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red sox 777 posted...

5 left.

Mario/Cloud
Mario/Crono 2002
Link/Cloud 2003
2007 Final
Link/Mario 2002?

transience posted...

59. Link/Mario (2002)

I'm going to guess Mario/Samus 2005 is the other one.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Bowser
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Are you interested in nominating matches and then voting to determine which one is truly the greatest? If so, post here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77326722
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Now for the flipside, video game characters who didn't make Character Battle X!
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Fox
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Bowser
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

transience posted...

Mario/Crono 2003 should probably be the consensus greatest match ever. Have we ever done a contest? We should, and it should win.

I did a thing: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77326722
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

transience posted...

Mario/Crono 2003 should probably be the consensus greatest match ever. Have we ever done a contest? We should, and it should win.

Because I'm a crazy person, this quote from transience's ranking of the most important matches in the history of GameFAQs Contests (side note: go check it out if you haven't already!) inspired me. So I wanted to see if anyone's interested in a contest where you nominate GameFAQs Contest matches, and then they go at it for votes in a 1v1 64-match bracket, with the winner earning the title of Greatest Match Ever (according to Board 8). Just post in this topic if you're interested and, if enough people are interested, I'll put up a separate topic for nominations.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

My ranking:

1. Jill
2. Ness
3. Scorpion
4. Waluigi
5. Simon
6. Wario
7. Tails
8. Captain Falcon
9. Lara
10. Ryu Hayabusa
11. Pac-Man
12. Phoenix
13. Ike
14. Ridley
15. Spyro
16. Shadow
17. Cecil
18. Rosalina
19. Zidane
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

MetalmindStats posted...

Bowser

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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

ZeroSignal620 posted...

Ulti_PCA posted...

Her glory years were back in the 90s

New trilogy's probably the 3 best games in the Tomb Raider franchise (at least 2 of them are; haven't played Shadow yet)

At her peak, Lara was arguably the most iconic video game character short of Mario, and had a blockbuster movie among other things. Even if her games have improved, her stature in broader culture hasn't. Admittedly, though, that's not overly relevant for GameFAQs popularity polls.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Bowser
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

I'll get the obvious question out of the way first: Why?
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Ike
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Ulti_PCA posted...

None of us had any delusions of Metal Man actually winning this match

I sure did! And Lara ultimately did fine for herself - Ammy's just stronger than a lot of people realize.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Anna
Will Turner
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Ike
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

EVE
Mr. Incredible
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Bowser
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

WALL-E
Violet Parr
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Bowser
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Not_Wylvane posted...

bowser vs. gordon freeman

This one wins.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Now I've finished listening to the future contest ideas section, and I have a fair few things to say!

First off, I absolutely agree about GotD II being a capital idea, regardless of the obvious winner. Personally, I would prefer to see a mini-contest in late 2019, followed by GotD II in late 2020, but GotD II as our next contest in early 2020 is more realistic. I did make and post a mock bracket for such a field a few weeks back, which probably needs a minor revamp, but here it is anyways: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1THs2OxKDopw_OjYpojEKCqyZkK0AtPCH7SGd0bgvzy8/edit?usp=sharing

As for the section on ideas for said 2019 mini-contest, wow, I didn't expect shoutouts from both Ng and Yo about my Series II mock bracket. So thank you, and I'm glad you both liked it so much! My order of preference for Ng's three ideas would be Series II > System > Song. Personally, I don't have a strong opinion on whether or not to retire Zelda from Series II - on the one hand, it would make for an interesting final, and Zelda did win Series I of course, but on the other hand, I don't think the precedent is strong enough to retire it, and contests with an obvious final can still be great, as long as the bracketmaking's up to snuff.

On the other hand, I have to agree with Yo, Leon, and KP, and say that a Best Song contest just wouldn't work, for all the reasons they already stated. As for a Best System bracket, you would see an absolutely dominant winner in the SNES, and a whole load of staggering blowouts. However, good bracketmaking could still overcome those concerns, particularly by stuffing most of the next-biggest contenders (PC, PS1, N64, PS2, and Switch mainly) in the other half of the bracket, as already discussed. I'm going to go with a controversial opinion here, though, and say that I don't see any point in having a nominations phase for a Best System contest. All you're realistically changing with one in a 32-system field is the fodder, and if anything, nominations are more likely to hamper Allen's ability to make the best possible bracket.

I'm leery about the idea of a Best Character of the Century contest. Despite its frequency in comparison to other fields, characters already aren't something people care about as much as games, series, or systems, and then you reduce that limited interest quite a bit further by restricting it to 2000 and after. On top of that, the winner wouldn't even be in question, anyways - Vivi looked a clear step ahead of everyone else who would be eligible, unless you consider Fierce Deity Link. If we do have such a contest, it should definitely be a smaller, 64-entrant field, in order to minimize the concentration of fodder and get it done sooner.

As for an All-Fictional field, I honestly agree with Yo and Leon in that it would still be decent, but the time has kinda passed. I also feel like Advo has a good point in that, once we do a no hold barred All-Fictional character battle, unless it turns out to be a fiasco, that will pretty much be the point of no return where we won't really be seeing video game-only character battles after that. I guess you could sort of solve that by making All-Fictional a totally distinct format, rather than calling it CB11, but I feel like then going back and only having video game characters in a future bracket would just confuse most people.

Finally, lumping Game of the 90s and BGE Ultimate together because I'm running out of space, I like the idea of both contests, including a full 128 entrants for the former, just like the other GotD contests. I don't, however, like the idea of having a Legends bracket in the latter, because CT and Ocarina are the only games definitively ahead of everything else, and because some of the games you'd be sticking in there are arbitrary, versus other, stronger games that get snubbed just because they haven't won a contest (ex. Majora vs. LttP).
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Judy Hopps
Nick Wilde
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Fox
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Bowser
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Bump for any Show listeners who still want to catch this.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Eh how is Vincent 11 positions ahead of Magus

Is that based on previous contests while ignoring 2018?

The gap between them isn't as big in terms of mean ranking, at 5.71 versus 10.64; it just happens that the Midcarder rankings we have so far are a big jumble. Also, while I don't buy it myself, there's something to be said about the theory that Vincent is a great opponent for Magus to overperform against, and that he'd fare worse against someone like Peach.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Unfortunately, I really just can't do naps. It's either an extended period of sleep or none at all for me.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Welp, that's what I get for sleeping at a reasonable time for once, I guess.

Bowser
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Kirby
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Here's a few more thoughts I have on CBX's format, now that I've finished listening to that whole section:

I really wish Allen had structured the Losers bracket like any standard tournament losers bracket, with the loser of a winners bracket ejected to the opposite side of the losers bracket. I frankly don't think one runback and another near-runback was worth all the wasted matches that resulted from that missed opportunity. Like three-ways in 2013, I consider the Losers bracket something that was worth seeing once but really has no need to return. As for the Legends bracket, the only situation in which I would want to see it return is for greatone's idea of a sort of test trial of an all-fictional character battle (which I think is a worthwhile compromise between B8's two camps on this matter for the next character battle). This would contain eight all-fictional characters with special significance to video gaming as the "Legends" facing off against the eight divisional winners in round 1 of a single-elimination format.

Speaking of brackets and legends, I can't say I really get the grasping at straws to not retire Link from matches that actually matter, at least in any future 1 character v 1 character character battle besides a true all-fictional bracket. I would even venture that Link is so far ahead of the rest of the field at this point that nothing short of another all-encompassing rally will ever dethrone him, particularly when you consider his trajectory versus those of the other potential contenders. For any future character battles that aren't truly all-fictional, I would just stick Link in an unscored bonus match versus the actual winner and, if the winner's someone like Mario, have another bonus match with Link vs. Cloud or whatever.

Advo's 8-Link bracket idea is kinda funny, though, and certainly not in a bad way. It does give GameFAQs what we want, after all, which of course is more Link! Because I could, I quickly made an Advo-style mini-bracket with CBX's divisional winners versus eight different Links:

(4) Ganondorf vs. Dark Link
(7) Pikachu vs. CDi Link (needs to have a surprised Pikachu pic for extra quality)
(3) Alucard vs. Link (Zelda 1)
(4) Bowser vs. Toon Link
(4) Zelda vs. Link (Breath of the Wild)
(3) Auron vs. Young Link
(3) Tifa vs. Linkle
(1) Sephiroth vs. Fierce Deity Link

A couple of other minor points I wanted to make:

First, I do have a nit to pick about Allen's handling of the nomination form. While it was nice that he responded to early B8 trends by including various characters among the auto-suggest options, there was nought but radio silence on his end after the first 24 hours or so. The result was a bunch of notable snubs from the nomination form, including trending recent and popular B8 characters such as Cuphead, Papyrus, Max Caulfield, Metal Man, and Rosalina, as well as established characters such as Missile from previous character battles. As we've abundantly seen by now, the characters who aren't included on the nomination form have a very low chance of reaching the bracket - only something like a dozen CBX characters at most weren't included on the form, and none of them went above a 12-seed.

Second, I'll concede that my previous take on Allen's CBX pictures was probably a bit too critical, as most of the pics he chose do look quite good. I just would like all of them to look good. That being said, I tend to err on KP's side and say that Allen dumping the full list of characters in the next character battle on us beforehand and asking us to make pictures isn't a good idea. I absolutely agree with having B8 make the standardized pics for the matches; I just think those can afford to be different from the standardized pics when the bracket first goes up. Similarly, I like the teaser matches Allen gave us in 2015; that just shouldn't be the whole darn teaser list of names, at least in my opinion.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

red sox 777 posted...

Also, notwithstanding that the people proclaiming the contest over after round 1 with Undertale and Draven are 2/2, that doesn't mean they were right that it was a certainty at that point. And I'm pretty sure some of those people who said Undertale was a lock to win after round 1 threw in the towel about 16 hours into the RBY match when RBY had a lead of 7000, Undertale was not cutting, and Undertale's vote intake was falling. Then it was a lock, and RBY had it won. Until an hour later when the big rally started, then it was a lock for Undertale again.

I find people proclaiming things certainties to be annoying.

I can't say about everyone, but I'm quite certain Leon was at least stubborn about Undertale having 2015 won the whole way through after Round 1, and his stubbornness proved a virtue here!
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Kirby
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Also worth noting: if you count Legends Round 2 as Round 6, Pikachu in 2018 went the furthest of any 7-seed.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Anton Ego
Remy
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

#10: Link vs. Ganondorf 2004
#9: Snake vs. L-Block vs. Sonic vs. Squall 2007
#8: Draven vs. Snake vs. Samus 2013
#7: Mario vs. Samus 2005
#6: Mario vs. Crono 2003
#5: Link vs. Shepard vs. Draven 2013
#4: Mario vs. Crono 2002
#3: Mario vs. Cloud 2002
#2: Link vs. Cloud vs. L-Block vs. Snake 2007
#1: Link vs. Cloud 2003

This looks decent, I guess?
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Kirby
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

X_Dante_X posted...

- Banned: Steinershocker

r00d! what did he ever do to deserve this?
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

The Day 5 topic: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77324171
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77324171

I'll leave this topic open for Shonen. Otherwise, please use the new topic, including for any tiers you might have missed out on such as the Midcarders.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

SMCVI

Ah yes, the thinking person's Save My series!
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the project where we rank all the CBX characters by contest strength! This time, well be ranking the Lower Midcarders, comprised of the following characters:

Captain Falcon, Cecil Harvey, Ike, Jill Valentine, Lara Croft, Miles Tails Prower, Ness, Pac-Man, Phoenix Wright, Ridley, Rosalina, Ryu Hayabusa, Scorpion, Shadow the Hedgehog, Simon Belmont, Spyro the Dragon, Waluigi, Wario, Zidane Tribal

Before we get going, heres the Rules, as always:

1. If at all possible, please number your rankings (ex. 1 for the strongest character, etc.) - it makes your ranks much clearer, allowing me to tabulate them much easier.
2. Rankings of indirect strength are preferred, but direct rankings will be allowed, especially in tandem with indirect rankings.
3. Stick to one ranking per tier (or one ranking each of indirect and direct strength if you choose to separate them) - dont try to sway the standings with multiple accounts.
4. Youre always welcome to submit retroactive rankings if you missed one or more days, as well as change your existing rankings if so inclined, up until this project ends.
5. And most importantly, be nice to each other, even people you dont like! Discussion is welcomed and encouraged, but this isnt ultimately meant to be an overly serious project, so I dont want to see any knock-down, drag-out arguments developing in here about how someones not ranking by the stats or whatever else - use your discretion about this.

Our spreadsheet, where you can find all of this project's raw data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s6rNxUlXY3kpo9Ru-Pyw9CjtGBIRasJKiUv6a7cEgEw/edit?usp=sharing

And our Board 8 Wiki page, where you can find the list of tiers, among other things: http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Ranking_the_CBX_Characters_by_Contest_Strength

Heres the Lower Midcarders listed in an easy copy-paste format:

Captain Falcon
Cecil
Ike
Jill
Lara
Ness
Pac-Man
Phoenix
Ridley
Rosalina
Ryu Hayabusa
Scorpion
Shadow
Simon
Spyro
Tails
Waluigi
Wario
Zidane

As for yesterday's results, here's our current ranking of the Midcarders:

1. Amaterasu
2. Vincent
3. Fox
4. 2B
5. Sub-Zero
6. Geralt
7. Frog
8. Kefka
9. Chun-Li
10. Bayonetta
11. Kratos
12. Terra
13. Magus
14. Knuckles
15. Peach
16. Yuna
17. Leon
18. Tidus
19. Crash

As I expected, there was an absolute minimum modicum of consensus among the Midcarders' rankings. Frog and Peach were separated by a mere two points in terms of mean ranking, while even Amaterasu's mean ranking was a low 4.36. Also notable: "Teedus" fails even at failing, losing out on last by a mean of just seven hundredths of a ranking (or one rank in total).

Finally, Day 6, which will be the Fodder Line tier, will be going up in the evening of December 23rd (PT).
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Welp, there goes the only two characters I cared about at all, as the first two out of this batch.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Much of B8 was in denial, but certain smart people such as Leon (iirc) called 2015 over after Undertale prevailed against Mass Effect 3.
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Will Turner
Elizabeth Swann
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

MetalmindStats posted...

Kirby

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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

EVE
Violet Parr
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

Kirby

Poor Donkey Kong...
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!

bot where's sophitia
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Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!