Do you think Seph and Sonic are still the weakest Noble Niners?

MetalmindStats posted...

My take on the members of the Negative Nine:

* CATS (the winless character who's lost the most matches)
* Chester (the weakest character we've ever seen)
* Tanner (he'll never die as a benchmark for futility)
* Gordon Freeman (GFNW is once again alive and well)
* Cecil Harvey (the modern equivalent of GFNW because he keeps getting snakebitten in close matches, some of which he never should have lost to begin with)
* Tidus (the biggest choker of these contests)
* Draven (the ultimate hero to zero story)
* Jay Solano (the character who's such a loser that he circled back to become the ultimate winner)
The only problem is deciding who the last character should be, because no one else particularly jumps out at me as deserving of such a lofty designation.

How about Neptune as the token female?

Mac Arrowny posted...

I suppose the question is how much of a boost Seph gets from FF7R

uhh did you not notice he just posted the top 9 from your 2018 x-stats?

seph is barely in it. So from a new generation standpoint not that much

Tifa is the one most boosted from Remake and cloud obviously

Tifa would destroy sonic 1v1 now i challenge anyone to dispute that

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(film )

How bout Magus? Going from getting only doubled by Link towards a downward spiral.

Chester in ranks with GFNW and CATS? I'll take it!

Does anyone have the character description used for Chester in the contest? I remember it being perfectly ridiculous and gritty, but didn't think to save it.

Sephiroth was for sure the best chance for Tifa to overperform and Samus the best chance for Tifa to underperform. I don't think it's impossible for something like Seph > Sonic > Tifa > Seph, but again, Samus was the worst she could run into so I think it's possible Tifa just beats them both.

Expecting FF7R boost to be a thing. I'd pick Seph above at least Sonic now, maybe also Mega Man, Crono and Snake. I think there's a clear top 4 of it now. Snake has nowhere to go but down, <i>probably</i>. Crono's saving grace is truly the exact demographic our site has been left to. I don't think the Sonic movie will make any noticable difference unless the character battle was like... now.

TsunamiXXVIII posted...

So why are we mythologizing them?

This question answers itself, surely? The N9 as a concept is a legend in these contests, a big part of their "lore". They're self -mythologizing, especially now their winning streak is dead. It used to mean they were the strongest characters, now it's just 9 very strong characters that formed a big part of the structure of the early contests.

And anyway, their "legend" was solidified in the 2013 contest. The 1 seeds were the noble nine, even though they definitely weren't the strongest 9 characters in the bracket. Honestly after that happened their legacy was cemented as being more than just like a stats topic meme.

The Noble Nine is just the Noble Nine now. It is a piece of contest lore and the rules dont matter - though using the contest rules when it was formed, it didnt actually break until Zelda in 2018 so congrats to her. If there were ever going to be an alteration, I would remove Sephiroth as he was always the odd man out, and could potentially be the weakest to boot. Then you have an Elite Eight of industry icons.

Regarding Gordon Freeman - GFNW was out of date before he actually won. Once Half-Life 2 launched he had a gigantic boost and only lost in 2005 due to being placed against immediately post-RE4 Leon Kennedy. He was only a true loser for those first three contests. Cecil is much more tragic and fitting as he keeps dropping debatable matches, though Guybrush is of course the biggest loser of them all. CATS should stay retired.

We could also consider Mr. Driller a candidate, the original last place X-Stats guy.

At this point the NN is just a legacy title.

If you want to use a title for the present you have to create a new name because it's not necessarily 9 anymore.

Based on the previous contest, we have a Sinister Six (Link, Mario, Samus, Cloud, Zelda, Snake) and between 10-15 characters who are similar in strength below them.

MetalmindStats posted...

Tidus (the biggest choker of these contests)

Fun fact - Tidus is the only character who has perfect attendance in Character Battles 1-10 that has never made it out of the second round.

The Noble Nine also had an entire contest structured around them, or did you detractors not notice the 1 seeds in the 3 way contest?

These Tidus stats make me sad

MZero11 posted...

These Tidus stats make me sad

Want another sad one?

Cecil hasn't ever won a contest match, true, but I believe Tidus' last win in a match was the day after Cecil's contest debut.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Want another sad one?

Cecil hasn't ever won a contest match, true, but I believe Tidus' last win in a match was the day after Cecil's contest debut.

Lmao

He did get through to round two in both fourways though.

MetalmindStats posted...

My take on the members of the Negative Nine:

* CATS (the winless character who's lost the most matches)
* Chester (the weakest character we've ever seen)
* Tanner (he'll never die as a benchmark for futility)
* Gordon Freeman (GFNW is once again alive and well)
* Cecil Harvey (the modern equivalent of GFNW because he keeps getting snakebitten in close matches, some of which he never should have lost to begin with)
* Tidus (the biggest choker of these contests)
* Draven (the ultimate hero to zero story)
* Jay Solano (the character who's such a loser that he circled back to become the ultimate winner)
The only problem is deciding who the last character should be, because no one else particularly jumps out at me as deserving of such a lofty designation.

I definitely think Guybrush deserves a place, dude is 0-6 and his character totally fits in the concept of a Negative Nine.

Guybrush even pointlessly had votes removed for cheating in 2013!