Board 8 > Character Battle X Contest Analysis Crew - Part 10

(+) Yeah! (+)

I doubt Zelda gets hit with the SFF hammer. She's got too much momentum now.
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maybe Samus can do this
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I think Zelda has a chance to avoid being pushed under 30% by Link. Zelda has shown herself to be much stronger than Ganondorf, which already helps her chances of getting above 30% on Link. I also think there won't be as much SFF in Link/Zelda compared to Link/Ganondorf. The Link/Ganondorf match was basically a hero/villain match in which most voters would have a difficult time siding with the villain in that match, so Link had a very good reason to SFF Ganondorf harder than he will SFF Zelda.

There's also the potential of a bandwagon factor, which I don't think existed in Zelda/Mario. Beating Mario seems like the right opponent for a bandwagon to form, especially when she'll be facing someone who gets anti-votes for winning too many contests.
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how is Samus in Europe? same as elsewhere or weaker?
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Calintares posted...

how is Samus in Europe? same as elsewhere or weaker?

You can check the map in this match to get an idea:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7373-

It seems like a fairly even split to me. Mario is carrying the all-important UK and is also winning the Netherlands (second most votes from Europe behind the UK). Samus has some countries like France, Germany, and Sweden behind her.
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It's happening...?
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I waited... over ten years...
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lT'S FREAKING SAMUS!
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Calintares posted...

it feels sad that Cloud never was able to get his revenge against Mario for that 2002 match, and now it's probably too late.

he would've done it in any other contest.

Another person conveniently forgetting about how weak Cloud was in 2013, I see...!

Cloud might have had a chance of beating Mario in 2013 because it's probably assumed that 2013 wouldn't have been a good year for Nintendo if the contest wasn't overrun by rallies. 2013 was during a bad time for Nintendo, with the site abandoning the Wii a few years earlier and the site not really getting on board with the Wii U either. If Mario's strength is tied to the overall status of Nintendo at the time, then he should have been weaker in 2013 than in 2018.
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I must say that I have an incredibly hard time buying 2013 Mario being barely stronger than 2010 Bowser, which is what it would have taken for Cloud to win there.

Link 50.00%
Cloud Strife 39.48%
Crono 34.17%
Mega Man 34.03%
Pikachu 33.57%
Bowser 32.07%
Alucard 31.28%
Yoshi 30.35%
Kirby 29.59%
Zero 29.17%
Pokemon Trainer Red 28.89%
Sora 28.37%
Charizard 27.87%
Big Boss 27.64%
Princess Peach 27.02%
2B 26.81%
Ganondorf 26.78%
Terra Branford 26.32%
Crash Bandicoot 26.05%
Vivi 25.73%
Knuckles the Echidna 25.58%
Kefka 25.37%
Yuna 25.26%
Ness 24.82%
Kratos 24.57%
Ridley 23.95%
Cecil Harvey 23.87%
Dante 23.35%
Shadow the Hedgehog 23.20%
Wario 23.19%
Donkey Kong 23.17%
Scorpion 22.56%
Zidane Tribal 22.11%
Chun-Li 22.00%
Leon Kennedy 20.54%
Bomberman 20.39%
L-Block 20.20%
Tidus 19.96%
Spyro the Dragon 19.30%
Phoenix Wright 18.76%
Ike 18.51%
Master Hand 18.10%
Velvet Crowe 17.82%
Isaac 17.58%
Ryo Hazuki 17.54%
Monika 16.43%
Chris Redfield 16.16%
Lightning 16.06%
Kazuma Kiryu 15.95%
Shantae 15.62%
Noctis Lucis Caelum 15.37%
Guile 15.07%
Primrose 15.06%
Gordon Freeman 14.50%
Neptune 14.26%
Joel 13.94%
James Sunderland 13.89%
Godot 13.87%
Cuphead 13.27%
John Marston 13.18%
Yu Narukami 12.92%
Dragonborn 12.86%
Aya Brea 12.64%
Estelle Bright 12.44%
Cayde-6 11.91%
Neku Sakuraba 11.46%
Victor Sullivan 10.22%
Chloe Price 8.29%

LOL Division 1
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Where does Ganondorf end up if you adjust Tidus up to Yuna level?
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Where does Ganondorf end up if you adjust Tidus up to Yuna level?

In between Mega Man and Pikachu at 33.89%
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Yeah, that's a little high...
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Yeah, that's a little high...

I don't think so, unless you want to say Link didn't SFF Pikachu at all, which I don't buy whatsoever.

Crono underperformed in Cloud/Crono 1 (which is what I assume those stats use), and Pikachu got SFFd by Link. There's a lot of things that are going to be looked at when creating adjusted stats.
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Well, it looks like Crono's going to come very close to the original projection against Cloud this time, so we can remake those stats after this match.

Weird that Cloud/Crono is going to be noticeably different after Crono/Bowser and Samus/Tifa went almost identically both times.
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try setting Vivi = Squall and see what you get for div 1
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2B over ganondorf makes those the best stats
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LeonhartFour posted...

Princess Peach 27.02%
Ganondorf 26.78%

man I would've paid good money to see that one
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I may have actually voted Ganondorf there

That's a real tough one. Real bottom of the barrel.
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Crew Predictions: 124/144

Crew Prediction Challenge:

Monika: 122
transience: 120
Kleenex: 117
Leonhart: 115
Guest: 113

Crew Accuracy Challenge: spooky96 gets the point for Zelda, Monika and Kleenex get the point for Crono, and Kleenex gets the point for Samus.

transience: 35
Guest: 34 (BetrayedTangy, SuperNiceDog (4), pjbasis, garetha200 (4), ZenOfThunder, Ranticoot (2), Hbthebattle (2), NowItsAngeTime, spooky96 (4), RoseChevalier, Lopen (2), paulg235 (3), DoctorJimmy133, Janus5k, BT, TsunamiXXVIII, ctesjbuvf (2), MetalmindStats (2))
Kleenex: 32
Monika: 24
Leonhart: 21
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Preliminary X-stats for Division 1-4. SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

Link - 50
Cloud - 39.48
Crono - 35.48
Mega Man - 35.33
Pikachu - 34.86
Ganondorf - 32.98
Bowser - 32.06
Kirby - 32
Vivi - 31.68
Yoshi - 31.51
Alucard - 31.27
Zero - 30.29
Pokemon Trainer Red - 28.89
Dante - 28.75
Donkey Kong - 28.53
Sora - 28.37
Charizard - 27.86
Big Boss - 27.63
Chun-Li - 27.1
Princess Peach - 27.01
2B - 26.81
Knuckles - 26.56
Terra Branford - 26.3
Crash Bandicoot - 26.04
Kratos - 25.51
Kefka - 25.36
Leon Kennedy - 25.29
Yuna - 25.25
Ness - 24.82
Phoenix Wright - 24.58
Tidus - 24.57
Ike - 24.25
Wario - 24.08
Ridley - 23.95
Cecil Harvey - 23.86
Spyro the Dragon - 23.75
Scorpion - 23.42
Shadow the Hedgehog - 23.2
Zidane Tribal - 22.95
Chris Redfield - 21.17
Bomberman - 20.38
L-Block - 20.2
Lightning - 19.77
Isaac - 19.01
Master Hand - 18.8
Velvet Crowe - 18.55
Joel - 18.28
Ryo Hazuki - 17.54
Monika - 17.07
Cuphead - 16.34
Guile - 16.29
Shantae - 16.22
Noctis Lucis Caelum - 15.96
Kazuma Kiryu - 15.95
Yu Narukami - 15.91
Dragonborn - 15.84
Primrose - 15.64
Aya Brea - 15.56
Gordon Freeman - 14.5
James Sunderland - 14.45
Neptune - 14.26
Neku Sakuraba - 14.11
Godot - 13.86
John Marston - 13.68
Estelle Bright - 13.45
Victor Sullivan - 12.58
Cayde-6 - 11.9
Chloe Price - 8.65

1. Spend like 20 minutes meticulously checking every result in the past for Ike and Phoenix Wright and concluded that their unadjusted stat (even after bumping Kirby up) was completely nonsensical. Adjusted Ike based on his 2010 ratio to Ness, then Phoenix based on Ike, and called it a day.
2. Set Kirby to slightly weaker than Bowser because fuck if I know.
3. Tried to different constants for Division 1. Setting Ganondorf=Bowser and adjusting based on that made everyone except Ganondorf look really bad. Setting Tidus=Yuna made Ganondorf too strong. Averaged the two constants and called it a day.
4. Used the second Mega Man/Pikachu match.
5. Adjusted Crono through Alucard and Bowser (bumped him up like 1% vs. Cloud).
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oh my god samus
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Master Moltar posted...

Guests Analysis - War

As I'm writing this I'm watching Snake do all he can to reach 44% against an opponent that he statistically should beat.

There is a reason this is happening.

No, it is not because the opponent he 'should' beat is actually a lot stronger than him. Even though this is true.

No, it is not because we've seen this before, right down to the hype being due to Sonic and Zelda matches. Even though this is also true.

It is because some princess decided to grab for the title of Queen.

Make no mistake, in these contests there is one Queen.

The Queen would not be jealous over King Harkinian playing badminton with another woman.

The Queen would not fear Ganon, a being so weak that he needs to disguise himself as Impa, and could be defeated by Bagu wielding a thing called the Handy Glove.

The Queen would definitely not go on a date to a bar, only for her man to get pissed off at a Daira spilling booze brewed by his parents.

A princess has reached for something far beyond her status, and there is a phrase appropriate for the occasion.

God Save The Queen.

And May Everyone Else Burn.

Samus with 54%

This writeup is amazing.

boy I'm glad Cloud vs. Mario/Samus isn't tomorrow because that's definitely a match where my percentage would depend on who the other character is
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ZeldaTPLink posted...

Master Moltar posted...


This writeup is amazing.

I'm glad you appreciate it!
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as depressing as it is that Crono has been totally unable to hold up against Cloud, Im at least glad he was able to make it through a contest without losing to a non-NNer. its been a while!
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Yeah forgot a bout that. He was the first to lose in a multi way poll and on a 1vs1 poll too!
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Not only that, but Crono beat a Noble Niner without being a beneficiary of LFF. He hadn't actually done that since 2005 until yesterday!
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Man imagine if he was on Smash or something!
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Legends Bracket: Finals Link vs. Zelda

Monikas Analysis

Link
Legends Round 1 - 79.64% vs. Ganondorf
Legends Round 2 - 68.41% vs. Pikachu
Legends Round 3 - 60.52% vs. Cloud Strife

Zelda
Legends Round 1 - 50.32% vs. Solid Snake
Legends Round 2 - 56.45% vs. Sonic the Hedgehog
Legends Round 3 - 50.91% vs. Mario

Well most of us expected this finals for the winners bracket to be two Nintendo characters. Very few expected it to be two Nintendo characters that star in the same series. What a weird conclusion for the contest this ended up being.

Percentage-wise, I have no clue what to expect here. Zeldas natural strength is probably what she got on Snake and Sonic, but shes definitely gained a bandwagon since then to beat Mario. That bandwagon is definitely going to continue here. At this point, there is a non-zero chance for her to win the entire thing.

but her opponent is the main hero from the same game shes from so sff?!??!

I wouldnt be surprised if this hyped up Zelda over-performs on Link or gets doubled because SFF. Im going to guess its the former though, as the Zelda bandwagon just seems too real, and I think people will want to try to break the LAW.

Monikas Voting Tip of the Day: Zelda!! Ehehe, wouldnt it be fun if she won?

Monikas Prediction of the Day: Link 57%

...That's my advice for today! Thanks for listening~
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transiences Analysis

Man, what do you do here? What a bizarre final. Zelda clearly has a bandwagon behind her at this point. She's grown in strength from the character who only got 70% on The Boss. Surely Mario could have managed more? Then again, who knows. It's tough to get those astronomical numbers this year. Everything is so flat, with the exception of Link.

This is obviously a fanbase overlap match and Link already quadrupled Ganondorf. Zelda is different though. She should get doubled but, weirdly enough, she's the force of change in the contests this year. She's the one beating Snake and Sonic and Mario and probably Mario again. In a neutral environment, this is probably a doubling, but I think Zelda does better than that since she's new blood, or more accurately, gamefaqs's idea of new blood

transience's prediction: Link with 59.94%

Leonharts Analysis

So this is where weve arrived after ten contests, huh? Literally Link vs. Zelda in the finals of the Legends Division. I wouldnt be surprised if Allen saw this and decided it was time to wash his hands of Character Battles (or at least expand the field, darn it!). I dont even know what to make of this match. As incredible of a run as Zelda has had (perhaps the greatest run in contest history, period), its hard to imagine she can even come close to Link.

Really, this match is all about how well Zelda holds up. At the very least, she shouldnt fold as hard as Ganondorf did. Can she do better than Pikachu, even though this is a same series matchup? She might have built up enough of a bandwagon at this point to counteract the normal amount of SFF Link would apply in this situation. This is all just guesswork at this point though, so whatever.

Leonharts Vote: Zelda

Leonharts Prediction: Link with 62.26%

Kleenexs Analysis

Here it is, the final everyone has been waiting for, Zelda vs. Zelda. The fact that Zelda is even here is nothing short of miraculous, and Ill be honest Ive enjoyed her run and Im kinda happy to see her here, despite the obvious homogeneity of this match. She has been able to rise to her opponents level a few times this contest, and against pretty much anyone else I think she could do it again, but not here. The King will not be denied, and Zelda is going to have to have to step down from the throne to allow Link his rightful place at the top. There are three ways Zelda has a shot here - 1) A massive amount of rSFF, the likes of which weve never seen, 2) She catches a pretty big rally, or 3) People still dont know that Links name is Link, and they see him in the picture and vote for Zelda en masse. All pretty unlikely. Shell still probably do better than Cloud, though.

Kleenexs prediction: Link with 60%

Tsunamis Analysis

Welcome back to HentaiFAQs! Under normal circumstances, you wouldnt even entertain the idea of a side character losing to the main character in a same franchise SFF matchup (unless Tidus ever manages to run into another FFX character, and even then Id probably pick Tidus against anyone other than Auron even though I firmly believe hes indirectly weaker than at least two other characters from his game.) But this is a different world we live in, one where Noble Niners can get TJFd by characters from their own games. Of course, you have to take a little caution with that one because Sephiroth is the lone villain of the Noble Nine and hero > villain in most cases, but that was still a reversal of past results.
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But theres a much bigger obstacle to taking this upset, and thats that ITS FREAKING LINK! As I stated elsewhere, Link is kind of the Superman of Character Battles. In the absence of kryptonite (read: massive rallies that bring together larger blocks of the internet than our puny site), hes just plain invincible. And he is especially rough on his fellow Nintendo characters. This is the 18th overall contest, and of the previous 17, the strongest available representative of The Legend of Zelda has won 11 times. One of those losses was Sephiroth > Ganondorf in the Villains Contest, which is of course totally not Links fault. 3 of them were ralliesL-Block, Draven, and Undertale. And Draven only narrowly managed to win and may have resorted to cheating. That leaves only two clear losses: Cloud > Link in 2003 and Final Fantasy VII > Ocarina of Time in 2004. So its certainly possible, or was at one time. But due to their strength, Link-Cloud is the most contested match in Character Battle history (granted, there was also some silly thing called the Battle Royale in 2006 that ran up the count), and after Cloud won the initial match, Link has beaten him 12 times in a row.

Which, again, is irrelevant because Link isnt going up against an outside force! Link may be the star, but Zelda is the title character. Occasionally Link gets his name in the title too, but thats only happened four times and only twice does the title make it explicit that Link is a character. If anyone could pull off the upset, its Zelda. Is there any sort of history that would suggest that its likely?



Theyve never had a 1v1, but they were in a 4way together and Zelda only got 13.19% on Link directly. She did, however, manage to avoid getting doubled by a 4chan fad that is also a Pokmon, and said 4chan fad that is also a Pokmon didnt avoid getting doubled by Vincent Valentine so clearly that poll is not remotely relevant in 2018. But, uh, props to 2007 Zelda for at least outperforming 2004 Ganondorf against Link even though there was a 4chan fad and a fellow near-elite (at the time) in the poll, right?

And yet, hentai rallies. How exactly would hentai rallies affect this match? After all, it takes two to tango, and Im reminded of Ron Whites bit on homophobia. TV Tropes was nice enough to have the whole exchange quoted on his page so Ill quote it for you.

Ron: Do ya like porn?
Homophobe: Yeah, I like porn. You know that.
Ron: Do you only watch scenes with two women?
Homophobe: Naw, I like to watch a man and a women making love.
Ron: Oh. Do you care if the man has a half-flaccid penis?
Homophobe: Naw, man, I like big, hard, throbbing co! *gets a horrified face, stops to think about what he said* I did not know that about myself.
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Now, its been awhile since I, um, read any hentai, and Ive never read any involving any Nintendo franchise, but I would have to assume that a fairly large portion of hentai containing Zelda probably also contains Link. Assuming that were not just talking about that stuff on *banned site* where its just a bunch of (sometimes literally) disembodied cocks gang-raping whatever girl is being fetishized. And thus, if anyone gets to fuck Zelda over, it should be Link.

And come on now. Its Link. Whens the last time he looked bad in a match? Well, okay, Snake battled him somewhat hard in the 2013 bonus match, but weird things can happen in bonus matches (see: Jay Solano, ?-Block). He honestly looked incredible even in defeat against Draven, and the round before that he SFFed Yoshi into losing to Raiden. Honestly, I want to call for this upset because Im still in awe of the result that finished up a few hours before I started writing this, that being Zeldas win over Mario, but every time I get close to even calling for it to be close Links entire history comes crashing down on me. The biggest reason why 4way X-stats are unreliable is that when characters A, B, C, and D are in a match, the X-stat value you get for character C (who finished third) by calculating through character B (who finished second) are different than youd get by calculating directly against character A (the champion). And thats just for within a single match! Yet despite the fact that 4way percentages tend to be more closely bunched together (that is to say, its a lot easier to break 40% on a character in a 4way than in a 1v1), the best number any Nintendo character has put up on Link directly was in fact in a 1v1, and that was37.94% by Samus in 2003, the same year that Cloud managed to beat Link. But its hardly just Nintendo; there have only been five characters to ever break 40% on Link directly no matter the format, and two of them were L-Block and Draven. The other three, of course, are Cloud, Sephiroth, and Snake. (No, Jay Solano doesnt count.) The closest anyone else has come was when Crono got 39.67% on him directly in a fourwayin which the other two characters were Mario and Samus.

And as we saw last round, not even Cloud has what it takes to break 40% on Link anymore. Rallies or no rallies, Zelda shouldnt be able to outdo that number. And yetthe first time Link faced Ganondorf, he more than septupled him. This year, he couldnt even manage the quadrupling. Add in the rallies, add in the registered voter bonus which should favor the bandwagoned contestant over LINK ALWAYS WINS, and maybe, just maybe, Zelda can break through with a percentage beyond what Samus or Mario (whose best performance on Link isnt far behind Samuss, albeit in a 4way37.91% in 2007 with Seph and Vincent as the other two) have ever done. Nah, I cant do it. I wanted to make a crazy upset pick, and I feel like even predicting Zelda to break 40% would qualify as crazy, but I cant do it.

Link with 62.22% of the vote
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so I've got the high prediction, huh

I'll take it
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MasterMoltar posted...

As incredible of a run as Zelda has had (perhaps the greatest run in contest history, period),

Seriously.

But it's hard to really be excited because there's no fanbase that cares about it. Are Zelda series fans particularly happy about shutting out everyone else in the finals?
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Zelda the series wins!
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You know Zelda is my actual favorite series but it has so little to do with the characters.

I don't really see the need to vote for Link just because that's what I looked like in OoT.
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pjbasis posted...

MasterMoltar posted...

As incredible of a run as Zelda has had (perhaps the greatest run in contest history, period),

Seriously.

But it's hard to really be excited because there's no fanbase that cares about it. Are Zelda series fans particularly happy about shutting out everyone else in the finals?

I'm a little happy but not much.

If Samus or Mario goes against Zelda in #149 I'm probably not voting for Zelda.

Lopen's Unofficial Analysisx1

Link vs Zelda
On the one hand, the LoZ fanbase "gifting" Zelda this win may actually be the best hope for Link losing. There's a very small chance that Link may lose this, just because on paper it seems like something a normal fanbase would consider when their main guy has slaughtered time and time again.

On the other, you're asking a fanbase that would happily vote their characters and game for 16 years with minimal signs of ever changing this due it being stale. The idea of them wanting things that are fresh and exciting, while looking nice on paper, is frankly absurd in practice. Zelda will hold up better than Ganondorf because there's more of an established character there, and is likely stronger than Ganondorf out of the box, but this will still be a tremendous beating, receiving a lopsided vote among the fanbase worse than you'd expect from the likes of Mario or Pikachu.

Link with 71.97%
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nah, L is the greatest run by far, unless you're disqualifying it for being a 'joke' run. Draven was a clear effort rally whereas L just came from the entire internet as a whole.

if you're limiting it to 'proper' character then maybe Zelda has a chance - but I think I'd still put Starcraft over it, I think.
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actually, now that I think about it, Zelda's run almost exactly parallels Majora's run in 2009. she just happened to run into the equivalent of Ocarina at the end there.
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Well, I think the fact that Zelda has done this 1-on-1 gives it some added weight that L-Block didn't have (although the reduced vote totals hurts somewhat, too). L-Block's sheer dominance in the final is the greatest single performance in contest history though. Starcraft didn't beat a truly top tier game in 2004, although it was an incredibly entertaining run.
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Lots of low predictions for Link today! Everyone predicted Link to match or fall below his worst ever performance against Nintendo, ever. Except Lopen. I think about 70% sounds right.
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Starcraft felt so big though, as a 16 seed, beating Halo and then Zelda at the height of the final four stuff. Zelda was a bit more foreshadowed with the Squall result. I dunno, I don't want to argue it because both were good. Zelda is definitely diminished by the environment of 2018 though.
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Yeah, we're just nitpicking at this point.
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Zelda's run didn't seem so exciting because it always felt like there was an end to the road, which is Link. Starcraft always rose to its opponent, and even now I really wonder what would have happened had it been able to face Final Fantasy VII, which would have been 2 days after the SSBM match - an FFVII which had just dispatched Ocarina of Time, making the whole "FFVII always wins" thing actually reasonable.
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Yeah I count this run as much less than the four way contests cause the vote totals are so depressing

Put it this way: In a close match in a four way between 1st and 2nd or 2nd and 3rd, the two competitors in a vacuum will have over double the votes they'll have in a 1v1 here.
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