LogFAQs > #947889597

Division 1 Round 1: Duke Nukem, Kefka, Marth, and Niko Bellic

Duke Nukem - 35984 [26.35%]
Kefka - 29384 [21.51%]
Marth - 40275 [29.49%]
Niko - 30935 [22.65%]
Total Votes - 136578

This is one of the weirdest matches to look back on in 2020, and I legit feel like my eyes are lying to me. Marth winning a debated match? Kefka in last place behind a GTA character without being portrayed as a vegetable? Duke Nukem pulling whatever the hell he pulled here? This was just all kinds of wild, and the match itself was also borderline ridiculous. This thing would be mentioned with the titans of contest lore if it had any meaning beyond round 1 fun.

First, the pre-hype. I remember how heavily debated this match was pre-contest, which always tends to happen with these weird round one fodder matches for some reason. Marth was the runaway consensus favorite thanks to BrawlFEAR, which in and of itself was the precursor to the not yet seen PokeFEAR (skip to 2010 for more on that). The real fun came in trying to figure out who would win second place. There was a lot of arguing about whether or not it would be Kefka or Niko Bellic. Niko was an untested GTA character, and the last time people had faith in one of those, well....

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2067-mushroom-division-round-1-ness-vs-carl-johnson

RacistFAQs was born. But fine, a lot of people just figured RacistFAQs was real and went back to 2003, when Tommy Vercetti made his debut. Vercetti wasn't some amazing character or anything, but he won a couple matches and went even with Donkey Kong. He also had that all-timer against Kefka in 2005, which to this day is one of the most flagrant examples of Smurf's vote stuffing we'd ever seen: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2084-flood-division-round-1-kefka-vs-tommy-vercetti

Well Vercetti beat Kefka there, and Niko's game (GTA4) is a lot more popular than Vice City, so it stands to reason Niko should have been stronger than him. It's not like Kefka had done much of anything to instill confidence to this point, but you could go either way.

What next to no one expected however was Duke Nukem going totally insane from out of literally nowhere. And I mean <i>literally</i> no where. Duke Nukem Forever's development cycle was so long and became such a meme that CJayC put him on a milk carton in his 2004 match picture against Cloud. Duke's entire contest history leading to this match was a fodder win over Iori Yagami (who?), a fluke victory over perennial contest choke artists Ike and Gordon Freeman, and whole lot of getting his ass whipped. Unless you bought into the 2007 result proving Duke is some hidden 4way star, there was <b>zero</b> indication this was coming. None.

The early parts of this match were all kinds of nutty, but Marth pulled away for his expected first place finish. Past him, it was a bloodbath. Kefka and Niko fought it out close, as we sort of expected, but you also had Duke Nukem of all people right in the match for second place. After a couple updates, Niko was the first to fall off, proving yet again that Grand Theft Auto on this site would never be worth a bucket of piss. The users here just don't like that series.

But then in the shocker of all shockers, Duke Nukem started putting Kefka away and <i>destroying</i> him overnight. It was not long before Duke caught and passed Kefka for good, only about an hour in, and that was that. Kefka and Niko never made a push for second after that, but Duke was not done there! Remember Marth running away with it at the beginning of the poll? He had a 700 vote lead on everyone two hours in, and no one thought much of it when Duke started stalling the lead. Overnight and leading into the morning, he started coming back to make a push for first place outright. While all this was going on, Niko was coming back on Kefka to push for third place, but third means nothing in these fourways so who really cares. Spoilers, Niko erased an 800 vote lead to win third place (whatever that's worth) and hand Kefka his latest embarrassment.

By the time the morning vote hit, Duke had erased Marth's entire lead. This was in the face of BrawlFEAR, an absurd amount of Nintendo hype, and again, Duke Nukem doing NOTHING in gaming for nearly a decade. Nothing. It was one of the most random, nutty performances we'd ever seen, and had Duke pulled this off it would have been such a legendary choke job by Marth. Thankfully for him Marth caught the morning vote and put Duke down for good, but Duke was easily able to hold on to second place.

I legitimately don't have the answer as to why Duke was such a random breakout star in these fourway polls. My best guess, legit, is this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE3KdcTgrno

It came out in 2007, and back then Ventrilo harassment was all the rage. In a contest loaded with joke entrants and people trying to get in on various jokes, who knows. Maybe this is why Duke did so well. I can't think of anything else. You got me, Duke. I got nothin'. If anyone else has a better guess, I'm all ears!

(And yes I am aware going up against low midcard fodder helps.)

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