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Samus annihilated Sam Fisher so thoroughly that early voters briefly suspected a broken poll. The writeup treats the blowout as confirmation that Samus was surging and had become the clear favorite to take the Chaos division.

Sora turned a matchup many expected Ryu Hayabusa to control into one of the contest's biggest surprises. The writeup treats the decisive win as proof that Sora had made an enormous jump in strength since the previous year.

Dante eliminated Tails in a match the writeup considered completely predictable and largely uninteresting. Its only real distinction was finally carrying Dante beyond the second round.

Sonic beat Ryu without serious danger, but the writeup saw the performance as insufficient to threaten a surging Samus. The result reinforced the sense that Sonic had remained steady while Samus had improved.

Sephiroth beat Vivi comfortably, but Vivi held up better than many expected against a fellow Square entrant. The writeup uses the result to argue that Square fanbases are less easily compressed than Nintendo fanbases.

Auron beat Ness in a result everyone expected, but Ness performed better than the old projections suggested. The writeup treats the outcome as another example of the bracket making individual strength difficult to interpret.

Squall beat Kirby in another predictable Midgar match, though Kirby performed better than expected. The writeup's main curiosity is that Squall only began separating after the match picture appeared.

Pic: The writeup says Kirby and Squall were dead even before the match picture appeared, after which Squall began pulling away, and explicitly suggests that the picture may have mattered.

Cloud disposed of Vyse exactly as expected, leaving little to discuss beyond comparisons with Link. The writeup argues that merely meeting expectations was no longer enough because Link had been exceeding his own.

Solid Snake beat Knuckles yet again, but the writeup is mostly exasperated that the same second-round pairing kept recurring. Knuckles looked better than in their earlier meetings, leaving open whether he improved or Snake declined.

Frog survived Master Chief in an all-time classic filled with huge momentum swings and a frantic finish. The writeup celebrates the drama while also arguing that outside Halo promotion and rampant multi-voting make the true result impossible to separate cleanly from the controversy.

Rally · Cheat: The writeup says Halo sites linked to the poll during Master Chief's comeback, creating an outside rally. It also explicitly describes blatant multi-voting on both sides, especially in the final hour.

Zero handled Vercetti almost exactly as Board 8 expected in a match the writeup calls one of the contest's dullest. Its main significance was completing the obvious setup for Mega Man versus Zero.

Mega Man demolished Tidus far more decisively than most of Board 8 expected, vindicating Heroic Mario's unusually confident prediction. The writeup treats Tidus's collapse as one of the contest's hardest results to explain.

Mario routed Bowser in another predetermined Hyrule Division matchup, with the writeup again criticizing the bracket for sacrificing strong villains to company-based pairings. The result's main use was as an imperfect SFF comparison before Mario met Crono.

SFF: The writeup says Bowser was SFF'd heavily by Mario in their same-franchise matchup, and treats the result mainly as a distorted comparison point for the upcoming Mario-Crono rematch.

Crono crushed Magus in a matchup the writeup considers another casualty of the company-based bracket. Magus briefly led with Board 8 support, but the eventual SFF blowout left no useful opportunity to test his real strength.

SFF: The writeup explicitly says Magus was hit by SFF against fellow Chrono Trigger character Crono, making the lopsided result a poor measure of Magus's standalone strength.

Yoshi beat Luigi in a heavily debated Nintendo matchup that ultimately followed the available statistical clues more closely than the hype suggested. The writeup calls the result disappointingly predictable despite the same-fanbase conditions.

SFF: The writeup explicitly describes Yoshi versus Luigi as an SFF affair between Nintendo characters, though it notes that older extrapolated standings still predicted the matchup unusually well.

Link annihilated Ganondorf so thoroughly that the writeup treats the result as both a historic SFF extreme and a championship statement. Ganondorf's standalone strength effectively vanished against the flagship character of his own series.

SFF: The writeup calls Link's destruction of fellow Zelda character Ganondorf the largest SFF beating yet seen, arguing that Ganondorf's normal strength was almost completely suppressed by Link.