LogFAQs > #910930303

Day 3, Match 3 - Noctis Lucis Caelum vs. Master Hand
(5) Noctis: 42.45% - (12) Master Hand: 57.55%

What happened?: Part three in the Final Fantasy protagonist loses to a 90's mascot in a debated match trilogy (?), this was split down the middle in the general bracket results and our own, it seemed like a true tossup. Then the match started and Master Hand ran away with it immediately, with little change other than the standard Nintendo/Square trends. Despite beating Kuja Master Hand looked terrible in 2005 so Noctis should have won. But the meme came back to life, and Noctis lost as Kuja did to a goddamn hand.

What does this mean?: Final Fantasy is screwed, especially against Nintendo. Master Hand is low tier Nintendo as far as we know, yet beat the best Square has given us for a decade. Add to that Zidane and Tidus losing what should have been close matches easily and it's a bad look for FF. This also further makes Lightning look not strong at all since I can't imagine she does better. Master Hand probably loses to Wario next round, which shows exactly where on the totem pole Noctis is. To be fair, Master Hand is probably better than in 2005 thanks to Ultimate and Nintendo being generally stronger, but still, Noctis looked dreadful here. It is now likely that Lightning and Squall are the only FF leads out of 7 to win their first match, with the former being due to a very lucky draw. Dante might double Lightning, Zelda is likely to beat Squall. This is a terrible contest for FF and a great one for Nintendo.

Day 3, Match 4 - Monika vs. Wario
(4) Monika: 35.44% - (13) Wario: 64.56%

What happened?: Board 8 got overly paranoid about rallies and convinced itself that Monika might win the whole contest. This did not happen. There was a rally, hence the higher vote totals, but not nearly enough to make Monika a threat to Wario. Stalls and small cuts were all the rally managed.

What could this mean?: That Allen's anti-rally system works, that we can't predict contest changing rallies, and that small dedicated fandoms not in the zeitgeist the way Undertale and LoL were are not to be feared. It was a straightforward match that was very much overhyped. I think the rallies we will see will be smaller ones like the one in this match, and unlikely to change the course of the whole thing. Otherwise Wario looked reasonable and should get to round 3 with no trouble.
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I just decided to change this sig.
Blaaaaaaargh BKSheikah