LogFAQs > #911014160

Day 4, Match 3 - Pikachu vs. Scorpion
(7) Pikachu: 66.41% - (10) Scorpion: 33.59%

What happened?: PokeFEAR returns. we all knew Pikachu would win, the question was how much. Scorpion has looked good before, he's iconic, albeit not as strong in these as Sub-Zero (good taste, GameFAQS). He couldn't get destroyed right? Wrong. Pikachu flew out the gate here with a stunning 69%. Scorpion was getting destroyed in the early hours of this match. It did start to turn however, with Scorpion cutting nearly a full 3% off of Pikachu as the match went on, even winning updates at points. In the end he escaped the doubling, and this definitely ended up looking less dominant than it did at first.

What could this mean?: A lot of people were shaken by this match, I am sceptical. Pikachu gets 64% on Scorpion using 2013 stats, which is only 2% better than this. Add only a slight Mortal Kombat decline (X was three years ago and kind of came and went, and also the next one has not been announced yet leaving the series in a kind of limbo) and this result actually starts looking quite sensible. Pikachu is a true elite, no questioning that, but I'm not expecting him to run rampant by any stretch, at least not on the basis of this match. The one other thing I'll say is that this gives us a really clear view of Pokemon's trends, starting incredibly strong and then calming down. Keep that in mind for close starts in the future.

Day 4, Match 4 - Kratos vs. John Marston
(2) Kratosi: 73.18% - (15) John Marston: 26.82%

What happened?: To set up this match we need to look at God of War's history on GameFAQs. That series used to be really good, and I think a lot of people forget that on this board. All three of the original trilogy games got into the Game of the Year finals, with two of them in the top three. It looked quite good in 2009 and really good in 2010, coming very close to peak Half-Life 2. Kratos kind of followed its fortunes, looking better than ever until a great performance against Charizard in 2010 (however strong you think he really is). Then 2013 happened. Kratos looked absolutely dreadful, struggling to double Travis and Recette then getting just annihilated by Mega Man X and losing to Jill. This follows how people thought of the series. In 2013 constant releases and Ascension had almost killed the series. 2013 Kratos would struggle with Marston, who looked alright against Zelda in 2013 and is helped by the fact that RDR2 releases four days after this match. But then we come to the match and Kratos lets loose, starting big and getting bigger as the match went on before stabilising over 73%. It was almost as big a victory as Yoshi's over Shantae.

What could this mean?: This was a dominant performance by Kratos, and I have to imagine it was legit strength. There is talk of SFF but I don't see why there would be more here than Yoshi vs. Shantae or even Pikachu vs. Scorpion, the two are fairly different, one is multiplatform, and is well-loved. Additionally I'm not sure if Marston has fallen to the bottom or anything, RDR is still floating around the top 30 on this site and RDR2 is very hyped. Marston even had his RDR2 art in the match pic I think. So this was a really good showing for Kratos, and if he wasn't running into Pikachu next round he could really run rampant. Going off 2013 an upset is possible, and I'm not expecting it but I would definitely like to see it. It makes sense that Kratos would look this good - God of War 2018 is the Breath of the Wild of the series. It's not just revived the series either, but it has also redeemed Kratos as a character. I think this is the strongest he's ever been and I wish he was in any other division. Hopefully he will give us a good show in his next match.
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I just decided to change this sig.
Blaaaaaaargh BKSheikah