Board 8 > Leonhart Analyzes the Bracket!

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm going to make a quick run through the bracket and give my thoughts on each match. I'm not going to look at any X-Stats to make my picks, but I will cite relevant matches where they apply just for everyone else to peruse. This won't necessarily be my final picks, of course, so this is for me to think through matches and maybe to provide some data to help others.

For the record, I don't really intend to factor outside rallies into my picks because I think the bracket is more interesting if you don't, and it's a crapshoot guessing what rallies will hit anyway. When they hit, we'll know it, and it'll be over. Plus, if you're picking a rally to win, you don't really need in-depth analysis anyway!
---

D.Va all the way
---

tag
---

Tag
---

LeonhartFour posted...

Plus, if you're picking a rally to win, you don't really need in-depth analysis anyway!

you will once the meta becomes "pick a rally" because then you have to beat everyone else on your pick on the rest of the bracket
---

Tag
---

xp1337 posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

Plus, if you're picking a rally to win, you don't really need in-depth analysis anyway!

you will once the meta becomes "pick a rally" because then you have to beat everyone else on your pick on the rest of the bracket

Well, I'm sure someone else can do a better job of analyzing which rallies to bet on better than I can anyway...!
---

tag
---

oh neat

how long has it been since the last contest anyways
---

GaryOak151 posted...

oh neat

how long has it been since the last contest anyways

5 years since the last Character Battle. 3 years since the Games Contest.
---

LeonhartFour posted...

GaryOak151 posted...

oh neat

how long has it been since the last contest anyways

5 years since the last Character Battle. 3 years since the Games Contest.

shit man i dont even remember a quote function

dope i'm excited i will follow along this thread
---

Tag
---

LeonhartFour posted...

GaryOak151 posted...

oh neat

how long has it been since the last contest anyways

5 years since the last Character Battle. 3 years since the Games Contest.

Technically, we had a contest this year, but the years contest was trash.
---

Toad is gonna win and anyone who acts like he isn't is gonna be sorely disappointed.
---

Mega Man X > Zero in the Finals
---

Tag
---

Division 1

(1) Dante
(16) Cuphead

If there's one thing Dante is good at, it's obliterating weak characters. He might struggle to win debated matches, but he rarely looks bad in matches like this.

Winner: Dante
Odds: 100%

(8) Chloe Price
(9) Lightning

Also known as the Robazoid Special, and you know that's bad news. Lightning put up perhaps the most embarrassing performance in CBIX, getting Ulti-style demolished by DK despite Falco being in the match. It's hard to tell how strong Lightning is (or isn't). Her first match against Sonic was before the game came out and people realized they didn't like it. The second one was full of LFF, so she's probably even worse against DK directly than she appeared. That being said, barring some sort of Tumblr rally, not even Lightning can blow this. She might be fodder, but she's still high end fodder. Chloe is probably just middle of the road fodder, but Life is Strange seems to be getting more popular each passing year. I won't give her no chance to win, but the odds are pretty low.

Winner: Lightning
Odds: 90%

(5) Spyro the Dragon
(12) Chun-Li

Spyro got to finally enjoy some contest success in CBIX, dominating a horribly weak fourpack before bowing out to Sephiroth and Morrigan. I'd take Chun-Li over Morrigan without thinking twice, and I don't see much reason for Spyro to have boosted a bunch to catch up to her, so yeah.

Winner: Chun-Li
Odds: 75%

(4) Ganondorf
(13) Neku Sakuraba

Ugh, seeing Ganondorf beat a good character always hurts me a little inside. Neku will be "riding high" off of the Switch port of The World Ends With You coming out around the time of this match, but this is still the dude who lost to Laharl and Catherine.

Winner: Ganondorf
Odds: 100%

(3) Vivi
(14) Yu Narukami

Tough break for Narukami. I think he could win a match with the right draw, but this isn't it. Even if Vivi can't maintain the strength he showed in CBIX, he's in no danger in losing to someone who lost to Shadow the Hedgehog.

Winner: Vivi
Odds: 100%

(6) Victor Sullivan
(11) Aya Brea

Okay, here's the first real tossup of the contest. I was legitimately stunned to see either of these characters get a winnable match because I think they're both fodder. Nathan Drake is barely above the fodder line, and I think anyone else from Uncharted will be much, much weaker. Aya looked bad the last time we saw her, finishing dead last against Sora and Scorpion. I'm picking her here out of fanboyism, hoping for a repeat of 2002, but really, who knows.

In fodder/fodder matches, I think the higher seed has an advantage because they're more likely to get the brackets and thus the bracket votes in a match few people will care about. This could actually make a bigger difference here than usual because only registered voters will have brackets, and thus all their votes will count double. Aya could win with the unregistered voters and still lose overall (I kinda hope Allen gives us some stats if that happens at any point).

Winner: Aya Brea
Odds: 45%

(7) Tidus
(10) Donkey Kong

Oh hey, first relevant poll of the contest!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3260-division-5-round-1-donkey-tails-tidus-cube

Tidus throttled DK here, but this was 10 years ago and a 4-way, so a lot could've changed. DK beat up on Lightning, but Tidus is undoubtedly stronger than her regardless of his reputation for choking. He did very nearly beat Missingno in CBIX regardless of the 2:1 cheating ratio (LOL), and I'd never pick DK to do that. But these guys are both weird and lose matches they should win, so I can't put supreme confidence in Tidus. I'm picking him regardless because he's my second favorite character, but he can definitely lose.

Winner: Tidus
Odds: 60%
---

tag
---

LeonhartFour posted...

Winner: Aya Brea
Odds: 45%

quizzicaldog.jpg
---

hey man I don't always pick the one I think has the best chance to win

I openly admit Aya is a fanboy pick. I think Sully probably has the better chance to win for the reasons I stated, but I'll be darned if I don't pick Aya in a match she could actually win.
---

NFUN posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

Winner: Aya Brea
Odds: 45%

quizzicaldog.jpg

Leon's picking Aya but is saying he thinks it's the slightly less likely outcome.
---

Aya isn't the strongest but is there any reason to expect anything from Victor?
---

I picked Spyro to beat Chun-Li just because the last Street Fighter game wasn't well-received and the Spyro trilogy is coming out. That, plus we're probably getting into N64/PS1 nostalgia territory at this point, which benefits Spyro.
---

I think I'll take my usual process.

Pick the entire bracket blind, then come to a thread like this and finding out some of the picks were dumb af. Fix accordingly.

Chloe probably has one small little x-factor going for her, and that's the recent release of LiS2 Episode 1, so the LiS community is going to be pretty active right now, though the timing is really unlikely that something freaky like Episode 2 dropping on the same day of the match should happen that would endanger the match.
---

I always just assumed that was everyone's process.

It's definitely mine, at least.
---

Tag.
---

(2) Leon Kennedy
(15) Dragonborn

Huh, I'm actually kinda surprised Dragonborn made it back in. He didn't do all that great last time. He put up a bad percentage against Tom Nook and Pyramid Head and got rocked by Tifa despite Yuna being in the poll. He's probably high fodder or a low midcarder, which isn't good enough to beat Leon here. Resident Evil 4 looked a bit weaker in the last Games Contest, and so I think it's possible Leon is, too, although he's got RE2make coming up and he's been in RE6 (right? I don't play RE games) since the last Character Battle. Either way, he wins easily.

Winner: Leon Kennedy
Odds: 95%

Division 2

(1) Zero
(16) Primrose

Wow, Zero got a 1 seed! I'm impressed. I guess people were paying attention to my MMX playthroughs in the SELF topic (</shameless SELF-promotion>)! He honestly hasn't looked super great in a contest in a while (although he did pretty well in CBIX, all things considered), but he shouldn't have any problems beating up on a character from an ensemble cast Switch RPG.

Winner: Zero
Odds: 100%

(8) Zidane Tribal
(9) Knuckles the Echidna

Relevant poll: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3739-chaos-division-round-1-cecil-harvey-vs-knuckles

This was also in a day match, so it'd have probably been even closer in a night match. Knuckles has secretly been kinda bad for a long time. He almost got tripled by Samus in CBIX. In order to win, Knux has to hope Sonic Mania was worth a whole lot, and it probably wasn't. Either that, or he has to hope Modern Square has declined considerably in the last five years. That might be his best bet, actually, but it still might not be enough. I really, really want to pick him to win...but I can't.

Winner: Zidane
Odds: 65%

(5) Noctis Lucis Caelum
(12) Master Hand

Relevant poll: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2004-triforce-division-round-1-kuja-vs-master-hand

I'm getting PTSD just thinking about the possibility Master Hand beating an overseeded Final Fantasy character again. I don't think Master Hand is strong at all. He got 60/40'd by Robotnik in the next round back in the Villains Contest. I honestly don't know what people think of Noctis. FFXV won GOTY here two years ago, but that was a pretty weak field. Still, it might be a good sign for FF franchise voting, which might be enough to carry the day. I'm picking Noctis, but make no mistake: I'm legitimately terrified of Master Hand winning.

Winner: Noctis Lucis Caelum
Odds: 55%

(4) Monika
(13) Wario

Speaking of legitimately terrified, it's Monika! Again, this isn't the place to come for rally analysis, so I'm not going to be picking on the basis of whether DDLC fanatics will get behind her here. I think she got a good first opponent to get one kick started though (Seriously, why do the rally-able entrants get winnable first round matches? If Draven gets something better than Jak/Chie or Undertale gets something better than ME3, they're both probably eliminated round 1. Heck, even L-Block got a really fortuitous setup in 2007).

Anyway, nobody really cares about Wario, but he's probably a low midcarder because he's a well known Mario character. He enjoys this weird cult status despite being a Mario character because of WarioWare, but he folds at the first sign of real competition. Monika's not that, at least not at her base strength.

Winner: Wario
Odds: 85%
---

Big Bob posted...

I picked Spyro to beat Chun-Li just because the last Street Fighter game wasn't well-received and the Spyro trilogy is coming out. That, plus we're probably getting into N64/PS1 nostalgia territory at this point, which benefits Spyro.

I mean Street Fighter probably has more nostalgia going for it than a PS1 mascot character

No Street Fighter game has ever really been all that popular here (SFII LOST?!), but Chunners has always been a solid low midcarder.
---

My entirely unscientific analysis is that Tidus will have lost strength simply due to how long its been since FFX came out, while DK is probably going to be the exact same guy that people kind of sort of begrudgingly vote for that he's always been. Plus I think the FF series has lost a lot of luster over the years, although I guess those Switch ports might help a bit. I picked DK but I could definitely see it going either way
---

it's kind of weird that we think characters will get weaker because of how long it's been since their game came out

but '90s games dominated the Games Contest

CT made a major resurgence so maybe old RPG characters will too
---

random question

4 matches a day, so those 2 contested matches with FF characters are happening together

Helps or hurts?
---

Dr_Football posted...

random question

4 matches a day, so those 2 contested matches with FF characters are happening together

Helps or hurts?

Eh, I don't think it matters. The people who would be like "AUGH WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FF CHARACTERS IN THIS CONTEST AND WHY DO THEY ALWAYS WIN" probably aren't voting for them anyway.
---

Panthera posted...

My entirely unscientific analysis is that Tidus will have lost strength simply due to how long its been since FFX came out

This was my initial thought, but then I figured X/X-2 HD did come out PS3, PS4, and Steam, so I switched.
---

Tidus is a nostalgic character now
---

pjbasis posted...

Tidus is a nostalgic character now

I'm old as fuck
---

LeonhartFour posted...

it's kind of weird that we think characters will get weaker because of how long it's been since their game came out

but '90s games dominated the Games Contest

CT made a major resurgence so maybe old RPG characters will too

Yeah I don't know but it really seems like there's a cutoff point somewhere around the turn of the century where the GameFAQs audience's nostalgia just ends and anything released after suffers from time passing while anything released before doesn't really. Plus nostalgia tends to lean Nintendo more on this site I feel
---

I kinda agree with everything so far, except Chloe's probably going to beat the FF character no one likes. And Monika will win because she's great and I'm biased
---

(3) Yoshi
(14) Shantae

what is Shantae and how did it get into this contest

Winner: Yoshi
Odds: 100%

(6) Velvet Crowe
(11) James Sunderland

I am flatly amazed that a Tales character not from Symphonia might actually win a contest match! I don't know that Velvet will, but I kinda like her chances here. To be honest, if this were Pyramid Head instead, I'd pick him in a heartbeat. He's been decent fodder in all of his appearances, and Silent Hill 2 has done all right considering its status as a cult horror game. I just can't imagine James Sunderland is worth anything regardless of what Inviso says. Somebody's gotta win this match though, so I say go with the higher seeded character when all else fails!

Winner: Velvet
Odds: 60%

(7) Pikachu
(10) Scorpion

Scorpion is one of those "stronger than you might think" characters. He did pretty well against Sora last time, and he did well in both of the 4-way Character Battles. That being said, unless there's a Poke Deboost or Pikachu was a complete and utter fraud, I can't see Scorpion winning this. He might have done well against Sora, but Pikachu beat him with friggin' Blue in the same match (a close runnerup to Lightning losing to DK despite Falco being in the match for most embarrassing loss of the contest).

Winner: Pikachu
Odds: 85%

(2) Kratos
(15) John Marston

It's kinda rare to see a match between two decent western characters, so I like the fact that Allen set this up, even if Kratos will probably win easily. I'd have said Marston had a chance with RDR2 coming out very soon if the new GoW hadn't been so well received because Kratos looked kinda bad in CBIX. That should've done enough to help him survive this one, but it might be one of those "closer than expected" matches.

Winner: Kratos
Odds: 80%

Division 3

(1) Sora
(16) Ryo Hazuki

Kingdom Hearts III hype vs. Shenmue 3 hype, huh. Okay then, although this is one of those rare instances where Sora will face a character from a fanbase that's been waiting for the third game longer than his has!

Winner: Sora
Odds: 100%

(8) Neptune
(9) Pokemon Trainer Red

Uranus might've had a chance here, but alas.

Winner: Red
Odds: 100%

(5) Crash Bandicoot
(12) Cecil Harvey

If Cecil loses this match, I will never stop laughing. He will truly be cursed and fated to never win, and he can take up Gordon Freeman's old moniker as CHNW. I'm all for it, personally, but I think he finally wins. That being said, Crash is better than people think, so who knows...!

Winner: Cecil
Odds: 70%

(4) Big Boss
(13) Ridley

Ridley is no longer TOO BIG, so he's no match for BIG BOSS. Seriously though, Ridley might be stronger now that he's finally in Smash, and maybe MGS is weaker in general these days, but the strength difference between the two before that was just too much for it to matter.

Winner: Big Boss
Odds: 90%

(3) Alucard
(14) Princess Peach

Honestly, if you're looking for an upset special, I think this is a good one. Alucard looked kinda bad in CBIX. He needed a miracle comeback to beat Captain Falcon in CBIX, and I don't think Falcon is that much stronger than Peach. The one thing in Alucard's favor is "who really cares about Peach," but she did get 47% on Gordon in 2010, so I think she at least keeps it close. This is gonna be one of those matches where everyone on the board is freaking out, wondering how this is so close, so I'm just warning you ahead of time that The Plan has it all under control!

Winner: Alucard
Odds: 60%
---

Oh, I don't think James stands a chance. He's my favorite video game character, sure. But to most people, I'm assuming it's going to be "anime girl" vs. "generic-looking white guy".
---

LeonhartFour posted...

The one thing in Alucard's favor is "who really cares about Peach," but she did get 47% on Gordon in 2010, so I think she at least keeps it close.

Man it's weird to hear 'got 47% on Gordon' as a positive

The first thing I think of with him is still GFNW!
---

I love James and I'm still voting for Velvet, and consider the fanbase size of those two characters, that's 50% of James' potential voters already lost
---

DeathChicken posted...

I kinda agree with everything so far, except Chloe's probably going to beat the FF character no one likes. And Monika will win because she's great and I'm biased

You cant say "no one likes" I mean they made it in the contest
---

GFNW ended 12 years ago

47% on Gordon's pretty good! Peach folds about as hard as anyone in the Nintendo hierarchy (maybe even harder than DK), but she'll get votes against someone she doesn't share a fanbase with. I mean, she beat friggin' Jill Valentine once!
---

I mainly know the series for the music, but I think Shantae is reasonably popular. It's also got some really great character designs which I think would be an advantage for this contest. There's actually some characters here I'd take Shantae over. (James, John Marston, and Ryo from division 3. Maybe Velvet also but I don't think so.)

All this is to say that Shantae has absolutely no chance in hell in her match, but I do think she's a tiny bit stronger than your writeup indicates.

In other news I do currently have Peach > Alucard. Do people think "Bowsette factor" is a thing that could boost Peach? Even if it is would it have already worn off by the time this match actually happens? Think these two are pretty close in strength either way though.
---

IMO, Bowsette factor would probably boost scores against fodder but do little to nothing against actually competitive matches
---

pyresword posted...

In other news I do currently have Peach > Alucard. Do people think "Bowsette factor" is a thing that could boost Peach? Even if it is would it have already worn off by the time this match actually happens? Think these two are pretty close in strength either way though.

I don't think it helps Peach much at all even if the match came right now, and by the time the contest starts it will probably have died down. Bowser on the other hand probably manages to retain a bit of extra support from it even if the meme is mostly dead by the time his matches come around
---

I actually picked James, just because Silent Hill 2 has such a reputation at this point, while Velvet is generic anime person #583. There are plenty of JRPG fodder characters in these contests.
---

I want to see some re-analyses of the "Fourpacks of fun" now that we have a bracket with some matches to possible compare them to.
---