Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 108 ft Seymour Guado, Toad, Tharja

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is a topic to rate the contest strength of potential newcomers in the current contest environment.

I will pick the characters to rate and discuss for each day from user nominations - whoever the 3 most nominated characters are at that time. If there are more than 3 I will pick randomly. You can nominate any number of characters at any time, but you cannot nominate the same character twice.

All characters who were present in the 2018 Character Battle will NOT be eligible. Otherwise you can nominate any character that has appeared in video games; even comic book characters. This will exclude real-life athletes who have only appeared in long running sports series, however I will accept those who have their own games such as Shaq. I will accept nominations for iconic gaming duos too, if there is a compelling reason for both characters to be linked (either co-starring in a game ala Banjo & Kazooie, or always appearing together like Callie & Marie from Splatoon).

Each day will have a separate topic, and nominations will carry over. As far as actually rating the character's contest strength; I ask that users rank a characters potential strength with one of the following qualifiers - LAW Fodder, Low Fodder, Mid Fodder, High Fodder, Fodder Line, Low Midcarder, Midcarder, High Midcarder, Near Elite, Elite, LAW Tier (capable of beating Link). I will average all the ratings given to a character to come up with their final ranking. I have included a highlighted entrant from Character Battle X on each tier of the strength rankings below, to provide a baseline for each.

Note that LAW Fodder is meant to be a tier reserved for the weakest possible characters to put into a contest. A character will only be placed there if at least 3/4ths of the voters for that day agree on the LAW Fodder rating, and no ratings above Low Fodder are given. If either of those conditions are not met, the character will not be eligible for the LAW Fodder tier.

Current Character Strength Rankings: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P1AIhHywBiLd6VAMZMNEGX-HW2td8u1D0Iw_tzHsORw/edit?usp=sharing

Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KnSBDzppzPK5Ug1zmx8_x0bG4tqFDMPPH2k8J3s8sk/edit?usp=sharing

Results from Day 107:

Altair (Assassin's Creed) is High Fodder
Donald Duck (Disney/Kingdom Hearts) is Fodder Line
Epona (Legend of Zelda series) is a Low Midcarder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Seymour Guado (Final Fantasy X)
Toad (Mario series)
Tharja (Fire Emblem Awakening)
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Nominate:
Ash Ketchum


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Seymour: Fodder Line. FFX is older, and a lot of people have negative memories of fighting this asshole. What's worth noting is that he only made the bracket once, in the forgettable Rivalry Rumble via vote-in. That does not bode well for him, though it's probably because people nominate Tidus, Yuna, and Auron first and, like Epona, seeing his pic will remind people. Even so, he's not going to be mistaken for Sephiroth.

Toad: High Fodder. Toad didn't get his own game until over two decades after people first met him, what with princesses in other castles and stuff, so en masse, people don't have the same love for Toad that they do for Yoshi. He did advance last year, but only by narrowly beating Shovel Knight before losing to Aeris, and this was only has second contest appearance after getting SFF'd to Rainbow Road and back by Bowser in 2007. I have no confidence in his ability to advance again, especially if he only had a 5% margin of victory against an indie protag like Shovel Knight.

Tharja: Mid Fodder. She's pretty, I'll give her that, but that's the only thing helping her. Her comrade Lucina did manage to get a third of the vote against both Dracula and Auron in her two appearances, but Lucina has Smash and Laura Bailey as factors. Tharja has neither. With Lucina being Fodder Line, Tharja probably isn't quite Low Fodder, so Mid sounds riight.
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Seymour Guado (Final Fantasy X) - Mid fodder

I don't really ever see anyone hyping up or caring much about Seymour and he didn't get into Dissidia in the early games when that might have mattered. People might just have not really liked their rivalry rather than necessarily his character but he clearly did Yuna no favors in Rivalry Rumble. Sin even got into a contest over him!

Feel like he'd probably lose to Kuja. FFIX is only a couple steps behind FFX at worst at this point but Kuja's probably less disliked.

Toad (Mario series) - Fodder line

It's Toad. Everybody knows Toad. Peach, Wario, and Waluigi looked good in 2019, even Captain Toad looked decent, and given that SBAllen IIRC displayed Captain Toad's name as Toad in the actual poll, Toad should probably do about as well as him?

Tharja (Fire Emblem Awakening) - High fodder

Looked pretty decent in her one contest appearance and while I don't think more recent Fire Emblems will boost her since she's not in them, I figure the series' increasing relevancy should keep her at least around the same level.

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Nominate V from devil may cry 5

AxemRedRanger posted...

Sin even got into a contest over him!

I forgot about this. Change my Seymour vote to High Fodder, please.
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Also, I forgot Tharja was even in a contest, and she got a really good draw and won. So she's High Fodder too.
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Seymour: High Fodder - I feel like he should have some basic amount of strength by nature of his role and game, and we definitely underrated Kuja. I could be convinced about Mid Fodder, though.

Toad: Low Midcarder - I also seem to recall that Captain Toad was labeled as just 'Toad' on his match pictures in 2018. While barely beating Shovel Knight isn't impressive in and of itself, Aerith 60-40ing him retrospectively legitimatized both characters' strength. It also seems right that he'd be roughly on par with Rosalina, who has a far shorter history.

Tharja: High Fodder - Fire Emblem is quite a popular series on GameFAQs at this point, Tharja herself is a popular character from a well-liked game, and she has TJF for days.
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I love Toad so much I put him in my username. Everyone knows Toad and he is an iconic character from the ORIGINAL video game Super Mario Bros. and he is a low midcarder and nobody will ever convince me he is weaker than that.
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looking at all the numbers on Aerith and with Rosalina in mind, yeah, change me to low-midcarder for toad.

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Seymour does not strike me as a character who is well-liked, and probably gets anti-voted thanks to that one boss fight. I say he is just barely High Fodder.

Agree with Fodder Line for Toad and High Fodder for Tharja.

nominations:

V (Devil May Cry 5)
Ash Ketchum (Pokemon Puzzle League)
Hawlucha (Pokemon)
Chikorita (Pokemon)
Mr. Mime (Pokemon)
Incineroar (Pokemon)
Lapras (Pokemon)
Haunter (Pokemon)
Android 18 (Dragonball Z)
Moltres (Pokemon)
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I will say that during his one appearance, Seymour definitely got pic-sabotaged so I wouldn't use that to judge much of anything. I haven't participated in this and disagree with a lot of it so far, but I just wanted to add in that thought.
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Day 109 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78019685
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