a heads up that earlier today we made adjustments to the match containing Cirno to weed out fraudulent votes. We'll be doing the same for the current match as the same person/people are at it again with Marisa Kirisame. Just letting you know so you aren't surprised when the totals change a few times during this battle. Votes were removed post-match as well, which makes the updater look hilarious. I won't even bother with the commentary, because none of it was honest from Touhou's end. In total Marisa had 2000 votes removed from the poll, which makes for some very funny spikes if you look at the graph trends for this match. Oh and at Luster's request I'm including the link to the claimed cheater's blog, though I have to wonder if giving that guy's site hits is really the right thing to do here. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I just wanna talk about Adam Jensen for a bit. We have all the time in the world to talk about Vivi (and boy will we next round), so right now let's talk about Adam Jensen. What a fucking hero. I love Adam. Everyone who plays Human Revolution loves Adam. That game had some ass boss fights and a double-ass ending, but what a great game. I wasn't as keen on Mankind Divided, but it was OK. A lot of that "augment your pre-order" bullshit soured me on it pre-release. I don't hold that against Adam, though. At the time, HR was a minor meme-generator. The two videos I remember most from that time are the one with the mirror and the one with the vending machine: Of course, nobody thought Adam would win here, he was another "happy-to-be-there" entrant. Deus Ex is lucky to even have two people in a contest, it's not like JC Denton was turning heads. But what do those Touhou weirdos do? Vote stuff for their next diaper girl, of course. The cheater was bragging about it on his blog, too. He didn't even seem to have a really solid agenda. He posted some weird manifesto and everything. What a freakazoid. I know we obsess over these contests, but at least we don't vote stuff or cheat. And if we did I am positive it would not be for Touhou characters. Yuck. Vivi looked good here, but everyone attributed his mass over-performance more to the weakness of two jobbers. This was definitely not "beat Mario" levels of strength. Again, we'll talk more about it when we get to it. You can write a novella just about that match. --- ## (9)Ganondorf vs (10)Guybrush Threepwood vs (19)Max Payne 2013 _source: (9)Ganondorf vs (10)Guybrush Threepwood vs (19)Max Payne 2013 (revid 82178)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, August 9th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis For the most part, I didn't mind the font that Allen used for round 1. Yes it was ugly, but it was still legible for the most part. Then I came upon this match for the PCA and realized how bad it truly is. What exactly is that supposed to be under Max's picture? Box-ax? Ax? Square-Square-X? Good grief. Also this is where I'd usually rant and rave about how Guybrush's fans are losers and he wastes a slot every year, and I'd be right, but there are characters that are bigger wastes of space than even him. Max Payne is completely useless garbage from a completely useless garbage series, and his pictures from the reboot do him no justice whatsoever. You know you suck when you get me, of all people, rooting for Guybrush in a contest match. On the downside, this was our third match in four days with confirmed cheating and removed votes. Guybrush had 100 votes removed right in the middle of the match, and all the cheating in this contest really makes me wonder if Draven truly won this thing legit. Guybrush probably wins this match anyway, but yet another fanbase I've accused of being losers for years proving me right is not a good thing. Rallying is fine. Cheating just makes you pathetic. There's a reason the New England Patriots haven't won a Super Bowl since Spygate. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I never thought that Guybrush, the who got doubled by Ryo Hazuki, would win a match. Any match. Especially not against Max Payne! He beat Gordon once! Max and Guybrush both have pretty storied histories in these things, and it's interesting to see them finally cross paths. Yeah, Max did beat Gordon, but that was pre-HL2 and pre Valve hype. If you go back and look at Max's history, his claim to fame outside of beating Gordon is tripling Dirk the Daring. People still took Max, though. He had a recent big blockbuster release aaaaaand he lost. Wow, it's like recent western games don't mean shit on this site, huh? Especially with the votals this low. I'm sounding like a broken record, here, but we're going to have to be super careful with any of the "western darling" characters that get into the contest this year, if anyone bothers nominating them at all. Everyone is Tanner now. I'm really happy that Guybrush finally got a win here. Yeah, there was cheating in the match, but even after the 100 or so votes were removed, he still pulled it off. Monkey Island seems to be getting more and more respect as time goes on. I gave a bunch of shit to Uncharted 4 in earlier posts, but the coolest part of the game was the inclusion of [Guybrush Threepwood as one of the pirate kings](https://imgtc.com/i/A9qowhc.jpg). iirc Alan Moore also included Guybrush in a version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, one that focused on famous fictional pirates. People who play Monkey Island really love those games. I wonder if we'll get a reboot any time in the future? I guess Disney owns it now, they must have plans. In May 2016, Disney Interactive announced that they would cease production on gaming and transition to a licensing model. oh. welp. Ganondorf was here, he spent most of the match plotting on how to take down Mario in Round 2. --- ## (2)Squall Leonhart vs (17)Rayman vs (26)Commander Video 2013 _source: (2)Squall Leonhart vs (17)Rayman vs (26)Commander Video 2013 (revid 82179)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, August 10th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match was destined to be boring, though Squall winning so big meant he was in good shape to take on Missingno in round 2. The theory there was that Missingno would suffer from sophomore slump and allow Squall to get in for the "upset", though obviously I question if that was really an upset. The thing I actually want to talk about here is the Bit.Trip games. Those are good, and are exactly the type of thing the Wii was SUPPOSED to be good for. Unfortunately, that system was plagued with all kinds of shovelware and garbage, and people gave up on it. As they should have, since the Wii is a joke. But Bit.trip is a gem and worth playing, and if I may be allowed to spoil it... It tells the story of a guy's life, and at the end the screen starts going white to symbolize his death. Yet the only way to actually "win" is to put the controller down. Basically you have to let go, which is unbelievably profound, and hit me kind of hard. Gaming companies spend like 238943540234 billion dollars per title now, and almost none of them hit me as hard as some glorified Pong game on the Wii that almost no one has ever played. If I of all people am singing the praises of a game on the Wii of all systems, you know it's worth playing. Play it! ## Zen's (Late) Analysis look at this angsty angsty boi and his two cartoon pals. I want a show about Squall in SEED academy or w/e it's called where he has to make moral decisions based on the two angels on his shoulder, one being Rayman and the other being Commander Video. Rayman would just make funny grunts and Video make beeps and boops. Squall would always get flustered by this and never be able to ask Rinoa out and then Seifer would call him a "lamer." Actually I think I just described FFVIII in general. This match was really just to see if Squall was strong enough to beat Mario and Samus later in the contest. Or at least Missingno in Round 2. He looked pretty good. That's about it. We all know what happens so talking about this match seems like a bit of a waste. I never played the bit.Trip games but I hear they're good? I'm struggling to find something to say here. Normally I'd say "maybe if Rayman gets into Smash he'll get a boost but I don't see it happening" but I think anything can fucking happen at this point. Next thing we know Minecraft Master Chief and Pop Figure Marcus Fenix are going to be revealed. Rayman is always welcome in these things but I think he lost to Vyse in his one other appearance so only if the field is big enough. Just keep those fucking Rabbids out, please. Remember when "Best. Quote. Ever." was announced and people were trying to nominate "DAAAAAAA" from Rayman Raving Rabbids? Kill me. --- ## (5)Amaterasu vs (14)Vyse vs (23)Adol Christin 2013 _source: (5)Amaterasu vs (14)Vyse vs (23)Adol Christin 2013 (revid 82180)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, August 10th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was our sixth complete snoozefest of a match in a row, even with three of them having outright cheating, and I want people to remember stretches like this when they complain about 12 hour matches costing the more popular characters a win in 12 hour polls. Would you seriously rather have this stretch last 144 hours instead of 72? We need these early round matches as short as possible, to eliminate all the JRPG fodder garbage that people nominate every year. Ammy looked mighty good in this match, and given what we know now, she got robbed in round 2. If she takes advantage of Squall and Tidus in the same poll and wins, there is not a doubt in my mind she outdoes Red and makes the final nine. As-is, she gets to live with being the cutest little wolf ever d'awwww. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I think this might be the most boring match of the contest. Wow. I got nothing here. I can't even make fun of Adol Christin. He got beaten down pretty hard by Vyse the Living Fodder Line. We really need to get around to picking a new fodder line and standardizing it before the next contest. Also, I assume even though Ammy hasn't had a new game in forever, she'd still do well in a contest because her game is now on every platform ever created. I'm partial to the Game.Com version myself. --- ## (8)Missingno vs (11)Tidus vs (20)Banjo 2013 _source: (8)Missingno vs (11)Tidus vs (20)Banjo 2013 (revid 82181)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, August 11th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis We all knew Missingno wouldn't be able to repeat his run from 2010, but we all took that to mean Squall would beat him in round 2. Almost losing to Tidus in round 1 was crisis averted territory, and it's safe to say that this was another of those barnburner matches that was decided on early bracket voting. Though to be fair, there was no indication early that this was going to be such a great match. Missingno jumped to an early lead, stretched it to 350, and things looked basically over. Even if Tidus made a run during the Square hours, this is Pokemon we're talking about. Day vote, and all that. But then the funniest thing happened. Not only did Tidus stall the hell out of this match for a few hours overnight before he started cutting into the lead, but he actually gained steam with the morning vote. It was completely ridiculous and against every trend we've ever known about Pokemon, but it was happening. Tidus, master choke artist galore, won the morning vote over a Pokemon in a close match. Even as the match drew closer and closer, Board 8 really couldn't process what was going on. It wasn't until Tidus tied the match at 9 am, without slowing down at all, did people realize that this was for real. Tidus passed Missingno, then slowly built up a lead of 80 votes at around 10:30. But that's fine, this was a Pokemon character! Surely the rally would come! ...but then it stalled for another 30 minutes, and the match was still 70 votes apart at 11 am. Then Missingno cut 20 votes, so we all assumed rally time. ...but no. Tidus kept it under control and kept the match 70 votes apart with 30 minutes to go. I'd love to go on and say it stayed that way, but Missingno only needed three updates to erase everything Tidus has worked 10 hours to accomplish, and he himself got up to a 30 vote lead with two updates left. Then the most hilarious thing of all happened. Tidus actually cut 8 votes from the lead, which meant that piddly update from the last couple minutes actually mattered for once. Missingno would end up taking it by 2 votes, winning the match by 23 votes, and just narrowly escaping one of the most embarrassing upsets ever. Missingno would end up getting that morning vote we all assumed he would get, but it didn't happen until there were only 30 minutes left in the match. Better late than never, I guess. Now normally this is where I'd get into Tidus always getting a bad draw and always seeming to lose these close heartbreakers, but yet again, we had a confirmed cheater in the midst. When everyone on Board 8 expected Missingno to get tagged for cheating, Allen gave us this gem: SBAllen posted... The results of this battle are correct as you see them. After the semi-successful vote-stuffing for the Touhou characters, we implemented new stricter anti-bot code. It worked well and weeded out the sources the vote-stuffing came from. We caught vote-stuffing at a 2-to-1 ratio for Tidus. Votes from new visitors (i.e. any possible vote stuffing) was 50.7% for Tidus. There was also a small-scale reddit rush in the last hour which resulted in a lot of last minute voting. Check that again. SBAllen posted... We caught vote-stuffing at a 2-to-1 ratio for Tidus. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Feel-good story ruined pretty quickly, though Tidus can at least take solace in exposing Missingno before the big Squall match. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Listen to my write-up. This... may be our last chance. Now this was a match, probably one of the best ones to come out of this contest. This was back and forth all day, and while Tidus was always destined to lose, he was the one that exposed Missingno and set Squall up for a nice, predictable round 2 victory. Tidus. The one we've been calling "Meg Ryan" for a decade and a half. Everyone assumed 4chan had vote-stuffed vote Missingno, but according to Allen it was actually Tidus who was the cheater. That doesn't surprise me somehow, I'm not sure who did the stuffing, but Tidus is almost as much of a joke as Missingno. I'm (half) kidding, Tidus has grown on me over the years. Yeah, his outfit is dumb and his voice is annoying, but his arc in FFX isn't that bad. I would love to find out who did the majority of the Tidus stuffing and ask them why. I guess it's just someone passionate for FFX? Or the laughing scene. Banjo was also in the match, and if Yooka-Laylee was any indication, people love him and respect him to a crazy degree and will attack the pretenders and non-believers. But they won't vote for him, I guess. Banjo might end up in Smash at this point so who knows if he'll be back. Also: [bleh](https://imgtc.com/i/SXvw0Hu.jpg) As for Missingno, who knows if he'll be back? He definitely makes contests more interesting, and whenever he's on the front page you get the people coming to the board to flood it with topics like DAAAAAA I THOUGHT DIS WUZ CHARACTER BATTLE, WHY U LET IN GLITCH?? GLITCH NO CHARACTER!!! --- ## (3)Creeper vs (16)Wario vs (25)The King of All Cosmos 2013 _source: (3)Creeper vs (16)Wario vs (25)The King of All Cosmos 2013 (revid 82182)_ ## Results **Round One** Sunday, August 11th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis After the Tidus/Missingno thing, we needed a break, and a break is exactly what we got! There was very mild debate about Creeper possibly upsetting Wario here, but then people remembered that Brawl happened and Wario behaved accordingly. Creeper still ended up getting second place though, over a Board 8 type of character no less, so it was a decent performance by him. I know people are expecting a huge Minecraft-bashing from me here, but I only bash games I've actually played. I know it doesn't seem that way, but it's true. I've never played Minecraft, so I can't comment on it. I will say though that Ric Flair could beat The King of All Cosmos in a fair fight. Yes The King could destroy the universe by accident, but do you see that bulge? Ric Flair being the dirtiest player in the game would not be able to resist, and the best The King could hope for is a draw after getting whacked right in The Bulge of All Cosmos. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis This match was super boring, but everyone had gotten so hyped on stuffing and rallies that MINEFEAR reared its ugly head once again but twice as strong. People thought Creeper would succeed where Steve had failed. Because not only is Creeper from Minecraft but he's a meme too!!! Was Creeper actually a "meme?" I don't remember any Creeper-specific "memes," just the whole turning around and there's a creeper and UH OH boom aaaaaaahh. Is that all it takes to make one of these may-mays? Wario cleaned up here and Creeper ended up closer to the King. It's sad that the King has never had a real shot, but I can't imagine a situation where he'd be able to pull a win without an incredibly lucky draw. The guy used to be the Board 8 mascot before Phoenix Wright. We were all about Katamari back in the day. That's another dead franchise, which is a shame. There's a game coming out this year that's inspired by Katamari called Donut County. If you haven't seen the trailer, watch it here, it looks neat: --- ## (4)Pokemon Trainer Red vs (15)Corvo Attano vs (24)Sissel 2013 _source: (4)Pokemon Trainer Red vs (15)Corvo Attano vs (24)Sissel 2013 (revid 82183)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, August 12th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match proved two things, the first of which is very obvious. Red is a BEAST. A lot of people, myself included, doubted him after the 2010 performance. We were idiots. I don't care how weak your competition is, if you break 70% in a multi-way poll, you're a strong character. The other thing is that 243 characters was waaaaaaay too many. Forget last place, our second place character in this poll scored 4854 votes. For reference, Adventure scored 4686 votes against The Legend of Zelda in 2004, and that record for futility stood for a long time. Now? You can be comparable to that and get second place. So bad. I know round 1 has always been for weeding out fodder trash, but this year was especially awful with it. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I lead the Corvo nomination rally and I was psyched as all hell when Allen revealed the 15 seeds and there he was. I had been starting to doubt he would get in, I didn't have much support at the time. I know someone asked for "handsome characters to nominate" at one point and I posted a bunch of yaoi of unmasked Corvo and the Outsider kissing and he loved it. You have to be willing to do anything for a nomination rally. Like analyze an entire contest to drum up interest for Metal Sonic. I want to really quickly add that Dishonored 2 ruined Corvo by giving him a voice and character, he was so much cooler as a Gordon Freeman analogue. I ended up not finishing Dishonored 2, D1 was a much tighter, cleaner, more appealing package to me. We're probably not going to see Corvo ever again, so I guess having a win, albeit a small one, under his belt is good enough for his fans. Pokemon Trainer Red absolutely crushed it here, and how could he not with a match pic like that? My entire childhood is contained within his pic. Holy shit what a pic advantage. It's not even fair. We should put a paper bag on Red's head. The entire debate here was over second place. Sissel was from the nichest-of-niche games, but Corvo was another "western darling." The thing is that Dishonored, despite appearances, is anime as all hell and had a much more niche, weird fanbase than the other western characters (hence the Yaoi), so he was able to win pretty handily here. It's very strange to consider Missile the definitive Ghost Trick representative but you take what you can get. [I wouldn't have it any other way.](https://imgtc.com/i/9gV1RVX.mp4) the girlfriend wants me to add that she thinks Ghost Dad would be better in a contest than Ghost Trick?? uuuuuhhhh [uuuuuuuuuhhhhhh](https://imgtc.com/i/FABnxXt.jpg) --- ## (7)Pit vs (12)Urdnot Wrex vs (21)Cecil Harvey 2013 _source: (7)Pit vs (12)Urdnot Wrex vs (21)Cecil Harvey 2013 (revid 82184)_ ## Results **Round One** Monday, August 12th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis On a personal level, this was one of the best matches ever. Wrex is my favorite character in the entire Mass Effect universe, so seeing him pull a huge upset out of no where was amazing. But it also kind of sucks that Final Fantasy 4, some how, some way, has yet to win any type of match whatsoever. The hype for this match was nuts, too, because all three characters had a decent case for winning. Pit had the new Kid Icarus, Cecil had Dissidia boost, and Wrex had Mass Effect 3. The beginning of the match was also nuts. Pit jumped out to the super early lead, meaning he had the bracket votes. Then the first freeze and second update rolled by, and Cecil was beating Pit by 26. But off in the distance, it was actually Wrex in second place by 6 votes, not Pit. Wrex managed to catch Cecil and build up a 60 vote lead very quickly on him, but Cecil was able to come back and tie things before finally rolling over and dying. From that point Wrex \> Cecil \> Pit was set in stone, though the final vote margins were decently close at the end. Wrex was destined to lose in round 2, but he won a match and I don't care! \<3 But Final Fantasy 4.... man. Not a single win in any contest, ever. We need to change this. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Let's break this down real quick. In this match, we have: 1\) Pit, classic NES game protagonist, character in Captain N, veteran of one very popular Smash game as well as returning in a new one, and star of a brand new 3DS game with good sales and great reviews. Palutena and Hades had done poorly earlier in the contest. Pit had only beaten Tingle and barely beaten King Dedede before his new game had come out. 2\) Wrex, a fan-favorite squad member in Mass Effect 1. He could die if you were bad at the game. Statistically, he died in over half of all ME playthroughs. By default, he is dead in ME2 and 3 if you do not have save data from ME1 with him alive. Shepard had failed to impress against Olimar and Garrus had been handily beaten by Sub-Zero. 3\) Cecil Harvey, protagonist of the beloved Final Fantasy IV. A character in two Dissidia games. Final Fantasy IV was recently re-released and even had a sequel. Kain Highwind had come close to Raiden in 2008. Cecil had only beaten Jade Curtiss. Final Fantasy had been looking like shit the whole contest. So how would you order these three? Great. Fucking. Question. I'd say this was in the top three most debated matches of Round 1. These guys weren't powerhouses or anything. It was freaking Pit, Cecil and [Wrex.](https://imgtc.com/i/PmY6Dg7.gif) I don't know if anyone called this order right, but people were absolutely pumped to see Wrex, the underdog, take this win. I'm still not sure how this worked out, like I said before, Western characters weren't shit this year, but then again, neither were lesser-FF characters and lesser-Nintendo characters. This was the years of memes, rallies, Pokemon and Vivi. Anything could happen. Guybrush Threepwood won a match. [I guess Wrex was kind of a meme after all.](https://imgtc.com/i/SYh5tUp.gif) --- ## (1)Mega Man vs (18)Geno vs (27)Magikarp 2013 _source: (1)Mega Man vs (18)Geno vs (27)Magikarp 2013 (revid 82185)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, August 13th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was supposed to be our last 1 seed beatdown of round 1, but it became the lone entertaining 1 seed match of the contest. The reason? This poll: Magikarp had a pre-planned rally in this contest, and under different circumstances he might have pulled the crazy out-of-nowhere upset. But Mega Man had the big Smash U announcement pre-contest, so Magikarp only got 5 minutes of being tied for the lead. After that, Mega Man completely stomped this match the way any 1 seed should stomp any match. Well, "stomp" being relative. Magikarp still ended up with 37% on him, but poor Geno just got absolutely swamped. This may have been the first time Mega Man overcame a Pokemon threat, but it would absolutely not be the last. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis wow we got Magikarp into a contest huh. and he made mega man look like shit and beat Geno huh. ... 2018 is going to be a wild fucking ride, man. What if we actually get Shellder in and he gets a good draw and beats a lesser character? I can't believe I am even contemplating Shellder winning a match in any way. Fuck. Well, at least he didn't get rallied past our boy Mega Man. That could have very well been possible, at the time, Capcom was treating Mega Man like absolute garbage. They were using Bad Box Art Mega Man for everything and cancelling his games. They didn't give a hot fuck about their mascot. The only one whos who cared were Sakurai and the fans. I still get chills when I watch this video: That's all I'm going to say about this match. Mega Man is around for a while in this contest and I need to save things to talk about. PS Geno for Smash, give him the boost and attention he deserves --- ## (6)Kratos vs (13)Travis Touchdown vs (22)Recette Lemongrass 2013 _source: (6)Kratos vs (13)Travis Touchdown vs (22)Recette Lemongrass 2013 (revid 82186)_ ## Results **Round One** Tuesday, August 13th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match had two things to discuss, the first of which being Recette's hilarious upsset of Travis Touchdown to win second place. Those two may have only been separated by 250 at the end, but that was Travis throwing a last-ditch effort at a comeback out there once he fell behind by 535 early. I don't know if Recette had a planned rally or what, but an unknown character getting second place over a fairly popular character that's been in a contest before is no joke. Travis turned that 535 into a lead below 300 in only a couple hours, but was never able to make any real push at not embarrassing himself. The other thing in discussion here is Kratos. Yes he won the match easily, but there were a ton of topics complaining about the dude. And why? Maybe it's because I'm such an angry guy in real life (it's true), but I love the dude's personality. The gameplay in his entire series is also really fun, and never got old for me. I periodically replay the God of War series, and it's such a blast. Then he gets into a contest match and people start complaining about what a bad character he is, which makes no sense to me. People hating on Kratos is proof that opinions can absolutely be wrong. Recette was at least in small part rallied by the developer of the game, which is much cooler than the usual story of 'reddit/4chan did it for the lulz'. -KP ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Here's another entertaining match featuring the lead character from a game Board 8 was currently in love with, Recececettear. This match wasn't really up for debate, it was very clean cut. Kratos \> Travis \> Recette. Travis wasn't exactly a powerhouse, and he was 3 years out from his last new installment in a franchise that was already really niche. Still, Recette was from an even more niche indie game that only Board 8 seemed to care about. Right? Well, the creator of the game Tweeted about the match and drummed up a small Recette rally, which is way more wholesome than a dumb 4chan thing, although I heard they liked the game too and probably helped. The outpouring of support on top of low votals helped get Recette over Travis pretty easily, meaning Travis is now 0-3 and unless No More Heroes 3 is some level of groundbreaking he'll probably stay that way. I wanna say that by this point everyone's Expert Brackets had been wrecked so nobody was super salty about the surprise upset. We were just happy to have more close matches in a contest with huge dry spells. Kratos did fine here, he didn't blow away Travis and Recette but he did fine. His strength had been on a decline, people all of a sudden thought God of War was lame. Now, in 2018, post God of War reboot, he'd probably be a whole new animal. I think? Again, Western games don't mean shit, but Kratos was already a somebody before getting the modern PlayStation Last of Us treatment. Who knows where his power will fall in 2018? --- ## (9)Red Bird vs (10)Mike Haggar vs (19)Jill Valentine 2013 _source: (9)Red Bird vs (10)Mike Haggar vs (19)Jill Valentine 2013 (revid 82187)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, August 14th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis A long time ago on Board 8, there was a huge argument about whether or not Farmville should be allowed into a games contest on this site. There was worry that it would get rallied to win, and I'm sure now people use League of Legends as an example. But... why? People who play garbage like Farmville, Candy Crush Saga, Words With Friends, and all the rest of that casualbait crap geared toward homemaker women in their 50s and 60s are never going to have strength on GameFAQs. Those people are barely able to use their computers at all, let alone to a level of rallying en masse for some popularity contest on GameFAQs. Red Bird getting last in this poll is about the max strength you'll see from stuff like that. I mean yeah occasionally you'll get a gem like Angry Birds or Bejeweled or Slingo in there -- games that are actually decent -- but the vast majority of them are complete s\*\*\* that this site will never bother with. Just stick them all in polls against Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto characters and watch the funny. It was honestly disheartening to see MAYOR OF EARTH MIKE HAGGAR get second place here however, though OBVIOUSLY he was SFFd by Jill Valentine in a gesture of good will from the Nerf King himself. He didn't want to embarrass Mega Man in round 2 en route to destroying this contest, so he bowed out to give everyone else a fair chance! (But seriously, Jill getting 60% here was a fine performance, shame she was wasted on Mega Man in round 2.) ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Some people had BIRDFEAR here but there was nothing really to worry about. Even with Haggar and Jill giving each other... Marvel vs Capcom SFF (???) neither could possibly be weak enough to lose to a "red bird." And yeah, that was the match. A bunch of nothing. Hopefully we never see casualbait plaguing the contest field again. Just because Little Jimmy plays Angry Birds on his Kindle Fire with that ridiculous protective shell because he keeps throwing it across the room doesn't mean that he's going to go to the game facks dot com and vote. Jill did well here, it was all the confirmation we needed that she'd beat Kratos next round. Jill hasn't had much going on post-MvC3, just some crossovers and re-releases, but she should still retain the same strength in 2018. It was good finally seeing Haggar, yeah I guess he got... Marvel vs Capcom SFF'd (???) by Jill so we can't be 100% sure this is his true strength, but Haggar is the fucking best and I love him On a side note, there is an alright Fatal Fury fan film starring Don Frye as Mike Haggar. He was partially the inspiration for Haggar so it's really cool that this exists: --- ## (2)Zero vs (17)Kratos Aurion vs (26)Boko 2013 _source: (2)Zero vs (17)Kratos Aurion vs (26)Boko 2013 (revid 82188)_ ## Results **Round One** Wednesday, August 14th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Zero winning this match was obvious (and was somewhat depressing for Mega Man fans given it was expected that Mega Man and Zero in the same match would allow Charizard to cheat by), but what we were not expecting at all is for one of the best second round matches ever to come along out of no where. Round 1 was awful, but this was a nice change of pace as we wound down to the contest's stretch run. It's not that people hated Kratos or Boko. Far from it. Zero's just so much stronger than both that their battle for second place was fighting over scraps. Board 8 loves both characters however, but probably Boko more since we have a user named MajinBoko. It was the perfect storm in Boko's favor, and off he went to a 150 vote lead early. This was surprising by itself given Kratos was favored to win, but Kratos was able to slowly (VERY slowly) push that lead back down and tie the poll at around 10 pm with two hours left. It would also, quite literally, stay completely tied for those last two hours. They fought back and forth the whole time, with each character getting a lead of a grand 23 votes, but was no other way for this poll to end other than a photo finish. I can't really narrate this in a way it deserves, so I'll just list nine of the final ten updates. 11:16 PM - Kratos by 16 11:21 PM - Kratos by 10 11:26 PM - Kratos by 7 11:31 PM - Kratos by 7 11:36 PM - Kratos by 5 11:42 PM - Kratos by 3 11:46 PM - Boko by 7 11:51 PM - Boko by 7 11:56 PM - Kratos by 1 So going into the absolute final update of the match, Boko sliiiiiiightly reduced Kratos's already razor-thin lead, couldn't hold it, and then they were basically tied for the last update. Half of us were rooting for our favorite to win, while the other half wanted Alucard's 3 vote record to go down. In the end it was fairly anticlimactic, as Kratos took the final update without much controversy, en route to winning by 7. I should probably note somewhere around here that Kratos losing this poll would have been supremely embarrassing, given how much of an upset he was, but him winning doesn't make him any less of an embarrassment. Almost losing to Boko, seriously? ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I remember absolutely nothing of this match. I don't remember Boko even making the field or having a nomination rally. I don't remember how ridiculously close this match was. What the fuck. It's great seeing Kratos pull off a win, imagine not only losing to Sackboy but also losing to a Chocobo. Boko is pretty cool though, so it would have been fine if he won. Was this a heavily debated match? I need someone to help me out here. I've remembered every match intimately up until this one, I must have had something important going on that day. Zero was on a whole other level, so it would be extra surprising when he would get SFF'd by Mega Man to such a degree that Charizard wouldn't be able to pull a win that everyone assumed would be easy for him. --- ## (5)Lenneth Valkyrie vs (14)Claptrap vs (23)Weighted Companion Cube 2013 _source: (5)Lenneth Valkyrie vs (14)Claptrap vs (23)Weighted Companion Cube 2013 (revid 82189)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, August 15th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match was interesting for about 5 minutes when Lenneth was winning early, but then the second update hit and things returned to normal. We expected Cube \> Claptrap \> Lenneth, and that's what we got--- Er wait a sec, is that Lenneth Freaking Valkyrie going down by 150 and then making a comeback attempt overnight? F\*\*\*in baller! Valkyrie Profile is such an unbelievable gem in an ocean of JRPG junk, and it's nice to see Lenneth making waves in a contest. She would eventually succumb to Borderlands' day vote, but nothing can take away Lenneth getting some notice for us VP fans. That might be the best of all the unsung JRPGs there is. Also worth noting here is that even with all the "joke characters" having sophomore slumps, Weighted Companion Cube seems to be just fine and might not ever lose much strength. Portal is just a different animal. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis People were taking the Cube here without much debate, it had a pretty accomplished contest history (I cannot believe I am saying that about an actual box), so the real debate here was Recent Western Franchise Icon™ vs JRPG Girl With Cult Fanbase®. You see where I'm going with this? I don't know why people nominated Claptrap. Do people like this guy? He was made into a playable character in the Pre-Sequel, they added more Claptraps as NPCs and you also go into his head in the only TPS DLC. Let me show you who likes Claptrap. Click on this video, watch the dude's intro and get back to me. No need to actually watch the "hilarious Claptrap moment." Still, people like that dude were around in force and they voted for their boy and took the win away from Lenneth. She hadn't had a game for quite a while and her only other contest appearance was getting tripled by Rikku in the female half of 2006. Fun fact: The amount of votes Lenneth got herself in 2006 was almost 5000 votes more than the total for this entire 2013 match. Anyone wanna guess what the average votal will be in 2018? Cube didn't really impress here but none of the joke characters other than maybe L-Block seemed to have any strength at all this time, so that didn't surprise anyone. --- ## (8)?-Block vs (11)Lyndis vs (20)Rikku 2013 _source: (8)?-Block vs (11)Lyndis vs (20)Rikku 2013 (revid 82190)_ ## Results **Round One** Thursday, August 15th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis ?-Block was hilarious for a lot of reasons. One, he was the favorite in the match. That by itself is nuts to me even though I picked him, because L-Block's run in 2007 is still having after-effects. 6 years later, we're still sitting here trying to predict the strength of random inanimate objects in character battles. The other thing is that even though he was the favorite, Rikku had an amazing case for pulling the so-called upset and winning. ?-Block was literally destined to have a sophomore slump in his first actual contest appearance, all because he beat L-Block in the bonus poll back in 2007 (and is still the reason we have bonus polls). That is unbelievably hilarious to me, and given all this the match played out exactly as one would expect. Rikku jumped out to a lead that couldn't be beaten, but ?-Block still had this crazy contest strength that could have won a lot of other matches. Rikku won easily, but 1266 votes isn't some huge number that says ?-Block should never see a contest again. Were he in the 2008 field instead of 2013's, he might have done some serious damage. The killer here is Lyndis might me my favorite female character ever short of Commander Shepard, and after trying to get her into a contest for years I get to watch her lose to a coin block. Yay. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis ?-Block was the favorite here because he had beaten WCC, Pong Paddle and then-Champion L-Block in a post-2007 bonus match. That's cool and all, but as discussed above, nobody seemed to care for these joke objects as much anymore, so people started pushing for Rikku in the 11th hour right before this match. People had been pushing her for a while, actually, but a lot of people clung to that bonus poll and stuck to their ?-Block picks. And Rikku won! And won pretty easily. Leon likes to blame the pic I used for Rikku here. Is it fan art? Yyyyyes. Did I know that at the time? Well... It was willful ignorance is what it was. My entire MO this contest was to "use new pics for characters who always get the same shit." I would scour through fan wikis and obscure tumblrs looking for official art that people either never had found in high enough resolution or were too lazy to render. I can't remember where I found this Rikku pic, but it was Rikku against some palm trees, and it took me almost two hours to render right. The entire time I was thinking "is this official art? I don't think this is official art. Well, it might be. Maybe I should do research. Eh, I'm already an hour in. Fuck it, let's see if Bacon uses it. It's probably official. Maybe. Maybe." Regardless of the legality of the play here, Rikku won by a good amount, and even if her 15-year-old boobs (shame on you) helped her win, it was still a win, and we put another "what if" character/object out to pasture. KP mentioned earlier that Rikku looked pretty strong in the stats here, and I believe it. It's weird to think she might be the fourth strongest FFX character. Have we ever tried to nominate Lulu and her Lulus? Or [this guy?](https://imgtc.com/i/KjkuaZN.mp4) EDIT: I forgot to talk about Lyndis. It's a shame she never made it into Smash, there are already three dozen Fire Emblem characters, why not one more? This was her once chance to shine and she got beaten by TJF and a box. Sorry, Lyn. --- ## (3)John Marston vs (16)Zelda vs (25)Sackboy 2013 _source: (3)John Marston vs (16)Zelda vs (25)Sackboy 2013 (revid 82191)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, August 16th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Not much to say about this match, since Zelda winning was never going to be in doubt. It was nice to see her recover after the awkward 2010 however, and she was en route to having a good contest after this match. She would only last two rounds, but helped expose Charizard a bit after beating up two garbage casualbait characters. This was Marston's first contest, and hopefully his last. And I'm sure I don't "get it" or whatever, but I don't understand the Little Big Planet love at all. I played it, and it was nothing more than bad platforming with bad handling mixed with bad "enjoy our artwork". Some genres just don't mix, and platforming plus all that side crap is a nice example. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Zelda got to stomp not one, but two Western Franchise Mascots! Wow!! She even did it with a pic from Skyward Sword, the one nobody likes. Next contest she is going to be even stronger with [her sassy new Smash appearance](https://imgtc.com/i/azrU9sf.mp4). I can't believe Sackboy has been in three contests and even has a win under his belt in Kratos Aurion. What world do we live in? Do people like his games that much? I had two of them and they're... alright, I guess. I think Sony retired the franchise after the third one sold like shit and the devs demoing it at E3 couldn't even beat their demo level. [Why do we still have live E3 events anyway?](https://imgtc.com/i/hIvSokR.mp4)\] As for Marston, he's another overrated Western character (literally!) but nobody thought he could actually beat Zelda. I do remember some whiners coming to the board, that game has some seriously defensive fans. Defensive of this: I have two friends from college (one of them is the one I gave the Teemo mushroom to) who got jobs at Rockstar and are currently working on RDR2. They do the animation cleanup on the mocap. My one friend was telling me how they work like 60-70 hour weeks right now but there's a masseuse on-staff and lunch is free so that sounds pretty sweet. He asserts that RDR2 is going to be the greatest game of all time, but I really doubt that. I wouldn't say that to his face, though. If you're playing RDR2 and you think the cutscene animation is good, pour one out for Zen's friend and the free masseuse. --- ## (4)Lightning vs (15)Donkey Kong vs (24)Falco Lombardi 2013 _source: (4)Lightning vs (15)Donkey Kong vs (24)Falco Lombardi 2013 (revid 82192)_ ## Results **Round One** Friday, August 16th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I know there was one more match to have before ending round 1, but this might as well have been the last match of round 1 given how funny it was. Lightning was expected to win this match fairly easily due to the Nintendo overlap between Donkey Kong and Falco, but more importantly, this is freaking Donkey Kong we're talking about. DK doesn't win debated matches; he chokes them away. Not only that, but DK is notorious for having close matches when he was expected to win with ease. Just for fun, here's every debated or close match DK has ever been in: 2002 - Beats Aya Brea by 1300 after trailing early, our first ever match with F5 spam. 2003 - Loses to Vercetti by 1000 after hours of stalling out. 2004 - DK (the game) almost loses a 3300 vote lead to Duck Hunt. 2004 - Blown out by Vivi in a match he was expected to win. 2005 - Loses a 2000 vote lead to Master Chief. 2008 - Loses to Tidus and Weighted Companion Cube. 2009 - DK almost loses to Punch-Out, DKC1 beats Doom by 600 with LTTP in the poll. Other matches happened, but those are the notable ones. So for DK to come out and end this match in ten seconds was completely nuts. To say that people hate Lightning is an understatement; I think Lightning is the entire symbol of everything that people have despised about Square since FFX or so, and with good reason. Lightning is not a likeable character, and calling her a Cloud clone is just an insult to Cloud. Cloud is an introvert and doesn't openly hate his party, while Lightning just goes out of her way to tell everyone to f\*\*\* off every 2 seconds. I actually like Final Fantasy 13 a lot, but there is no defending this idiot. Square tried making a strong female lead, but succeeded with almost every female in the game except Lightning. Fang is a strong character. Vanille is a strong character. Even Serah in her limited screen time is a strong character. Lightning just acts like a c\*\*\* for absolutely no reason, and somehow Square thought it was a good idea to channel the inner LeBron James and make not one, not two, but THREE games about her? Square is unbelievably clueless, and Lightning flat-out deserved this loss for multiple reasons. DK also deserved this win, for the years and years of contest misery. Just the perfect storm of deserves to win and deserves to lose, all in one match. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis holy SHIT, Lightning's picture is incredible, how did I forget about this?? @superange128 you are my hero and I love you People thought DK might lose here just by the virtue of him being one of the Choke Kings, and that Lightning pic must have put the fear of God in them. A Cloud-shaped God. Of course, nothing surprising actually happened. Maybe in a year where Cloud was worth shit that pic would have changed something. [Lightning is basically just Cloud anyway.](https://imgtc.com/i/KCD04pm.mp4) Falco continued the trend of Star Fox looking like ass. He got SFF'd, yeah, but it's just Donkey Kong. No need to roll over and die. --- ## (7)Charizard vs (12)Riku vs (21)Nier 2013 _source: (7)Charizard vs (12)Riku vs (21)Nier 2013 (revid 82193)_ ## Results **Round One** Saturday, August 17th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Charizard's predictable beatdown mercifully brought this obnoxious round 1 to an end, and the only thing I can even think to say about the match is that this gave us 24 straight hours of legit Square bashing. Kingdom Hearts and NieR are both published by them, and the games are what, 10 years apart? That being said, look at the match pic at how Riku and Nier are basically clones. That company is beyond clueless. Round 1 ending on a snoozer gives me a good chance to summarize it, specifically how bad it was. Allen is obsessed with this idea of "more is better", but this contest's round 1 to me proves that quality \> quantity. There is no need to have 243 characters in a contest just to make obscure fanbases feel good about themselves. 128 contest entrants should be the absolute maximum; 243 is just ridiculous, and it took us something like a month and a half to get through it. I seriously got burned out on this PCA by Division 7, though I'll get the urge to write back now that round 2 is here. Seriously Allen, more is not better. Round 1 of this contest had 81 matches. Eighty. One. Matches. There have been entire contests with 63. Stop it. How many of those matches were even good? Maybe ten? Round 1 is about weeding out fodder and staying true to NCAA seeding, not making more fodder matches and wasting more time. I'd much rather a few strong characters get snubbed over ever dealing with a round 1 like this ever again. Not that the actual 3-way idea was bad, but if it's eve done again just give byes to the higher seeds and take in less characters. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis If you haven't played the original Nier, do yourself a favor and go get a copy. It's probably like \$2 at this point. It's so worth it. Just don't rage quit at the fishing part! Thanks to KP for the recommendation all those years ago! Charizard was always a lock to win, people just weren't sure by how much. Riku has been a regular since 2005 and he's impressed pretty regularly as a solid midcarder. Seeing Charizard beast on him so hard post-KHIII announcement amped the POKEFEAR up to 11. There's going to be a ton more of Charizard to talk about later so I'll cut myself off here. Thus concludes Round 1! I actually cannot believe I've had the willpower to get this far. Thanks to everyone's words of encouragement and expert input. I really couldn't do this without you guys. I also don't want to leave anyone who is newer to the board with the impression that I am an end-all-be-all contest expert, that is definitely all the others posting in here, they're all the gurus I could only dream of being. That's going to be it for the night! Let me know if there's anything specific you'd like me to mention about R2 and I'll try to include it. (nominate metal sonic he could beat seifer) --- ## (8)Chester vs (22)Caim vs (8)Spring Breeze Dancin' _source: (8)Chester vs (22)Caim vs (8)Spring Breeze Dancin' (revid 82201)_ ## Results **Bonus** Saturday, August 17th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Due to this contest having an odd number of matches in rounds 1 and 2 and ending at awkward times, we were given two mid-contest bonus matches. The first of which was a last place affair between the three round 1 characters that did the worst, because if there is anything round 1 needed it was one more match to determine the ultimate last place guy. We all knew who that was going in, Chester is a champ like that, but there was something hysterical about Caim getting 55% of the vote while only getting 8880 votes. But hey, Chester got a total of 24 hours to make some history, so it can't be all bad. The other great thing here is Luster Soldier's polls on the board decided all of our bonus matches, yet somehow Allen's wife found the time to talk smack on the dude after the contest ended. The whole thing was just great. And with that, round 2 (and somehow, the contest's entire stretch run) was upon us! ## Zen's (Late) Analysis This was the bonus match post-Round 1, it didn't count for points I think and I also think we voted on what match we wanted to see. LusterSoldier usually remembers this stuff better than me. Something tells me we could have come up with something more interesting, but at the time the board was obsessed with finding the weakest possible character in these things. Yet somehow we all knew and wanted it to be Chester but we also voted for him?? You can't make this shit up, we never agree on anything. The only thing we learned from this match is that Caim is so weak he can barely double Spring Breeze Dancin'. We also learned just how low we could get the votals to go. --- ## (1)Link vs (6)Raiden vs (9)Yoshi 2013 _source: (1)Link vs (6)Raiden vs (9)Yoshi 2013 (revid 82194)_ ## Results **Round 2** Sunday, August 18th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis As a match, this only mattered for about 30 minutes. Yoshi tried resisting the SFF to upset Raiden, but there was no way he was going to stand up to Link for very long and Raiden was able to easily win second place. The only thing actually worth discussing here was the outline for the pictures this round, which was.... the quote contest finally happens! This outline was pretty sweet, though the idea for yearbook photos was really stupid. Just have normal match pictures with quotes underneath, not yearbook portraits. This was Allen trying to be cute and handicapping himself, which would raise holy hell later on in round 2. Also, even had Draven never happened I'm convinced Link does not win this contest. His match in round 1 got 28930 votes, and this one got 27732. X-stats and all that are only a part of a character's strength; you have to look at putting asses in seats, and Link generated no buzz this year whatsoever. He would have made the final had he managed to beat Draven, but Snake would have won easily. This contest really showed that people are tired of Link winning all the time. He has lost a huge step, and the low vote totals for both of his normal matches proved it. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis new round, who dis? With a new round comes a new pic theme, and like previous contests, Round 2 was the "uncomfortably close face pictures" round, which I despise. I don't want to see the pores on Link's face, thanks. That's my personal taste though, and as a result I am absent completely in Round 2, but there are some standout pics (lol vincent) we'll talk about when we get there. As for the theme itself, it was pretty divisive, but unlike my dumb Atlas Hale pic, at least the gimmick doesn't get in the way of seeing what you're voting for. It's not bad, I like the idea, it gives the "big dumb faces" theme more of a meaning, and for once Allen was looking more for upper torsos to go along with those dumb faces so that we didn't get shit like this: That Duke pic is simultaneously incredible and the worst pic ever in a contest (lol vincent). I did that Lucario pic and I was so stoked I got the "o" inside his kamehamaha. Much simpler times in Picsmithing. The quote part of the yearbook pics derived from the bios written by Board 8 themselves. I actually think I wrote Draven's bio because nobody else wanted to. Anyone remember what bios they wrote? Also, I'm not sure if we submitted the quotes or if Allen did those himself, but we definitely did the bios for everyone but the 1-seeds. I'm talking so much about the pics because this match was a real snoozefest. People argued whether or not Yoshi could overcome the Link SFF to lock down second, but, y'know, it's Link. Maybe if a lesser Nintendo character were in the match. Raiden was able to take silver pretty easily. --- ## (2)Commander Shepard vs (5)Tharja vs (20)Aeris Gainsborough 2013 _source: (2)Commander Shepard vs (5)Tharja vs (20)Aeris Gainsborough 2013 (revid 82195)_ ## Results **Round 2** Sunday, August 18th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis For the most part the quote thing was only passively funny, but that picture is absolutely golden. Tharja staring at Aeris and warning her about death, in a match where Aeris got killed by the upset bug, is golden. This was the second match in a row where people couldn't wait to anti-vote the establishment, and this time around it was Final Fantasy 7 getting its ass kicked. Early on, Aeris was winning. Either she's more popular than Shepard by herself, or bracket voting put her ahead, or what. She stayed there for quite awhile, too, but never really built a lead or pulled away. While she was going up for the first couple hours of the poll, the biggest lead she managed was 137 votes. But in no time at all, Shepard began coming back with very little resistance. It only took him an hour and a half to get rid of Aeris's lead, and once he tied the poll he just took off. Usually when a favorite is losing a lead, there is a ton of resistance and a tie holds for awhile. When Aeris lost the lead, she just died. Shepard would end up laughing in the face of the so-called legendary FF7 day vote en route to a 700 vote win, and it was one of the coolest upsets of the entire contest. I love FF7 as a game, I really do, but Aeris is a bad character and is only notable because of the end of disc 1. Yeah she probably wins this match without Tharja in the way, and yeah FF7 anti-voting is running rampant in contests these days, but who can possibly complain when Commander Goddamn Shepard is the beneficiary of it? How many characters in this entire bracket are actually better characters than Shep? Maybe 5? This was a great win for Shepard and Mass Effect fans, and Shep has come a loooooooong way from getting 13% in a fourway poll in 2008. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Alright seeing Shepard's quote makes me think we wrote those and not Bacon, that's great. "I should go" would also have been a good quote. Or "Wrex" and make Wrex's "Shepard." Shepard vs Aeris had some minor debate, people were pretty down on FF as a whole by this time so a lot more people on Board 8 were in Shepard's corner than usual. It also helps that Mass Effect is one of very few Western franchises we give a shit about cuz you can plow blue aliens. It's weird seeing Shepard, a dude who got destroyed by Pikachu and once lost to Sandbag and Magus, win pretty easily here. Aeris had put up a decent percentage on Auron in 2010. How did FF fall so far in such a short amount of time? Did that many people blindly anti-vote FF? How did people get the perception that Cloud and FF always win anyway? I've seen that all over the site. You see a match like Master Chief vs Yuna, go to the Halo 4 board, and everyone is posting threads like "WHY DOES FF ALWAYS WIN ON THIS SITE??" ignoring that Cloud only won a single contest that was basically rigged for him and Sephiroth won a Villains contest he was handed on a silver platter as an excuse to remove him. Yeah, FF does well, but Link and (some of) Nintendo have been dominating for years. Tharja looked alright here because of it. Cool to see her in Round 2. Who's the hot Fire Emblem character of the minute now? Anyone more familiar with the franchise want to rank all the FE characters' 2018 strength? --- ## (3)Draven vs (15)Ryu vs (7)Mega Man X 2013 _source: (3)Draven vs (15)Ryu vs (7)Mega Man X 2013 (revid 82196)_ ## Results **Round 2** Monday, August 19th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was basically the match where people realized Draven was going to win the entire contest, and it's also the match that got me started with League of Legends. I have played a TON of Dota (it's pathetic how much I played that game, honestly), so I figured with all the Draven hype League would be worth a try. It's a really good game, but it clearly grew to popularity by being very streamlined, easymoded and shallow. Like I have fun with it, but it hasn't really hooked me the way Dota did. I enjoy as much interaction as possible, League flat-out does not have as much as Dota. Both games do a lot of things better than the other and the constant comparisons are kind of stupid, but that's one I feel is really legitimate. That being said, the things League does better, it does a lot better. The item system especially is so much better than Dota's that it isn't even funny, and Dota will never fix theirs because of "tradition". Screw that, make your items easy to buy and easy to put together and stop being dumb. Anyway, the match. At one point, Draven only had 16% in it. But with all of the rallying, all of League's servers being down, and all of League's attention focused on this match, Draven gave us the most powerful performance ever in a contest. He didn't maintain it, but "Round 2 Draven" is easily the strongest character we've ever had. You'd have to go very far back in the GameFAQs contest archives to find vote totals or characters capable of beating 56937 votes in a 12 hour night match, and that's with Draven slowing down for the last hour or so. How much could Round 2 Draven score in a match where he 100% needed 24 hours of rallying? Is 150,000 votes really out of the question here? 200,000? This match was beyond done and Draven was still pulling 500 vote updates for hours, there isn't a doubt in my mind the full rallying potential could beat things like 2003 Cloud, 2004 Link or 2007 L-Block. Regardless of hating on the dude for winning, you have to agree those numbers are impressive. They also caused one of the biggest hype trains I can remember. No matter what happened for the rest of round 2, there were just as many topics (if not more) of people talking about the Draven/Link/(oh and Shepard was in there too) match. I can't believe all the complaining, because the whole point of this contest was making Link lose, and Board 8 agreed with that. But Draven does it instead of Snake and sand gets up everyone's crotch. I don't get it. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis X's quote is so on point holy shit. Wish he wasn't all talk. If you combine the votals of the three smallest matches from Round 1 they are still like 10k short of this one. This is where a ton of us gave up hope on this contest. Yeah, Link could still win it out in Round 3, but look at those vote totals. You know it's a bad situation when people start counting Link out of the game. The board was in absolute chaos the entire day during this match. Not only did we get the first real wave of BUTTDEVESTATED flooding our topic list, but what really annoyed me were the people hitting us with dozens of topics asking "who draven" like they couldn't click on the fucking bios Allen put on the voting page. I guess they were just confused that this ugly mofo was beating on two icons so easily. From what I understand, this match and the next one brought a good amount of current users to the board, so there was a bright side. Raise your hand if you are a Draven baby boomer! In the end, the board had a mini-civil war that still has repercussions to this day. There were people who really were BUTTDEVESTATED and were vocal about it. You had other long time Board 8ers who thought it was great that votals were back up and that contests were getting attention. That's kind of a "chaotic good" approach to seeing things but I understand that point of view. Those two groups argued day-in and day-out, and I'll admit, even though I was pretty neutral at the time, it was hard to sympathize with the "I for one welcome our new Draven overlords" group. They had absolutely no compassion and a few of them still stand by Draven being one of the better things to happen to this contest. A big defense is "you didn't care when L-Block won!!!" Yeah because L-Block was our thing! Not Reddit's! The entire internet was in on L-Block! Now, if you do bring up the Draven thing on the board in a positive light and say you want more rallies, you'll always get a group of people who will jump down your throat. I don't know if I want Sans, Monika or the others in the next contest. I don't know what I want other than to be able to make a bracket and not base it on predicting what fanbases will be efficient enough to rally. And if Allen really is installing anti-rally measures, then they feel like a waste of a nom, but you know people are going to try anyway. I'm over the BUTTDEVESTATION, it still kind of sucks it wasn't a more interesting character than Draven. LoL isn't even a shadow of what it once was, so the whole "joke" of Draven winning feels extra dated. In 10 years this will probably be an even more baffling result to newer or younger users who come to this board. fuck I hope we're still around in 10 years --- ## (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (13)Dracula vs (10)Barret Wallace 2013 _source: (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (13)Dracula vs (10)Barret Wallace 2013 (revid 82197)_ ## Results **Round 2** Monday, August 19th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Sonic winning this match was never going to be in doubt, though taking on a Final Fantasy 7 character a round before he was expected to take on Vincent meant something. He crushed Barret and Dracula both, which really should have put all the Vincent hype to rest. Vincent is not immune to the FF7 decline. And though Barret did end up getting second place, this was such an embarrassing performance. Dracula kept virtually tied for 20 minutes before very slowly losing ground the rest of the match, but even with FF7's so-called good day vote Barret only won by 750. I know RacistFAQs and all, but Dracula is seriously only in Symphony of the Night for like 5 minutes. He may have gotten extra votes for also being a historical figure, and holy crap do we need to have an all-inclusive character contest like nothing else because the strength of guys like Batman and Vader need to be tested, but Barret still should have won with ease. FF7 really has become a joke on this site. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Wanna see something fucking dumb? [This](https://imgtc.com/i/pAeodrL.jpg) is from the set of the Sonic live action film, which is pretty dumb to begin with. Look at the population on that sign: 1981! NOT 1991! How could they mess up such an easy gag? It's was free. Barret, the blackest character in the bracket, was up against Dracula, the whitest character in the bracket, for second place. On RacistFAQs. What do you think happened? Dracula had proven in R1 that he wasn't particularly strong without his son, but Barret was still barely able to secure a win. This was a bad sign for Vincent supporters. You know what else was a bad sign for Vincent's match? We were about to find out... --- ## (2)Phoenix Wright vs (23)Vincent Valentine vs (11)Mewtwo 2013 _source: (2)Phoenix Wright vs (23)Vincent Valentine vs (11)Mewtwo 2013 (revid 82198)_ ## Results **Round 2** Tuesday, August 20th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I submitted that DOC Vincent, BRING ON THE WHINING, BOYS! -paulg235 A lot of people complain that Board 8 bullies too much and hate too many people. I would argue that no one gets hated on Board 8 without doing something extremely f\*\*\*ing dumb to deserve it, and guys like paulg, Kanz, XIII once Draven \> Link happened, vcharon after SMFFFC, and so on, all deserve every amount of grief they got. I've been making pictures for awhile now, and I feel comfortable saying anyone who makes pictures just to intentionally sabotage a match, and then acts proud of it afterwards like they did nothing wrong, has no business whatsoever making any pictures. Garbage like that is not why we do what we do, and it especially makes ZenOfThunder look bad when he spends time defending these people. But then they go and prove how useless they are, and there you go. Mewtwo was a very strong character and was going to win this match no matter what, but intentionally ruining Vincent to the point where Phoenix Wright easily pushes him to last place? And going HURR HURR I DID THAT CRY MOAR LOL afterwards? No. paulg is one of those guys that will never be accepted on Board 8 again, and that's a good thing. Some people absolutely deserve to get bullied out of a community after doing something stupid. The bright side here is that Mewtwo proved to be a BEAST, and this match started the hype train of "WE CAN RALLY MEWTWO PAST DRAVEN!!!". Sonic didn't stand much of a chance after all that. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis FF may have fallen, but Vincent is a cut above the rest! He's the Noble Nine breaker! He's a little below Sephiroth in strength! He can take out Mewtwo, regardless of how strong Pokemon has looked! Well, uh, I mean, he can still beat... Phoenix Wright, right? ...right? Alright, I was pretty defensive of this picture when it first came out because I've gotten some shit for my bad pics in the past, but this was a new level of bad pic. The entire board was up in arms about it and people were after user paulg's head. I don't know if there were death threats but there might as well have been. It wasn't bad at first, but once Phoenix took off ahead of Vincent and showed no signs on slowing down, people were screaming "sabotage" from on high. I have never seen a bigger backlash for a pic, ever, and I have seen some trash, most of which is my own. User paulg went into full defense mode, I admire the dude for having the balls to post during this. I think people were still sore about Draven and some kind of weird survival instinct had kicked in. Everyone was talking about this pic. I don't think you could go into a goddamn Mercenaries topic without seeing someone mention Vincent's ugly fuckin' face on the front page. paulg changed his stories several times, and that's kind of where my sympathy stopped. He stopped apologizing and told us all to fuck off, then started claiming he had intentionally sabotaged Vincent. Again, the dude was getting called out by an entire community, so I think he was just saying shit at this point. I don't know what the real story is, or even if the match pic mattered that much in the end. After all, FF had been looking like a huge turd, and Phoenix had looked pretty good. Yeah, the match pic probably didn't help, but I'm super happy our boy Wrighto was able to pull off this crazy upset. And let's be real here, Vincent never had a shot at Mewtwo, regardless of the pic. In the current climate of FF anti-voting, he wouldn't have had a chance in hell. I don't think many people seriously thought Vincent could win by this point anyway. Also: lol vincent Jill \> Crono this year bank on it Also, thank you for the shoutout in your writeup, Ulti! I didn't read it until after I was done writing mine and now I feel bad that I did precisely the opposite of what you said: *Garbage like that is not why we do what we do, and it especially makes ZenOfThunder look bad when he spends time defending these people. But then they go and prove how useless they are, and there you go.* whoops --- ## (16)The Boss vs (15)Sub-Zero vs (7)Bowser 2013 _source: (16)The Boss vs (15)Sub-Zero vs (7)Bowser 2013 (revid 82199)_ ## Results **Round 2** Tuesday, August 20th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis A lot of people noted in this match that The Boss feels like she gets into one weird match every contest (except the female bracket), and they would be right. Check this out. 2007 - Only beats Tails by 350 or so for third place after giving up a 900 vote lead, but no one cared because it was for third place. 2010 - Gets in via vote-in, then upsets Nathan Drake as a 15 seed before getting 46% on Weighted Companion Cube. 2011 - All of Big Boss vs. The Boss's matches finish within 60-40. The reason The Boss isn't heralded in the same way as Kefka is because her matches never really matter, including this year. Who cares about The Boss v Sub-Zero when Bowser just advances anyway, right? But now we have the Expert Challenge, so stuff like this really matters. The very short of it here is that for something like 9 hours of this poll, The Boss and Sub-Zero were basically tied, in a throwback to the Chrono Trigger/LTTP days. This was really surprising, because Metal Gear Solid has a hilariously awful day vote. So come the evening, everyone expected The Boss to pull away. Naturally, Sub-Zero won the evening vote and SNV instead, and pulled away to win by 246. This contest made absolutely no goddamn sense whatsoever, and this was another match among many that helped prove it. Every trend we have said The Boss would take second place here, and she didn't. I happen to love stuff like this, because anything that beats trends and LOL X-STATS and all the rest of the pretentious contest noise is okay in my book. You can follow all that stuff and get into the 99th percentile every contest, but you'll never win unless the field is so predictable like Rivalry Rumble was. To actually win a contest, you need to be like Lopen or raytan. Pick weird stuff and not give two f\*\*\*s. raytan won a guru contest by picking a Samus \> Mario final, for crissakes. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Here's a match that shouldn't have been entertaining, Sub-Zero does pretty well in these things and the Boss had once struggled against Tails. Naturally, The Boss hates keeping things predictable, so she managed to keep the match basically tied all night, but everyone knew that, onces the kiddies came home from school that The Boss would, well... I guess she summed it up herself: I don't even know how this happened, I guess Boss is stronger than Garrus or something, which doesn't seem too surprising, so where does Chrom fall? This contest was fucking wild, man, but I blame the Boss more, she's just too unpredictable, if she came close to a Noble. The Boss might also be a recipient of the Martyr Factor, but it's hard to tell. Hey, speaking of martyrs, have you seen the Metal Gear Solid 3 Pachinko Machine? It's MGS3 remade in the FOX Engine but exclusive to a pachinko machine Take a second and let that sink in then lay down and cry for a very long time also lol @ having the full unedited Boss speech from the end of the game but in the middle of a Japanese pachinko parlour --- ## (1)Sephiroth vs (6)Morrigan Aensland vs (9)Spyro the Dragon 2013 _source: (1)Sephiroth vs (6)Morrigan Aensland vs (9)Spyro the Dragon 2013 (revid 82200)_ ## Results **Round 2** Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis 11 years later, Spyro got his shot to get revenge on Morrigan for the big upset in 2002, and back then it was our second ever match. It also coined The Jug Factor, so it's been a memorable upset since the dawn of our contests. Unfortunately, Morrigan got Marvel vs Capcom 3 since then. Spyro might have gotten something too, but who cares? So that being said, everyone knew Morrigan was taking second place. She even got the benefit of early Sephiroth anti-votes to flirt with first place for a few minutes, but beyond that the match was standard and boring. The only exciting thing here was Zen's hilarious zoomed in Spyro picture that I was too dumb to save. I hope someone else has it \<\_\< ## Zen's (Late) Analysis My girl Morrigan shows up and just barely manages to avoid getting doubled by Sephiroth. There wasn't much interesting about this match except that Sephiroth really should blown these two out harder, but we all know about FF's fall by now. It's funny to look at this result and then time travel back to the second ever match which had 30,000 more votes despite lacking Sephiroth: Either Morrigan has fallen greatly or Spyro has risen significantly. They both managed to blow away the R1 fodder they were put up against in 2013, so it's hard to tell. Time has passed so much, but back in 2002 everyone on this site was super insecure about their maturity and they'd anti-vote all the kiddies and upvote all the tiddies. Things have changed since then, we now upvote both kiddies and tiddies. Sometimes Rikku, who is somehow both. For shame. Also of note, Morrigan's last major appearance was Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. I love Morrigan and Ghost Rider, and they have this stupidly corny cutscene where they meet for the first time, and I absolutely loved it: "Tell me, Rider, is it business that brings you here... Or pleasure?" "Vengeance." "Ah, a bit of both." she just wants to get into his bone zone, incredible not so incredible: [everything else about Marvel vs Capcom Infinite](https://imgtc.com/i/iVFelzF.png) --- ## (2)Luigi vs (5)Big Boss vs (11)Ness 2013 _source: (2)Luigi vs (5)Big Boss vs (11)Ness 2013 (revid 82205)_ ## Results **Round 2** Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Good old awful Metal Gear Solid day votes. Big Boss was supposed to win this match easily, because he's on par with Luigi in strength without factoring in another Nintendo character leeching away his strength. Add in Ness? This seemed over before it started. But then the match began, and things were actually close. They stayed that way for hours, and we eventually and slowly came to the realization that this was actually going to be a match. The base momentum seemed to be with Big Boss, because he was the character trying to pull away from the 5 hour tie, while Luigi was seemingly playing catchup the entire time. That right there is basically what ended the match, because once the day vote ended and the sun started going down, Big Boss turned a tie into a 300 vote win. Had Luigi taken advantage of the bad MGS day vote and shrugged off Ness even a little bit more, this might have been interesting. But as-is, it was one of those close matches where we all knew the trends and all knew what would eventually happen, and then no one was surprised when those trends came true. Now if we ever have a 1 on 1 contest again, Big Boss and Luigi need a 24 hour match. Nothing was actually settled here because of Ness, and I think it would be really neat. It has the makings of one of those marathon type matches where one character could get a big lead, blow it, and then we get a photo finish late. Then I kind of realize we'll probably never get a 1 on 1 character contest again, which blows to think about. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis [ded](https://imgtc.com/i/ZI3wAUs.jpg) Some people argued for Luigi here, but Big Boss was too close to him in strength so Ness made all the difference. It's interesting that people always come to the board to complain when Luigi wins. People really like the dude, I think there are more Luigi whiners than for any other Mario character. Luigi had every opportunity to lock this down, he actually performed pretty well when you consider that Ness was here, but as Leon said, LFF doesn't seem to matter as much in 3-ways. Speaking of Luigi not being able to commit, you have to feel for [the dude losing his girl to Wario](https://imgtc.com/i/XyRcmwf.jpg). now he's dead, the dude can't catch a break --- ## (3)Elizabeth vs (4)Kirby vs (12)Crash Bandicoot 2013 _source: (3)Elizabeth vs (4)Kirby vs (12)Crash Bandicoot 2013 (revid 82206)_ ## Results **Round 2** Thursday, August 22nd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Crash Bandicoot won his first ever contest match, over some scrub named Ulala, and then spent 10 years as a running joke. So it's only fitting that in one of our weirdest contests ever, someone like Crash Bandicoot gets to go out on such a high note. Can you remember any character getting to feel so good about finishing in last place? There were a couple of reasons for this, but the biggest one is that Crash freaking deserved some run in a contest. The lesser reason is that he helped expose Elizabeth and Bioshock Infinite as a complete and total fraud in this contest. Not that it started that way. Elizabeth actually looked really good for second place early, and built up a lead near 400 overnight. But then the morning vote hit, and Crash went on a torrent pace that looked like a comeback pace, but Elizabeth was able to stall just enough updates to eke out second place by 63 votes. Fact: Crash Bandicoot was hurt a lot by Kirby's presence, and not only would have beaten Elizabeth were this a 24 hour 1v1 match, but this poll being 24 hours long means Crash gets second place with ease. Fact: If this were a 1v1 contest, almost none of the gurus would have picked Crash \> Elizabeth and we would have had one of the best guru upsets ever. I'd talk more about Kirby getting first, but we all knew that was coming and I can't resist FINALLY giving Crash some freaking contest hype. It was 11 years. 11 years!! Hats off to the guy, he deserves some time in the sun instead of just being stuck in another fodder spot. This was one of the biggest losses that felt like a win I can remember. Bioshock Infinite just looked so, so bad in this contest. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Crash was able to beat another Western icon in Round 1, but what about Round 2? Could he beat the face of Bioshock? Well, maybe in 2018. But in 2013 he didn't. One could say he crashed and bur-- you know what, I really don't want to finish that joke. I'm sorry. I should have skipped writing today and gone to see The Meg alone. Crash beat Wheatley, yeah, but Elizabeth, despite being omitted from the cover of BioShock Infinite, was still the most popular character by far in the porn-- I mean, uh, in the game itself. A lot of people have turned on BioShock Infinite in recent years. It was super hyped when it came out because of the ending, but the game itself was pretty shallow. Maybe if they had actually aimed to make a game like the E3 demo it would have been more fondly remembered in 2018: I got off track again, sorry. Crash blew it here, he probably was affected by Kirby in some way, yeah, but he still could have pulled it off if he wasn't such a joke. I don't think anyone even took Crash, someone can check the Guru stats. Post-remake, he definitely could pull off an upset. --- ## (1)Solid Snake vs (6)Alucard vs (9)Bayonetta 2013 _source: (1)Solid Snake vs (6)Alucard vs (9)Bayonetta 2013 (revid 82225)_ ## Results **Round 2** Thursday, August 22nd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis For my money, that is Snake's best picture of all. Very dark look without resorting to melty stuff. Anyway, this was a supremely boring match, but the 1 seeds will often do that in the first few rounds. Snake's dominance here ended up being relevant later though, because once Mario lost to Vivi and everyone started going Chicken Little about the Noble Nine, Snake's dominance here made people think that he was potentially the only Noble Nine character that could make it out of round three. Think about this for a second. I suppose some debate could have been there about Alucard vs Bayonetta, but it isn't worth talking about because Bayonetta was never getting above last in this one. --- ## (2)GLaDOS vs (5)Ike vs (8)Epona 2013 _source: (2)GLaDOS vs (5)Ike vs (8)Epona 2013 (revid 80831)_ ## Results **Round 2** Friday, August 23rd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match was hilarious in so many ways, especially when you have idiots like me picking Ike without checking to see if it was a day match. Although Ike would have lost this anyway, because day vs night isn't going to fluke a character into last place. Ike was just flat-out terrible this contest, and this match basically confirmed that. GLaDOS may have won the poll, and easily, but the star here was Epona and T H E S T A B L E. Epona got to win a match, and then she embarrassed Ike on her way out and got to leave on a high note. You could also maaaaaaaaaaybe make the case that Epona (or even Ike) could have beaten GLaDOS 1 on 1, but more and more I'm beginning to see that 1 on 1 is a distant memory. But a guy can dream! Lastly, it baffles me that GLaDOS did so well this year while Wheatley did so bad. I have no explanation for it, either, because I feel like both characters should have done really well. It's not like Portal 2 wasn't well-received or whatever. --- ## (25)Altair vs (4)Lara Croft vs (7)Kefka 2013 _source: (25)Altair vs (4)Lara Croft vs (7)Kefka 2013 (revid 82209)_ ## Results **Round 2** Friday, August 23rd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Kefka -- Legendary Contest Troll. It's one thing to beat Zack when everyone expected him to lose, but then he goes on to beat Altair in a match where many would have picked against him had they picked Kefka to beat Zack at all. On top of THAT, Kefka beat down this match so badly that Altair vs Lara Croft -- Altair vs Lara Croft!!! -- ended up being decided in the final minutes. This contest was really something else. First we see Crash overcome ten years of misery by going out like a winner despite last place in round 2, and then we see Lara Croft do the same. Her comeback was even more surprising too, given this was a day match against casualbait Assassin's Creed dude. But she never let him build a lead above 170, then started coming back once the evening vote hit. She managed to tie it up with a couple hours left before Altair was finally able to recover and win by 125, but Lara Croft being in a barnburner after being a running joke for 11 years is really something else. Do people actually like the Tomb Raider reboot? Did Lara and Altair LFF each other? Do people just hate Assassin's Creed? I have no real explanation for this outside of LFF, but the redemption was hella nice to see. You know what else was hella nice to see? KEFKA FINALLY IN ROUND 3 OF A NORMAL CONTEST! LAUGHING SPRITE PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICS!!! Get hype. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis After putting away Zack in Round 1, people still underestimated Kefka in this round. Altair was still seen as too strong to overcome, stronger than Zack I guess? While there were some in Kefka's corner, too many years of a negative stigma and the failure of Kefka to get to Round 3 despite being the main villain in perhaps the second most beloved FF of all time wasn't enough for a lot of people to consider a potential Kefka victory here. But, because it's fucking Kefka, he showed up ready to wreck brackets and destroy all of our perceptions. As if 2013 wasn't wild enough, we now had Kefka overcoming Zack and Altair to finally read round 3 to lose to GLaDOS. How did this happen? Well, it was 2013, 5 years past The Dark Knight. Altair was still pretty cool, I guess, but looking back, he was one of the most 2007 characters ever made. "Badass" generic white dude in hood who has a wrist blade and he's all in shadows and he dives off of buildings then he stabs you and god he's hot Altair is pretty bland, and I bring up the Dark Knight because that was the pinnacle of 2000s edginess. Everyone wanted to be Heath Ledger Joker, all dark and chaotic. Much like 90% of Halloween costumes in 2008 were Heath Ledger Jokers, I used to see people buying white hoodies and wearing them to high school with the hoods up and doing the Altair "push through crowds" thinking they were cool as heck. In 2013 it wasn't cool anymore and in 2018 people would laugh at you. You can see this in the immediate evolution of the AC protagonists to Ezio, who has an actual personality and a sarcastic sense of humor. Actually, every subsequent AC protagonist, even the "serious" ones have traces of Ezio or a Marvel movie. Altair probably wasn't helped by Lara, either. Being the face of Assassin's Creed, a major western franchise, and being put against Lara, the (prettier) face of a major western franchise, was going to drag Altair down. But this much? Well, yeah. It's Lara Croft. She was a 1-seed once because Ceej figured "everyone knows Lara Croft." And they do. Like they all know Pac-Man. --- ## (1)Cloud Strife vs (13)Frog vs (19)Lugia 2013 _source: (1)Cloud Strife vs (13)Frog vs (19)Lugia 2013 (revid 82833)_ ## Results **Round 2** Saturday, August 24th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis A standard part of every Cloud match these days is losing the board vote, and when faced with a Pokemon he is guaranteed to lose the board vote in hilarious fashion. This time it was Lugia who stole it from him early, though Lugia fell off quickly and fell off hard. He fell off so hard that Frog was able to overcome an early 50 vote deficit, even in the face of Cloud stealing votes from him, and eventually power through to an easy second place win. One would think Lugia had a shot at second place here, but it was not to be. In reading some topics during the match, and even after the contest, Pokemon gets less and less popular with each new generation no matter what any sales numbers will suggest. People are attached to those original 151, and any Pokemon after that will have some issues with contest strength. I wouldn't even be surprised if Lugia got more strength from being an assist trophy in Smash than he did from Pokemon. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Lugia looks like something sold by Bad Dragon here, wow. People were taking this flying dildo for 2nd based partially on POKEFEAR and partially on how dominant it was in R1. Other people saw getting 60% on Sly and York as not really an accomplishment, and thought Frog would have no problem here. The ladder turned out to be true and this match was pretty boring. A lot of people showed up to the board asking how Lugia ended up in the bracket. That was about the highlight. That, and [this](https://imgtc.com/i/Q5gg3wN.png). Allen was so on point with these quotes, it's like he had future vision. Speaking of quotes, remember when everyone had a problem with Frog losing his old-timey speak in Chrono Trigger DS? I remember users everywhere being LIVID that the core of Frog's character was ruined. Meanwhile, in Octopath Traveller land, I have seen people all over complaining that Haiti the Hunter and her village speak entirely in bad old-timey speak: "Letten us beginin'" and "Letten my arrow'n flyin' true," how they hell did the voice actress say that with a straight face? Can you turn the VA off? Holy shit it's 2018, don't give Audio Atrocities any ammo. Let me leave you with this, I believe these words came from Herman Cain: It says a lot about where I am, where Lugia is, and where we are as a board. --- ## (2)Dante vs (5)Squirtle vs (11)Zidane Tribal 2013 _source: (2)Dante vs (5)Squirtle vs (11)Zidane Tribal 2013 (revid 85225)_ ## Results **Round 2** Saturday, August 24th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I've seen 11 years of contests. Lots of well-deserved wins, lots of well-deserved losses. Lots of comebacks, lots of surprise blowouts, even surprise contest winners. And I can 100% say from the bottom of my heart that no character ever deserved to lose a match more than Dante deserved to lose this specific match. Because oh my fucking god Tameem and Ninja Theory basically went as far out of their way as possible to piss off as many DMC series fans as they could, and I'm not actually sure what's worse: Tameem doing this, or people actually defending this literal abortion (watch the Mundus Spawn fight, assuming you can make it through the vid without puking) of a video game. I always thought Stockholm Syndrome was overblown, until this game came out and there wasn't universal hate for it. Capcom basically has been telling their own fans how much they hate them for years, and somehow people still defend Capcom. I really don't get it. I'm saving my 100% writing energy for the DmC review I'm working on, but the short of it is DmC is by far one of the worst games I've ever played in my entire life, and anyone who actually likes it is obviously a human being with no intelligence that I will never want to interact with or take seriously, ever. There is no defense for that game. Zero. Regarding the actual match, the only Dante match I've ever predicted incorrectly was his 2007 run, and I can get behind the 2007 run because pre-DmC Dante deserves to make waves. But now? Absolutely god damn not. Dante went from a badass slayer to a metrosexual trapeze artist, with a director pulling a Stephanie Meyer and self-inserting into the main character in a glorified fanfic. So yes, I knew Dante was going to lose. I knew he was going to get blown the fuck out. And not only did he deserve every second of it, but 151 people have absolutely no idea what in the hell they're talking about: HOW?! How did 151 so-called experts not see this coming? Did the seething hatred of Capcom, Ninja Theory, and DmC somehow escape you people? I legit want an answer. Who in their right mind could possibly think Dante was winning this? Last note: No character ever has or will have more pic sabotage attempts than Dante in this match. For the first time ever in this contest, we got to see stats on submission numbers for pictures. Dante more than doubled his closest competitor for pic submissions, because everyone was submitting DmC stuff to sabotage him. He ended up getting a fair pic from 4, but there was no chance in hell Dante was ever going to overcome the hate and win this match. Even Zidane stayed even with him for 10 minutes. Burn in hell and go fuck yourself, Tameem. Never make another video game ever again. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis If you zoom out on Dante's match pic, he pretty much expresses how we all felt about his performance here: ["eh"](https://imgtc.com/i/Mz6wOuf.png) People had basically given up on Dante being able to overcome Squirtle by this point, but this match coming right after a small Pokemon loss gave people the slightest bit of hope. Then the match started and all that disappeared. It now became about extrapolating Dante and Zidanes' performances to see how strong Squirtle really was. I'm not sure if people were saying Squirtle \> Cloud yet, but there must have been at least a small minority who predicted it. I know 4chan was really into rallying Pokemon and the slightly higher votals here show that they probably did get involved in some small way, but not on a crazy level. Besides, in this contest rally-strength was just real strength. Squirtle's performance in 2018 will determine where he really truly stands in these contests. Probably still good. Zidane did well here, coming in 2300 votes behind Dante isn't awful. Dante might have won if we had gotten [Donté, el exterminador de demonios](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPKHxbOg19s) here instead. --- ## (16)Shadow the Hedgehog vs (4)Leon Kennedy vs (7)Gordon Freeman 2013 _source: (16)Shadow the Hedgehog vs (4)Leon Kennedy vs (7)Gordon Freeman 2013 (revid 82211)_ ## Results **Round 2** Sunday, August 25th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This was one of the weirdest not-close matches of the entire contest, because while Leon \> Gordon \> Shadow was very predictable, the trends would not behave for the longest time. First Shadow and Gordon stayed even for 10 minutes, then Gordon threatened a comeback on Leon with a few cuts overnight, then things slowly separated and the match seemed to end out of nowhere. This was a match that could have greatly benefited from a 1v1 format or 24 hours, but it was not to be. I'm pretty sure the big explanation for things being off here was Leon/Gordon overlap. 25,000 votes is extremely low, even for a night match, so overlap had to have happened somewhere. Leon also had to deal with the very lite version of Dante's Tameem experience, which is being stuck in Resident Evil 6. He's probably the only part of that game that isn't trash, but he was hated on by approximation to the rest of the bile. Capcom on the verge on bankruptcy is some of the best news in gaming history, because I can only think of one other company (Activision-Blizzard) that deserves collapse more than those idiots. All the bad games, all the ruined series, all the shady DLC practices, all the hating of fans... it's really caught up to Capcom, finally. Good riddance to them. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Here's another match with a direct precedent and almost four times the votes: If you extrapolate these results, Gordon would have gotten only about 7000 votes if he still was at his 2005 strength, so he has gotten stronger. Or, maybe, because of Giraffe Felatio Simulator 6 absolutely bombing, Leon has dropped a little. Maybe the votals just don't lend themselves to true strength. Either way, this wasn't really a debatable match. It was Sunday morning so more people were at church praying for Shadow's mortal soul rather than voting on GameFAQs leading to some of the lowest votals of the round. Really sad results here. Just a bland match. I spoke a little bit about Shadow and Gordon already, but where will Leon be in 2018? Unlike Chris, who has had an RE7 DLC and an appearance in MvCI, Leon hasn't had much play outside of being in the much-hyped Resident Evil 2 REmake. Leon will most likely always be a solid-to-upper midcarder, but depending on the current amount of support he has, he may find himself in a bad situation as a low seed if people forget to nominate him. It's been 13 years since RE4, and if that doesn't make you feel old, then consider it's been 20 years since RE2 and that will get you. --- ## (1)Crono vs (6)Pikachu vs (9)Magus 2013 _source: (1)Crono vs (6)Pikachu vs (9)Magus 2013 (revid 82212)_ ## Results **Round 2** Sunday, August 25th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis When the bracket first came out, this was the match everyone immediately pointed to and went "Oh, no" with. Crono and Magus in a poll together with Pikachu, with PokeFEAR running rampant? Pikachu was the massive guru favorite, which would be unthinkable a few years ago. Now, with Crono basically a running joke? Every year we just expect him to lose a funny match now, and this year was no different. Magus beating Otacon was the worst possible thing that could have happened for Crono this year. Magus did his job and was basically SFFd into the ground, but he got just enough of the vote for Pikachu to win with ease. Crono tried holding on early, but was eventually just run over. Pikachu winning by 2000 may look close, but it really wasn't. You have to factor in things like Crono being the first 1 seed to go down. I will say though, that I'm not sure Crono even beats Pikachu 1 on 1 at this point. 47% of the vote is a lot, and are we sure all 4000 of Magus's votes would go to Crono here, in a close match involving a Pokemon? Pikachu would only need half of them to win or be close, and I feel like he could do that pretty easily. He would at least make it a really good match, and by the time we get another character contest, Chrono Trigger will be that much weaker. We had a bonus match in round 2 that proved this in a pretty obvious way. Mario kicked Crono's ass even with Mega Man X in the poll. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis here's a match that would have been great if Magus hadn't beaten Otacon. Remember save_us.RAT? I think that was in reference to Pikachu over L-Block. We have given him too much power now. Otacon, you could have saved us from the mouse if you had been here. How could you? My least favorite part of matches involving Noble Nine members is the absolute tsunami of topics saying "OMG NOBLE NINE BROKEN?!?!?!" which then devolves into discussions as to whether or not the Noble Nine has truly been broken before which devolves into discussions about the Noble Nine being broken before means that there is no longer still a Noble Nine to be broken again which leads to people trying to peg the weakest member of the Noble Nine [and](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWmvbxGpra4) holy shit we have had a billion topics about this, can we stop talking about the arbitrary, outdated concept that is the Noble Nine? CBIX should have been its last hurrah given the vague theming around the concept of the number "nine." It's done. There's no more. The vote totals we're getting no longer sustain the idea of the Noble Nine. It's too easy to undermine. It's nice to talk about them in regards to contest history, but can we get away from talking about the future of the NN? Back to the match: Pikachu won and won easily. People had assumed Crono could still win, because, y'know, Noble Nine, but the writing was on the walls and we all saw it, some just didn't want to admit it. Pikachu was dominant here and we knew his performance was a tone-setter for the rest of the contest and future contests to come. --- ## (2)Sora vs (14)Gilgamesh vs (20)Yoshimitsu 2013 _source: (2)Sora vs (14)Gilgamesh vs (20)Yoshimitsu 2013 (revid 82213)_ ## Results **Round 2** Monday, August 26th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis It's always nice to have a boring match following a crazy one, just to give time to digest. And it doesn't get any more boring than the 50-30-20 variety, where characters who pulled round 1 upsets get to meet their maker a round later. Gilgamesh and Yoshimitsu both pulled great upsets in round 1, but Sora still has strength on this site no matter how hated Kingdom Hearts gets. This was basically all about whether or not Sora had the strength to beat Pikachu + Blue, and one would assume that this match showed he had enough to do it. Shows what we know! Also worth noting here is Kingdom Hearts 3 was supposedly finally announced. Although as one of the last people that actually likes this stupid series, even with all the garbage Tetsuya Nomura has pulled, I'll believe Kingdom Hearts 3 when I actually see it. Nomura is that dumb with making spinoffs instead of the games people actually want. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis If one R2 match could be described with a giant yawn, it would be this one. At least Gilgamesh had a good quote and did alright here. Kind of weird seeing Sora with (what I think is) a KHIII pic back in 2013 when we still don't have the damn game in 2018. There are some worlds that haven't even been revealed yet. What is taking so long, exactly? Really low votals here lead to Sora not even being able to break 50%. Another sad match. Perhaps the "boiled chicken breast with no seasoning" of matches. I just had to feed one of those to my girlfriend's dog. Now he's sleeping next to me on the couch and he kind of smells and is snoring. Like me after analyzing this match. I don't know where the smell is from. Kingdom Hearts fans? --- ## (25)Mr. Game & Watch vs (4)Nathan Drake vs (12)Pokemon Trainer Blue 2013 _source: (25)Mr. Game & Watch vs (4)Nathan Drake vs (12)Pokemon Trainer Blue 2013 (revid 82214)_ ## Results **Round 2** Monday, August 26th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Had Pac-Man upset Nathan Drake, his mini-duel with Game & Watch would have potentially been hilarious. As-is, this was just a round 2 tribute to PokeFEAR. If you somehow doubted Blue's strength after the Rivalry Rumble, if you somehow doubted it after round 1, then there was no more denying it after this. 47% in a threeway round 2 poll means the dude is legit. I know hindsight is perfect, but a lot of people assumed Blue would lose in round 3 even with his good performance here, myself included. The belief was that since Pikachu took advantage of Magus + Crono to get into round 3, why couldn't Sora take advantage of Pikachu + Blue to win this division? The easy answer there is "lol Square", but the true answer is Pokemon was just a goddamn freak monster beast this contest. The only thing that actually managed to slow Pokemon down was... Pokemon. But we'll get to that later. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis It's weird seeing Mr. Game & Watch in a second round match. I asked my girlfriend the other night what franchise she would choose to get completely scrubbed from Smash Bros, and after thinking for a bit she answered "Game & Watch, as a kid I was excited to get the last character in Melee and I was bummed it was something so lame." I was like "what?!?!?!" because my friends and I all love Game & Watch, but I guess I can see her logic. He's barely a character, just some weird tribute to semi-obscure Nintendo history that Sakurai has made into a character, similar to how the personality-devoid Captain Falcon was nobody until Sakurai made him a goofy-super-athlete-turned-campy-action-hero. I'm struggling to find anything to say about some of these matches. Leon and some others are debating in the main Contest Stats topic right now about Uncharted 4's strength in contests, and while Western darlings seem to do well in GOTY polls, they either just do OK or poorly in actual contest settings. GameFAQs just doesn't care about many new games. Except, like... Dark Souls, I guess. Or new Nintendo IPs not named "ARMS." Did you know the ARMS Grand Finals at EVO this year only averaged about 1500 viewers? 1500 people in the world were interested in the world championships of a Nintendo fighting game. Is ARMS a bigger flop than Joy Mech Fight? I can't believe this match is so boring that I'm talking about ARMS. There's more to talk about in regards to Twintelle's ass than there is for this match. Blue looked much better here than he did in Round 1, but nothing groundbreaking. We had essentially just discovered a new midcarder, which really makes me question why we never seriously rallied Brock and Misty. Perhaps Board 8 is just sick of Pokemon? Here's a good question: **How many reps from a franchise have to be present in a bracket before you feel they have oversaturated it?** Not counting FF as one big franchise. --- ## (1)Samus Aran vs (22)Catherine vs (9)Knuckles the Echidna 2013 _source: (1)Samus Aran vs (22)Catherine vs (9)Knuckles the Echidna 2013 (revid 82215)_ ## Results **Round 2** Tuesday, August 27th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Samus and Catherine in a poll together is cute if you're into anime fanfiction garbage, but as a contest match in round 2? This was just a 1 seed tribute, with Samus putting Knuckles and Catherine in their place en route to easily moving on. In a contest where practically the entire Noble Nine would end up looking like crap, Samus was one of the few who just took care of business and did what she was supposed to do match after match. Worth noting here is Catherine proved herself not to be pure fodder that just got lucky in round 1. If you stretch this out into 1 on 1, 45% on Knuckles is no joke. I doubt that would actually happen in a real 1 on 1 setting, but let an old contest vet have his delusions of a 1 on 1 contest happening again down the line somewhere =/ ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Here's another example of "Anonymous" Allen submitting a pic. This time it's Samus. Maybe armored Samus looked too weird zoomed in, or maybe Ulti submitted a bunch of Samus tiddie pics like usual. As previously stated, my mission statement this contest was to "use pics nobody has used before" and that was mostly inspired by [these two](https://imgtc.com/i/JlCyeQs.png). Snake and ZSS' Brawl renders are such bland pics yet they are EVERYWHERE. I hate seeing them. They're overused not only here but on other websites to a fault. Stop using them, both characters have tons of other pics that are way better! Oh yeah Samus destroyed here, sorry Catherine and Knuckles. Samus looked good. --- ## (2)Ezio Auditore da Firenze vs (5)Auron vs (8)L-Block 2013 _source: (2)Ezio Auditore da Firenze vs (5)Auron vs (8)L-Block 2013 (revid 82216)_ ## Results **Round 2** Tuesday, August 27th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis A stat got thrown around during this match that just absolutely killed me: L-Block has only ever lost a match when Pokemon is involved. And it's actually true! He won the entire contest in 2007, and not once in that entire run did he have to face a Pokemon. In 2008 he won two matches, then lost in round 3 to Pikachu. In 2010, he won two matches and then lost in round 3 to Charizard. So in a way, it almost shouldn't have been a surprise that L-Block pulled off yet another huge upset in a contest setting, but because of how prevalent the sophomore slump theory is, people pick against any "joke" character once their initial contest passes. L-Block is a different beast though, because he is still 4chan's baby and is practically guaranteed to never lose a close match here. That being said, it took awhile before L-Block got a head of steam here. Auron built up an 80 vote lead early, lost it all in literally one update, then fought off the stall and got the lead back up to 100 seemingly just as fast. It continued like this for about 4 hours, with Auron building a small lead, losing it, rinse and repeat. But once 4:30 or so hit, 4chan took over, L-Block took off, and that, as they say, is that. L-Block never looked back, and then I saw that stat about L-Block and Pokemon that still just kills me. This set up a ton of L-Block hype, especially with people wanting to anti-rally Draven so badly, but it wasn't until Mario's loss to Vivi where people thought the entire Noble Nine could potentially all lose before the divisionals were even decided. Think about that for a second. A contest in tribute of the Noble Nine, and people seriously considering not one of them winning a division. That is nuts. ## Zen's Analysis Back when L-Block first won a contest, everyone was in on the joke. That's the general consensus today, although you'll still get some of the OG BUTTDEVESTATED people with no sense of humor that didn't find that contest fun. Now, L-Block has some decent strength, people still vote for him because they think it's funny. Yeah, I guess it still is to some extent. I think there's also some respect for the former champion that brought the internet together, and some users are still chasing that high. In 2013, though, 4chan was really the only one who thought a second L-Block victory would be "teh lulz" or whatever, so they rallied him again semi-successfully. It's scary to consider that the 4chan rallies we once feared are so substantially weaker than those of Reddit/Tumblr/Twitter. Auron should have been able to pull this off, but 4chan took advantage of the low votals once more to give L-Block the edge here, but having L-Block in Round 3 over Auron wouldn't change Round 3's result much. Ezio did OK here, he'll probably be back for one last hurrah if anyone remembers to nominate him. Hey, Ezio fans reading this, what do you think of the current state of Assassin's Creed? Have any protagonists come close to Ezio in terms of likability? --- ## (3)Dragonborn vs (15)Yuna vs (7)Tifa Lockheart 2013 _source: (3)Dragonborn vs (15)Yuna vs (7)Tifa Lockheart 2013 (revid 82217)_ ## Results **Round 2** Wednesday, August 28th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Pre-contest, Dragonborn had a ton of hype. He had an easy match in round 1, then potential Tifa/Yuna overlap in round 2, and then who knows! But then he completely crapped the bed in round 1, and everyone knew his run was over even with the overlap here. Pikachu \> Crono + Magus, this was not. The fact that Yuna only finished 1500 votes behind Dragonborn even with Tifa in the poll really tells the story by itself: Dragonborn was a complete flop in this contest. And even then, I wouldn't be fooled into thinking Skyrim wouldn't be just a complete monster of a game in any potential games contest down the line. Take Skyrim and put it in Game of the Decade in place of Majora's Mask. Doesn't it just win that contest outright? Or at least make the finals? ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I think Dragonborn's picture here is a statue. Woo. Yeah. We did it guys. Again. There was some residual DOVAHFEAR here, and I remember some lunatics took Dragonborn \> Tifa \> Yuna, but they were not only overestimating Dragonborn by a large margin but also the effects of LFF. Tifa and Yuna both did well here. In 2018, a Yuna vs Dragonborn 1v1 might be entertaining to watch, but probably not. Skyrim is strong on this site, but Dragonborn would need to somehow reflect every player's personal Dragonborn for him/her to stand a chance. --- ## (1)Mario vs (6)Vivi vs (9)Ganondorf 2013 _source: (1)Mario vs (6)Vivi vs (9)Ganondorf 2013 (revid 82220)_ ## Results **Round 2** Wednesday, August 28th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis For my money, this was the coolest upset of the entire contest. We saw most of the other coming at some point in some way, or they just didn't mean as much. But this one? Holy crap. A random beloved character like Vivi beating FREAKING MARIO when a 1 on 1 match between the two would be like 63-35 is hilarious. When Vivi kept things close early, we just blamed the board vote. But then the unthinkable happened, and Vivi kept it close past the board vote. Then somewhere in the first hour, probably right around here... ...the realization set in that Vivi wasn't going away. Even more nuts is 4chan caught wind of this poll and started helping Vivi build a small lead, and it probably would have ended right then and there without Mario's legendary clutch kicking in. For the first half of this poll, Vivi would build a lead of 50 or so, then Mario would erase it all in seconds, then Vivi would build a lead of 50 or so. But then the evening vote kicked in, people realized Mario might FINALLY get bitten by the upset bug after all these years, and Vivi got all the support en route to building up a lead of 200 with only 3 and a half hours left. Was the match over then, with Vivi's best time and Mario's worst coming? Of course not! IT'S FREAKING MARIO. He started shaving that lead away very slowly, then 10:30 hit, he went crazy and all of us assumed the Mario Clutch was kicking in. But Vivi somehow, some way, kept his cool and got the lead back to 100. Then Mario tried again, and Vivi again got it back to 100. It says something about our respect for Mario when he's losing by 100 with 10 minutes left and none of us thought the match was actually over. It wasn't until the 11:50 - 11:55 update where Mario only cut 8 did we realize this was actually going to happen, and it took like an hour postmatch for us to really let it sink in. To put this in perspective, Mario has NEVER been snakebit by a surprise upset or heartbreaking loss. Never. Not even in games contests. Everyone else in the Noble Nine has had to deal with it. Cloud has Mario in 2002. Snake has Crono in 2002, plus his inability to win a contest despite making the final every year, and Shadow of the Colossus running his series over. Crono has the Mario saga, plus his entire contest history since 2005 or so. Sephiroth has Solid Snake. Link has Cloud in 2003. Sonic has Samus in 2002. Mega Man has Sephiroth in 2002 and Crono in 2005. Samus has Sephiroth in 2002, and Mario "upsetting" her in 2005 because LOL X-Stats. But Mario? Never. He always pulled off the clutch late, until today. And the best part of all is this basically opened the floodgates to make the rest of this contest completely nuts. We legitimately all looked at the bracket and realized that in a contest meant to pay tribute the Noble Nine, it was possible for none of them to even win a division. That is completely nuts. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis what the fuck can I say about this match holy shit I still think about this match and it gives me absolute chills. Chills. I remember waking up and seeing how close this match was and my jaw fucking dropped. Like in real life, not metaphorically. Vivi going-toe-to-toe with the assumed 4th strongest of the Noble Nine, probably 3rd by this point. Yes, Ganondorf was LFFing Mario. That shouldn't matter. It's fucking Mario. I don't know anybody who called this unless they were half-joking. Nobody is going to say "I think Mario is going to lose to Vivi" unless they wanna get laughed off the board. I am so fucking proud of Vivi to this day. This is one of those matches that makes everything worth it. We put up with so much shit during this contest. Getting buttdevestated was like nothing when you were reminded that Vivi. Beat. Mario. --- ## (2)Squall Leonhart vs (5)Amaterasu vs (8)Missingno 2013 _source: (2)Squall Leonhart vs (5)Amaterasu vs (8)Missingno 2013 (revid 82218)_ ## Results **Round 2** Thursday, August 29th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis The best part about this match was Missingno's quote under the picture, because as a match this wasn't much. It's probably because Sephiroth set the stage for this one back in 2010, so we kind of saw what was coming. In 2010, Missingno built a 600 vote lead on Sephiroth in the first 2 hours of a 12 hour poll, then got swamped once the Square night vote took over. Here, he built up a lead of near 300 in an hour, but Squall was able to take over the poll pretty quickly without ever truly being threatened. Squall isn't Sephiroth, but he didn't need to be to take advantage of Missingno's prime already being past us. He probably doesn't come back on 2010 Missingno, but this was 3 years later. It ended what was supposed to be a good Missingno run a round early. The bad part here is that it meant Squall and Vivi sharing a poll in round 3, which meant neither character was going to be able to make a deep run and Red was given a bye into the final 9. Had Missingno pulled this off, I really think Vivi could have won the division. But we'll never know! ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Super dope match pic here, props to Allen for having fun. This is his Ryu / Jill CATS pic. Or maybe Milk Nukem. Or TV Kane. Damn, CJayC loved weird match pics. I miss that dude. Ever wonder if he still stops by this board? Maybe he's one of us. Maybe he's me. Maybe that explains some of my awful experimental match pics. Maybe I'm bullshitting. I'm bullshitting. This was the most exciting match we had gotten in a while, we knew Squall would beat Missingno, but there were plenty of non-believers. Judging by the snowball effect of these joke characters, Missingno should have grown a bit between rounds and given Squall a challenge. But he didn't. I think the main issue with Missingno goes back to what I discussed in Round 1: A lot of people take the idea of the "Character" Battle very seriously; just as pairings in Rivalry Rumble did well in that contest but badly once split up, people actually pay attention to contest theming. Thus all those topics where people whined that Missingno was a glitch and not a character actually meant something. Yeah, he still got joke votes, but the Pokemon fanbase barely considers him a Pokemon, and despite what your perceptions are, not everyone in the world is intimately familiar with and has nostalgia for Missingno. A ton of us do, but to most people he is as he appears: Just a weird glitch. Leon was super stoked to see Squall win this match but he knew it was going to happen. Ammy looked alright too, I hope she's back in 2018. --- ## (16)Wario vs (4)Pokemon Trainer Red vs (12)Urdnot Wrex 2013 _source: (16)Wario vs (4)Pokemon Trainer Red vs (12)Urdnot Wrex 2013 (revid 82219)_ ## Results **Round 2** Thursday, August 29th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis As a Wrex fan, that picture is an embarrassment and is just as good a reason as Vincent's pic why this yearbook idea was awful. He is not a midget. He's like a 1000 pound thing chiseled from stone (almost literally) that should by all accounts be towering over these other two losers. For all the things Mass Effect 3 does wrong, the biggest thing it gets wrong is lack of enemy variety. You fight Cerberus humans, Reaper stuff, and a few Geth. That's it. There's no massive variety to it like in 2, specifically playing that game on Insanity and knowing full well the fear of staring down a krogan in melee range. Brutes just are not the same, and EA obsessively putting Call of Duty garbage into all of their games is beyond old. As for the match itself, Wrex losing early to an SFFd Wario meant people were just going all-out in bashing Cecil and Pit's strength, and continued even after Wrex easily won second place. There's just something special about FF4's inability to win a match in character contests, I guess. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Ulti mentions in his writeup that he doesn't like Wrex's pic because he looks too small, but if you try to put him to scale with the others all you'd see was his forehead. This was a cool result. Why does Wario do like shit in these things? Yeah, he's not fodder, but it seems he's entirely carried by just being fairly well known but nobody really likes him enough to vote for him against better characters. Wrex did well here, he took advantage of the SFF to beat Wario. People underestimated him pretty hard and were taking Wario here for second despite Red's presence, but the result seems pretty obvious in retrospect. --- ## (1)Mega Man vs (6)Kratos vs (19)Jill Valentine 2013 _source: (1)Mega Man vs (6)Kratos vs (19)Jill Valentine 2013 (revid 82221)_ ## Results **Round 2** Friday, August 30th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis If ever there was a calm before a storm, this match and the one after were definitely it. We thought the Zelda/DK/Charizard tilt would also be boring prep for the big Link/Draven match, but that one ended up being a pretty damn good match in its own right. There would be no random-ass upset here, a la Mario a few days prior. Nope, just Mega Man kicking ass and taking names, the way a 1 seed is supposed to do in the early rounds. The mid-contest Brawl announcement definitely helped him out, though we didn't know exactly how until a round from now. The only thing of any interest here was Jill "upsetting" Kratos for second place, though it was clear that she was going to do that pre-match and it was an upset in seeding only. Kratos has fallen off a lot in popularity for whatever reason, though I'd like to see that duel without Jill's laughable MvC3 appearance. The entire MvC3 franchise, and Capcom in general quite frankly, needs to just go away. So bad. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Jill loves to give us close, entertaining matches. Mega Man blew these two out pretty hard, and he ended up looking great here despite Jill and Kratos not exactly being pushovers. That left Jill and Kratos to fight for the scraps, and if I remember correctly while Jill was the favorite, Kratos had his share of support as well. Kratos was getting a lot of hate at the time and the really mediocre reception of Ascension didn't help. There was also that nontroversy about that Ascension achievement being named "bros before hoes." It was patched after people complained to change it to "bros before foes." I can't believe people made a big deal about literally nothing. Jill seems to stay decently consistent with her strength, and Capcom loves her so much that it's constantly throwing her bones. She didn't get an RE7 cameo or anything but she was in an RE5 DLC (probably the best part of that game) and was a main part of the RE5 story. Revelations was pretty good, too, and it's been re-released several times. So was this really an "upset" of Kratos? Maybe of classic Kratos, but not 2013 Kratos. The new God of War should boost Kratos quite a bit, it doesn't have the deepest gameplay ever and it gets a little repetitive but there are fresh ideas and a good story in there and I think it will win back a good amount of voters for Kratos. The director says he's planned for six (?!) more God of War games, so we're not going to see Kratos fade away any time soon. Did you know that David Jaffe's original ending for God of War III was having Kratos meet Egyptian and Norse Kratos, teaming up with them to kill Ra, Odin and Zeus, and then becoming the three wise men? Like, the ones from the bible. Yeah. Sony rejected this pitch, and who could blame them? That's... pretty bad, even by God of War standards. --- ## (2)Zero vs (23)Weighted Companion Cube vs (20)Rikku 2013 _source: (2)Zero vs (23)Weighted Companion Cube vs (20)Rikku 2013 (revid 82222)_ ## Results **Round 2** Friday, August 30th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Mega Man fans are among the smartest out there, and most of them knew to not vote for Zero in this match. Mega Man and Zero in the same match meant a free pass for Charizard, and Mega Man fans were holding out hope of everyone's favorite little blue guy winning this division. So, a good deal of them voted for everyone's favorite little cube instead! The fact that Weighted Companion Cube is far beyond sophomore slump status as a joke character and still almost beat Rikku anyway is hilarious. None of this made any difference in the grand scheme of the match because Zero was winning this no matter what, but still. The Cube actually got a 200 vote lead cut all the way down to 70 before Square's evening vote took over, too. But between Cube losing here and ?-Block in round 1, Rikku was the joke slayer of this contest. Always seems to be Square in that spot, too. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Another pretty banal match that, despite being close, wasn't much of a surprise in the end. People who still feared the joke vote were championing WCC here, but I think Missingno tanking really put a stopper in a lot of their arguments. Zero did well here, he set the stage for a lot more people pushing for Charizard \> Mega Man. WCC was a bit closer to Rikku at the beginning of the match, but I can just imagine voters rolling their eyes when they saw it on the front page again. Slowly Rikku pulled away. People were getting tired of all these jokes. It's been 5 years, how will people respond to L-Block in 2018? Has the meme made a comeback? Rikku looked good in her two appearances here. Is she the strongest non-main, non-villain, non-love interest FF character outside of Auron? Someone needs to tier all FF characters that have ever appeared in a contest. --- ## (16)Zelda vs (15)Donkey Kong vs (7)Charizard 2013 _source: (16)Zelda vs (15)Donkey Kong vs (7)Charizard 2013 (revid 82223)_ ## Results **Round 2** Saturday, August 31st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This match was supposed to be an easy win for Charizard en route to easily taking advantage of Mega Man + Zero to win the division, but then something funny happened. Zelda and Donkey Kong decided to join in on the fun and create a massive Nintendo f\*\*\*fest, which jammed everything up beyond belief. What ended up happening is once Charizard won the early vote (very early), Zelda started taking off. DK was never a threat to win this poll, but just him being there completely messed things up for Charizard, and would have easily lost without all the rallying. Zelda got the lead up to 160 in an hour, which is Pokemon's best time, and it was everything Charizard could do to keep her from going nuts overnight. He stalled here and there, but Zelda got the lead near 300 overnight. Which leads us full circle. Most of you won't remember this, but that whole joke about WAIT UNTIL THE KIDDIES WAKE UP started back in 2002, when characters like Tails and Kirby faced early upsets. The joke has lived on year after year, but this might be the best example of the kiddies truly waking up and bailing out a Pokemon from a sure loss. Charizard won the morning vote and got the lead all the way down to 40, but Zelda managed to recover and get the lead back to 140 in surprising time. Then the rallies took over. Zelda had a 100 vote lead at around 10:30 in the morning, and Charizard managed to erase all of it in 15 minutes. But Zelda characters are very hard to rally against, so The Zard was never able to take off and go nuts. He only built up a lead of 80, which Zelda them promptly slapped aside. The match came down to the very last update, which is all anyone could ever want. Charizard had a 19 vote lead with 5 minutes left, and in the last frantic push to win the poll, the last update went Zelda 118, Charizard 114. This meant Charizard winning the match by 15, but if ever there was a Pyrrhic Victory in this contest, this was it. A character favored to win a division and challenge for a contest title doesn't almost lose to freaking Zelda-with-Donkey-Kong-in-the-poll. He just doesn't. I won't go as far as calling Charizard a flop in this contest, because he wasn't, but this was just a bad performance. Without the kiddies waking up and without those late rallies, he easily loses. Even with those, he almost lost. If this match was 24 hours, he probably loses. Hell, give Zelda any picture other than s\*\*\* from Wind Waker, and he probably loses. This was just bad, and it really opened the door for what would end up happening to him in round 3. Charizard is still really strong, but he was definitely overrated from 2010's stats due to HGSS coming out the day of the match with Bowser. His true strength is more what we saw in this match, really. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis I forgot what I originally wrote here, it wasn't that interesting. POKEFEAR was still at an all time high and surprisingly people attributed Zelda's performance here more to her strength than Charizard's weakness. I went on The Show a little after this because at the time I was the Guru frontrunner (??) assuming Charizard beat Mega Man and Zero. Apparently I had that but I wasn't feeling so good about it after this, but NG asked me if I was feeling confident and I gave a half-hearted yes because... uh... Well, I did want to win the Guru. I usually don't even take Guru seriously and don't follow the results so when they contacted me I was more shellshocked than anything. NG and Yo were still pretty supportive of Charizard \> Mega Man after this, and I can see why. The general climate of the board was pretty depressing at the time. Everyone had basically resigned the contest to Pokemon and rallies. Probably the worst I've ever seen us. The community wasn't as lively and that was a big reason I took off during the next contest and didn't come back until now. The wounds these Pokemon and rallies have caused were greater than we imagined at the time. Zelda is an actual character now and a real cutie in Smash so I bet she'd beat the Zard if that match happened today. DK also looked bad here, he really falls over and dies at the slightest hint of a challenge. He was lucky to even be in round 2. --- ## (1)Mario vs (1)Crono vs (7)Mega Man X 2013 _source: (1)Mario vs (1)Crono vs (7)Mega Man X 2013 (revid 82202)_ ## Results **Bonus** Saturday, August 31st, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Had this match happened in the early to mid 2000s, people may have cared about it. Now? It's the best bonus match we could come up with through Luster Soldier's polls, and even then we all knew Mario would win. Even with Mega Man X in the poll stealing votes from him. I know Crono may have also had votes leeched due to the SNES connection, but Mario would get hurt more than Crono in a poll like this. And even then, it was never a contest. Mario/Crono is dead and is no longer a debate: Mario won. The end. It makes me wonder how Crono was able to pull off that one win in 2004, but that's an era long past. This also makes me wonder how in the hell Mario managed to lose to Vivi. If you put Mega Man X in Mario's place, does Vivi still win? Hell, if you put Crono in Mario's place, does Vivi win? I doubt it. That upset was as goofy as it was awesome, but I'm not complaining. It would have also been nice to see Mega Man vs Mega Man X pre-Brawl U announcement, because I think Mega Man X could have won that poll. Now? No chance. This ended round 2, and our bonus polls entirely until the end of the contest. It was a pretty interesting round, all things considered, but it could in no way prepare us for how nuts the rest of this contest would be. Round 3 and on of this contest was on par with the 2002 stretch of Samus \> Sonic, Sephiroth \> Mega Man, and Mario \> Cloud back to back to back. I really believe that. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Here's another match where I wonder what the hell we were thinking. Why X in this match? Did we really need Mario vs Crono for a tenth time? Crono has dropped so much in the decade leading up to this match that this didn't even need to be a question. Even with X potentially sapping some of Mario's votes away he was still able to beat Crono quite comfortably. Could X beat Crono if Mario weren't here? Maybe. I seriously don't think Crono is going to be shit come CBX. I'd be shocked if he made it out of Round 3, even with a good seed. Put him up against a Pokemon and watch him crumble. --- ## (1)Link vs (2)Commander Shepard vs (3)Draven 2013 _source: (1)Link vs (2)Commander Shepard vs (3)Draven 2013 (revid 82226)_ ## Results **Round 3** Monday, September 2nd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis "I never thought I'd see the day where Link was the shining, glimmering, white knight of hope for our contests. But by god Reddit has done it." -FFDragon Just a few notes before we get going. For those playing the home game, I took something like a two month break between writing round 2's bonus poll and starting this writeup. I've played a lot of League since then, so people hoping for me to be 100% biased in Link's favor and against Draven are going to be disappointed. As pure characters, Draven is awesome and is vastly better than Link. Both pale in comparison to Shepard, but hey! The other thing to remember is that my tone might not be as fluid or as related to past writeups as in contests past. There were simply too many matches to burn through all at once, and I got burned out. But I'm good now, so let's finish this! There's a ton to talk about here, but let's start with Commander Shepard. I don't think it's a coincidence that Shepard's best contest run ever also coincided with Shepard finally getting some female pictures, because there is a massive number of Mass Effect players that prefer the female version. And regardless of which gender you play as, most people agree that FemShep's voice work is better. Point being, Shepard even being in this match at all was kind of an honor. When people go back and look up arguably the most nutty 24 hours we've ever had on GameFAQs, Shepard's name will pop up. This is also as good time as any to discuss Mass Effect 3. I'm in love with the Mass Effect series, and I suppose I lucked out by waiting a bit to play through 3, since the ending I saw was extended cut right off the bat for me. The extended cut ending is decent, and the original is certainly "bad", but I wouldn't consider the entire thing something worth whining so much about. Gamers are seen as entitled crybabies, and things like the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy definitely prove why. Stuff like this along with gaming journalism have more or less removed all the wonder from gaming, and it's why I don't bother looking anything up before playing anything. I like still feeling like a kid and not feeling like I've beaten a game before playing it, you know? Now, you can practically see an entire game play out in videos before it hits shelves. Some people like that, I don't. To the point. Mass Effect 3 is still really good and I think it's a worthy ending to the trilogy, outside the one new character you get introduced to at the very end and Bioware failing in their implementation of indictrination theory. They were clearly going for the angle of how Shepard gets indoctrinated, but the new writers messed up in getting there because there was no good sense of foreshadowing. I have some issues with the gameplay looking too Call of Duty for my liking, but the heart of things is still there. I have a pretty long rant about multiplayer, but I'm saving it for another day. It's fun and I'm going for Best of the Best, but the massive amount of glitches and Bioware pulling support for something that people like enough to still play is just dumb. The Mass Effect series is amazing and Shepard being involved in a match like this was good times. She gets her own little spot in history. But the headline here was Link vs Draven being the most hyped match since Mario vs Crono 2003, and it ended up being our best match since Mario vs Crono 2003. There was everything: a massive comeback attempt, controversy abound, and enough whining to open a vineyard. The whole reason things were so hyped is because for the first time since the early 2000s, GameFAQs felt threatened by an outside source. Reddit, in this case. Draven clearly cheated in round 1 to beat Jak (which was since admitted and proven, more or less), but that's when Reddit caught on to people hating what Draven was doing in our contest and the trolls made it their personal mission to stick it to crybabies like Black Turtle. Then the legendary round 2 beating of Mega Man X and Ryu happened, and suddenly Link was in trouble. If Link came out and put forth a "normal" performance, like he had done in rounds 1 and 2, he would have no chance and score like 26% in the match. Round 2 Draven is one of the strongest characters we'll ever see in a contest. The hype was so huge that it took over the entire round 2 narrative. You won't see much discussion of round 2 matches after Draven/Ryu/MMX, because half of the board's discussion was about the big round 3 duel. By the time the match actually happened, this place was ready to burst. This match also helped prove that 24 hours for a big match is WAY better than 12 hours. By far. When the match finally started, Draven went completely nuts. Link and Shepard fed a double kill in the lane early, and with the new League of Draven passive (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Draven#League_of_Draven) that can make things snowball out of control at an alarming rate. Draven having all that extra gold early put this match on notice, and overnight he just got masses of kills until he led by 5500 votes. Now under normal situations, the match would be completely over. Draven's 5500 vote lead came at 6:30 in the morning, right? If you go look up Link's other two legendary losses (Cloud and L-Block), Cloud was winning by 1900 and L-Block was winning by 6600 at the exact time. And those matches were over come morning, too. But this one was a bit different. For starters, no rally has staying power and Draven's best shot happened overnight. No matter how busy the LoL subreddit gets, most people who care about things like this will have voted early. The other factor at work is that League of Legends is huge in Europe. Come American morning time, the European dudes looking to go pro in League are all starting to go to sleep. Add in Link's day vote dominance, and the theory was that Draven could have built any amount of lead overnight and it would not have mattered. Link had the potential to come back and win. Draven slowly increased his lead until 6100 or so, and held strong until 9 in the morning, but then the proverbial floodgates opened and all hell broke loose on GameFAQs. Link absolutely began tear-assing through Draven's lead, and just refused to slow down all through the morning and all through lunch. That 6100 votes? It was down to 4000 within hours, and Link was well on pace to finish coming back and pull off the most epic contest win ever. But then, depending on who you ask, the impossible happened. GameFAQs virtually froze to a halt, for about an hour, right in the middle of Link cutting 100 votes off of a lead every 5 minutes. It was almost impossible to consider this a coincidence, and the prevailing theory was a perfectly timed DDoS attack on the site. The site did eventually come back online, and Link got a few more big updates to get the lead below 3000, but then out of nowhere Draven started going nuts again. It only took Draven about 3 hours to get the lead from 3000 to 5200, which was just as weird as the site freezing in the first place. It takes a lot of coincidence for a site freeze during such a massive poll, but it takes a hell of a lot more than just a coincidence for Draven voters to be that ready to go once the site came back to full speed. Of all the theories that got thrown around about whether the down time was DDoS or not, that's the one that makes the most sense to me. Trends don't just flip on a dime like that, it takes a little while to shift. But here, the down time happened and then almost immediately upon the site coming back, Draven went berserk again. That isn't normal, and I think there was outside interference involved in some way. Not that Allen thinks so, mind you. GameFAQs is served by two proxy servers in rotation, and what we see in the logs is that one of them would go down, shifting traffic to the second, which would then get overloaded and go down, shifting traffic back to the first, repeat. Unlike a DDoS attack, there was no increase in inbound traffic, and the two proxy servers were failing one at a time, not simultaneously. It could have been a DDoS, but it looks a lot more like just a bad coincidence. Since the site was never truly offline, just slow and randomly failing, it took a while for the operations team to get paged out, but once they got online and started investigating all it took was rebooting the proxies to bring everything back to normal, which isn't how you'd normally recover from a DDoS. tl;dr: Earlier downtime most likely wasn't an attack. Also since people will probably ask, we are indeed checking into the legitimacy of all incoming votes and so far, everything appears to be legit. Here's a graph of our two load balancers: You can literally see one failing and the other one picking up the load. All these people claiming admissions of DDoS have shown me nothing but hostility. You're seeing what I'm seeing with the load balancers, so show me what I'm not seeing if you have proof otherwise. RockMFR posted... "To me, this is exactly what you'd see in a connection flood attack. Attack starts, both servers overwhelmed, one server stops responding first, load balancer takes traffic off that server, connections gradually released on first server, traffic shifts back, etc. If you're not defending against this type of attack, the attacker wouldn't necessarily have to keep up what they're doing. A few seconds of traffic could lock your servers up for hours, until you reboot them. It wouldn't take massive amounts of traffic, or even traffic from more than 1 IP address. Before you rebooted them, did you see any evidence of a SYN flood? Did you check what connections were open?" Allen: A DDoS typically involves an onrush of incoming traffic, enough traffic to overwhelm a server's ability to handle connections, and an attack against the site would involve both of our proxies at the same time in equal amounts. That's not what happened here. There was no increase in traffic, and the servers failed in series. No SYN flood was spotted, and simply rebooting a server does not end a DDoS attack, it only lets it recover from internal issues. Now, what has happened in the past with our particular build of this load balancer is that they do run into memory issues over time, and the symptoms of this are repeated short periods of lag and failures, quickly building in time and severity until the server is just barely responsive. We've seen this on internal proxies, not just external, and the only solution is to bounce the box. Kind of like what we saw happen today. This would've been handled more quickly by our ops team, but it happened on a holiday when our ops team wasn't around. I'm not saying it wasn't a DDoS attack, just saying that there's no clear evidence of one. In terms of vote stuffing, here's a look at our incoming traffic to the poll page: I'd love to see Link make the ultimate come from behind win, but if he doesn't, it's not because of cheating. You can attack me all that you want to, but Draven's winning on his own. I'll just let Lopen and Noob Avenger handle the math on this one. Then00bAvenger posted... Downtime was affected from 12:16 to 13:51, a total of 95 minutes, in which there was 1680 votes cast. Of those 1680 votes, 55.84% were for Link, 27.56% were for Draven. If you go by the last 20 minutes before the down time, the average votes per 5 minutes is ~335. If you go by that, then if there was no downtime, there would be 6327 votes cast. A difference of 4647. Using the same ratio that they got during the down time, 2595 would go to Link while 1281 would go to Draven. A loss of ~1300 votes for Link against Draven. If you go further and calculate the 20 minutes after the downtime and add it to the 20 minutes before the down time(but skipping the first update after the downtime was over because the totals are going to be inflated there), you get 375 average votes per 5 minute update. That gives a total of 7125. A difference of 5445, with 3040 for Linkand 1500 for Draven. Here we have a loss of 1500 for Link. If you wanted to be conservative, Link would have 1000 extra votes compared to Draven here. On the upper scale, it can go as high as 1500. And at the rate Link is currently coming back, Draven's lead may very well end under 1500. Lopen posted... You do realize the backfire effect applies to your interpretation of the data as well, right? Perhaps moreso, because most people chose to believe your claims that there was no vote stuffing until it was made very very very prominent. I've looked at the data and actually revised my thoughts that Draven was stuffing in r1, but r2 and r3 the rallied votes just got to Draven at too absurd a rate to ignore. I'd also like your thoughts on these numbers and why they would pan out like this. It's an analysis of where the approximated rallied votes went for the first 7.5 hours of the poll for each of the three matches, based on Draven's estimated GameFAQs strength and looking at how each of the three entries in the matches were increasing in votes. I could explain the whole process if you want more-- it's nothing that complicated though. Link vs Shepard vs Draven Time: Link + Shepard's %, (approximated extra votes) 0:05-0:35: 27.4% (5380 approximated extra votes) 0:35-1:05: 28.1% (3102) 1:05-1:35: 33.1% (3031) 1:35-2:05: 28.5% (2650) 2:05-2:35: 24.3% (2255) 2:35-3:05: 19.7% (1859) 3:05-3:35: 19.3% (1643) 3:35-4:05: 19.3% (1627) 4:05-4:35: 18.3% (1428) 4:35-5:05: 21.5% (1329) 5:05-5:35: 16.1% (1042) 5:35-6:05: 13.4% (977) 6:05-6:35: 6.1% (858) 6:35-7:05: 8.1% (854) 7:05-7:35: 7.0% (775) Ryu vs MMX vs Draven Time: MMX + Ryu's %, (approximated extra votes) 0:35-1:05: 10% (4378 approximated extra votes) 1:05-1:35: 10.3% (4878) 1:35-2:05: 11.9% (4106) 2:05-2:35: 12.4% (3620) 2:35-3:05: 7.9% (2838) 3:05-3:35: 12.3% (3259) 3:35-4:05: 8.4% (2481) 4:05-4:35: 5.8% (2221) 4:35-5:05: 9.8% (2265) 5:05-5:35: 5.1% (2173) 5:35-6:05: 5.2% (2029) 6:05-6:35: 8.2% (2126) 6:35-7:05: 6.4% (1946) 7:05-7:35: 2.4% (1864) Jak vs Chie vs Draven Time: Jak + Chie%, (approximated extra votes) (extra votes before here were trace) 3:05-3:35: 4.4% (411) 3:35-4:05: 1% (770) 4:05-4:35: 9.7% (656) 4:35-5:05: 10.4% (888) 5:05-5:35: 11.9% (906) 5:35-6:05: 12.5% (770) 6:05-6:35: 28.9% (944) 6:35-7:05: 35.7% (843) 7:05-7:35: 29.5% (734) Allen never actually ended up responding to Lopen's post there, since it fully covers just how hard Draven was stuffing the the first two rounds. I'm of the belief that Draven beat Link fairly, but anyone pretending those numbers in the first two rounds are legit is just lying to themselves. Now once this topic happened and it became clear that Allen was going to allow the down time results to stand, people absolutely lost their goddamn minds. I won't go crazy mentioning names or bringing up quotes and such, mainly because I was so disgusted by how the board was acting that I didn't save anything beyond Allen's explanation, but it was bad. Like, really bad. Bad enough to where if Allen never wanted to run another contest, no one would really blame him. I will say though that XIII and ExThaNemesis were the worst of the bunch that I can remember, and this needs to be put in the archive somewhere, though an argument can also be made that transience and Sir Chris asskissing through the entire thing can be equally bad but from the opposite direction. It was just a complete mess, and one I'm glad is mostly behind us. I say "mostly" because a couple of people still feel the need to ruin any topic where you bring this stuff up, even though everyone that was there remembers what happened. This isn't like Cloud/Mario 2002 where a lot of people claim they were there but weren't; Board 8 is no longer a magnet community after each contest and our memories are pretty solid. And the people who deny how badly they behaved that day are kind of hilarious, in the same way a dog crapping on the floor tries pretending nothing happened. And this was just the public stuff, apparently people were even worse via PM. The point of me bringing all this up, outside just having it in the archive, is that Allen has tried for years to have a contest where people remembered him alongside CJayC as a contest administrator, rather than simply the guy that took them over once CJayC left. He managed to finally accomplish this, but I don't know if Allen knew going in just how awful that Mario/Crono 2003 match was for CJayC personally. I still remember Ceej bringing that match up years later, and his passion for making contests was never the same. To have that kind of a contest for yourself, you need a controversy somewhere that people remember years later. Link/Draven is that match for Allen. Allen is obviously a lot more emotionally stable and less of an introvert than CJayC, which is why he didn't go on a banning spree like Ceej would have, but one has to wonder if he'll ever have the fire for a contest again after this stuff. I can't overstate just how badly people treated him over this Link/Draven thing, and I'll be surprised if it isn't the first thing Allen considers when deciding on a new contest. Is GameFAQs, despite most people here being between 17 and 32 years old (http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5097), mature enough to handle losing? That begs the question of how mature gamers are, and I think everyone knows that answer to that one. Gamers have always had a stigma attached to them for a reason, though that's a separate thesis for a separate topic. The point here is GameFAQs lost its collective mind once Allen allowed the DDoS thing to go unresolved, and regardless of how anyone feels about Allen I do think it says a lot about the GameFAQs of today that the entire site froze just because of a big contest match. And even then, this match only finished with 122000 votes. The 2007 final had 195360 votes and ran like a machine. I'm not technoloigcally intelligent at all, but I don't get it. The craziest thing of all is the match still had 5 hours to go, and it just wouldn't be the epic kind if this wasn't always one more story to tell. That 5200 vote lead? Yeah, someone in Link's camp took notice and decided to go nuts in their own right. Between some very obvious vote-stuffing that no one even denies anymore (seriously, there was one update that took off like 260 votes in 5 minutes) and the most hilarious rallies I can think of, Link once again went on the warpath. Oh and those rallies were scraping the bottom of every barrel, by the way, to hilarious levels. You had your basic Facebook and forum rallying, but then there were people getting retweets from WWE superstars like Trent Baretta and also hoping to get AJ Lee to bail Link out. And weren't people also going for Dusty Rhodes before Cody's arm broke, or something? All the stops and all the kitchen sinks got thrown as this match for the final push, but Link, the Hero of Time, simply.... ran out of time. Link would end up losing this match by 765 votes and never truly threatening to come back and win, but even still, Link in this match is the most impressive loser we've ever had to date in a contest. Screw all the other numbers. This dude pulled the largest comeback in contest history, TWICE IN THE SAME MATCH, and still lost. It also makes the down time and Allen's refusal to rerun the poll even worse, because the poll finished close enough to where the gray area caused by the down time was basically the entire reason for the difference. Link got robbed of having a full 24 hours to try and win, and even Draven got robbed in his own right if you use the Rocky analogy. "I won, but I didn't beat him!" -Apollo Creed And the Rocky 1 ending is basically what this match was (spoilers): Us not getting a restart is what keeps this match from being the absolute greatest even instead of just in the discussion, because the down time really is the black cloud hanging over everything. There was no resolution at all. Not that Allen agrees a restart is needed, mind you. Rerunning the poll solves nothing. Even if Link won the second poll, there'd be a completely legitimate argument that we should run it a third time to see the "true" winner, and so on. And disregarding that, the shock of seeing Link lose the first poll could sway people to change their vote in the second poll. There are too many variables that could affect the outcome that are significantly worse than the site not running at full capacity for an hour and some change. 'I'm sitting here, on my vacation time, hunting down information and sharing it with everyone. I've been called so many offensive and rude things that I've lost track of them all, and I'm blowing off my visiting relatives from out of town for the privilege. I've posted all of the information I have to prove that nothing's going on, but you are all still calling me a liar/lazy/etc. I'm done for the day. I'm going to go and spend time with my family who came to see me. I'm not even mad at you guys, just deeply disappointed. Enjoy the rest of the contest. I probably won't.' SBAllen posted...The results of tonight's contest are final, and here is why: There was no evidence of a DDoS. According to our network operations team, this morning's outage had none of the hallmarks of a DDoS attack, and they're very familiar with them. There were plenty of claims that someone on Reddit was bragging about DDoSing the site, but people brag about things on reddit all the time, and nobody seems to have actually produced a screenshot showing where this claim was even made. And, even if hypothetically there were a DDoS attack, there's no telling who was actually responsible, it could have just as easily been a Link fan sabotaging the battle to force a do-over. Anybody who wanted to vote had ample opportunity to vote. While we did have 85 minutes of network trouble in the morning, this happened early in the day, and it's hard to imagine that anybody who wanted to vote in the contest was actually prevented from doing so. They just had to wait a bit longer than normal, or come back later. Even if the slowdown mired Link's rally, you can see from the charts we had an immediate large influx of votes immediately afterwards that negated a good portion of it. Re-running the contest would be seriously biased towards Link, and throws off the schedule of the entire bracket. Extending the vote time another 85 minutes would be just as seriously biased in favor of Link, no question about it. Reddit's rallies had died down, and Link had been gaining for hours. Like I said earlier, despite the outage, nobody was prevented outright from voting during the rest of the day. Plus, averaging out the last 2 hours, Link was gaining 7.09 votes/minute on Draven. Another 85 minutes of the same pattern, that's 602 more Link votes, not enough to change the outcome. Although to be honest, those last 10 minutes of votes were "interesting". There was no evidence of massive vote stuffing. Running comparisons of ISP usage, browser usage, and even first pageview time to first vote time, the numbers matched up between Link and Draven (i.e. 40% of German Draven voters on Vodafine, 41% of Link voters; 47% of Draven voters use Chrome, 44% for Link). The percentages matched up, leaving no distinctions between Draven and Link voters that would reveal a pattern of vote stuffing. Finally, all of the the voting rallies we saw were consistent with traffic from external sites. The Draven rallies from Reddit, the Facebook-driven Link rally, and small boosts from the official LoL boards, Twitter, twitch.tv and even 4chan, it all matched up with the inbound traffic we saw in Google Analytics. Of course, this probably won't change anybody's minds thanks to the Backfire Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Backfire_effect). I've tried to be as open and honest as I can be about what's going on behind the scenes here, and if you can't take my word for it then there's really nothing else I can do or say to convince you that even though it's all a big meaningless popularity contest, we're trying our hardest to run it as fairly as possible. So regardless of if anyone agrees, the results of what was basically a 23 hour match stood as final. The aftermath was predictable, and basically the same as what happened when the down time was announced as not a DDoS, so I won't get into all that. The funnier aspect was Reddit invading Board 8 for a few days, which is I would like to expand a bit. I'm a League player, and I really love the game. I've played a looooooooot of Dota, almost an unhealthy amount, but I can finally and with no apologies admit that League is just.... better. Dota's intentionally hanging on to these archaic systems of doing things, going so far as putting Dota 1's glitches into Dota 2 just to appease guys like me. Which I can appreciate, but it makes for stagnant growth. I'll spare the technical details of the nonsense that's still in Dota 2 or why it will probably never be taken out, but the point here is that League never tries to stop growing. They just put in a hero whose ult can only be used on midair enemies, which promotes all kinds of teamwork thinking and strategy in play. Dota flat-out doesn't do things like this. To the point. League is awesome, and has a really good community despite the reputation. Reddit people are not, and are the kinds of players who get banned for in-game verbal abuse every other month. One knucklehead over there even made accounts mocking Kazbar's suicide, which is about as low as it can get, and this contest ending and taking those people away with them could not happen fast enough. Never has Board 8 been worse to read than the time between Link/Shep/Draven and the contest's aura finally wearing down. Reddit's a decent site, but some of the users over there make LL/4chan types look like saints. It's embarrassing what that site allows to go on unchecked over there. Regardless, the way Reddit was acting was no better than how GameFAQs acted, and the entire hype + match was really knocked down a bit because of it. There's nothing wrong with being proud of winning, but pretending facts aren't facts (like how the down time decided this match, period, and at the very least both characters were robbed of a potential legendary finish because of it) and rallying for every single Draven vs Link board poll? I really have to wonder how many of the people involved in this nonsense have jobs. We thankfully have a really humble loser around these parts, though! GloriousSweater posted...Congrats to the Draven/League of Legends supporters! This is your hour, and while I do think the circumstances surrounding the result are at least a little fishy, the result stands, the day is yours, and it is your right - no, your freakin DUTY - to celebrate like champions. And remember, you may have won this time, but the Hylian Hammer - favorite game character of gamers young and old from every corner of the globe - will be back. And to me, even on this day, Link still always wins. =) Congrats to the Hero of Time for another incredible contest! Seems like as good a note to end things on as any, though I do have to question why Board 8 has whined about Link always winning for years, then whined some more when he finally lost. You can't have it both ways and only be okay with Link losing when a character you all like is the one doing it. And play League of Legends, seriously. It's a fantastic game once you get through the learning curve! ## Zen's (Late) Analysis This was the one. This match was hyped up and talked about on and off the site days before it even happened. We knew that this was basically it, ironically all the Snake \> Link talk amounted to a bunch of "can the Snake that we believe to be stronger than Link take down Draven if Link fails?" It's surreal to see people speculating on Snake being the one to save us once a nobody character beat Link in Round 3. I've been following these things since I was 13 and I have never seen a day like this. The toxic LoL community were flooding the board and flooding the votes. 122000 votes exactly, wow. I'm sure Allen enjoyed the traffic, but not everything that came with it. While the board was drowning, we were counter-flooding Reddit, Twitter and Tumblr trying to rally the votes, and it just wasn't enough. Link couldn't keep up. We couldn't keep up. It's astounding we accomplished what we did. Getting an anti-rally together big enough to even come close to the size of Draven's rally is next to impossible. We even got some heavy hitters: I think Jennifer Hale tweeted about it too but I can't find it. The repercussions of this will be felt forever. Draven pulled off what was thought to be impossible. Again, L-Block was a different animal entirely. This was almost exclusively an outside push to interfere with the contests. Same with Undertale. We are now past the age of "Nintendo and FF always win!" and are now living in the age of "Rallied characters and games always win!" Neither are good, but I'd take the former any day. I don't think I can say anything that hasn't been said, but in 2018 I don't think Draven would make it out of Round 2. Just last week news broke that Chinese investor Tencent is really unhappy with Riot, whom they asked to port LoL to mobile. Riot refused, so, Tencent, being a Chinese company, made a blatant ripoff of LoL which is now one of the most popular games in China, eating up LoL's market share there. Heroes of the Storm, hero shooters, Battle Royales and other games made for streaming have taken over LoL's place, and that's also upsetting Tencent. Riot still assures its fans that numbers are good, just not nearly as good as its golden age. I don't see nearly as many LoL cosplayers and the booths are now much smaller than they used to be. LoL is stale now. Still popular, but stale. And as I mentioned before, Draven really dates this contest, just like in a few years the Undertale win will be dated. Link wins all the time, yeah, but a Link win in 2002 still holds up. As would a Link win in 2018. L-Block's win holds up too, it was just the climate of this site at the time. Link and Cloud deserved to be champions. Draven did not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EDIT: I forgot to mention the one hour freeze where Link's momentum was completely halted. See below for more details on that. I'm actually going to ask anyone who is reading this topic to chime in, I think what makes the Draven shit so crazy is that everyone had their own very strong opinions on Draven and the surrounding events I'd love to hear how you reacted during Link/Draven and how you feel about it now, a writeup for that match isn't complete without everyone shouting about their feelings I'll save some more for next round. oh yeah how the fuck did I forget th\[e site being down\]. This shit was INSANE, I cannot believe how obvious it was that this was intentional, but everyone on the site's end just kind of shrugged and let it happen I think I blocked this out of my mind because of how furious it made me --- ## (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (11)Mewtwo vs (7)Bowser 2013 _source: (1)Sonic the Hedgehog vs (11)Mewtwo vs (7)Bowser 2013 (revid 82227)_ ## Results **Round 3** Monday, September 2nd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis We needed a relaxing match after the LSD nonsense, and we would end up getting one. But even a "relaxing" match can be a huge surprise in the Summer 2013 Contest, because Mewtwo winning this thing as easily as he did was not expected at all. It may not have been completely out of left field since Mewtwo was the character targeted as an anti-Draven rallying point, but I don't even know if Mewtwo needed the extra help to do as well as he did this contest. He's gone berserk in the multi-way gimmick type contests before, most notably in 2008 when he advanced through three rounds of fourway nonsense to make the contest quarterfinal that year. This match was supposed to originally be a resolution of the Sonic/Vincent/Bowser stuff that people were peddling, and I maintain Sonic wins that hypothetical match with ease. But apparently if you replace Vincent with Mewtwo, you get Mewtwo ending things within a couple hours. Even the vaunted Sonic day vote that's saved his crew so many times in the past was no where to be found here, as Sonic put up very little resistance once the sun came up en route to Mewtwo winning by almost 4000 votes. Mewtwo wasn't going to beat Draven by any stretch, but getting that far and proving that he would have won the match had the rallies stayed off of Reddit was one hell of an accomplishment for the guy this year. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Spilling out of Link vs Draven was a match that had been fairly highly contested until this point. Nobody predicted there would be this much spillage from a rally. Yeah, the rallies had affected votals a little bit, but not to this extent. I don't know if any of us had predicted the Draven rally to be so much bigger in Round 3. I remember visiting one of the Draven rally threads on Reddit after the match was over, and while most comments were discussing how buttdecimated we all were, there were a few here and there saying "dang, I missed it, oh well, voted for Mewtwo" I don't know how much crossover there is between LoL and Pokemon but I'm assuming if you're hardcore enough to go to LoL communities you're probably enough of a huge nerd to absolutely love Pokemon. (ok that's a stretch but follow me here) This is slightly unrelated, but I read some statistics a few months back (that I can't find now, of course) and a lot of the people playing Fortnite have never played another online game before, and there's a chunk where they consider it their first "real game." LoL was huge at the time, I wouldn't be surprised if there were people voting who had never played a Sonic or Mario game but loved the Pokemon anime, but that's just personal conjecture. Originally people were arguing that Bowser would be strong enough to hold Mewtwo back for Sonic to take a win. After all, Ganondorf held back Mario enough for Vivi to win, so Sonic shouldn't have a problem here, right? Well, there's also the weird Nintendo SFF that includes Sonic on some level, but he's still SONIC, Noble Nine member and contest vet. Mewtwo didn't even double Phoenix Wright. Unfortunately for us it was 2013 and Mewtwo absolutely embarrassed Sonic thanks to rally spillover. You can champion the righteous cause of "rallies" all you want, but the definite downside is the negative effects it has on other matches. Reddit and tumblr links often stay circulating for days, and, yes, the GameFAQs site views go up, but our morale go down. Without the rally here, would Sonic have taken this in the year of Pokefear? Probably. Phoenix Wright was either really impressive in 2013 or Mewtwo was on rally roids in R3. Probably more the latter than anything. These results did get us hyped up that Mewtwo would be the anti-Draven, though. Pokefear had become our ally, like Magus or that food critic from Ratatouille. --- ## (1)Sephiroth vs (5)Big Boss vs (4)Kirby 2013 _source: (1)Sephiroth vs (5)Big Boss vs (4)Kirby 2013 (revid 82228)_ ## Results **Round 3** Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis By the time this match actually happened, people expected Kirby to win fairly easily, especially with Big Boss in the poll potentially leeching off of Seph's fanbase. The Noble Nine was collapsing left and right, and Kirby is exactly the type of character who benefits from matches where he sticks out like a sore thumb. The picture I chose to represent this match on the wiki, which I believe was made by Blue_Target, could not do a more perfect job of capturing this match. Seph and Big Boss are sitting there trying to look all hard, and off on the right you have Kirby pop up looking all cute and fluffy. Add in Vivi \> Mario, Draven \> Link and Mewtwo \> Sonic, and the groundwork was laid for Kirby to win this match. Unfortunately, it only worked out that way overnight. For reasons completely unbeknownst to me, Kirby and Sephiroth basically traded trends for this one match. You'd think Seph would be great overnight and Kirby would rock the day vote, but it was the other way around. Kirby built up a 100 vote lead over 45 minutes, then Sephiroth came back and erased things. They continued this dance overnight with Kirby building a small lead and Seph destroying it, which led most people into thinking that come the morning vote, Kirby would take this match and run with it. The morning vote came alright, but it was Sephiroth that went running with the match. He turned what had been a 5 hour tie into a steady rise, and would end up winning by 2269 votes. Things may have been really close for 5 hours, but for the other 19 there was barely any resistance at all, which really surprises me because while FF7 has a good day vote, Kirby doesn't exactly have a bad one. But that's this contest for you, making no sense whatsoever. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis It's weird to say that "Sephiroth pulled an upset here" and even weirder when you expand upon that and say "Sephiroth pulled an upset against Kirby here." Only in 2013! Votals were still pretty high, and for the most part they'd stay around there for a while. There were some wishful thinkers claiming that people brought to the site via rally were genuinely interested in the contest and wanted to see it through I am here to say that is wrong because, again, most people who aren't us just think "GAMEFAQS DUM CLOUD ALWAYS WIN!!!!" I guess those weren't the people who showed up for this match though because Sephiroth ended up winning a decently close match against Kirby, despite the supposed "PlayStation LFF" Big Boss was supposed to subject him to. Is there any actual evidence of that? I feel like that's a Nintendo thing. [Let's look at the PSASBAR roster](https://imgtc.com/i/Q06qPlx.jpg). I guess we'll have to wait for a match with both Emmett Graves and Fat Princess in it before we know for sure, they are definitely deserving of the title of PlayStation All-Star. Can't wait to see how hard Evil Cole LFFs Cole too. It kind of sucked (lol) to see Kirby give this one up to Sephiroth, he had the lead for a while here iirc. I remember waking up and seeing that Sephiroth had come back and wondering why it took the whole fucking contest for the FF fanbase to actually show up. I'm wondering how Big Boss is going to look in 2018 given that he's not even in MGSV for more than a few minutes. Is everyone aware of that twist now? I think I mentioned it in a previous post, whoops. Hope I didn't ruin the late Hideo Kojima's masterpiece. Wait, is Kojima dead, or just his career? Does Big Boss receive a boost from Snake being in Ultimate? Does Big Boss receive equal boosts to Snake whenever he gets one? --- ## (1)Solid Snake vs (2)GLaDOS vs (7)Kefka 2013 _source: (1)Solid Snake vs (2)GLaDOS vs (7)Kefka 2013 (revid 82229)_ ## Results **Round 3** Wednesday, September 4th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Picsmiths have been waiting for years for Kefka to get into the sprite round so we could go nuts with Laughing Kefka sprites all over the match pictures, so needless to say I think all the pictures had that sprite in there somewhere. I chose this pic to represent the match best though, because Laughing Kefka isn't the only contest all-star in this image. Lettuce Kefka, Potato GLaDOS, GLaDOS Core, Solid S\*\*\*, Angel Kefka, and Codec Snake are all in this one. As for the match itself, a lot of people were worried Kefka would ride his momentum past Snake, but that fear ended very quickly and Kefka's performance was about what we'd expect of him with nothing weird going on. Just Solid Snake taking care of business with no doubts en route to his finals run. But it wouldn't be Kefka if he didn't have a memorable exit, so of course he and GLaDOS go and set the wire to wire record on their way out. Because why not? I could go into the updater and give a massive recount of the duel these two had, but it's become harder over the years to narrate literal ties in matches that don't matter. It was fun to watch and root for, but the battle for second place only really mattered for the Expert Challenge guys at this point of the contest. And by literal tie, once GLaDOS came back from Kefka's very small early lead, these two spent all day never being more than 40 or 50 votes apart, with most of the time actually being in a dead heat. Matches like this usually have the same character building the small lead before losing it, and for about half the poll Kefka was the one trying to build the lead here. But then the FF6 day vote (or lack thereof) took over and GLaDOS became the one building leads that she seemingly could not keep. She would end up finally breaking through come the evening and night votes, en route to a commanding lead of 120, but it wouldn't be Kefka if there wasn't one final comeback attempt falling short. Final Score: GLaDOS wins by 69 votes and the weirdo anime fanfic people rejoice. At this point, Kefka could do anything from beat Link or Draven to losing to Soap MacTavish and I would not be surprised. Dude is flat-out impossible to predict in these things. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Hot on the heels of "Match That Makes No Fucking Sense" comes "Escape From Beneath the Planet of the Match That Makes No Fucking Sense," which is commonly accepted as the "Dark Knight" to the original's "Batman Begins." It was good to finally see Kefka get some laughing sprite pics, but because the rally juices were still flowing steadily nobody even got to see them as everyone just voted from the results page. As a result of the rallies, GLaDOS probably got a huge boost from people who just play PC games. Although shouldn't Kefka have gotten some kind of boost if Sephiroth did? Again, 2013. I still don't get how the fuck this happened. I incorrectly stated early on that GLaDOS had beaten Kefka handily, but that was my faulty memory and my (admittedly justifiable) impression that Kefka ain't shit. It's so ingrained in me that Kefka is a disappointment that I had a picture painted in my mind that this match wasn't close. But it was! Probably one of the most entertaining matches of this contest. Once again Kefka gives us an incredibly unpredictable, super fun match. Even if it's 100 years from now and we're knee-deep in Character Battle XV (at this rate we'd be lucky to hit XV) with a field oversaturated with Generation 62 Pokemon, I still want Kefka to get a spot in the bracket because he will always find a way to impress or massively disappoint. Both is good. At this point everyone had thrown out their brackets so we were just happy to get another good upset in there, although there was a dude so buttdevestated that Kefka lost that they account suicided. I'm not surprised, people get pretty emotional over this big head of lettuce. --- ## (1)Cloud Strife vs (5)Squirtle vs (4)Leon Kennedy 2013 _source: (1)Cloud Strife vs (5)Squirtle vs (4)Leon Kennedy 2013 (revid 82230)_ ## Results **Round 3** Thursday, September 5th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis So, remember when Dante was supposed to beat Squirtle? Remember when people said the big Pokemon RBY \> Final Fantasy 7 upset in the Rivalry Rumble bonus poll would mean nothing in this contest? I think Leon overlapping with Cloud to some degree had a lot to do with Cloud losing in this match, but in years past it would not have mattered and Cloud would have stomped this poll anyway. But now, with all the decline in FF7's strength that will only continue on a downward trend? Squirtle can open up a 250 vote lead in an hour an no one even blinks, because by the time this match happened most people expected something similar. But expecting a cool upset is waaaaay different from actually seeing one happen. I'm a huge FF7 fan, but this match was AWESOME. Cloud made a game of things overnight, erasing Squirtle's lead by the time the morning vote hit. And FF7 does have a really good day vote, so in theory if the Squareheads showed up in numbers Cloud could win this while the sun was up, similar to how he beat Samus in 2010. But it was simply not to be, and Cloud's trends in this match were eerily similar to his match with Mario in 2002. Squirtle build a lead of 150, and that lead fluctuated between 150 and 250 for pretty much the entire day. One would assume the evening and second night votes would then be friendly to Cloud in this regard, but just like in 2002 that support completely abandoned Cloud when he needed it most. Come the evening, Squirtle pushed this thing up to 450 votes and simply never looked back. It would end up another loss on the FF7 resume that the game will simply not be able to recover from. It's unfair to FF7, but it's the GameFAQs mascot for Square hatred in the polls these days. This also wasn't one of those upsets where a rally or cheating was needed; Squirtle just outright beat Cloud fair and square, which probably made it the coolest upset of the contest. No stupid 4chan or Reddit rallies required. This would also start a run where in the next 8 matches, 7 of them would feature Pokemon. I know Draven and Link were the story of the contest, and for good reason, but Pokemon dominance is also a storyline in there somewhere. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis ere's the next entry in the "Fuck It I Give Up" Sextology, this time involving a funny blue cartoon turtle beating former contest champion Cloud Strife because reasons Reason 1) 4chan did not like Cloud and wanted Squirtle to win. Ulti mentions in his writeup that Squirtle didn't need a rally but I really don't think that's the case. You can see the votal increase on this match and 4chan had mentioned in a lot of their previous rallies that they were going to support Pokemon in the matches, and although there was less support it was still there. Again, we also still had a little spillover from the Draven rally posts, which probably benefit the Pokemon more than anyone else. Reason 2) Ain't nobody give no shits about FF anymore unless it is specifically Sephiroth when he is against Kirby or Gilgamesh I guess Reason 3) That weird PlayStation All-Star SFF hurt Cloud a bit, Leon is the man Reason 4) Fuck It I Give Up We all collectively saw this coming by this point but it hurt to watch it unfold all the same. Ulti mentions in his writeup that the vote trends are very similar to the original Mario / Cloud match from 2002, where Squirtle got a good size lead and even though Cloud made cuts he couldn't gain any momentum and eventually got beaten by [this thing](https://imgtc.com/i/A5FlOVD.mp4). Don't get me wrong, I chose Squirtle as my first ever starter like any sane person would, but I can't believe it's strong enough to beat legendary character Cloud Strife under any circumstances. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. Bring back asbestos, it didn't do anything wrong. Take Leon out this match and give Cloud the boost from KHIII and Smash Ultimate in 2018, what do you get? Probably a much more boring match where he wins pretty easily. It's just surreal how this contest ended up playing out. We had Vivi beating Mario, Draven beating Link, and now Squirtle beating Cloud. Eventually Sephiroth would get knocked out to Draven and Mewtwo. --- ## (6)Pikachu vs (2)Sora vs (12)Pokemon Trainer Blue 2013 _source: (6)Pikachu vs (2)Sora vs (12)Pokemon Trainer Blue 2013 (revid 82231)_ ## Results **Round 3** Friday, September 6th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis When Division 6 was being debated pre-contest, Board 8's Pokemon love kind of took over, but also at a rational level. The board wanted Blue or Pikachu to win the division, and was worried that this exact match happening would cause Sora to get an unearned bye into the contest semifinals -- the thought was that Pikachu and Blue would overlap too much, so when Blue beat the hell out of Fox people were happy, but also a bit bummed out. Turns out Pokemon is strong enough to not give the first flying f\*\*\*, not to mention Sora is about as anti-voted as it gets these days. Of all the symbols of Square hatred following the merger with Enix and all the stupid decisions in the 2000s, doesn't Sora or Lightning represent that hatred better than anyone else? Does anyone actually admit in public that they're a fan of Sora these days? The match would actually end up being really good, albeit Sora waited far too long to make a push. Pikachu resisted enough of Blue's LFF to build himself a 400 vote lead overnight, then the Pokemon morning vote proved much tougher than the Kingdom Hearts morning vote. Pikachu kept running with the momentum and built himself a 600 vote lead by lunch. It was only then that Sora decided to make a comeback push of his own, but comebacks against a character that has the exact same trends as you is unbelievably hard. It's not like Sora could rely on the morning vote or ASV to push him over the top, so he had to get his votes elsewhere. To his credit, he did do this. He started doing a stall-push until the ASV, then took enough of the ASV to make the match interesting. That 600 vote lead was down to 300 by dinner time, but it didn't take Pikachu long at all to get his lead back over 400. The true push came with the late evening and second night vote, which is not Pokemon territory and has enough Square love left in it to make a match like this close. The problem is that Sora was in too big a hole early, and for all his pushing with the SNV he was only able to get it below 300 with two hours left. Sora did ultimately keep going and only end up losing by 150, but does anyone really think Board 8 would have allowed a popular Pokemon to lose to freaking SORA, of all characters? The fact that this match was only interesting because of Blue's presence really gives us all we need to know about Sora's strength, anyway. He barely has any left, and this match was another Pokemon punching their ticket to the contest semifinals. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis jfc What is the opposite of "fall from grace?" "Rise to dominance?" Also I made the mistake of googling "PaRappa Kingdom Hearts" I'm not sure what the most amusing part of the image is, the drawing itself, the "copyright" by Italian Shorty III, or that there were two Italian Shorties before him. They're breeding and soon we will be consumed by the calzone. Board 8 was so soaked with tears and beaten down by the results of the previous five matches that this was somehow not even a shocker of a result. By this point if you had tried to logically argue that Blue would pull Pikachu down enough to let Sora slip by you'd get laughed at. We all feared the Pokemon and we knew what it would do. Spare_us.RAT. Sora actually might have been able to win this one if given enough time. The problem is that Sora shares the same fanbase with Pikachu to some extent, so any time he'd start to gain Pikachu would stop him. The same people obsessed with Kingdom Hearts are also way too into IV training their Pokemon. It's some "advanced weeaboo" thing. Managing Pokemon stats is just as difficult as making sense of the Kingdom Hearts plotline. I want to say this match was entertaining, but it really wasn't. There were occasionally KH fans coming to the board asking how Sora was losing to a big dumb baby like Pikachu as if Sora isn't a big dumb baby himself. You want entertaining? Here's the one time ever Sora was a walkaround character at Disneyland: Yikes, why didn't Disney just get Haley Joel Osment to dress up as him? [oh](https://imgtc.com/i/r0qV78l.png) why is he a duck dynasty now (I'd still take it over whatever Italian Shorty III puts out) --- ## (1)Samus Aran vs (8)L-Block vs (7)Tifa Lockheart 2013 _source: (1)Samus Aran vs (8)L-Block vs (7)Tifa Lockheart 2013 (revid 82238)_ ## Results **Round 3** Saturday, September 7th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Of all the divisional finals, this was by far the simplest and had nothing unexpected happen at all. L-Block tried making a push early, but wasn't even able to hold second place over Tifa for long before getting completely swamped. It gave the board 24 hours to breathe and relax, and this was the one match among that stretch of 8 I talked about that didn't have a Pokemon in it. So if you're one of those people that hates Pokemon, this was the match for you. Overall, it was clear in minutes that Samus was taking care of business, that L-Block would not recapture the past glory, and that Tifa was not going to give us a repeat of her near-upset of Samus from the female half of the 2006 contest. Just a simple beating, nothing more and nothing less. We can't have EVERY match be nuts, right? Moving on. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Alright so I logged into my Imgur account for the first time since 2013 to look for the raw versions of the magazine covers from my match pic, and holy shit is it just a treasure trove of weird Board 8 culture and history. This match was really boring anyway, some people thought L-Block could upset Tifa but there was never really a chance for that. For a short time we were just able to breathe... Just breathe. So instead of more analysis here are pics from the ol' Zen archives, featuring minimized AIM cameos by @KamikazePotato and @Ashethan: I have no idea of what the context for this is but I love it here's some more: allen was the one with 100% on hannah montana also why did we stop censoring pics with tim allen's head that shit was hilarious here are all the pics I submitted for Round 1, even the rejected ones: also: --- ## (6)Vivi vs (2)Squall Leonhart vs (4)Pokemon Trainer Red 2013 _source: (6)Vivi vs (2)Squall Leonhart vs (4)Pokemon Trainer Red 2013 (revid 82239)_ ## Results **Round 3** Sunday, September 8th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis If Square fans were intelligent, they would have allowed Missingno to beat Squall a round ago. Is there a doubt in anyone's mind that Vivi wins this match if Missingno is here in Squall's place? It would have set up Samus/Vivi/Mega Man, and there's no guarantee Vivi just gets blown out given all the momentum. And Samus/Mega Man DO overlap with Nintendo fans... But that's just wishful thinking and was not to be, though we ended up getting a pretty cool upset anyway. Before this contest, I doubt anyone would have pegged Vivi as somehow being stronger than Squall, and even as I'm writing this it seems nuts to look at. But there it is. I'm sure momentum and the desire for Vivi to make a run played a huge part in upsetting Squall here, but I'm not complaining. I don't know when or how he became the one Square character immune to all the hate going around these days, but it's definitely welcome! Vivi is an aamzing character. The actual match wasn't particularly interesting beyond that, since Red beating the Square tag team was a given before things started. But Vivi ahead of Squall is still damn hilarious, and so is the thought of Vivi in the contest semifinals had Missingno managed to hold a lead one round ago. You just never know in these things anymore. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Because Bacon released the guidelines for Round 3 and beyond's match pics way in advance, there were people who had pre-made Mario / Squall / Red pics that had to resubmit their pics because fucking Vivi beat Mario. I'm almost positive the picture in the top left originally had Mario in it. This match was debated until Vivi pulled his upset, and all of a sudden it became a matter of Squall putting away Red with the newly-awakened sexual tyrannosaurus that was Vivi in the match. Could he pull it off? Short answer: No Long answer: fucking Vivi beat Squall Again, expert brackets had been basically torn to shreds, but this match was cause to take a blowtorch to the scraps that were left. Vivi had a ton of momentum coming off his Mario win and everyone threw their votes his way like teen girls throwing their bras on stage at a \[insert current popular boy band here\] concert. Vivi is going to be riding this win for the rest of his contest career. I wouldn't be surprised if he landed a 2-seed in CBX. That's how strong his win was (and still is!). We're going to be talking about it until contests die. Vivi could lose to Caim in R1 this year and we would still champion him. If we step through a doorway and enter the Berenstein Bears dimension, we'd find a match where Missingno was here instead of Squall, and Vivi would advance to the semi-finals. On the left of that doorway is another leading us to the dimension where Sinbad actually was in a genie movie, and there we'd find a match where Mario beat Vivi and Squall would have had a shot to beat Red and advance to the semi-finals. Are those realities better than the one we live in? That's up to you, the reader, to decide. Then you can complain in the comments and I'll ignore you. --- ## (1)Mega Man vs (2)Zero vs (7)Charizard 2013 _source: (1)Mega Man vs (2)Zero vs (7)Charizard 2013 (revid 82241)_ ## Results **Round 3** Monday, September 9th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis The divisional final round ended with one HELL of a match, because anyone looking at this would automatically assume Charizard wins. Mega Man and Zero have massive overlap, and Pokemon had just been beasting for this entire contest. It seemed like yet another raw deal for Mega Man, who has a contest history just loaded with raw deals. Look at this list: Summer 2002: Puts up two of the biggest beatings ever, loses to Sephiroth by 1000 in round 3 after building an early lead. Summer 2003 - Gets a rematch with Sephiroth in the semifinals, gets blown the f\*\*\* out. Also the peak of FF7 love on this site. Games 2004 - Not a single Mega Man game makes the field. Seriously. Summer 2004 - Wins his division, blown out by Link in the semifinal in what is probably the strongest year Link has ever had. Summer 2005 - Mega Man goes on a huge run, beating the likes of Sonic, but loses to Crono by 3000 votes in the semifinals. Notable here is that Crono was beginning the downswing of his career. Series 2006 - Mega Man X gets fed to Zelda in round 2, Mega Man gets fed to Final Fantasy in.... round 2. Summer 2006 - As a HEAVY favorite, loses to Solid Snake in the quarterfinals. Had Mega Man won that match, he ay very well have won the entire contest. Sonic and Samus were both very weak that year. Summer 2007 - The first fourway contest. Mega Man gets out of his division, but Cloud and Samus are just stronger than him in the quarterfinals. Summer 2008 - Loses to Snake again. There's no shame in that, but he lost to Weighted Companion Cube by 240 votes for second place. By far the worst loss Mega Man has ever had to deal with, and to add insult to injury, Mega Man X was finally allowed into a contest and got much farther than the original character did. Spring 2009 - Three Mega Man games get in -- 2, 3, and X -- but only 2 manages to get out of the second round and that game would lose to to the NES titans of Zelda 1 and Mario 1 in round 3. Fall 2010 - Mega Man X gets fed to Link in round 3, Mega Man himself loses to Mario in the divisional finals. This is notable because in that contest, Mega Man X got 32.72% on Link. In 2004, Mega Man got 32.39% on Link. Stuck in X's shadow once again. Game of the Decade - Mega Man 9 pulls an upset over Demon's Souls, then loses to Okami in round 2. Rivalry Rumble - Mega Man once again fed to Link in round 3. So yeah, it's a who's-who of unlucky bracket placement and having to deal with others at their peak. The lowest point here is statistically being worse than Mega Man X, which is absolutely a match we need to see one day. So yeah, if ever there was a contest character that deserved a big break, Mega Man is it. And though the final push is what gets talked about the most in this match, Charizard lost this match in the first three hours. We jokingly call the first hour of a poll the Nintendo Power Hour, and what does Charizard do in that hour, with freaking Zero also in the poll? A 6 vote lead for Mega Man. Those two stayed deadlocked for awhile, and it took a couple more hours for Charizard to finally start making a push to build a lead. A lot of theories get thrown around for why Charizard was seemingly the short straw of the Pokemon this contest, but the two that make the most sense are Charizard's competition and anti-voting. Charizard had to deal with Zelda and Mega Man, which is a much taller order than what Red or Blue had to go through. It's also a very real thing to be at the bottom part of a bracket when people have seen you before. Charizard's run happened in 2010, and though Pokemon anti-voting is hardly what it was back in 2002 or so, people got tired of seeing Pokemon stomp this contest so hard. I think that's what led to Mega Man doing so well early. But it would not last, as Charizard's strength and Zero being in this poll would eventually take over. Between overnight and the morning vote, Charizard built a 600 vote lead by lunch. Then Mega Man cut 100 votes off in 15 minutes, and the comeback train was on. From here, the push was about as close to consistent as it could possible get. Mega Man cut off about 30-50 votes an hour, until we were looking at a 200 vote lead for Charizard with 2½ hours left. The assumption was that the Pokemon would get the late push, but it did not work out that way at all. Mega Man got that thing down to 100 with 2 hours left, and then it was just a massive rally for Mega Man the rest of the way. Mega Man took the lead with over an hour left in the poll, 27 votes to be exact, then immediately Charizard cuts it down to 13. The standard groan happened here, because Pokemon had won every close finish of the contest. Mega Man fans then watched in horror as Charizard took back complete control of the match, which can best be summed up as him having a 58 vote lead with 20 minutes left. It seemed like a given at this point that Charizard would escape again, just like he had done against Zelda last round. With the next update, Mega Man cut 35 votes off out of no where, then he gained 40 more votes next update to take the lead for good. Mega Man fans unleashed more than 10 years of contest frustration into a rally that managed to outdo a Pokemon rally, and when it was all over Mega Man won the poll by 23 votes. Charizard went from another win to getting completely blitzed and losing in a span of 20 minutes, which is going to be a hard one to forget about in the offseason. Remember, Zero was also in this poll, and he did some very clear and obvious damage to Mega Man's vote totals. Between that last push and Charizard doing nothing for so long when the poll opened, this was a choke job. Plain and simple. For Mega Man fans, yeah it's another contest where he doesn't even make the finals, but the little guy finally gets over the hump and wins one of these barnburners. As a huge fan of his, I'm really hoping this springboards him into finally making the final one day. He deserves it. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis It's amazing how a match with Serious Sam in it pulled in more votes than this crazy quarterfinals match. I'm bringing this 2002 classic up just to show how Mega Man always finds a way to impress in these things. This was the match that ruined my shot at winning the Guru; if Charizard had pulled this off you would all have been nominating Metal Sonic right now. I probably wouldn't have made this topic, though, or if I did it would have been called ~\*~Zen's "Road to Victory" CBIX Analysis - 5 Years and He Still Hasn't Let It Go~\*~. I really didn't care if I won or not, though. I'm happy we got to see POKEFEAR stopped dead in its tracks here. Everyone had counted Mega Man out thanks to Zero being in this poll; Zero had looked pretty good up until this point, too, and Charizard was just considered too strong of an obstacle. A lot of other Noble Nine members had let us down and at this point Mega Man really didn't have many "new" games at the time other than 9 and 10 which were a few years old and basically just cash grabs. Good cash grabs, but cash grabs nonetheless. Charizard never really had a shot at this match once it started. Out the gate he looked like garbage and even when he managed to pull ahead Mega Man was right there to take first place back. It was good to see Mega Man of all NN members escape to the semifinals. How did this happen? Is Mega Man just that universally loved? Is Mega Man so deeply mired in Nintendo SFF that Zero was affecting Charizard too? I don't know. Probably. Fuck it at this point it's 2013 and that's all the excuse I need Here's a fun exercise, rank the Noble Nine members by how much you personally give a shit about them. I'll start: Snake Sonic Link Mega Man Mario Samus Crono Cloud Sephiroth Allen can keep Sephiroth out of the CBX banner forever --- ## (3)Draven vs (11)Mewtwo vs (1)Sephiroth 2013 _source: (3)Draven vs (11)Mewtwo vs (1)Sephiroth 2013 (revid 82242)_ ## Results **Round 4** Tuesday, September 10th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Even Draven was unable to stand up to the Nintendo Power Hour this time around, as people had targeted Mewtwo as the counter-rally the second Draven upset Ryu and MMX back in round 2. But what truly caused Mewtwo to do so well was the r/LoL mods seemingly putting an end to the rally on Reddit. "Hello! After discussing this topic internally, we've decided to remove this and other Draven CBIX threads for the following reasons. First, simply put, they aren't fully relevant to League of Legends. However, even if they were considered to be extremely relevant, there's another reason for their removal: the moderators of /r/LeagueofLegends received a request from a verified staff member at GameFAQs, asking us to remove the thread rallying behind Draven, as it was manipulating the voting on their contest. As many of you know, reddit has long taken a hard stance against vote manipulation, and it would be incredibly unfair of us to tolerate this sort of activity just because it affects another site and not ourselves. This is why the post has been removed. It isn't fair of us to ask other sites not to game reddit, if we allow reddit to game other sites. Posts on reddit should only be voted on by redditors, not bots or spammers. Polls on other sites should be voted on by their communities, not ours. Thanks." It all added up to Mewtwo building up a 2300 vote lead two and a half hours in, and assuming things stayed pat, this match was more or less over. Reddit was the entire reason Draven's rallies had gone so well, and without them he was sunk. Everyone knows the rest. First and foremost, the so-called "verified staff member at GameFAQs" was just some guy pretending to be a GameFAQs staff member. That Reddit even believed that crap at all shows what kind of an outfit those people are running in the first place, and I really hope people are smart enough to separate League of Legends fans from Reddit posters. We all know Reddit is awful, but League honestly does a good job building a good community, and most people who play take good sportsmanship very seriously. They do in my experience, anyway. Riot has a whole tribunal system built around being good sports, and I can vouch how seriously those guys take the mentality of playing nice. They've even banned a professional or two for being mean, so there's no hidden buddy systems where enforcement doesn't happen. Of all the differences between League and Dota, that one might be my favorite. But to the point. Reddit sucks, yeah, but try not to assume League people suck too. As for the match, once the rally went back online it only took Draven 30 minutes to erase the entire lead and put the match away for good. It kind of sucks since I'm a huge Mewtwo fan and would have loved him in the final, but knowing he would have gotten there had Reddit bothered enforcing their own rules is good enough for me I suppose. But this does all lead one to wonder why GameFAQs, Allen specifically, would go over and correct them at all. Him being in bed with Reddit for this entire contest was no surprise to anyone, especially given he himself pre-contest was busy telling Reddit about us, but why he would do that and never bother answering for it is something that is always going to remain a mystery to the people that follow these things. Let's say Allen owns a house. We'll call it A. Next door is another house, B. For Christmas one year, A decides to run a neighborhood decorating contest and tells others about it, including B. The night before the decorating contest starts getting judged, B starts egging A's house and the police show up. Rather than let the police do their job, A's owner tells the police that B's actions are perfectly acceptable. That's basically analogous to what Allen did in this contest and everyone knows it. He had the perfect out to tell Reddit to knock it off, and chose not to take it because anyone with an IQ above room temperature could see which site he was allying himself with. And no, the Link/Snake bonus poll "as decided by the users of GameFAQs" is not enough to make up for it. This nonsense needed to be sorted out during the contest, not afterwards with a pittance poll. A lot of people said a lot of very cruel things to Allen and I will not defend them, but he brought it upon himself by making some questionable (to say the least), oft boneheaded decisions during almost all of Draven's matches. I actually think the worst of them was this match and telling Reddit that rallies were okay, because it showed that Allen cares more about site hits and traffic (which in turn lead to more ad hits and more dollars) than he does what the users of the site think. I would also add that without this site's users giving him free time and free content, this site doesn't exist. So yeah, while I was mostly okay with the Link match, I'm not forgiving him for this one for quite awhile. This was nothing more than pandering to Reddit at the expense of GameFAQs, which really bothers me as someone who has spent untold time writing for this site. Also let's not forget just how bad this match is for Sephiroth. You think Cloud's match was bad? Sephiroth losing to Mewtwo by almost 9000 votes is worse. That dude is never going to sniff a contest title ever again. He's done. Losing to Snake by a few thousand in 2010 was acceptable, but this is just an outright tank in popularity. ## Zen's (Late) Contest I visited Draven's bio on the LoL site and it looks exactly the same as it did in 2013 when I went there to get pics of him and write his bio. Like, literally nothing has changed. It's been 5 years but I remember all the art there and the shallow backstory he was given. Either Draven really ain't shit and the LoL fanbase will upvote anything not named "Teemo" or LoL is incredibly stale. You know what else is incredibly stale? Talking about Draven matches. Draven had beaten Link, so at this point if you took anything over him you were crazy. We all knew he had this shit locked down, but you still had some people pushing for either Mewtwo based on POKEFEAR (fat chance arguing that point after Charizard bombed) or hoping Snake somehow had actually grown stronger than Link and that he'd beat Draven in the finals. Uh, were those people not paying attention to the extra 50,000 or so votes Draven brought in from rallies alone in his last match? Most matches were lucky to hit 50,000 total. In 2013, the year the voters had forsaken us, Draven was free to walk up, kick Link in the dick, buttdevestate our asses and pry first place right from Bacon's open hands. But then this happened: "Hello! After discussing this topic internally, we've decided to remove this and other Draven CBIX threads for the following reasons. First, simply put, they aren't fully relevant to League of Legends. However, even if they were considered to be extremely relevant, there's another reason for their removal: the moderators of /r/LeagueofLegends received a request from a verified staff member at GameFAQs, asking us to remove the thread rallying behind Draven, as it was manipulating the voting on their contest. As many of you know, reddit has long taken a hard stance against vote manipulation, and it would be incredibly unfair of us to tolerate this sort of activity just because it affects another site and not ourselves. This is why the post has been removed. It isn't fair of us to ask other sites not to game reddit, if we allow reddit to game other sites. Posts on reddit should only be voted on by redditors, not bots or spammers. Polls on other sites should be voted on by their communities, not ours. Thanks." Bacon you are our one true God, all hands to the sky, praise this man: But just as lord Bacon giveth, he also taketh away. Turns out that the person who contacted r/LoL wasn't actually Bacon or something. Did anyone ever own up to that? I can't believe the r/LoL mods even fell for it, did they not ask for verification? Guess their mod staff is as much of a joke as the community. I think at some point Bacon asked r/LoL to let the rallies back so he could make an extra \$3.50 off of the ad revenue, and whatever lead and momentum Mewtwo was gone within a few minutes. No exaggeration, Mewtwo was done after less than an hour of rallying. I kind of get why Bacon turned the rally switch back on. Rallies had already fucked up the results of this contest and if some jabroni was going to mess with the status quo by removing rallies to give himself some extra points in his Expert Bracket then it was super unfair to the rest of us who had already accepted Draven as our new lord and master. Talking about all the craziness surrounding this contest is making me really appreciate it, holy shit. I had buried a lot of this in the back of my mind but you can't find drama better than this, even on Bravo!. There needs to be a Real Housewives of CBS Interactive. Speaking of housewives, we'll get to that soon. Can't believe I'm even saying that. What a fucking nutso contest that I have to devote a paragraph to *Bacon's wife.* --- ## (1)Solid Snake vs (5)Squirtle vs (6)Pikachu 2013 _source: (1)Solid Snake vs (5)Squirtle vs (6)Pikachu 2013 (revid 82243)_ ## Results **Round 4** Wednesday, September 11th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis The downside to Pokemon dominating this contest the way they did is that this contest was made up entirely of three-way polls. Meaning that in the late rounds, if Pokemon won too much like they did this year, there was bound to be cannibalism going on. Neither one of these two characters would have beaten Snake one on one, but it's not like they ever got the chance to either. Squirtle and Pikachu just absolutely destroyed each other's chances of making the finals, and Snake was all too happy to take advantage and punch his own ticket. Rivalry Rumble aside, Snake has made at least the semifinals of every contest since 2005. That has to count for something, right? Granted he's never actually won a contest, but he'll break through eventually. ....right? Snake winning the match wasn't the only story here, though. Even today, I'm completely floored that Pikachu beat Squirtle, and it really makes me question my knowledge of the hierarchy of Pokemon. I know the match was literally dead even until the morning vote and THE KIDDIES WAKING UP is what caused Pikachu to win this, but even still. I would have never picked Pikachu to beat him, by any standard. My biggest guess there is that Pokemon strength at the very top is a jumbled unpredictable mess, and that the Pokemon fanbase is split in two among current adults that grew up on RBY and children. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the tastes are clearly different. Children still prefer Pikachu, but during the hours when adults were the primary voters, Squirtle held a slim lead. It reeeeeeeally makes me wonder how Squirtle's path would have turned out had one guy in the NRT voted for Blastoise instead. Does Pikachu beat Blastoise? I'd be floored if he did, but given this match I really don't know. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis You know what would have made this match more interesting? Cloud here instead of Squirtle. If Pikachu had inherited all of Squirtle's votes he would have been close to Snake in strength, and you can also assume that Cloud would have LFF'd Snake based on Classic PlayStation nostalgia, so the match would have been really close. Funny how I'm saying Cloud would have been the one to hold Snake back. What a year. But instead of Cloud we had Squirtle, and while Squirtle impressed by staying close to Pikachu, that didn't really surprise anybody at this point. Ulti makes a point to say that Blastoise was one vote away from beating Squirtle in the NRT and being our chosen pick instead. I don't know if Blastoise would be stronger than Squirtle, while he certainly is "cooler" as well as being the cover Pokemon for Blue, I'm not sure if that would translate into as much raw strength as Squirtle just being Squirtle. Do you know how many Picsmiths were trying desperately to get Squirtle's Kamina sunglasses into every pic? Yeah, that's cuz of the anime, not cuz of the games. Squirtle gets a huge portion of his strength from that as well as being playable in Brawl. I think Blastoise would be close in strength but not stronger. On the other side of that coin, would Charmander do better than Charizard? Definitely not, no, because Charizard was a focal point of the anime for longer and comes back every time the anime needs to get the views up. He's also cool as heck. Back to the actual match: Yeah, some people took Squirtle over Pikachu, and yeah, he had an early lead, but Pikachu is the face of the franchise, and even though at one point he was a contest punchline he's now a juggernaut. Pikachu is one of the most recognizable things on the planet, and unlike Pac-Man, people actually seem to give a shit. Two shits. Three, even! --- ## (1)Samus Aran vs (4)Pokemon Trainer Red vs (1)Mega Man 2013 _source: (1)Samus Aran vs (4)Pokemon Trainer Red vs (1)Mega Man 2013 (revid 82244)_ ## Results **Round 4** Thursday, September 12th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis I'll concede that my closeup pictures for this round were a bit weird, but this one is good and I'm tooting my picture horn for wiki purposes. Deal with it. People will look back on this match in a few years and assume "38-33-28, how boring", but it can't be overstated how close Mega Man came to winning this match. His support from the Charizard upset continued on through the first few updates of this poll, and he built a lead near 300 within 30 minutes. But it didn't take long for Samus to push back, and when she did Mega Man simply did not have enough left in the tank to fend her off. The silver lining is that it took Samus until about 3 in the morning to grab full control of the match, and she was very truly threatened until then. There was some hope in the morning vote bailing Mega Man out, but it was not to be. It was a trend very similar to his match with Sephiroth back in 2002, where he built a lead of 700 fairly early, but eventually got swamped and lost. It's disappointing for the little guy to still not make the final of a contest, but maybe one day. The last note here is about Red. He stood pat against two Nintendo characters and got nearly 30% of the vote, and if you extrapolate his values in this poll alone he scored 45.55% on Mega Man. He only scored 38.84% on Mega Man X back in 2010, so yeah Red was definitely one of the stars of this contest even in his exit. His exit also meant that even with all Pokemon's wins this contest, none of them made the final. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis This match was a complete tossup, as seen by the three versions of my Andy Warhol Finals match pic I submitted: The common theory was that Mega Man would take advantage of the Nintendo SFF and squeak by here. The second most common theory was that Mega Man was too heavily tied to Nintendo SFF and despite beating Charizard with Zero in the match that he would get beaten by Samus comfortably. The third theory was that Red would win because of POKEFEAR and a lack of common sense. The results make sense once you spotlight just how Mega Man / Charizard / Zero panned out. The results are definitely due to how heavily the MM series is mixed with Nintendo, so the same logic should apply to this match. Samus also looked pretty good so far this contest. What did she have going on in 2013 that gave her this strength? Nothing since Other M? Alright cool what the fuck although I guess the same could be said about Mega Man. Samus had such a boring path to victory, I think everyone was cheering for Mega Man to get to the finals here. It would have been a way better story than "Samus easily beats Sandbag, Knuckles, Tifa and Mega Man then gets knocked out by Snake and the rallied character" Red bowed out gracefully here, he definitely looked pretty consistently good this contest, he lost badly to X once I think so coming close to Mega Man and getting into the semis shows how much he's grown. He didn't really have much of a challenge until this point but at least he never jobbed out to some fodder. Not sure where the guy goes from here, will he stay consistent in 2018? Are we even going to remember to nominate Red in the sea of Shellder and Ditto support? Who knows. He could potentially make a crazy run if he gets a very low seed and a debatable matchup. Imagine Round 1 is (2) Sephiroth vs (7) Pokemon Trainer Red. In the end this match didn't matter much (other than to our hearts) because whoever won here was going to be Draven food anyway. also lmao @ [the Creation match pic](http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/cb9/5264-03.jpg), what the fuck --- ## (11)Mewtwo vs (6)Pikachu vs (1)Mega Man 2013 _source: (11)Mewtwo vs (6)Pikachu vs (1)Mega Man 2013 (revid 82203)_ ## Results **Bonus** Friday, September 13th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis Five days, three Mega Man polls. This match was interesting in theory, but in practice it was no better than Snake/Squirtle/Pikachu. You had one character that was not a Pokemon scoring an easy first place finish as the other two characters cannibalized each other's support. It was cool to pay tribute to Mega Man I suppose, though the one difference in this poll as opposed to Snake's is that Pikachu got last place instead of second. Kind of a fitting revenge, given what Pikachu does to Mewtwo in the movie. I won't pretend to understand how or why Mewtwo is stronger, though I'm sure it has a lot to do with Mewtwo being the ultimate Pokemon to get amongst the original 151. But assuming that's not the reason, I'm busting this out for the first time all contest: DAT TOP OPTION. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis Speaking of which, here's a match that pits all the second place winners of the Semis together, including two whole Pokemon. Mega Man was destined to win this one based on the virtue of heavy SFF, but which Pokemon would come out on top? A lot of people argued it would be Pikachu, but Mewtwo was already on fire, and if any of the rally people were checking in they probably would have voted for him as well. There wasn't really an option for Pikachu to win here. A 1-v-1 between these two in 2018 would definitely be interesting. --- ## (3)Draven vs (1)Solid Snake vs (1)Samus Aran 2013 _source: (3)Draven vs (1)Solid Snake vs (1)Samus Aran 2013 (revid 82245)_ ## Results **Championship** Saturday, September 14th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis The major story in the final was the back and forth on Reddit about whether or not to allow rallies, and it shows on the updater. I'll get to all that in a second, but the story of how these rallies were allowed at all is truly stupid. Allen would ultimately end up claiming that r/LoL mods decided on their own to allow them, but the story he gave was pathetic beyond words. He literally claimed -- and I'm honestly unsure if this is a practical joke, though I pray it is -- that his wife used his Reddit account to ask the LoL mods to stop the rallies. This came about after some screenshots of hidden conversations surfaced, and someone realized that Allen's Reddit name actually fit into the censored spots. SBAllen posted... So I'm reading through the big topic about me explaining myself and wondering what the hell all this is about. So I go over to Reddit and my account and lo and behold, I see that I actually did post those messages. After the initial WTF!? reaction, I finally figure out what happened. My wife loves Solid Snake. He's her favorite character in gaming. She also knew how irritated I was with this whole Draven thing, and worst of all, she knows all my passwords. Thus, her devious plot unfolded. She logged into my Reddit account posing as me and messaged the mods. I honestly had no idea, and feel pretty stupid about the whole ordeal. Feel free to mercilessly mock me for getting completely owned by my wife! Turns out it actually was his account, supposedly, and Allen claims that his wife went into his account behind his back, then had to go back to Reddit to tell them that the rallies were fine. But then when the rally ended up on r/all, Allen claimed publicly that the final was interesting until the r/LoL mods showed up. So I'm not sure what to make of the whole thing, and I seriously hope it was a huge practical joke. I can at least respect that. But if that story is legit and he actually went and used his own wife for damage control (side note: his wife did end up posting in the Board 8 topic once the contest was basically over), I'd have to question a few things. I've been married nearly 10 years, and in that time I've learned that when a decision happens in a household or a marriage, you either stand by it or you don't, with conviction. No waffing. It's the correct and manly thing to do, and no amount of forced feminism or pretending women should be the only ones in charge in our culture is going to change that. You don't trot your wife out there for damage control like Nixon did with his ungodly dumb Checkers speech. You explain what happened like a man and move on. It's why I'm hoping the entire thing was a practical joke, because the alternative is our site being run by an insecure wuss who doesn't answer for things. I actually lean toward the practical joke angle, because Allen was legitimately upset by how things turned out this contest, and I'm sure some legal and ethical things came up regarding the rallies. He made a big post about it in his contest wrapup, which I have but I'm saving it for the conclusion piece. But needless to say, there wasn't the usual contest celebration once things ended, not even a congrats to the winners or a poll asking people what they thought of things. Just a return to the status quo like nothing had even happened at all. As for the actual match, there isn't much to say about it since rallies determined the entire outcome. Samus fell by the wayside early when it became clear that this was Snake vs Draven, and those two stayed within 1000 votes for about 5 hours. Then Draven went on a tear to get his lead up to 3100, before Snake managed to recover and make a massive push in the same way that Link did, with help from David Hayter himself rallying for Snake on Twitter. He cut the lead all the way down to 578, and coincidentally enough things fell apart for Snake at about the same time they fell apart for Link. But rather than a DDoS attack, Draven simply had a rally thread on r/all. That 578 vote lead turned into a 7752 vote lead in an hour, and that was all she wrote for the match en route to Draven winning by 24371 votes. That's probably a record for the biggest vote swing ever, though I can't be bothered to look it up. Draven's 73396 votes, regardless of how you feel about how he got them, is a really impressive total. It would actually be faster to list finals performances that were better. Series Contest - Zelda 80825, Final Fantasy 77702 That's it. The entire list. Nothing else even comes close, unless you want to count the bonus poll of Ocarina of Time vs FF7 after the second games contest ended. Draven basically took strength from the early 2000s and plopped it right into the modern era of terrible GameFAQs vote totals, and nothing Allen says can make anyone who follows these things agree that this site or its contests aren't on the downswing as a result. GameFAQs clearly didn't bother doing enough to keep up with more modern web sites, which is why our vote totals get lower and lower with each new passing contest and rallies mean that much more every year. It all culminated in a little-known character from a free MOBA snowballing out of control once he got his first double kill. ## Zen's (Late) Analysis LeonhartFour posted... *in the finals David Hayter tweeted and insulted Draven multiple times and it actually helped Snake start to make a comeback then Draven fans got buttfurious and buried the rest of the match but at least we had that one cool moment also Jennifer Hale tweeted for Samus at one point too but it didn't really matter because she finished a distant third* You know this is barebones but this is also basically the writeup I would write, just with more purple prose thrown in. Before this match, people still thought Snake might win. I have no idea how they arrived to that conclusion based on the copious evidence that Draven would run away with this easily. Perhaps if Samus had been swapped out for another joke proxy (like L-Block) Snake could have done better but there was no way he was winning at this point. There was a ton of whining, and, of course, this being the finals, the amount of BUTTDEVESTATED MAX: BUTTFURIOUS ROAD comments peppering the boards basically made any serious talk impossible. I believe I was in Canada on vacation when this match happened and when I did log in at the end of the day I wasn't surprised by what I saw. The pillaging of our board went well into the night. It kinda sucked. I wasn't following the "Allen's Wife" drama at the time because of my limited internet access, but I managed to download the last episode of The Show on the train ride back and listened to it all in disbelief. Said Allen: *So I'm reading through the big topic about me explaining myself and wondering what the hell all this is about. So I go over to Reddit and my account and lo and behold, I see that I actually did post those messages. After the initial WTF!? reaction, I finally figure out what happened. My wife loves Solid Snake. He's her favorite character in gaming. She also knew how irritated I was with this whole Draven thing, and worst of all, she knows all my passwords. Thus, her devious plot unfolded. She logged into my Reddit account posing as me and messaged the mods. I honestly had no idea, and feel pretty stupid about the whole ordeal. Feel free to mercilessly mock me for getting completely owned by my wife!* Allen really types like an old man sometimes, but I've chatted with him on AIM before and he's actually more laid back when he's not on GameFAQS. The "owned by my wife" comment might as well have said "pwned" instead for how "fellow kids" it comes off. Where do I stand with the "Allen's Wife" excuse? It reminds me of one of those Yu-Gi-Oh cards invented by the show where Yugi brings it out and it has crappy artwork done by an anime artist and it has a really specific bullshit effect that only applies to the weird situation Yugi is currently in. [Like that](https://imgtc.com/i/xGJ86fH.png), just imagine it says "My Wife Did It" instead. Actually fuck it, [here.](https://imgtc.com/i/7UmdvvY.jpg) That's basically how this all panned out. Snake never had a chance, there was drama surrounding Allen's wife, and to this day we still talk about the time when reddit ran a train on us. The only thing I want to briefly touch on are the long time Board 8ers who flipped to reddit's side and supported Draven. I can't remember specific names, but there was a lot of bickering at the time. Is there anyone reading this that voted Draven over Snake that wants to explain why they did it? This is a judgment free zone. Well, except for [him](https://imgtc.com/i/yrgR8P0.png), I guess. ps great votals here, some of the best ever iirc, top 3 maybe? --- ## (1)Link vs (1)Solid Snake 2013 _source: (1)Link vs (1)Solid Snake 2013 (revid 82204)_ ## Results **Bonus** Sunday, September 15th, 2013 ## Ulti's Analysis This poll was never really in doubt for Link despite all the cuts Snake made along the way, though it was Allen's way of giving a pittance poll to GameFAQs after clearly siding with Reddit for the entire contest. Granted Reddit didn't really see it that way and thought it was just GameFAQs needing to see Link win something to have any closure, but those people aren't exactly known for reading comprehension. Most people who followed this contest wanted Link to lose, including a lot of people who didn't care much for the rallying. Reddit's attitude was the issue. Regardless, this match did prove one thing: if you run a poll with Link, Solid Snake and Samus (or Mario) as the three entrants, Solid Snake wins. I'm also of a mindset that Link did actually get a revenge boost in this poll after what happened with Draven, and that Snake could probably challenge Link one on one these days under more normal conditions. Not that this contest was anything closely resembling normal. ## Backstory What wasn't mentioned in this write-up is that this bonus match was originally scheduled to be Link vs. Draven (through a series of polls that I ran on Board 8), but Allen allowed Board 8 to vote for several alternative bonus match ideas after an r/LoL mod stickied a new rally topic following all of the attempts to sabotage the Draven rallies. When this mod-endorsed rally allowed Draven to put Snake away for good, that was when Allen showed up to let Board 8 vote on the bonus match. Reddit actually attempted to sabotage the Board 8 only poll that Allen put up in order to get a Link vs. Draven match, but Allen finally put a stop to that by closing the poll and choosing Link vs. Snake as the official bonus match. -Luster Soldier ## Zen's (Late) Analysis The only thing super interesting about this match is that originally it was scheduled to be Link vs Draven but reddit set up a rally for Draven because they are scumbags and can't even let us have a bonus. So instead Allen put up a poll for a replacement, but reddit also rallied for Link vs Draven in that poll because they are scumbags and can't even let us have a poll for a bonus. Allen did the right thing and gave us Link vs Snake, which may seem silly for people who weren't here in the 2013 season, but at the time Snake \> Link was the "cool" upset pick everyone was pushing. I will actually admit there was potential for it, but Link was just too strong and probably will be too strong forever. The dude is just a vote magnet, and now with Breath of the Wild beneath his wings he will most likely dominate the 2018 season unless there is some major structural change or gimmick introduced. Still, Snake performed admirably here, and if he were still getting games regularly he might stay near Link's level even post-BotW, but unless my prediction comes true and the Martyr Factor plays a role in his strength, we will probably never see Snake come this close ever again. I really don't have much else to say about the bonus matches, they were super vanilla. Hopefully Luster has the other potential matches written down somewhere. Thanks for contributing to this thread, everyone. It's good to see all of us so passionate after such a long drought (Best Year doesn't count). I want to see every one of you on the leaderboards this year! \<33