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The Wind Waker comfortably beat Skies of Arcadia and posted the clearest opening result in an otherwise chaotic division. The writeup still considered the performance modest by Zelda standards, but enough to make Wind Waker the provisional divisional favorite.

The Wind Waker beat Metroid Prime after the two Nintendo games stayed relatively close until the morning vote created separation. The writeup views the SFF matchup and weak turnout as further signs that Wind Waker was the vulnerable member of Zelda's otherwise dominant contest run.

SFF: The writeup groups Wind Waker versus fellow Nintendo title Metroid Prime with the contest's other SFF matches while discussing its unusually weak turnout.

Starcraft shocked The Wind Waker with another late comeback, extending its improbable run and ending Zelda's unbeaten start. The writeup credits Battle.net rallying for making the difference and treats the result as Starcraft's arrival as a legitimate contest force.

Rally: The writeup attributes Starcraft's decisive late comeback to organized Battle.net promotion and heavy Saturday-night traffic. It explicitly rejects cheating as the explanation for this particular match.

Melee and Wind Waker advanced exactly as expected, but Wind Waker held up well enough to raise concerns about Melee's future ceiling. Fire Emblem collapsed under an especially hostile overlap situation.

SFF: The writeup says Fire Emblem was SFFed from two directions by Wind Waker and by Melee, the game that had helped introduce the series to many voters.

Melee won easily, while Diablo II repeated its first-round success and comfortably advanced again. Halo collapsed to last behind a SFF-affected Wind Waker, producing another major embarrassment for the series.

SFF: The writeup says Melee SFFed Wind Waker, though Wind Waker still held up better than expected and even finished ahead of Halo.

Wind Waker began overwhelmingly but lost a remarkable amount of support across the match. The writeup reads the collapse as evidence that lingering hostility toward the game still mattered and that it was in trouble against the Majora-GSC winner.

Wind Waker began overwhelmingly against Assassin's Creed II and then bled support at a rate the writeup considered shocking for Zelda. The result both lowered confidence in Wind Waker and established Assassin's Creed II as a legitimate contest game.

Wind Waker handled Oblivion without the competitive drama some had expected before the contest. Oblivion improved during the day but never became one of the Western games the writeup considered especially impressive.

Majora's Mask settled a long-running Zelda-series debate by beating Wind Waker decisively. The writeup argues the result did not require any special contest bandwagon because Majora was simply the more beloved title.

Wind Waker beat Pokémon X/Y comfortably, while the writeup rejects the idea that Pokémon suffered meaningful SFF here. The result kept Wind Waker respectable but still left Final Fantasy VI favored for the next round.

Wind Waker beat KOTOR by roughly the margin expected and did little to settle the upcoming debate with Final Fantasy VI. The writeup treats the result as useful mainly because the next match remained genuinely uncertain.

Final Fantasy VI won a debated matchup with Wind Waker without ever facing a sustained comeback. The result became a rare modern example of Final Fantasy beating Zelda in a close-looking contest matchup and validated FFVI's stronger 2015 form.