Board 8 > The Show EP 7 - Bowser Shocks, Tifa Rolls on, + Your 2nd Chance at $250 w/ Nick

(+) Yeah! (+)

I don't think Zero Suit Samus will hurt Samus like it did back in 2006 when Samus faced Tifa. Since that 2006 match happened, voters are now far more familiar with the Zero Suit Samus look. It's not an ideal picture for Samus, but it won't hurt Samus that much now. Still, Samus is far more recognizable with the classic Power Suit look.
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Oh man, Ngamer mentioned the post I made where I talked about Tifa's popularity within the hentai community. And Nick, what did you want me to post?
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I originally had Ganondorf > Pikachu in my regular bracket, but seeing Pikachu look so beastly this year convinced me to pick Pikachu in my Second Chance Bracket instead.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

I don't buy the idea that Zelda is artificially boosted because Link isn't in the main bracket at all. She's just stronger now.

I don't feel it that much either, I don't see the point.

If voters know Link is showing up eventually, then I'd assume they would be patient, and if they are just casuals passing through, they don't know Link is absent either.

Like the theory assumes a voter who is coming here everyday and paying attention to matches but is not bothering to look at the full bracket once. It's a bit silly.

I'm really down on Snake this year. I love the guy, but his entire series has looked horrible. Ocelot and Big Boss were some of the biggest turds of the contest to me. Liquid wasn't even in the contest.

I also feel that, with so many characters being in Smash these days, the Smash boost will not be worth as much as it once was. I think Snake has fallen to the lower half of the NN, and Zelda, who has blown me away in every single match she's had, can take advantage of that.
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I decided to go to the BOP and check what are the closest matches. I wanna list them here. I'll list the matches that have a consensus of 66% or less:

139

Zelda 46%
Sonic 38%
Snake 16%

This is a big split in the Losers' bracket. Only 16% think Zelda beats Snake in Legends, but when the match is against Sonic, it gets much closer. It seems Zelda is the slight favorite to break the N9.

143

Mega Man 43%
Crono 30%
Pikachu 16%
Cloud 5%
Ganondorf 3%
Bowser 3%

The majority is taking Mega Man to beat Pikachu twice, and Crono to beat Bowser twice, but lose to Cloud. When the two face each other in Losers, we get another split, with Mega Man as the slight favorite over Crono.

Also more people have Crono losing to Pikachu than they have Mega Man losing to other underdogs (or to an exposed Cloud).

146

Samus Aran 38%
Solid Snake 35%
Sonic the Hedgehog 8%
Sephiroth 8%
Zelda 5%
Mario 5%

Snake and Samus are the heavy favorites to get here, with most people having Mario > Samus/Snake, and Samus beating Sephiroth and other challengers. But when they face each other, it's a very close split, with Samus as the favorite. 2006 rematch hype?

148

Cloud Strife 51%
Solid Snake 19%
Samus Aran 16%
Crono 5%
Zelda 5%
Mario 3%

Cloud is the heavy favorite, but there are enough detractors for the match to be listed here. The half that doesn't believe in Cloud doesn't know what to believe, though, with Snake and Samus being the most popular picks to overturn the former #2.

149

Mario 65%
Cloud Strife 22%
Solid Snake 11%
Crono 3%

Mario is almost popular enough to prevent this match from being listed, but enough people believe in someone else's ability to be the #2. Cloud is the big challenger, followed by Snake, and Crono picked by one crazy guy (myself lol).

Also based on this ranking, this is what people believe the N9 to be:

Link
Mario
Cloud
Samus
Snake
Mega Man
Crono
Sonic
???Sephiroth???

More people believe Samus over Snake, but the ones who believe in Snake have much bigger hopes for him, having him as the #2 or #3 in the site.

Seph is impossible to rank based on this because he's isolated from the rest, we only know he's weaker than Samus. You can rank him anywhere between #6 and #9.

Zelda is the big favorite to break into this ranking, followed by Pikachu. No other characters are looking like N9 breakers.

Yeah Ulti was very pro Bowser it is true.

Also coming up with Goldeneyed Perfect Snark and Velvet Voiced Link to the Ass, took me many sleepless nights
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For those confused by my NN rankings because I feel like I was not being super clear after 6 hours of recording

Link
Cloud
Mario/Snake
Mega Man
Zelda/Pikachu
Samus
Crono/Sephiroth
Sonic/Bowser

I am gonna end up eating all sorts of crow on Zelda > Samus but.... WHATEVER
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Will listen to the rest of this later today.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

CaptainOfCrush posted...

UltimaterializerX posted...

Could not have been more obvious Bowser was the favorite, especially with that Bowsette nonsense pre-contest.

Were you as brazen and confident on the board before the match actually happened?

Yep. Check the stats topic archive when some moron alt troll tried coming at me sideways about it.

Im the nicest guy ever until someone tries to @ me, then its pit bull time.

I'll give you credit for it, but you're still waving it in everyone's face like a child. And I'd even give you some leeway for THAT if it was a unique prediction (jcgamer with Alucard taking a division). Around 42% of the Gurus had Bowser winning the division and I don't see anyone else trying to turn it into their "genius special". Grow up.
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Woohoo, thanks for the shoutout guys! Amazing to hear my theory get discussed on here. :)

And of course, great work as always!
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It's also worth pointing out that Kirby only had 37% support in that much. Bowser was the favourite to win. The remainder of the support mostly went to Charizard:

http://thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=116
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For Ulti's side, he mostly means the Oracle, which was super pro Kirby
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A lot of people are stubborn to their bracket in the Oracle. I don't think you really deserve a lot of credit for a good oracle pick that supports your bracket unless you argue it well beforehand.
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KamikazePotato posted...

3. Bowser>Kirby is a really silly result. Kirby has looked better than him for like, a decade, and especially this contest, but the Hierarchy rears its ugly head and...well. The fact that Bowser outperformed his previous performance is unexplainable. You guys offer some ideas (like the Bowser match pic advantage) but personally I think it's a very clear example of rSFF.

the more I've thought about it, the more I think that people having to vote in every match probably had something to do with that

Bowser is more likely to get "default" apathy votes than Kirby is
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Well, Kirby in 2018 alone made a case by blowing dudes up while Bowser struggled with 2B. There's a reason the Oracle is way more lopsided than the Guru. Even discarding Kirby overperformance in 4-ways (which would've been a good argument to make before the fact) 45% on Sonic is looking pretty good compared to the stuff Bowser has put out in the last 13 years. 54% on Sora, losing to Charizard, getting embarrassed in 4-ways repeatedly.

The main reason to pick Bowser is to be stubborn to 13 year old results, that had plenty of reason to change. It's not like that result Ulti's being stubborn to was a commanding win or anything either. A 51-49 can flip year to year, forget 13 years to 13 years.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Im the nicest guy ever until someone tries to @ me, then its pit bull time.

so then you're just not a nice guy then

stop pulling this crap that it's never your fault that you're a jerk to people
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I guess it's not a lie if you believe it

although I'm not sure you do
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Also note that 2005 was by far the strongest looking year for Bowser and Ganondorf. People have theorized Villains contest causing overperformances that year.

Honestly I'm not so sure Kirby doesn't win the match in 2006. Luigi has historically done better in SFF situations than Bowser and Kirby/Bowser were pretty close the year before and all signs were that Bowser had dropped between 2005 and 2006. No doubt in my mind Kirby wins in 2008 or 2010, in straight 1v1s. You can only explain away so much with 4 way factor and Bowser just looked bad in 2010. 2013 eh who knows but Bowser looked like crap in that contest so I'd probably take him there too. Tanked vote totals hurt Kirby by a lot more than Bowser it looks like though. Which kinda makes sense 2002 was our lowest vote total contest before this one and he lost to Jill Valentine there.
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Well remember, Bowser's first two performances were godlike. 2B just looked legit straight up, which you could tell from Ness. The matches all add up, people just got spooked when Kirby beat down Phoenix. Of course, this just means Phoenix didn't strenghten by as much as we thought, and probably had a bit of SFF going on too.
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Bowser's 56% on Charizard was hardly a godlike result, especially not after Red and Mewtwo's lackluster performances. Also, 58% on 2B only looks decent in retrospect, now that we can use Bowser even being strong enough to beat Kirby via rSFF in the first place as proof of Ness being a step ahead of where he's been before.

Ness and Ike have generally been very close in the stats and in terms of their victories. If you assume no SFF anywhere Ness like 60-40s Ike. And yeah beating Charizard after what it put up on Terra isn't looking great. The numbers don't "line up."

They can if you assume Bowser rSFFed Kirby or Kirby SFFed Phoenix but this is all hindsight, not stuff people seriously put forward.
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Here's where we disagree: I don't think Pokmon has looked bad. Obviously the rally shenanigans in the second half of 2013 should be discounted, but Mewtwo looked better than 2010. Red looked better than 2010.

Edit: Hard disagree on Ryu being more Nintendo now. That series has gone more heavily Sony since 2010, up to SFV being a PS4 console exclusive.
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I don't believe 53% on Ness is "legit." It makes you decisively out of the realm of fodder but that's about it

I also don't think Charizard looked good at all just based on Terra. Has nothing to do with Pokemon on the whole (which didn't look great, but that's beside the point)
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Lopen posted...

I don't believe 53% on Ness is "legit." It makes you decisively out of the realm of fodder but that's about it

I also don't think Charizard looked good at all just based on Terra. Has nothing to do with Pokemon on the whole (which didn't look great, but that's beside the point)

Well it was closer to 54% and Big Daddy did that on Ness then got 40% on an apparently stronger (going off the stats) Tifa. Ness likely being a bit weaker then. So yes, 54% on Ness is pretty legit.
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I really think Big Daddy benefited from FF7 antivotes from spiteful MissingNo. supporters bothered about its loss to Sephiroth, which would partially explain why it looked so much worse in 2013. It's also worth noting that Tifa had a pretty unrecognizable sprite there, which easily could have combined with the aforementioned antivotes to cause something like a 2-3% underperformance.

Getting 39% on Tifa ain't great either dude.
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Whether Pokemon looks good or not depends on what you were expecting from them since they have some pretty wacky performances.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3740-chaos-division-round-1-ganondorf-vs-mewtwo
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5262-character-battle-ix-final-nine-draven-vs-mewtwo-vs-sephiroth

The first Mewtwo isn't too far off 2018 Mewtwo. If you were expecting Mega Mewtwo from the second match, you'll be disappointed.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3809-heart-division-round-2-charizard-vs-kratos
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3845-heart-division-final-bowser-vs-charizard
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3851-final-rounds-quarterfinal-mario-vs-charizard

Those are three different 2010 Charizard. The first one is about in line with 2018 Charizard. The other two are not.
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Lopen posted...

Getting 39% on Tifa ain't great either dude.

39.55% on that Tifa gives you over 40% on Bowser mate! Account for some sl8ght Ness strengthening and the GameFAQs factor and it absolutely adds up.

Also listening further, I just want to say I don't really believe the proxy theory, other characters (like Luigi) have not benefited and we never saw it before now (2005, 2006).
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On the other hand,Gordon Freeman got 38% on Tifa and look at what he did.

I'm just saying measuring strengths based on how well you avoid getting blown out by a FF character, which have historically been antivote sponges, is questionable. Taking Tifa 2010 at face value is also questionable cause who knows what happened in that Seph match and that's way better than any number she's put up ever. Assuming Ness had much reason to boost is questionable too.

Can you put out numbers that makes it work? Sure. Ness 60-40ing Ike looking at the current x-stat projections is still a thing that exists and makes no sense whatsoever though. Anyway I'm just saying beating Ness doesn't mean a ton. I don't think 2010 Big Daddy beats much of note either. Do you, really? Like it's clearly able to beat all fodder by beating Ness, but most midcarders in general certainly don't feel like a lock to me.
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Big Daddy went from beating Ness to losing to Lloyd Irving a few years later.
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Big Daddy's run in 2010 was probably some weird fluke. Makes no sense that it wasn't just fodder.
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Bioshock 2, in which you play as a Big Daddy, released at the same time as that contest. There you go.
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Funny thing is that Bowser's projected result against Ness perfectly lines up with what the X-stats predict in 2013. The problem is that Ness is about even in strength to Ike in those stats (and has been in every year), so...

Even if you account for Kirby/Phoenix SFF and just throw out that comparison altogether, Kirby still crushed Guile and overperformed on Isaac. It's not like we picked Kirby based on pre-2018 results and then got burned by him weakening. He looked as strong as ever in this contest, up until the point where he met Bowser.

If you put Kirby against 2B, I would take Kirby to outperform Bowser's result there. With like 90% confidence.
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Big Daddy is just another western character who seemed strong and then stopped mattering a year later. Remember this guy?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3733-hyrule-division-round-1-john-price-vs-mega-man-x

X probably gets 80% on him in a re-run.
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KamikazePotato posted...

If you put Kirby against 2B, I would take Kirby to outperform Bowser's result there. With like 90% confidence.

That's because 2B reverse SSF'd Bowser's Bowsette boost.
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The Show though, pretty great
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I want to pull the trigger on Pikachu > Megaman or Zelda > Sonic but it just feels so wrong.

Good episode, should be an exciting week in contests.
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https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5265-character-battle-ix-bonus-battle-3-runners-up-battle

Mega Mewtwo and Pikachu combined barely crossed the 50% mark against Mega Man in 2013. Asking for Pikachu to win straight up is asking for a lot.
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Oh right, I might listen to some of this tonight and the rest tomorrow.
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where do people listen to the Show? I only get to listen when I'm driving so I can't really comment as I listen live
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I try to listen at home just so I can do running commentary (since I'm the one who started it </humble brag>), but I listen at work sometimes if I'm too busy during the week.
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