LogFAQs > #948048790

Division 2 Round 2: Mario, Zelda, Mega Man X, and Mudkip

Mario - 42599 [31.04%]
Zelda - 27572 [20.09%]
Mega Man X - 41146 [29.98%]
Mudkip - 25908 [18.88%]
Total Votes - 137225

After round 1, you could cut the tension for this match with a knife. With all four of them being Nintendo characters and us not fully understanding The Hierarchy yet, plus Mudkip being the wildest of wild cards, any possible order of these four characters was in play. Looking back on it, would any of them winning the poll or getting second had truly surprised anyone? The Zelda series is king, IT'S FREAKING MARIO, Mega Man X was a potential monster, Mudkip had the joke bandwagon factor, and who really knew which way the Nintendo leeching would fall? I know I personally remember thinking it would be Mario > Mega Man X > Mudkip > Zelda, but I wasn't at all confident in it. You can imagine the insane amount of arguing going on for this one, not to mention the palpable hype with Mudkip.

When the poll began, it was very clear that Mudkip would be no factor at all, at least not with actually advancing into round 3. There was too much Nintendo in this poll for him to get any real joke support going, and typically these joke characters catch these absurd rallies and make the rest of the match irrelevant, a la Undertale in the finals against Ocarina of Time. That didn't happen here. Mudkip got some support, but not nearly enough to actually threaten in the match. He <i>did,</i> however, get enough support for third place. The unlucky loser in this spot was...

Zelda?! I know it's crazy to think about given the utterly obnoxious boost in strength she got from Breath of the Wild, but Zelda used to be a pretty middling character in these things. Even in 2006, she was the beneficiary of a stupid bracket gimmick. That run was fraudulent, and she didn't <i>really</i> matter in these things until Breath of the Wild. After that though, all bets are off. Whatever the tier is directly below Link, she's on it now. But back then, not so much. She actually finished behind Bidoof in 2007, and after falling behind by 800 votes to Mudkip in 2008, she required the day vote to bail her out and save her dignity. It was a pretty sad display for an upcoming contest legend.

The true shock and awe in this match came in the fight for first place. Yet again, I will point this out. The 1v1 format robbed us. Can you even imagine how nuts it would be if Mega Man X threatened to beat Mario 1v1 in his contest debut? Instead we have these ridiculous 4ways where it doesn't even matter who wins, because both advance. That said, your eyes do not lie to you when looking at the updater for this one. That is Mega Man X proving he was worth the hype and building up a 900 vote lead on Mario overnight. And it's not like Mario could claim he was being screwed over by the Nintendo presence, either, because Mega Man X deals with the same exact factor.

What ended up happening is very easy to explain, thanks to the little graph we have here on the wiki page. We all know Mario won the morning vote to take first place, but what the graph makes readily apparent is that Mario did this by stealing support from Mudkip. Mario is a very difficult character to have a joke rally against, and this match showed it. The second Mudkip's support died, Mario got all of it. He erased the entire 900 vote lead Mega Man X had by the time everyone had finished eating breakfast, and what started as an entertaining poll ended with a dud. Mario and Zelda had simultaneous comebacks, and the rest of the poll was a continuation of the momentum. This match was very hyped going in, but once Mario and Zelda caught up to 1st and 3rd place respectively, the match was over. Mario > Mega Man X was the result.

Still, Mega Man X advanced anyway and Mudkip being somewhat fraudulent doesn't take away from either's showing in this contest. For Mega Man X especially, a 4-Nintendo match early in his contest debut are some difficult waters to swim through. Even with blowing a lead to Mario, he proved he deserved to be here, and Mega Man X is hardly the first character to lose a lead to Mario with the morning vote. He can thank his lucky stars for the format, too, because the laughable 4way junk meant X got to fight another day.

For Zelda, she was probably happy to see this 4way crap disappear. There is also that open world Zelda game that would come in 2017, but skip to the 2018 writeups to see the effect <i>that</i> one had. For now, it was another leeched Nintendo loss. It would happen again in 2013 before she went godmode.

This would set up the one and only time we have ever seen Mario and Luigi in a match together. It's true. Look it up.

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