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Pikachu beat a recently boosted Kratos comfortably and continued to look like the strongest Pokémon character in the bracket. The writeup treats Kratos's God of War revival as making the win more impressive than the raw matchup first appears.

Kratos produced by far one of the strongest performances of his contest career while Marston looked far weaker than his game-level popularity suggested. The writeup attributes much of the gap to same-audience suppression.

SFF: The writeup explicitly calls Kratos's unusually large win over John Marston SFF, arguing that two similar Western tough-guy fanbases overlapped heavily and that the stronger, more established Kratos suppressed Marston.

Mega Man delivered another clean top-seed performance, while Jill beat the declining Kratos for second in the Expert Challenge ordering. The writeup treats Jill's placement as an upset only by seed rather than by actual strength.

Kratos won easily, but Recette unexpectedly beat Travis for second in the Expert Challenge ordering after outside support boosted the niche indie character. Travis's comeback attempt never fully recovered the early deficit.

Rally: The writeup says Recette received a small organized push from the game's developer, with possible additional support from 4chan.

Charizard turned a heavily anticipated upset attempt into a convincing breakthrough over Kratos. The result launched a serious deep-run scenario for Charizard and confirmed that his first-round strength had been meaningful.

Rally: The writeup explicitly says both Charizard and Kratos were heavily rallied, though Charizard's support proved much more effective.

Kratos defeated Tails but looked badly underwhelming for a highly seeded character, especially because his usual daytime strength never appeared. The showing made Charizard look much more dangerous for the next round.

Sephiroth and Sonic advanced in a match the writeup considered essentially predetermined once Auron shared the field with Sephiroth. Sonic's solid showing quieted some of the criticism generated by his earlier loss.

SFF: The writeup says Sephiroth SFFed fellow Final Fantasy entrant Auron badly, preventing Auron from reproducing his prior win over Sonic.

Sephiroth took first as expected, while Kratos again benefited from a field that disadvantaged one of his stronger rivals. Tifa's elimination made the fanbase dynamics more important than the nominal matchup strength.

SFF: The writeup says Sephiroth's shared Final Fantasy support suppressed Tifa, allowing Kratos to take advantage and claim the other advancing spot.

Kratos advanced comfortably, while Jill reversed the prior year's result against Ocelot and took the other spot. Ocelot's failure to capitalize on fresh Metal Gear momentum made him the match's major disappointment.

Snake eventually won, but L-Block dominated the opening and advanced with ease over Kratos and Riku. The writeup marks this as the first match where the joke entrant looked capable of threatening the contest's established elite directly.

Kratos took first, but the important result was L-Block advancing again while Kirby was weakened by Donkey Kong. The writeup marks this as the point when L-Block stopped looking like a harmless joke and became a serious contest threat.

LFF: The writeup explicitly says Donkey Kong drained Nintendo support from Kirby, costing Kirby the advancing spot and allowing L-Block to move on.

Kratos took first in a result that surprised many casual brackets but looked straightforward to the writeup. Donkey Kong still advanced, though sharing Nintendo support with Marth made an already difficult matchup much worse for him.

LFF: The writeup says Donkey Kong and Marth drained each other's Nintendo support, making outsider Kratos's first-place finish effectively inevitable.

Ryu beat Kratos without serious danger even though casual brackets had strongly favored Kratos. The writeup is more interested in Kratos's powerful daytime recovery, which suggested he could become dangerous in a genuinely winnable future match.

Alucard beat Kratos, but Kratos's strong daytime showing made the favorite look far less convincing than expected. The writeup saw the result as a warning that Alucard was aging and would be vulnerable against Sora.