Board 8 > ~Lightning Strikes's CBX Snap Analysis~

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Up.
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Matches in mere hours!
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Woohoo! Hell of a match.
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And we're back!

Day 33, Match 1 - Link vs. Ganondorf
(1) Link: 79.64% - Ganondorf: 20.36%

What happened?: Ah, this match. The 2004 version of this match is the definitive SFF beatdown and this is certainly up there as well, as the third biggest margin of victory for the entire contest. Notably however it did decline significantly from that match as I had predicted - Ganondorf did over 8% better on Link this time. I was hoping he would do more like 25-30%, which looked possible early on but alas was not to be.

What could this mean?: The funny thing here is, in most other matches an 8% improvement would be pretty huge, yet this has been overshadowed. I think this increase is a mix of a general weakening of SFF and more interest in characters with more, well, character, not to mention a healthy dose of Link Always Wins. Ganondorf has looked great this year and while I don't think he will win, expect a good showing in the next round.

Day 33, Match 2 - Mega Man vs. Pikachu
(8) Mega Man: 49.89% - Pikachu: 50.11%

What happened?: A neck-and-neck match that also gives us a Noble Nine break (the first ever in a 24 hour one-on-one), holy crap. This was actually structurally very close to Mega Man X vs. Tifa. It started neck and neck, then Mega Man seemed to get ahead, before Pikachu cutting away a relatively substantial lead which was reversed by Mega Man, only for Pikachu to take it with a last minute surge. Also I didn't see but Black Turtle was probably upset about it. The really significant thing here is that this would not have happened without Pikachu's registered user boost.

What could this mean?: Well, strength-wise this basically shows what we knew already, but more clearly. Pikachu is absolutely a near Noble Nine monster, even without the user boost. Mega Man is definitely clear of X; 50% on Pikachu certainly bests 51% on Luigi. Outside of that there has been a lot of discussion about the Noble Nine and whether or not it is dead. I would say not, but I do think the concept of the Noble Nine may have changed. Personally I just think it is now simply the nine who are consistently the strongest - Pikachu will not alwaysbe up there (and historically was not) but Mega Man always has.
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Day 34, Match 1 - Cloud vs. Alucard
(4) Cloud: 60.4% - Alucard: 39.6%

What happened?: A big over performance by Alucard. This was especially true early on, where Alucard was at 44%, but this changed fairly quickly and the match was stable around 60/40. Alucard beat his 2013 projection by 2-3% and his 2010 projection by a whopping 10%.

What could this mean?: Cloud as always has probably gotten slightly weaker since last time. However, I can't help but wonder if Alucard has gotten some bandwagon support, especially taking into account his early vote. Bowser has looked better generally, but that bandwagon could squeak Alucard the win.

Day 34, Match 2 - Crono vs. Bowser
(5) Crono: 54.88% - Bowser: 45.12%

What happened?: Ah, a nice straightforward match. This one was stable for almost the entire duration. Even the weakened Crono we saw in the last two contests was projected to do better than this (56-57%), however given how good Bowser looked it is clear Crono has slightly boosted.

What could this mean?: Like I said above, Chrono Trigger is clearly slightly stronger, just a little bit. As such, and in light of Cloud's poor performance in the other match, I have to wonder if Cloud is in danger next round. Crono looked good here, not his peak but he has stemmed the bleeding.
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Another delay but I'll have the next batch up soon.
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Day 35, Match 1 - Solid Snake vs. Zelda
(3) Snake: 49.68% - Zelda: 50.32%

What happened?: Zelda, she come to town. This was a fantastic match, leading to a true Noble Nine break - unlike Pikachu Zelda did not need a registered user boost to win and in fact users slightly favoured Snake. Zelda got off to a firm lead of over 300 votes, which Snake then slowly chipped away at during the night. However, unlike Tifa, he wasn't able to get ahead and build a lead, largely due to an hour where he just stalled and made absolutely no progress. The reason for this is geographic - unlike Tifa, Snake did not win all of Europe easily - Zelda easily won France and Germany which explains that hour. Snake did get ahead but could only get a small lead before North America woke up and Zelda started cutting. The match went back and forth for hours before Zelda finally put it away with a nearly 200 vote lead.

What could this mean?: MGS hasn't looked its best this year, bui I don't think it has stunk either. Though bear in mind I have never believed the Snake hype (#2 my eye). This was all Zelda, she's an utter monster now and it's been apparent from her first two rounds. She should have no issue beating Sonic, and is almost certainly a top 5 character.

Day 35, Match 2 - Sonic the Hedgehog vs. Auron
(6) Sonic: 54.32% - Auron: 45.68%

What happened?: Hidden by the incredible match happening at the same time, is this absolutely terrible performance by Sonic. The match itself was straight forward and didn't change much. Now Sonic didn't underperform his stats too much here, but given that Auron has been underperforming until now it doesn't look good.

What could this mean?: This was a bit of a surprise because Auron has been underperforming fairly consistently, and Sonic characters have looked good as a result of Sonic Mania. I can't help but wonder if maybe Sonic himself isn't benefiting from the same thing as Knuckles and Tails - unlike those characters Sonic has never really fallen out of relevance in terms of exposure, but most of the exposure has been bad.
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Day 36, Match 1 - Samus Aran vs. Tifa Lockheart
(2) Samus: 58.93% -Tifa: 41.07%

What happened?: Hey, remember when Tifa nearly beat Samus? It turns out that no Zero Suit Samus pic and years of Nintendo strengthening/Final Fantasy weakening meant no repeat of that. Samus won easily here. Tifa looked like she might keep it close during the board vote and the first few updates, but then Samus soared to 59% and held very steady.

What could this mean?: Well Nintendo has looked great and Samus is getting games again. Samus Returns was great and won a poll, Metroid Prime 4 is coming, that series is the healthiest it has been in over a decade. Add the slow decline of FF7 and Samus winning by this much makes sense, she has always been very strong and may be at her strongest here.

Day 36, Match 2 - Mario vs. Sephiroth
(7) Mario: 59.25% -Sephiroth: 40.75%

What happened?: A very similar result! Of course, the fact that this involves Sephiroth makes that pretty shocking. Mario effectively reversed the beatdown Sephiroth once gave him here. This started off really ugly, with Mario over 61% and to his credit, Sephiroth did gain a lot of percentage over time which Tifa could not do. But this was still a pretty embarrassing loss for the former number 3.

What could this mean?: Mario is a monster who has boosted a lot from Odyssey, the clear number 2 right now. Sephiroth has fallen a lot, but we all already knew that.
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Day 37, Match 1 - Ganondorf vs. Mega Man
Ganondorf: 39.97% - Mega Man: 60.03%

What happened?: A lot of people were down on Mega Man after the Pikachu match, but then he comes out and beats Ganondorf with 60% in a very consistent match. Now, a lot of this was helped by the sprite pics, specifically NES pig Ganon against iconic Mega Man. I don't mind sprite rounds, but I feel that using NES or 8-bit sprites exclusively can be a bit of a problem.

What could this mean?: This was a redemptive performance for Mega Man overall. The pic undeniably helped, as I can definitely see some floating voters shift to Mega Man. However, I do think Mega Man is pretty strong, and is well clear of Ganondorf. Let's not get too down on him, Pikachu is just excellent. However, I do have to say, there are better Ganon sprites to use, Ulti.

Day 37, Match 2 - Alucard vs. Bowser
Alucard: 48.76% - Bowser: 51.24%

What happened?: The Plan finally comes to an end. Bowser got off to a firm lead early on, and Alucard did recover a bit, but was never really able to make a proper match of it. Still, he held it close, staying around 49% for most of the match.You have to hand it to Alucard, even when he loses he still looks very impressive in every match.

What could this mean?: Bowser has looked really good this year, so this was still a tremendous performance for Alucard. Make no mistake, he is a true elite, in the top 20 on the site. I don't think characters like Squall beat Alucard now. I can't wait to see how he looks in the next one, as with the Netflix series and the big SOtN rerelease this contest was absolutely perfectly timed.
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Doot doot doot, delayed to tomorrow again.
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Day 38, Match 1 - Solid Snake vs. Auron
Snake: 61.48% - Auron: 38.52%

What happened?: After being the first character to break the Noble Nine in a 24 hour unaltered result, Snake redeems himself by cleaning Auron's clock. After fumbling the board vote (somewhat unexpected), Snake shot up to 63% before slowly calming down to just under 61.5%. Also worth noting is that Snake did this with his sprite pic, though I don't think that matters nearly as much as it used to.

What could this mean?: Well this makes Sonic look really bad (or more as we're seeing from the future, Zelda look amazing). Snake hasn't lost as many steps as people thought, he is likely weaker than his prime but no lower than 6th overall I think. The problem is he got fed to Zelda, who is just a next level monster now. Snake will have no trouble at all with Sonic in the next round.

Day 38, Match 1 - Tifa Lockheart vs. Sephiroth
Tifa: 52.33% - Sephiroth: 47.67%

What happened?: Tifa showed that she has more than one surprise result in her. We saw this match in 2010, and while Sephiroth won, he is generally seen to have underperformed. In that match he started off really struggling, at 53-54%, before bringing it to just over 56%. As good as Tifa looked that year this was a much stronger Sephiroth and this match was a textbook case of rSFF. This past result is important to keep in mind as it is reflected here with the result flipped. Tifa started off in this match well clear of 55%, she was beating Sephiroth easily. He did redeem himself, making up over 3%, just like in the 2010 match. Tifa won this match, bringing the Noble Nine casualty count up to three as of this match (with a fourth inevitable when Sonic loses to Zelda). I will say, I doubt Tifa nearly doubles Ryu, which also adds to the SFF suspicions.

What could this mean?: This was almost certainly a result of rSFF, as strong as Tifa is, Sephiroth doesn't seem to have dropped THAT much (especially when she has been arguably missing her 2010 strength too). What I think has happened is a mix of Sephiroth dropping more than Tifa and him losing favour in the fandom - after all, as we have grown older silver haired 90s edgelords have definitely fallen out of fashion. So it's easy to see how Tifa could flip this match using a few percentage worth of rSFF boost since it would have been fairly close anyway. Make no mistake, I think the two are still very close in strength, and I do regard Sephiroth as the weakest member of the Noble Nine overall.
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Day 39, Match 1 - Link vs. Pikachu
Link: 68.41% - Pikachu: 31.59%

What happened?: Link showing that no Nintendo character is safe from his SFF beatdowns. This was pretty stark coming after Pikachu has been delivering these sorts of results going the other way, and even beat a Noble Niner (with registered user boost help). The funny thing is people thought that Link was underperforming early on as Pikachu kept it under 60% during the early vote then avoided the doubling for the first two hours. That quickly changed though and Link ended up closer to 70% than a doubling.

What could this mean?: Not much to say other than that Pokemon is definitely susceptible to a good bit of Nintendo SFF. And of course, Link is still supreme.

Day 39, Match 2 - Cloud Strife vs. Crono
Cloud: 56.73% - Crono: 43.27%

What happened?: This was a match that had a small amount of hype behind it, with the possibility of Crono upsetting Cloud. That did fade after Alucard vs. Bowser, Bowser won but not by nearly enough to put Crono clear of Cloud. The match looked like it would be close for about five minutes before Cloud pulled away, eventually nearing 57%. I will say there does seem to be some slight SFF - Cloud slightly outperformed last round using Alucard and Bowser.

What could this mean?: Well he's not what he used to be but Cloud is still likely the strongest non-Nintendo character around. It is possible that Snake just beats him but I would favour Cloud just about. Cloud also still has a high place on the SFF heirarchy as well. No chance against Link though!
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Pikachu's Smash fame probably does him no favors against the King of Nintendo (sorry Mario).
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