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Auron comfortably beat Vincent and reinforced the writeup's view that Vincent had fallen sharply from his mid-2000s peak. Board 8 overwhelmingly expected the result despite old faith in Final Fantasy VII's intra-series strength.

Vincent survived a surprisingly strong Magus challenge in a matchup between two former contest heavyweights who had both declined badly. The writeup treats the narrow win as evidence that Vincent's fall had been even steeper than expected.

Mewtwo won convincingly while Phoenix unexpectedly pushed Vincent into last place. The notorious Vincent picture became one of the contest's biggest presentation controversies and overwhelmed much of the discussion.

Pic: The writeup says Vincent received an intentionally terrible Dirge of Cerberus picture and directly blames the image for worsening his performance enough that Phoenix could pass him.

Vincent won but performed far below what his old contest strength suggested against KOS-MOS and Dunban. The writeup sees the result as another unmistakable sign that Final Fantasy VII had fallen sharply.

Sephiroth failed to suppress Vincent nearly as hard as expected, and the writeup explicitly rejects ordinary SFF as a sufficient explanation. It instead frames the result as evidence that severe anti-voting had become a structural weakness for Sephiroth and Final Fantasy VII.

Vincent destroyed Guybrush in a match the writeup regards as proof that Guybrush was badly over-nominated and had little competitive value. The commentary is more about Guybrush's weakness than Vincent's strength.

The writeup treats Crono versus Vincent as the emotional centerpiece of the contest, built on years of Crono near-misses and frustration. Crono's late comeback finally reversed their previous result and completed the redemption story.

Rally: The writeup says Board 8 rallied intensely for Crono late in the match, turning the final fight with Vincent into a successful comeback for the advancing spot.

Samus and Vincent advanced as expected, but Ganondorf collapsed so badly that Gordon Freeman escaped last place. The writeup treats the fanbase interaction as the defining feature of an otherwise predictable divisional final.

SFF · LFF: The writeup describes Ganondorf as heavily suppressed by Samus through their shared Nintendo support. It also says Ganondorf's presence drained Samus enough to tighten her comparison with outside contender Vincent.

Vincent advanced comfortably, while Gordon Freeman completed another major step in his reversal of the old GFNW reputation by beating Scorpion for the second spot. Falco never became a serious factor.

Pic: The writeup says Scorpion's poor match picture was not the sole reason he lost, but explicitly states that it hurt his chances against Gordon Freeman.

Vincent advanced as expected, but Falco looked substantially stronger than anticipated and GLaDOS also exceeded the writeup's low expectations. Wander remained complete fodder, making the middle of the field more interesting than the winner.

Link and Sephiroth advanced as expected, but Mario held up better against Link than many anticipated. The writeup treats Link's diminished dominance as the first meaningful encouragement for people hoping Cloud could beat him later.

LFF: The writeup says Mario clearly weakened fellow Nintendo entrant Link, narrowing Link's advantage over Sephiroth and briefly making Link look vulnerable.

The anticipated Crono-Vincent showdown delivered a close race for the second advancing position, and Vincent ultimately broke through. The writeup treats the result as the first true breach of the Noble Nine and a major contest milestone.

Link and Vincent ultimately advanced comfortably, but Bidoof briefly turned the match into chaos by challenging Vincent early and even beating Link in the opening vote. The writeup remembers the surge as one of the contest's most surreal joke-character moments.

Rally · Cheat: The writeup attributes Bidoof's extraordinary early surge to suspected offsite rallying, especially from 4chan, and also records suspicions of vote stuffing.

Vincent quickly turned the anticipated contest with Zelda into a comfortable first-place finish, while Zelda safely advanced with him. The writeup notes that the genuinely close Tails-The Boss fight for third mattered little because neither advancing spot was threatened.

Sonic beat Vincent in a match whose final closeness overstated the actual danger, since Sonic controlled it from early on. Vincent nevertheless gained more Noble Nine breaker hype, while Sonic's own prospects against the bracket's elite took a hit.

Vincent won a heavily debated match after Ganondorf's early advantage faded with the opening Nintendo surge. The upset exposed problems in the old statistics and immediately triggered a large Vincent-over-Sonic bandwagon.

Crono won without serious danger, but Vincent performed far better than comparable projections suggested and then held an unusually stable share for most of the match. The writeup treats the overperformance as a puzzle involving either reverse SFF or an Advent Children boost.

SFF: The writeup presents reverse SFF between newer and older Square fandom as one plausible reason Vincent performed unusually well against Crono, while also considering Advent Children as an alternative explanation.

Vincent survived one of the contest's best matches after Squall repeatedly erased and rebuilt tiny leads throughout the day. The win was a huge bracket buster, but the writeup calls it a Pyrrhic victory because Squall's resistance further damaged Vincent's elite reputation.

SFF: The writeup says a slight amount of SFF, together with anti-votes, likely held Squall back in the close Final Fantasy matchup.

Vincent survived Dante after an unexpectedly competitive start, but the writeup treats the result as a major correction to weeks of Vincent hype. Dante's showing is framed as a moral victory that exposed Vincent as strong but not elite.

Vincent flattened Kerrigan in a match that many had overthought because of StarCraft's earlier contest success. The writeup treats Vincent's debut as a statement performance and Kerrigan's result as a major failure of Board 8 expectations.