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Link beat Cloud again in the grand final and completed an overwhelmingly dominant championship run. The writeup treats Cloud merely breaking through Link's usual ceiling as the only real drama and uses the finale to reflect on the contest's collapsing turnout.

Cloud erased Zelda's early lead with the same night-to-day trend reversal he had just used against Mario. The writeup treats the loss as Zelda finally running out of momentum after her extraordinary run rather than evidence that her breakout was false.

Cloud finally beat Mario in their long-awaited 1v1 rematch, reversing the old trend pattern and surviving Mario's late reputation for clutch finishes. The writeup credits Cloud's Smash-era boost and possible anti-Mario sentiment rather than a confirmed current rally.

Cloud beat Crono again by almost the same margin as their sprite-round meeting. The writeup uses the near-identical rematch to reject claims that the earlier sprite pictures materially distorted the result.

SFF: The writeup says there was likely a small amount of SFF between Cloud and Crono because their fanbases overlap as flagship Square RPG protagonists.

Link continued the long-running Link-Cloud rivalry with another dominant win and looked more overwhelming than ever. The writeup treats Cloud's inability to threaten him as evidence that Link remained completely untouchable without extraordinary outside intervention.

Cloud beat Crono much more comfortably than the pre-match upset discussion suggested. The writeup explicitly rejects SFF as the explanation and credits Cloud's Smash appearance with restoring enough strength to dominate the matchup.

Cloud beat Alucard comfortably, but Alucard performed far better than in their early-contest meetings. The writeup treats the loss as confirmation that Alucard's breakout run reflected genuine strength rather than only a weak division.

Squirtle beat Cloud outright in one of the contest's coolest Noble Nine upsets, surviving Cloud's overnight recovery and pulling away again late. The writeup emphasizes that Cloud's broader Final Fantasy VII decline made the impossible-looking result suddenly believable.

LFF: The writeup says Leon's overlapping PlayStation-oriented support hurt Cloud and played an important role in opening the door for Squirtle's upset.

Cloud won comfortably while Frog overcame an early Lugia lead and took second in the Expert Challenge ordering despite sharing some Square support with Cloud. Lugia's collapse weakened the broader PokéFEAR narrative.

LFF: The writeup says Cloud was stealing support from Frog, making Frog's recovery past Lugia more impressive.

Cloud won the expected blowout, but the writeup still considered the performance too weak for a former top-tier character facing extreme fodder. The match becomes another warning about Final Fantasy VII's decline.

Link defeated Cloud yet again, but Cloud recovered from a poor opening to make the final much more respectable than expected. The writeup's larger complaint is that Link's dominance had become so repetitive that he no longer belonged in ordinary brackets.

Snake spent hours trading the lead with Cloud and even stalled through Cloud's normally dominant overnight period, creating genuine upset hope. Cloud's morning strength finally broke the deadlock and ended Snake's deep run.

Samus repeatedly fought Cloud back to even during the opening hours and came closer to the upset than their older history suggested possible. Cloud finally took control during his strongest overnight period, but the writeup regards Samus's resistance as a major statement.

Cloud produced one of his strongest matches of the contest by overwhelming the usually consistent Ryu. The writeup treats it as a much-needed reminder that Cloud remained elite despite visible decline elsewhere.

Cloud won comfortably, but Captain Falcon still performed better than several much more established characters had managed against him. The writeup treats Falcon's showing as further evidence that Cloud had weakened.

Cloud rebounded from his weak first-round showing and dominated an RE5-boosted Chris far more decisively than expected. The writeup treats fanbase overlap as the most plausible explanation for Chris collapsing so badly.

SFF: The writeup says Final Fantasy VII-over-Resident Evil SFF is the likeliest explanation for Chris Redfield performing worse against Cloud than Ridley had.

Cloud looked unexpectedly vulnerable for much of the match, prompting concern that he had lost strength. Ridley's showing is treated as surprisingly good even after allowing for the favorable picture situation.

Pic: The writeup says Cloud received a bad picture while Ridley was finally recognizable, presenting those image conditions as part of why Cloud looked weaker than expected.

Link completed his revenge tour and reclaimed the championship, but Snake supplied the final surprise by finishing ahead of Cloud. The writeup treats Snake's run as the culmination of years of gradual growth and one of the contest's defining stories.

Rally: The writeup describes Solid Snake as the contest's biggest rallied bandwagon, saying his accumulated support carried him to a shocking second-place finish in the championship.

Snake converted the divided field into a surprise first-place finish, while Cloud recovered enough to secure the other final berth. Sephiroth's collapse and Kirby's early pressure made the semifinal far stranger than expected.

SFF · LFF: The writeup says Kirby SFFed Sephiroth badly, leaving Sephiroth unusually weak. It also says Sephiroth leeched enough Final Fantasy support from Cloud to keep Cloud from catching outside contender Snake.

Cloud and Snake advanced through a deliberately uneventful quarterfinal after the drama of the prior match. The Cube's quiet exit confirmed that the inanimate-object wave had largely run out of steam.

Cloud dominated, while Mewtwo turned a seemingly unfavorable draw into one of the contest's largest surprises. Squall and Sora were left fighting each other for scraps behind the advancing pair.

SFF: The writeup says Cloud's presence created massive Square SFF against Squall and Sora, allowing outside entrant Mewtwo to capitalize and advance.

Cloud overwhelmed the field, while Mewtwo held off Midna for the other advancing position without the race ever becoming the epic duel its closeness suggested. The writeup sees Cloud's dominance as the larger statement.

Cloud and Midna advanced in another first-round match the writeup regarded as essentially decided before it began. Edgeworth and Axel never generated the upset or novelty support needed to matter.

L-Block completed its improbable run by beating Link in a final dominated by an enormous Internet bandwagon. The writeup remembers the result as the ultimate joke-character triumph and the defining match of the contest.

Rally: The writeup explicitly describes the final as driven by massive rallying and broad Internet support for L-Block, which overwhelmed Link's attempted comeback.

Link and Cloud advanced through a semifinal whose top order was never seriously in doubt. Samus nevertheless outperformed Sephiroth, providing the only notable wrinkle in an otherwise predictable heavyweight match.

SFF: The writeup says Link heavily suppressed Samus through their overlapping Nintendo support, even though Samus still performed surprisingly well relative to Sephiroth.

Cloud and Samus advanced through a quarterfinal that played out almost exactly as expected. The lasting story was Mega Man's poor showing, which ended any serious argument that he still belonged alongside Samus.

Cloud overwhelmed the field and further fueled speculation that he could challenge Link. Ryu advanced ahead of Auron, with the writeup treating Cloud's effect on Auron as central to the result.

LFF: The writeup says Cloud's shared Final Fantasy support held Auron down, allowing outside entrant Ryu to benefit and claim the other advancing position.

Cloud dominated as expected, while the real contest was a three-way fight for the other advancing position. Marcus Fenix used his strong daytime trend to erase Ocelot's advantage and complete the comeback.

Cloud dominated the field as expected, while Ocelot took second over Jill without ever facing serious danger. The writeup finds the result ordinary at the time but notable in retrospect because Jill would reverse the comparison a year later.

Link took control of the final Battle Royale matchup almost immediately and never gave Cloud a realistic chance to win. The writeup treats the result as another demonstration that Cloud was no longer a true threat to Link.

With Sephiroth gone, the fourth day became a predictable Link-and-Cloud show and finally ended Snake's run. The writeup spends most of its attention celebrating how many elite opponents Snake had already survived before the two remaining giants eliminated him.

Snake survived Sephiroth after a dramatic late comeback attempt and another last-minute Metal Gear response. The result became the capstone of Snake's extraordinary run, while Sephiroth was remembered as the Battle Royale's major disappointment.

SFF · Rally · Cheat: The writeup says Cloud heavily SFFed Sephiroth, helping leave him vulnerable to Snake. It also describes intense late rallying and records cheating allegations around the finish, while noting that CJayC said no cheating was found.

Mario became the second elimination as Link absorbed the Nintendo support that had been shared with Samus the day before. Snake again outperformed expectations, while Sephiroth's repeated struggles to escape last place foreshadowed the next round.

SFF: The writeup says Link SFFed Mario to death, pushing Mario into last place despite his status as a traditional heavyweight.

The first Battle Royale largely followed expectations at the top, while Samus became the first elimination after being squeezed by the other Nintendo heavyweights. Snake finishing ahead of Mario was the main unexpected development and set up the next day's drama.

SFF: The writeup says Link and Mario SFFed Samus heavily enough to drive her into last place and eliminate her.

Cloud briefly took the lead and performed better than many expected after Nintendo's huge year, but Link's morning and daytime strength eventually buried the comeback attempt. The writeup credits Advent Children with helping Cloud remain respectable in another loss to Link.

Link avenged his previous loss to Cloud and confirmed the strength he had shown throughout the contest. Cloud briefly threatened a comeback, but Link's daytime surge settled the championship without the picture excuses that had shadowed their earlier meeting.

Samus briefly made the semifinal look interesting with an early lead, but Cloud quickly took control and advanced as expected. The writeup treats the rest of the match as little more than preparation for the long-planned Link final.

Cloud defeated Sephiroth comfortably despite the rematch carrying at least some plausible upset intrigue. The writeup says the win restored confidence in Cloud just before the expected showdown with Link.

Cloud easily beat Squall in a heavily shared-fanbase matchup, but the result did little to improve his standing against Link. The writeup remembers the match mainly as another predictable step toward the planned final.

SFF: The writeup explicitly frames Cloud versus Squall as a matchup with a massive amount of SFF, with Cloud dominating the fellow Final Fantasy entrant.

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.

Cloud still routed Duke Nukem, but Duke's memorable milk-carton picture gave the underdog an unusual opening burst and complicated early Link-Cloud comparisons. The writeup frames the match as the start of a contest-long contest between the two favorites' performances.

Pic: The writeup says Duke Nukem's milk-carton match picture drew humorous support, helping him take an early lead and plausibly contributing to Cloud's slight underperformance.

Cloud recovered from Sephiroth's early lead and won a final that the writeup says was less competitive than the ending suggested. It frames the result as the culmination of Cloud's strengthened post-Kingdom Hearts standing and likely same-fanbase suppression of Sephiroth.

SFF: The writeup says SFF likely had the most to do with Cloud beating fellow Final Fantasy VII character Sephiroth, and treats their later rematch as confirmation that Sephiroth was suppressed here.

Cloud shocked the contest by beating the seemingly invincible Link after taking control almost immediately and resisting the expected Zelda day-vote comeback. Heavy rallying, cheating allegations, and a disputed picture imbalance became part of the explanation for one of the contest's defining upsets.

Rally · Cheat · Pic: The writeup says both sides engaged in heavy rallying and records widespread cheating accusations, while treating those accusations as roughly symmetric blame rather than proven fraud. It also says Link's Wind Waker image versus Cloud's Kingdom Hearts image may have cost Link a small but meaningful amount of support.

Cloud turned a briefly hopeful Sonic challenge into a devastating rout, confirming Sonic's decline and dramatically raising expectations for Cloud against Link. The writeup treats this as the point where Cloud's 2003 strength became impossible to dismiss.

Cloud destroyed a Bowser whom much of the board had strongly supported, making the scale of the win especially striking. The writeup discusses a severe picture mismatch but stops short of attributing the result primarily to it.

Cloud comfortably dismissed Auron in a match some had hoped could produce a same-company upset. Instead, the writeup says conventional SFF took over and strengthened the case that Cloud sat near the top of Square's hierarchy.

SFF: The writeup explicitly describes Cloud's victory over fellow Final Fantasy entrant Auron as an SFF beating that overwhelmed any hoped-for reverse-SFF upset effect.

CATS briefly led Cloud at the opening, creating a memorable Board 8 spectacle before Cloud predictably destroyed him. The writeup treats the moment as the birth of the CATS Army and an early milestone in Cloud's long-running difficulty with the board vote.

Cloud controlled much of the match before Mario mounted a comeback aided by unusually favorable circumstances and outside attention. The close finish, enormous board reaction, rallying, and unresolved cheating allegations made the match the writeup's choice for the greatest contest match ever.

Rally · Cheat: The writeup credits Mario's comeback partly to a Planet GameCube link and widespread vote solicitation, explicitly treating those efforts as rallying. It also describes alleged proxy voting and supposed vote-stuffing admissions, while emphasizing that the cheating claims were never proven.

Cloud ended Alucard's surprise run, but did not dominate as thoroughly as his earlier matches suggested he might. The writeup says that performance, combined with Mario's previous showing, restored genuine uncertainty before Mario versus Cloud.

Cloud overwhelmed Pikachu and looked substantially stronger than Mario had through the same stage of the bracket. The match also became notable for Solarshadow's early vote-tracking work, a precursor to later poll-update culture.

A heavily hyped first Square-versus-Nintendo matchup turned into an easy Cloud win. The writeup remembers the match less for suspense than for igniting the long-running Square-Nintendo rivalry and intensifying anticipation for Mario versus Cloud.