Board 8 > ~*~Ranking the CBX Characters by Contest Strength: Day 2 - Near-Elites~*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hello everyone, and welcome to the project where we rank all the CBX characters by contest strength! This time, well be ranking the Near-Elites, comprised of the following characters:

Alucard, Bowser, Crono, Ganondorf, Kirby, Luigi, Mega Man, Mega Man X, Pikachu, Sephiroth, Sonic the Hedgehog, Tifa Lockheart, Vivi, Yoshi, and Zero

Before we get going, heres the (slightly modified) Rules:

1. If at all possible, please number your rankings (ex. 1 for the strongest character, etc.) - it makes your ranks much clearer, allowing me to tabulate them much easier.
2. Rankings of indirect strength are preferred, but direct rankings will be allowed, especially in tandem with indirect rankings.
3. Stick to one ranking per tier (or one ranking each of indirect and direct strength if you choose to separate them) - dont try to sway the standings with multiple accounts.
4. Youre always welcome to submit retroactive rankings if you missed one or more days, as well as change your existing rankings if so inclined, up until this project ends.
5. And most importantly, be nice to each other, even people you dont like! Discussion is welcomed and encouraged, but this isnt ultimately meant to be an overly serious project, so I dont want to see any knock-down, drag-out arguments developing in here about how someones not ranking by the stats or whatever else - use your discretion about this.

Heres the spreadsheet that Ill be using to record data for this project: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s6rNxUlXY3kpo9Ru-Pyw9CjtGBIRasJKiUv6a7cEgEw/edit?usp=sharing

Tomorrow night, we'll be moving on to the Upper Midcarders, but for today, heres the Near-Elites listed in an easy copy-paste format:

Alucard
Bowser
Crono
Ganondorf
Kirby
Luigi
Mega Man
MMX
Pikachu
Sephiroth
Sonic
Tifa
Vivi
Yoshi
Zero

As for yesterday, with Day 1's rankings in, the current ranking of the Elites (based on means) is the following:
1. Cloud Strife
2. Samus Aran
3. Mario
4. Zelda
5. Solid Snake

My thoughts:
- First off, I was pleased to see 16 participants in Day 1 alone. And remember, if you missed Day 1, you can always chip in with your own ranking of the Elites, right here!
- Only two of those 16 ranked the Elites based on who won/lost their direct matches, suggesting a broad consensus about (r)SFF, rallies, and other forms of non-transitivity affecting those matches.
- Regarding individual character rankings, the strongest consensus by far was about Snake being last among the Elites, with only three rankers putting him in fourth.
- Samus had the most first place rankings, but she was dragged down by a handful of third and fourth-place rankings, whereas no one put Cloud below third.
- And finally, the first eight rankings were all different, clearly suggesting CBX hasn't given us all the answers regarding the comparative strength of the Elites.
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1. Pikachu
2. Crono
3. Mega Man
4. Sephiroth
5. Tifa
6. Ganondorf
7. Sonic
8. Bowser
9. Kirby
10. Alucard
11. Zero
12. Luigi
13. Vivi
14. MMX
15. Yoshi
---

1.Crono
2.Mega Man
3.Pikachu
4.Sonic
5.Tifa
6.Sephiroth
7.X
8.Bowser
9.Ganondorf
10.Luigi
11.Yoshi
12.Vivi
13.Alucard
14.Kirby
15.Zero
---

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Sephiroth
5. Tifa
6. Mega Man X
7. Bowser
8. Luigi
9. Yoshi
10. Ganondorf
11. Kirby
12. Sonic
13. Alucard
14. Vivi
15. Zero
---

1) Pikachu
2) Crono
3) Sephiroth
4) Tifa
5) Mega Man
6) Mega Man X
7) Bowser
8) Luigi
9) Kirby
10) Ganondorf
11) Yoshi
12) Sonic
13) Vivi
14) Zero
15) Alucard
---

1. Crono
2. Pikachu
3. Mega Man
4. Tifa
5. X
6. Sephiroth
7. Sonic
8. Bowser
9. Kirby
10. Luigi
11. Vivi
12. Yoshi
13. Vivi
14. Zero
15. Alucard
---

I still think Kirby got SFF'ed or RSFF'ed in his match with Bowser, that's why I have him so high
---

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Tifa
5. MMX
6. Sephiroth
7. Sonic
8. Bowser
9. Luigi
10. Alucard
11. Kirby
12. Ganondorf
13. Vivi
14. Yoshi
15. Zero

1. Pikachu
2. Crono
3. Mega Man
4. Kirby
5. Tifa
6. Sonic
7. Sephiroth
8. MMX
9. Vivi
10. Alucard
11. Bowser
12. Luigi
13. Ganondorf
14. Zero
15. Yoshi
---

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Sonic
5. Tifa
6. Bowser
7. MMX
8. Sephiroth
9. Kirby
10. Ganondorf
11. Luigi
12. Alucard
13. Vivi
14. Yoshi
15. Zero

There's a clear top tier and a clear bottom tier but lord knows how this shakes out otherwise.
---

My ranking:

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Tifa
5. MMX
6. Ganondorf
7. Luigi
8. Sonic
9. Sephiroth
10. Bowser
11. Yoshi
12. Vivi
13. Alucard
14. Kirby
15. Zero
---

tracking topic to retoractivley vote Elites as well as this. Gonna need time to think
---

MetalmindStats posted...

My ranking:

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Tifa
5. MMX
6. Ganondorf
7. Luigi
8. Sonic
9. Sephiroth
10. Bowser
11. Yoshi
12. Vivi
13. Alucard
14. Kirby
15. Zero

Also, @Hbthebattle, I assume the first of your two Vivis is supposed to be Ganondorf?

yeah
---

It bothers me to see some of the voters have such a big gap between Tifa and MMX. It's one thing if two characters are indirectly very close to each other, but you decide to separate them a bit (e.g. Bowser and Yoshi had a similar score on a very comparable characters). But to create such a big gap when they had a direct matchup that was 50/50?

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Sephiroth (I think he wasn't his normal self in the legends bracket)
5. MMX (would have beaten Tifa without the rally)
6. Tifa
7. Sonic
8. Luigi
9. Bowser
10. Kirby
11. Ganondorf
12. Yoshi
13. Alucard
14.Vivi
15. Zero
---

This ended up being a closer matched group than I expected when I first looked at the names. Didn't dwell on this too long, but this was my initial thoughts.

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Tifa
5. Sephiroth
6. Bowser
7. Sonic
8. Kirby
9. Luigi
10. Ganondorf
11. Alucard
12. Vivi
13. Yoshi
14. MMX
15. Zero
---

1. Mega Man
2. Crono
3. Sephiroth
4. Ganondorf
5. Pikachu
6. Tifa
7. Bowser
8. MMX
9. Luigi
10. Kirby
11. Alucard
12. Sonic
13. Vivi
14. Zero
15. Yoshi
---

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Tifa
4. Vivi
5. Alucard
6. Bowser
7. Sephiroth
8. Sonic
9. MMX
10. Pikachu
11. Zero
12. Ganondorf
13. Kirby
14. Luigi
15. Yoshi
---

I am going to bed now and don't have time rn to make an actual order, but I'll post some of my thoughts.

- Crono is #1: dude did exactly what he needed to in CBX to show he is right below the top tier. Lost hard to Cloud, but beat two strong Smash characters, very respectable performance.
- Tifa > MMX by one or two spots max: don't have enough info on their match to know who wins if you subtract what rally, but I see MMX doing worse in the Legends bracket (Samus probably breaks 60 on X through SNES 2D adventure SFF). Still feel like Tifa deserves to be the higher of the two, especially with her impressive takedown of Luigi.
- Luigi > Bowser >> Yoshi: I feel pretty good on this order. Think the gap between the second two is bigger, Yoshi really disappointed me while Bowser put on a good show. Especially if you compare their matches with Pokemon, Bowser definitely looked stronger.
- Zero last: honestly, this guy never had a chance to take Division 2: he's never done well against Nintendo dating back to 2006, and whoever was coming out of the bottom is a solid Nintendo performer. Easy last place.
---

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Sonic
5. Tifa
6. MMX
7. Luigi
8. Sephiroth
9. Ganondorf
10. Bowser
11. Kirby
12. Vivi
13. Yoshi
14. Alucard
15. Zero
---

1. Pikachu
2. Crono
3. Mega Man
4. MMX
5. Sonic
6. Bowser
7. Tifa
8. Sephiroth
9. Kirby
10. Vivi
11. Ganondorf
12. Yoshi
13. Alucard
14. Luigi
15. Zero

So I'm thinking that, as these rankings are mostly reflecting, I may have messed up by putting Zero in the Near-Elite tier instead of the Upper Midcarder tier. My idea was that 44% on Pikachu was comfortably above 46% on Sonic (comparing to Auron), but in retrospect, I don't think that's so obvious that those two should be in entirely different tiers. The problem that comes with that, of course, is that a solid 6/15 participants so far have ranked Zero at not-last, particularly with Anagram and darkx putting him at 11th. What I'm thinking I'll do to solve this is have Zero as part of the Upper Midcarder ranking as well as the Near-Elite one and, depending on those results, I may shift him down into the Upper Midcarder tier. Does that sound reasonable to everyone, or would you rather not have to rank Zero twice?

(And, if you're coming into this topic not yet having ranked the Near-Elites, please still include Zero in your ranking.)
---

1)Crono
2)Mega Man
3)Pikachu
4)Sonic
5)Tifa
6)MMX
7)Sephiroth
8)Luigi
9)Bowser
10)Kirby
11)Yoshi
12)Alucard
13)Ganondorf
14)Vivi
15)Zero
---

MetalmindStats posted...

So I'm thinking that, as these rankings are mostly reflecting, I may have messed up by putting Zero in the Near-Elite tier instead of the Upper Midcarder tier. My idea was that 44% on Pikachu was comfortably above 46% on Sonic (comparing to Auron), but in retrospect, I don't think that's so obvious that those two should be in entirely different tiers. The problem that comes with that, of course, is that a solid 6/15 participants so far have ranked Zero at not-last, particularly with Anagram and darkx putting him at 11th. What I'm thinking I'll do to solve this is have Zero as part of the Upper Midcarder ranking as well as the Near-Elite one and, depending on those results, I may shift him down into the Upper Midcarder tier. Does that sound reasonable to everyone, or would you rather not have to rank Zero twice?

(And, if you're coming into this topic not yet having ranked the Near-Elites, please still include Zero in your ranking.)

I would be fine with ranking Zero twice. I think Zero belongs in upper midcard and Snake belongs in near elites. That would also give us a nice cut off of top 5 for elite and top 20 for near elite.
---

Morning bump.
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MetalmindStats posted...

So I'm thinking that, as these rankings are mostly reflecting, I may have messed up by putting Zero in the Near-Elite tier instead of the Upper Midcarder tier. My idea was that 44% on Pikachu was comfortably above 46% on Sonic (comparing to Auron), but in retrospect, I don't think that's so obvious that those two should be in entirely different tiers. The problem that comes with that, of course, is that a solid 6/15 participants so far have ranked Zero at not-last, particularly with Anagram and darkx putting him at 11th. What I'm thinking I'll do to solve this is have Zero as part of the Upper Midcarder ranking as well as the Near-Elite one and, depending on those results, I may shift him down into the Upper Midcarder tier. Does that sound reasonable to everyone, or would you rather not have to rank Zero twice?

(And, if you're coming into this topic not yet having ranked the Near-Elites, please still include Zero in your ranking.)

Whatever you think is best.
---

1. Crono
2. Mega Man
3. Pikachu
4. Tifa
5. Mega Man X
6. Sephiroth
7. Sonic
8. Luigi
9. Bowser
10. Kirby
11. Alucard
12. Ganondorf
13. Vivi
14. Yoshi
15. Zero
---

MetalmindStats posted...

So I'm thinking that, as these rankings are mostly reflecting, I may have messed up by putting Zero in the Near-Elite tier instead of the Upper Midcarder tier. My idea was that 44% on Pikachu was comfortably above 46% on Sonic (comparing to Auron), but in retrospect, I don't think that's so obvious that those two should be in entirely different tiers. The problem that comes with that, of course, is that a solid 6/15 participants so far have ranked Zero at not-last, particularly with Anagram and darkx putting him at 11th. What I'm thinking I'll do to solve this is have Zero as part of the Upper Midcarder ranking as well as the Near-Elite one and, depending on those results, I may shift him down into the Upper Midcarder tier. Does that sound reasonable to everyone, or would you rather not have to rank Zero twice?

(And, if you're coming into this topic not yet having ranked the Near-Elites, please still include Zero in your ranking.)

Yeah, I think Zero is a pretty good candidate for last here, but also likely the top of whatever the next group is.
---

Day 1
1.Cloud
2.Mario
3.Zelda
4.Samus
5.Snake

Day 2
1.Crono
2.Mega Man
3.Pikachu
4.Sonic
5.Tifa
6.Sephiroth
7.Bowser
8.MMX
9.Ganondorf
10.Yoshi
11.Luigi
12.Alucard
13.Vivi
14.Kirby
15.Zero
---

Here's the Day 3 topic, for ranking the Upper Midcarders: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77315461

If you missed either of the previous days, use the Day 3 topic to rank their slates.
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