LogFAQs > #947894249

Division 1 Round 1: Altair, Guybrush Threepwood, Isaac, and Lucario

Altair - 61439 [43.1%]
Guybrush - 19639 [13.76%]
Isaac - 29815 [20.92%]
Lucario - 31653 [22.21%]
Total Votes - 142546

True fact - this is the only contest Lucario ever appeared in, because his performance was such an embarrassment compared to other Pokemon that no one will invite him back. More on that in a second.

The story of this match, and the guru nomination for this contest, was Altair of Assassin's Creed who was making his contest debut this year. With no seedings it was difficult to gauge where he was at relative to the field, but typically guru nominations are a random midcarder that the board loves. Who knew that Altair would be such a beast?

Whenever anyone talks about this match, they talk about Lucario flopping around like a fish and almost pulling off one of the great choke jobs in contest history. They should honestly give Altair more credit, but that's how these things go. This Lucario dude was hyped beyond hype this year, especially given how Pokemon looked in 2007 and him having a Brawl appearance. Pikachu looked good. Mewtwo... sucked, but he wasn't turbo fodder or anything. Mudkip and Bidoof caught some joke love, proving that Pokemon past #151 could maybe get some contest traction going. There was always NintendoFAQs. All that given, the overwhelming consensus for this match was Lucario > Altair without a second thought.

Yeah, <i>whoops.</i>

It's a good thing you still advance for getting second place, because if Altair vs Lucario was a 1 on 1 deal this would have gone down as an all-time dud. Maybe not Magus levels of dud, but it would have been in the conversation. Altair <i>dominated</i> this match and got first place with the utmost of ease. It would get so much worse for Lucario, too. If you look at the poll result, you see Lucario only beating Isaac by 1800 votes. This doesn't really tell the actual story, because Lucario came dangerously close to outright losing to Isaac. After initial bracket vote power hour stuff where Lucario choked away his predicted first place finish, he started falling off. Badly. He sat there going dead even with Isaac overnight, and needed the Pokemon morning vote to bail him out of one of the most embarrassing upsets ever.

The funniest thing about Isaac almost beating Lucario is he had no actual advantage Lucario didn't already have other than Golden Sun. Brawl? Isaac is only an assist trophy. Nintendo? Please. Hell even Golden Sun being a JRPG darling is dwarfed by Pokemon itself, so that's out. I know Golden Sun has a cult fanbase, but it still feels like Isaac getting this close should have been impossible. If you pretend Isaac/Lucario was a 1 on 1 match, Lucario would have only won with 51.5% of the vote based on these numbers. If 2008 was a 1v1 contest, would any Oracle have picked that? I doubt it.

I'd love to give Isaac a bunch of credit here, but there was proof of him being garbage fodder even before we had 20 years of data. Altair was simply underestimated and Lucario is overhyped gutter trash. That's about all there is to it. Pokemon after #151 are only good if they joke votes, otherwise they're... well, Lucario. Thanks for playing, buddy. It was one of the worst "wins" (if you can call it that) we've ever had, and he would never be seen again after the inevitable round 2 pasting.

Not gonna lie, seeing a character beloved by furries and perverts get destroyed... this does put a smile on my face.

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