Board 8 > ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Retro Summer 2008 Analysis!*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ike would easily get second in that match today. Fire emblem is more popular than ever. Pikachu would still get first. Blizzard isn't very well liked these days.

Edit: Wow Tails got last there? Thought he was more popular than that.

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Tails and DK probably hurt each other real bad there to be fair.

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Division 5 Round 1: Banjo, Captain Olimar, Mega Man, and Nero

Banjo - 17892 [13.28%]
Olimar - 15490 [11.5%]
Mega Man - 68966 [51.19%]
Nero - 32366 [24.03%]
Total Votes - 134714

This was one of the easiest matches to pick all contest, because Mega Man > Nero was a 100% lock. Banjo and Olimar are pretty much bottom of the barrel on the Nintendo Hierarchy, and having them share a poll with Mega Man while also stealing votes from each other was a recipe to get annihilated.

Nero getting second place by default here was a given, and that's exactly what happened. This poll might have different percentages in modern times with Smash Ultimate and Devil May Cry 5 factored in, but who really knows or cares. The last thing we need is more LOL 4ways.

Oh and for the people who thought Olimar could beat Nero because of BrawlFEAR, you're a bunch of looney tunes. I hate to break this news, but no one cares about Pikmin outside of getting that one trophy in Super Smash Bros Melee, and no one likes Olimar in Smash Bros. The most hated characters in the series are the zoning types where you need a PHD in blueprints and sectioning to know the matchup. Olimar was never going to do anything here, and him getting dead last shows it.

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To be fair in Olimar's last appearance he avoided a doubling from Commander Shepard back when s/he had strength.

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That match makes me realize that Banjo will probably be in the next character battle and might not be a waste of a contest slot.

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It would help if Banjo didn't get a Nintendo opponent all the time, but yeah at best he would be a low mid-carder.

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Division 5 Round 1: King Dedede, Pit, Ryu Hayabusa, and Zero

King Dedede - 16807 [13.41%]
Pit - 18326 [14.62%]
Ryu Hayabusa - 45800 [36.53%]
Zero - 44430 [35.44%]
Total Votes - 125363

As you can see, BrawlFEAR dominated the nomination process this year. Everything from Sandbags to space ants from that game made the field in this contest, and Nintendo or no, there was a <i>ton</i> of first round fodder from that game in this contest. In fact, here are the only Brawl playables to not make the field in 2008:

-Zero Suit Samus, who I don't even count as a separate character from Samus
-Peach
-Popo, who I also don't really count since Nana got in
-Sheik, who is another that doesn't really count
-Pokemon Trainer Red, and yes the default in Smash is Red and you will never convince me otherwise
-R.O.B.
-Mr. Game & Watch
-Jigglypuff
-Toon Link (please)
-Wolf

Of that entire list, the only ones who count as actual characters are Peach, Pokemon Trainer, R.O.B. (if I'm feeling <i>very</i> generous), Game & Watch, Jigglypuff, and Wolf. From that list, only R.O.B. has never made a contest. If you go back to Melee, only Pichu, Roy, Popo (I guess), and R.O.B. hasn't gotten in. I don't care enough to do the research past that, especially given Smash Ultimate's roster isn't even full yet and I'm supposed to pretend like these writeups are happening in 2008.

To the point. Damn near EVERYTHING from Brawl made this contest, and a lot of it went out in round 1 because all of these characters faced each other. Some people think this proves BrawlFEAR was overrated, and to that I simply point at Snake's run.

So when people look at this match and place all of the blame on Zero for shitting the bed, it's not entirely his fault. The Mega Man series is basically Nintendo's bitch at this point, and he had to sit there splitting the votes with two other Nintendo characters. This doesn't mean Zero had any right not getting first place here, but what ended up happening is at least somewhat explainable.

That said, this was still an epic choke job. Zero was once thought of as a character that could crack the Noble Nine, and it was mainly due to this set of matches:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1344-east-division-round-2-zero-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1768-20xx-division-semifinal-mega-man-vs-zero
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1364-south-division-final-solid-snake-vs-mega-man
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1775-20xx-division-final-mega-man-vs-solid-snake
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2557-tournament-quarterfinal-solid-snake-vs-mega-man

There was also the fact Zero and Ryu had a 1v1 match before: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2068-mushroom-division-round-1-zero-vs-ryu-hayabusa

That poll is real. It actually happened. So we all just penciled in Zero > Ryu without thinking much of it, because this wasn't some lol x-stats thing. We have a direct 63-37 result.

Yeah, <i>whoops.</i>

Turns out Zero is good, but not <i>that</i> good. When the poll started, Zero struggled to get out of the gates, while Pit and Dedede pulled up the rear. If you folks want to talk about the one time epical battle those two had for third place, knock yourselves out. You're a manic if you do, but hey, you do you.

Zero did eventually get going, and overnight it looked like he would cruise to a comfortable, yet disappointing first place. He built up a lead of 700 overnight, and it seemed like we could all just go to bed. But then the unthinkable happened, and Ryu not only started cutting off votes overnight, but he won the morning vote by such convincing fashion that by the time he caught up, it was clear Ryu was going to win. The dude flew by Zero, and kept laying the wood on him all day long until he ended up winning by 1400. It was one of the most shocking board results of the entire contest, because even with two Nintendo characters bringing up the rear, there was no tangible reason to think Ryu could just turn around a 63-37 match in three years' time like this.

This was a very embarrassing loss for Zero, though not altogether inexplicable, and again, it didn't even matter in the grand scheme of things since both of them advanced anyway. Thanks, 4ways. First off, Ryu Hayabusa is not some bottom feeder. Outside of 2005 and 2006, this guy is always involved in entertaining matches and he often wins them. Just ask Master Chief. Just ask Jill Valentine, whose mega-duel with Ryu back in 2004 might legitimately be the most entertaining round 1 match we'll ever have. Just ask Simon Belmont, who almost lost to the guy <i>after</i> Smash Ultimate hype. Or in an actual gaming sense, ask anyone who gets to that hidden mission in Nioh. That fight is some of the most annoying nonsense in the entire game.

The other factor to consider is the warning signs have been there for years of Mega Man's gang falling off. Mega Man himself went from beating Snake every year to losing to him, and Zero's gradual downfall is pretty evident. If you want to see how bad it would get, just skip ahead to 2013 and 2018.

So... yeah. Another random first place upset that would have meant so much more were it an actual 1v1 contest. Thanks, 4ways. You suck.

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Division 5 Round 1: Wesker, Sackboy, Solid Snake, and Vivi

Wesker - 16919 [12.51%]
Sackboy - 13439 [9.93%]
Solid Snake - 69800 [51.6%]
Vivi - 35120 [25.96%]
Total Votes - 135278

As silly as many parts of this contest were, there were a <i>lot</i> of predictable early round matches, which given the format is kind of silly. The whole point of the LOL 4ways was to shake it up a bit, no?

Snake > Vivi was a mortal lock that was never going any other way, though there was the occasional yayhoo thinking Wesker would do something here.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2009-ruin-division-round-2-kefka-vs-wesker
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2069-mushroom-division-round-1-lloyd-irving-vs-albert-wesker
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2892-division-8-round-1-wesker-daxter-lara-sora

Right. Dude lost to Fails of and Lara Croft. Whatever you say guys.

The match was nothing to write home about, but I'm surprised to look in the wayback machine at people calling this a disappointing showing for Snake. The hell? Do you guys know how hard it is to get over 50% of the vote in a fourway poll without facing three pieces of trash? Snake looked fine here, and he would ultimately go nuts this contest. Metal Gear Solid 4 and Brawl both releasing in the same year will do that. And if you want to call this an underperformance anyway, you could easily say Wesker and Sackboy dragged him down. Moving on.

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Division 6 Round 1: CATS, Nathan Drake, Squall, and Yoshi

CATS - 19397 [15.25%]
Nathan Drake - 8730 [6.87%]
Squall - 57296 [45.06%]
Yoshi - 41736 [32.82%]
Total Votes - 127159

And thus began the second year in a row of Squall taking a bunch of steroids and HGH. I don't know what it is with Squall, but he always brings the smoke with these multi-way formats. In 2007, 2008, and 2013 he went totally berserk for no discernable reason. Everyone knew the match would be Squall > Yoshi, but very few people thought it would be such a ridiculous blowout. Remember, this was a BrawlFEAR world and we had just seen a series of very good Yoshi results. If you look at those 2003 through 2007 results, Yoshi was mentioned in the same breath as Nintendo's second tier, with characters like Bowser, Zelda, Luigi, and various Pokemon.

The Oracle folks are the smartest people out there for contests, and you can see the numbers off to the right. They picked Squall 40, Yoshi 36, and they are rarely off this much. In fact, this was an ass whipping so severe that it harkened people back to a similar match Squall had all the way back in 2003.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1339-north-division-round-2-squall-leonhart-vs-luigi

The only reason this match here in 2008 isn't mentioned along with that <i>epic</i> 2003 beating is because no one actually expected Squall to lose here. We just didn't realize it would be this much of a blowout, especially with BrawlFEAR involved. But if Yoshi was the heavy favorite and this was 1v1, this would definitely be a contest lore type of match.

Speaking of contest lore, CATS won the board vote like he usually does, but then the unthinkable happened. He managed to not get last place! Yes friends, for the first time ever, CATS managed to place in a contest match. I know he didn't advance, but who cares? He finally managed to find someone more pathetic than even him. This match is hysterical to look back on in 2020, because even after 4 games of that series I doubt Drake would beat CATS in a 1v1. He only had the original game for this match, which is why he was dogmeat in the first place, but the spoiler version is that Drake's company would end up <b>loathed</b> by gamers. We're talking Activision-Blizzard, EA, and Ubisoft levels of hatred here. Naughty Dog with their SJW idiocy and shady practices has them on the level of the worst companies in all of gaming, which in the long run means these results from 2008 would probably hold up now.

Get woke, go broke. Losing to CATS was only the beginning.

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Division 6 Round 1: Chris Redfield, Fox, Sora, and Tim

Chris Redfield - 31133 [23.84%]
Fox - 39779 [30.46%]
Sora - 51118 [39.14%]
Tim - 8577 [6.57%]
Total Votes - 130607

Pre-contest, there was a lot of discussion about BrawlFEAR pushing Fox to first place here. Before this match, Fox had been in 6 matches prior, and in <i>every single one</i> other than the Cloud match, he shared the poll with at least one other Nintendo character. With Fox finally being allowed to be his own man, some thought that maybe he could be a breakout star. As the contest played out however, it became clear that Brawl wasn't going to have the ludicrous effect on lesser Nintendo characters that some were expecting, and that made the overwhelming Sora > Fox consensus rest easy at night. Heck by match time, people were more worried about Tim making a joke run due to Braid than anything else.

Come the actual match, after a small early push by Fox, it was a super boring and predictable 40-30-20-10 type of affair. There was no upset, no big swings, and nothing surprising at all unless you count Chris Redfield doing better than he did last year: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2869-division-2-round-1-auron-chris-ph-shadow

But again, third place in a fourway poll where nothing interesting happens is fairly ho-hum. It's not like he was ever going to get close to Fox for second or anything.

As for those checking this page and wondering why Tim got no joke love, it's because Tim is an asshole. Braid is a wonderful, wonderful video game that I recommend to anyone reading this. I even wrote a guide for it!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps3/969696-braid/faqs/61044

But Tim? Yeah, not a good guy at all. He got what he deserved in this match.

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Pretend posts 59 and 60 are backwards lmao

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Banjo would smoke Nero now

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pjbasis posted...

Banjo would smoke Nero now

I don't know if that's true, actually. Nero is probably pretty weak, but Banjo is only Nintendo-adjacent, and isn't one of the stronger ones, at that.

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pjbasis posted...

Banjo would smoke Nero now

Hard disagree but I could be wrong. I can't get that DMC5/DKC match out of my head, and Nero vs Banjo is similar.

Division 6 Round 1: Axel Steel, Cloud, Midna, and Miles Edgeworth

Axel Steel - 9872 [7.56%]
Cloud - 78138 [59.8%]
Midna - 26617 [20.37%]
Miles Edgeworth - 16037 [12.27%]
Total Votes - 130664

Not gonna lie, I forgot how many laughably predictable matches happened in round 1 of this contest until I started actually looking at them all. There was a loooooot of chaff to cut through before we got to the good stuff this year. This was yet another match in a pretty huge pile of them featuring titans smashing slugs. And you know what? Looking back on it, I want <i>this</i> version of Final Fantasy 7 back. Not the modern one that gets anti-voted to death every year and loses the first debatable match it has.

Believe it or not, this site used to like the game. Hopefully the remake gets us back to Cloud, Seph, and the gang all whoopin ass like they used to. Did you know Cloud and Link were the only characters to get 60% in round 1 this year? Yeah, the same Cloud that lost to Squirtle and needed a bunch of clutch magic to beat Mario and Zelda in 2018. It didn't used to be like this, and you're seeing that here. Yes I love FF7 to death and no I will never apologize for it.

Cloud > Midna was a stone cold lock, especially with Twilight Princess fresh in everyone's minds this contest. This was actually Midna's second contest, and in both of them she managed to scrape into the second round with second place finishes. There was some minor hype for Axel or Edgeworth to get some joke love, but it never came to pass. Edgey couldn't even get the typical Phoenix Wright board vote that the series usually gets, so this match was set in stone not long after it started.

It's also surreal looking in the wayback machine and seeing all these people claim the heavy favorites were underperforming. No, they weren't. You guys are on the good stuff. It is incredibly difficult to put up godlike numbers in a fourway match. Our elites all looked fine, and when one of them gets 60% in a 4way match only to be called disappointing, it kinda blows my mind. Even getting 50% in this environment is difficult; 60 is preposterous. As such, Cloud was looking real good this year.

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Man, remember 8.8?

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Anagram posted...

Man, remember 8.8?

I remember a bunch of whiny bitches, yes. 8.8 is double what that game deserved. It was so bad.

Division 6 Round 1: Mewtwo, Ness, Pac-Man, and Travis Touchdown

Mewtwo - 52487 [41.83%]
Ness - 22971 [18.31%]
Pac-Man - 31487 [25.09%]
Travis - 18532 [14.77%]
Total Votes - 125477

Before Mewtwo was known for his FRAUDULENCE -- it kills me to admit he actually is a fraud, because he's my favorite Pokemon of them all -- he was known for beating the ever-loving piss out of people in 2008 and 2013. You guys can skip to 2013 if you want to read about that run, because this is a 2008 analysis.

Mewtwo was expected to get first place here and avenge that embarrassing 2007 debut, but this was something else. Not only did he come out ready to stunt on these hoes, but he also ruined any chance Ness had of getting second place by SFFing him to death. Ness was the overwhelming favorite to get second here, because Travis was always going to be gutter trash and Pac-Man only had one bright spot since 2002 -- an upset win over Revolver Ocelot. Pac-Man is just one of those characters people had no faith in, and again, Ness was largely picked for second here due to BrawlFEAR.

When the poll started, it became very apparent very quickly that Ness just collapses against anything Nintendo-related more popular than him, especially if Smash Bros is involved. Mewtwo wasn't actually in Brawl, but he was in Melee and he's a part of the original 151. Pac-Man, despite also being a Nintendo character for all intents and purposes, simply had less overlap with Mewtwo. Thus, in The Hierarchy, it meant Mewtwo > Pac-Man > Ness. It feels like we all should have known this easily back in 2008, but BrawlFEAR was a very real thing during the bracket period of this contest and it felt asinine to go against it. For most people, the thought of Pac-Man doing better than Ness here was ludicrous. We saw how that turned out.

This also meant Mewtwo was basically getting a bye into round 3, because the next round was him, Cloud, Pac-Man, and Midna. That pile being a round 2 match was.... yeah, but this Mewtwo performance was pretty nuts given he had two leeches in the poll with him.

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Division 7 Round 1: Big Boss, Jinjo, Kirby, and Lucas

Big Boss - 66033 [48.08%]
Jinjo - 13034 [9.49%]
Kirby - 50515 [36.78%]
Lucas - 7766 [5.65%]
Total Votes - 137348

To understand how thoroughly and utterly absurd this result was, you have to travel back in time to how people thought back in 2008. Even with Metal Gear Solids 3 and 4 being fresh in everyone's minds, we had already seen Big Boss in a contest. Twice, in fact. Go look at how he did. Even with getting into round 3 in 2007, Big Boss got there by default unless you want to call his win over Magus some huge shocker. But does an upset win over Magus even count?

There were also the LOL x-stats, which were the holiest of holy grails of prognostication at the time.

Big Boss (2007c) VS Kirby (2007c)

Big Boss has a strength of 16.22.
Kirby has a strength of 22.67.

Kirby wins with 64.23% of the vote!
A win of 39,004 with 137,088 total votes cast.

Big Boss (2005c) VS Kirby (2005c)

Big Boss has a strength of 17.62.
Kirby has a strength of 34.99.

Kirby wins with 74.82% of the vote!
A win of 42,751 with 86,117 total votes cast.

Throwing Jinjo and Lucas into a poll wasn't going to close that gap, regardless of how much Nintendo LFF or BrawlFEAR existed. There was just no way. As such, just about everyone penciled in Kirby > Big Boss, assumed it would be as boring as the litany of "heavy favorite > easy second place" matches we had this contest, and called it a day. Even when the match picture came out and it looked like Solid Snake himself was in the picture, people didn't think much of it. This is <i>Kirby</i> we're talking about, after all. If anyone has a match picture or sore thumb advantage in a lol 4way poll, it's him.

Then the match started and people just totally and completely lost their minds. Not only did Big Boss easily win, but Kirby never even came close, even early when board/bracket votes are a thing. This led to all sorts of absurd extrapolation for the future of this contest, including a bunch of people erroneously claiming Nintendo was dead and buried, a bunch of people claiming Big Boss was about to go on a deep contest run, and various other wild goose chases that happen after every upset. You know how these days when anything gets rallied in round 1, a bunch of people start claiming the contest is over? Imagine that here, but on a much bigger scale given people actually cared about our contests back then. This match was that insane. Kirby was probably hurt by Jinjo and Lucas to a degree, but neither that nor any match picture should have made up the huge gap between these two characters. I'm also not much of a "pictures matter" guy, but that's a different conversation for a different day.

And I will yet again say this match is why the 4way format blows. Can you even imagine this match as a 1v1 Big Boss vs Kirby match, with Kirby <i>losing?</i> The internet would have exploded. As-is, it was a fun result that caused a meltdown, but ultimately it didn't matter. Both characters advanced, and round 2 would have Raiden of all characters in the poll. That right there nipped any hopes of a Big Boss run.

Fourways suck. They really do. They rob us of so much. Just imagine this as a 1v1 with Big Boss actually winning. It's one of the great what-ifs. As-is, we got the result we all expected, just in the reverse order. For all the meltdowns and all the nonsense, it wouldn't amount to much of anything. And it <i>should</i> have, which is why after 2009, the stupid 4ways never came back.

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Yeah, I went with Pac-Man for second place because he was the default non-Nintendo vote. If you replace Travis with a similar strength fodder character that's on the Playstation or Xbox, there's a chance Ness holds up better. But with every single option being Nintendo or 3rd party Nintendo exclusive, Pac-Man was the clear standout.

Also, wasn't Axel Steel a popular upset pick because people thought Guitar Hero being a money printing machine during this time thought it might translate into a character being half decent? LOL

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Division 7 Round 1: Kain Highwind, Master Chief, Professor Layton, and Raiden

Kain - 34477 [25.42%]
Master Chief - 49936 [36.82%]
Layton - 12744 [9.4%]
Raiden - 38447 [28.35%]
Total Votes - 135604

This was another ludicrously easy-to-predict round one match of this contest. Master Chief > Raiden was always going to be how this went, because Layton was guaranteed gutter trash and Kain wasn't far behind. Final Fantasy characters pre-6 are nothing to write home about in contests, and we had already seen Cecil before. He didn't do much.

What floored people in this match however was Master Chief seemingly returning to form. In 2007, Chief was 3500 votes away from making the final, and that happened in a match with L-Block and Solid Snake in it. Chief 2007 was one of the best contest runs we've ever seen in these things, and believe it or not, there was a time when GameFAQs truly loved the Halo franchise. You're looking at it -- the mid-2000s.

So when this match happened and Master Chief seemed to return to pre-2007 levels, alarm bells went off. A lot of people picked the Chief to make a <i>deep</i> contest run this year, and it was pretty apparent right from the jump that this wasn't going to happen. It doesn't take away from his 2007 run or anything, but it would have been fun to see him tear through a contest again, as it's always neat to have new challengers to the throne arise and actually stay in contention.

On a personal side note, it's nice to see Raiden finally get a definitive contest win. I still remember to this day how he choked away 1200 votes against Sam Fisher in 2007 and almost lost that match. This time around, largely thanks to Metal Gear Solid 4, there would be no doubt about it. Raiden got a <i>solid</i> second place in this match, which meant all four MGS entries in this contest thusfar (Raiden, Snake, Big Boss, Liquid) all looked good in round 1, and if Ocelot wasn't a gigantic moron we would have had a perfect 5 for 5. MGS came a long way from the Solid Shit days to now. Brawl and MGS4 releasing at basically the same time did a ton of good for that franchise. It's a shame it didn't keep up over the years.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

Yeah, I went with Pac-Man for second place because he was the default non-Nintendo vote. If you replace Travis with a similar strength fodder character that's on the Playstation or Xbox, there's a chance Ness holds up better. But with every single option being Nintendo or 3rd party Nintendo exclusive, Pac-Man was the clear standout.

Also, wasn't Axel Steel a popular upset pick because people thought Guitar Hero being a money printing machine during this time thought it might translate into a character being half decent? LOL

I truly think the log or the scythe from GH2 would be stronger than Axel Steel.

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I never got the feeling Naughty Dog was as memetically despised as EA or Activision, but I'll admit I don't really follow the culture war much these days.

Forget 8.8, I'm just glad people can hate on whatever Zelda games they don't like without accusing Nintendo of bribing critics en masse or complaining about the games ruining their childhoods. To think I once labelled the Zelda fanbase as obnoxious, little did I know.

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Division 7 Round 1: Captain MacMillain, Leon Lennedy, Riku, and Siegfried

MacMillain - 17022 [13.4%]
Leon Kennedy - 53832 [42.36%]
Riku - 34861 [27.43%]
Seigfried - 21353 [16.8%]
Total Votes - 127068

The birth of Swamp Thing! Seriously, what <i>is</i> that? It looks like a weird amalgamation of diarrhea, a sex toy, and a really bad infection. I don't even like Call of Duty, but it deserved better representation than whatever <i>that</i> is.

Beyond that, the obvious consensus here was Leon Kennedy > Riku, though a lot of people worried pre-contest that Leon would choke again. Remember this gem? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2916-division-6-final-dante-amaterasu-leon-pikachu

As luck would have it, Leon didn't get hurt by Swamp Thing and Soul Calibur as much as he did by Dante a year ago, which meant an easy, boring match that went exactly as everyone expected. No crazy Riku upset, no crazy Leon choke job, no weird second place upset, nothing. Riku isn't really a character strong enough to take advantage of LFF anyway, as one can easily see by looking at his contest history.

Quick note before moving on. I will never understand why some fighting game characters have last names and others don't. I didn't know what a "Siegfried Schtauffen" even is. Calm down, video game writers. There's a reason you're writing for such a bottom tier medium in the first place.

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here's a fun fact, i couldn't find any clean, high-quality screenshots of macmillan, so I just got a stock photo of a ghillie suit from dicks sporting goods, so technically that pic is unofficial "art"

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ZenOfThunder posted...

here's a fun fact, i couldn't find any clean, high-quality screenshots of macmillan, so I just got a stock photo of a ghillie suit from dicks sporting goods, so technically that pic is unofficial "art"

LMAO so it's not even him! Nice.

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I just realized what the next match is.

Oh boy. Stupid WoW.

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ZenOfThunder posted...

here's a fun fact, i couldn't find any clean, high-quality screenshots of macmillan, so I just got a stock photo of a ghillie suit from dicks sporting goods, so technically that pic is unofficial "art"

Amazing. I wouldn't expect less from the one person who has snuck hentai into match pictures.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

Amazing. I wouldn't expect less from the one person who has snuck hentai into match pictures.

wait wut

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katherine

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PostContestUlti posted...

I can't get that DMC5/DKC match out of my head, and Nero vs Banjo is similar.

shiet I forgot about that

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Banjo would slaughter Nero. I don't trust characters that couldn't even make it into the 2013 contest, for one.

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Banjo has been cursed with being against 1 or more Nintendo characters for every contest he's been in. I would not be surprised if the instant he went up against someone like Liquid, Master Chief or Shepard, he wins.

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Division 7 Round 1: Dante, Hogger, Laharl, and Ramza

Dante - 64557 [50.08%]
Hogger - 21678 [16.82%]
Laharl - 21134 [16.4%]
Ramza - 21528 [16.7%]
Total Votes - 128897

This was one of the most entertaining matches we've ever had in round 1 of a 4way contest, and you can see why in looking at the results. Dante was always going to destroy these goofs for first place. That isn't the point. How often is it do you see three characters all have a fair shot at second place and stay basically tied for 24 hours? That's what happened here, but it wasn't <i>supposed</i> to play out that way.

Did you guys know that Final Fantasy Tactics collectively only has one win in contest history? It was a random round 1 killing of Dance Dance Revolution back in 2004. That's tied with (ugh) Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and Ramza himself is an 0-for all the way up to when I'm writing this in 2020. His history as a contest choke artist started in this match, though he made his debut in 2003 when he got killed by Kirby. Even still, most people put Dante > Ramza in this match and thought nothing of it. Laharl is bottomfeeder trash and Hogger exists only to serve as the first elite mob people kill in World of Warcraft. Some people will claim Hogger is a meme, but he isn't. He's the Guard Scorpion of WoW and not much else.

Unfortunately for Ramza and Laharl, both were so weak and both stole enough of the miniscule non-Dante vote that Hogger was able to hang around. Ramza being weak was never supposed to happen here, but the combination of unexpected weakness and terrible draw really did him in. Laharl is one of the worst possible characters for Ramza to go up against, because both are strategy RPG leads. They're already the niche of the niche, and then they went up against each other? Oof.

When the poll first started, it was clear Ramza was doomed. He struggled to build up a lead against total fodder garbage, and these polls start at midnight. This is generally the time when Square stuff does really well. Here, Ramza struggled to get a lead of 300 before <i>Laharl</i> started coming back on him. Not only that, but Hogger was sitting there in striking distance down by 600.

Let's put this in perspective for a sec:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1735-midgar-division-round-1-vyse-vs-laharl
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2096-20xx-division-round-1-yoshi-vs-laharl
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2887-division-7-round-1-kirby-l-block-laharl-nathan

Laharl ain't shit, and I say this as someone who loved Disgaea enough to transcript the text into a document for this site. If you're sitting here struggling against Laharl before allowing him to chop your lead away overnight, you suck. Come the morning vote, Ramza and Laharl were tied, but Laharl was never really able to do anything. These two just stayed tied for hours, and both of them ignored the snake in the grass behind them.

Hogger was sitting there about 500 votes off the pace, and come the day vote he made his move. I know a lot of people are reading this expecting me to rage out about Hogger coming back on a character from my favorite game, but it's not happening. First off, I don't like Ramza all that much. The characters in Tactics in general don't really get enough screen time to make me emotionally invested, and the plot falls apart in chapter 4 when all the political intrigue dies and everyone just turns into demons. Final Fantasy Tactics is all about the gameplay.

Secondly, and more importantly, I support rallies no matter who does them. Would I have preferred Ramza win? Sure. Am I mad about it? Nah. Hogger starting a rally with the day vote was hilarious, especially given how accessible WoW players were to rallying back then. This will seem impossible by 2020 standards, but GameFAQs actually liked WoW back then. Most of that was due to the 2006 South Park episode, but still! There was a time when Blizzard wasn't a dog shit company. So when Hogger started going off, I didn't mind it as much as one might think, outside of one particularly obnoxious user will not get the dignity of me naming him. And by the way, he was straight up lying about his rally influence. Hogger's run came from all corners of the internet.

To the point. Around 10 am, Hogger started going <i>nuts</i> in the poll, and we've all seen the rally story before. Within a few hours, he turned a 500 vote deficit to a seemingly insurmountable 800 vote lead. I say "seemingly" because we know rallyers get bored once they're winning. That happened here, which allowed Ramza to put in one last hail mary near the very end. But it was too little, too late. Ramza's effort resulted in him "only" losing by 150 votes, but if he had bothered giving a piss of effort for 24 hours it would have never come down to this at all.

People of course started freaking out and claiming Hogger was the latest possible bandwagon contest champ, which was of course impossible. Hogger had to rally to beat Ramza and Laharl. Compare that to L-Block's first result of 2007, which coincidentally also featured Laharl: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2887-division-7-round-1-kirby-l-block-laharl-nathan

It's no contest. This was destined to be a fun upset and little else. It was also destined to be the start of Ramza's choke job reputation, something he has yet to get rid of over a decade later.

---

Division 8 Round 1: Commander Shepard, Magus, Sandbag, and Sonic

Shepard (....Wrex) - 17631 [13.38%]
Magus - 32683 [24.8%]
Sandbag - 32924 [24.99%]
Sonic - 48531 [36.83%]
Total Votes - 131769

Called this shit like one of Anton Chigurh's coin flips, son.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqMdQBox15s

No, really, I did: http://thengamer.com/guru/CB7/stats.php?match=29

As someone who saw this coming, I feel especially qualified to say why it happened. It's easy to look at Magus's entire contest history and judge the guy, but in the interest of 2008 we'll just look at everything prior, and remember I'm saying all this with Magus perhaps being my favorite character in all of fiction. He's way up there, at the very least.

For starters, let's remember this dude has been disappointing people right from the beginning. Remember 2003 and everyone thinking the true final of that contest was going to be Magus vs Link? Remember what actually happened?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1308-north-division-round-1-sam-fisher-vs-magus
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1338-north-division-round-2-ganondorf-vs-magus
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1353-north-division-semifinal-link-vs-magus

It's frankly a miracle he even beat Ganondorf that year, because the total votes in the match against Sam Fisher showed how little interest there was. People like to point at percentages all day, but total votes matter. They show overall interest in the characters involved, which is why the modern standard of multiple matches per day with forced voting in every match is so laughably dumb. Multiple matches is fine, but not the forced voting. It's one of the dumbest things Allen has ever done to these contests.

When Magus's sprite got 35% on Link, people thought it was some great performance, and they also erroneously starting pushing this ridiculous theory that pictures matter far more than they actually do. 2018 thankfully laid that garbage to rest for good. Moving on.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1722-hyrule-division-round-1-magus-vs-luca-blight
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1752-hyrule-division-round-2-magus-vs-crono

In 2004, Magus was once again low energy, as Trump would say. No interest in his matches as all, culminating in getting his ass whipped by SFF.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2088-devil-division-round-1-magus-vs-knuckles-the-echidna

To date, this is perhaps the biggest round 1 upset in the history of contests. Magus went into that contest a favorite to make a deep run. After struggling to build a lead on Knuckles, he choked like a dog. I don't feel like doing the research on this one, but I'd be shocked if any other match in round 1 had every Oracle, Guru, and BOP all be wrong. Usually you have a straggler or two, but not here. Magus was <i>that</i> much of a favorite, and frankly he's been a dud ever since.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2874-division-3-round-1-bomberman-crash-phoenix-magus
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2900-division-3-round-2-mario-big-boss-magus-phoenix

He may have won a match in 2007 and looked "okay" on his way out, but once again. Low energy. That stuff matters.

So when 2008 came around, I was done being burned by the little shit. I saw Sandbag in this match, I knew BrawlFEAR would cause something insane in this contest, and I just <i>knew</i>. I wish I had a better explanation for it, but this is all I got. I just.... knew.

When the poll started, Sonic was the easy winner. That was obvious. Shepard was in last place, which was also not much of a surprise. Remember, he only had the original game at his back to this point, and I believe it was only available on Xbox 360 and PC. Mass Effect 2 was only a thought, and people hadn't fully embraced the original game yet.

So here were Magus and a punching bag, going neck and neck for the first 30 minutes of the poll. I figured the match was over right then and there, because if anyone can choke away a close match, Magus can. But to his credit, he shook off the initial joke vote (likely helped by Sonic siphoning away a lot of the BrawlFEAR votes; let's not forget he made his debut in the series in Brawl) and started building a lead. He built it <i>fast,</i> too. A tied match saw Magus explode over 1000 votes overnight, and though there was a small hiccup with Sandbag looking to take the morning vote, Magus recovered there as well and continued.... well, knocking Sandbag around all over the place. That's Sandbag's job, after all! Beat him up, get stickers.

Magus kept it up all the way until the after school vote, where he had a lead of 2150 votes. Barring the absolute meltdown of all meltdowns, he looked safe. Remember, he only led by about 700 against Knuckles. 2150 votes in a <i>4way poll</i> would be just an all-time obnoxious choke job that would never have any real compare. In fact, has there ever been a bigger comeback in a 4way or 3way match? Someone check me on that.

Chrono Trigger has never been an ASV all-star, but this was another beast entirely. Magus not only started losing the ASV, but he was losing it badly enough that he was likely being rallied against here. Suddenly, all the hype for this match made sense. Sandbag had the joke factor, BrawlFEAR, and Magus was a choke artist. After a few updates where we were at the razor's edge, the floodgates opened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384

Sandbag's comeback was quick, severe, and <i>brutal.</i> If we may peek into the future a bit, it reminds me a lot of the greatest match picture ever made. Credit to yoblazer for this one!

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/gotd/gotd-115-4.jpg

That's basically what Sandbag did to this poll. This was more than a simple ASV comeback and Magus choking. You can tell it was a rally because as Sandbag gained more and more steam for the inevitable win, he was getting close to Sonic himself for several updates. How brutal was it all? The 2150 vote peak was at 2:40 pm EST. Sandbag finished the comeback in under 6 hours, and he never looked back in building up a 400 vote lead for himself. It was a good thing he did, too, because Magus tried to conjure up some of the old Chrono Trigger clutch that this series has pulled off in the past. Unfortunately for him, it just meant losing by 241 votes instead of 400+.

It was brutal, it was embarrassing for Magus, and above all, for my money it was the best match we had in round 1 this year. It was either this or the L-Block match to be sure, no?

A lot of people worried that Sandbag would go full Sandbag ZERO on this contest following this match. More on that in round 2's writeup, but for Magus this was basically the final nail in his contest career. No one would ever trust him again, and frankly they <i>already</i> should have stopped trusting him. The polls on GameFAQs have a search option; you can see what happened to Magus for yourself.

And when you do, you're not dreaming with that 2018 match against Vincent. Magus almost pulled it off, but... he didn't. Of course. That's all he's good for in contests these days. Choke jobs.

---

Division 8 Round 1: Auron, Marcus Fenix, Rydia, and Sub-Zero

Auron - 50759 [39.5%]
Marcus Fenix - 20745 [16.14%]
Rydia - 22461 [17.48%]
Sub-Zero - 34544 [26.88%]
Total Votes - 128509

If you look at all of contest history, Auron and Sub-Zero have faced each other <i>four times.</i> It's as pointless a contest "rivalry" as there is, because outside of something truly absurd (Sub-Zero in Smash Bros or as a JRPG lead), he will never be stronger than Auron. Ever. It will not happen. Thankfully this was early on in the so-called rivalry, with this contest giving us matches #2 and 3.

Auron > Sub-Zero was pretty much a mortal lock for this match, and what was also a mortal lock was Fenix being a one-hit wonder. He got super lucky to make it into round 3 of the 2007 contest, and this year saw him fall back down to earth in a big way. He went from outright winning a match in 2007's first round, to... this. Losing to Rydia and being unceremoniously dumped from contest lore thereafter. Gears of War was never going to be the type of franchise GameFAQs cared about long term, so Fenix falling off in a big way was no surprise. We know this about Gears because even Drax replacing Fenix can't convince us to care, and Drax <i>is</i> the kind of dude GameFAQs cares about.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7706-which-scheduled-september-release-are-you-most-looking

This match was easy, predictable, and outside of Rydia's surprise third place and her, um.... <i>assets</i>, it was super boring without much to talk about. Moving on.

---

Division 8 Round 1: Nana, Ratchet, Sephiroth, and Tifa

Nana - 13657 [10.35%]
Ratchet - 18377 [13.93%]
Sephiroth - 62298 [47.23%]
Tifa - 37583 [28.49%]
Total Votes - 131915

Given what would end up happening in 2018 (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7369- loser-bracket-round-1-tifa-vs-sephiroth), this match is hilarious to look back on. Pre-contest, there was actual fear that Sephiroth would SFF Tifa into the ground hard enough for a BrawlFEAR-backed Nana to squeeze into second place. Everyone picked Seph > Tifa, but the fear was there. At least, it was there before watching most of round 1 play out. Once Nintendo's D tier proved that Brawl alone was not enough, people went to sleep 2 seconds into this match. Seph > Tifa was a lock, and Nana wasn't even good enough to beat <i>Ratchet</i>, of all people.

The lone interesting thing about this match was Tifa avoiding getting SFFd into the ground, which gave some people hope for round 2. Tifa got a trash draw in this contest and deserved far better, especially after she went from a near-miracle upset of Samus in 2006 to getting snubbed from the field entirely here in 2008. When Tifa finally got a fair chance a few years later, Seph was waiting yet again. It took her 10 years to finally get her revenge, and you can skip to 2018 for that one.

As for why she did better than expected here, that's an easy one. Japanese RPG characters tend to avoid SFF better than Nintendo characters, especially when they're well-liked. Yeah you'll get the occasional Squall > Tidus mess, but for the most part, JRPG characters all have their own fanbases and the effect is lessened. That, and main characters like to overperform against villains. We saw it here, we saw it with Crono > Magus, and we definitely saw it once Sephiroth started falling off in strength a few years after this contest ended.

As an unapologetic fan of the guy, it's nice going back to the mid-2000s era and seeing Seph demolish people. I miss those days.

---

Division 8 Round 1: Heavy, Jill Valentine, Kratos, and Revolver Ocelot

Heavy - 17608 [12.89%]
Jill Valentine - 35124 [25.7%]
Kratos - 50814 [37.19%]
Ocelot - 33099 [24.22%]
Total Votes - 136645

Typically I use the final match of round 1, and sometimes round 2, to do a small round synopsis. These round-enders are usually super predictable and give us all a breath of fresh air before the next round starts.

Jill Valentine and Ocelot decided to put a wrench into all that. One year ago, in 2007, these two were in a poll together along with Cloud and the Midgar Zolom. Here is how it went: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2868-division-2-round-1-cloud-jill-zolom-ocelot

Jill was a huge favorite in that match, mainly due to extrapolated standings and Ocelot's embarrassing loss to Pac-Man in round 1 of 2005. Jill isn't some strong character or anything, and her and Ocelot have similar strength, but she had <i>no</i> business losing that match in 2007. None. There is no reason to suggest Cloud would have hurt Ocelot less than her, especially given we'd seen Final Fantasy 7 SFF Metal Gear Solid before: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1653-division-32-semifinals-final-fantasy-vii-vs-metal-gear-solid

And yet somehow, some way, Ocelot got second place in that match despite being the heavy underdog. One year later, and we practically had the same poll. Kratos was the obvious winner and would clearly share more of a fanbase with Ocelot than Jill Valentine. Heavy was the obvious joke character. And there was Jill Valentine, sticking out like a sore thumb. However, we all picked Ocelot to get second place this year for one simple reason. Metal Gear Solid 4. We all figured Ocelot was the easy favorite here, and the Oracle numbers show it. Metal Gear Solid had been pasting fools all over the bracket thusfar, and there was no reason for Jill to boost or even come close to second place.

Jill Valentine, of course, never makes a lick of sense in these things. When we all thought Kirby would beat her, Jill wins. We all thought Ryu Hayabusa would beat her. It was 50-50 for 48 hours. We all thought Jill would win in 2007. She didn't. So of course she came out and won this match for <i>absolutely legitimately no reason at all,</i> because that's what Jill Valentine does. If you put her and Kefka in a poll together, the universe would implode.

Ocelot had a go at it for about 30 minutes, but once Jill started going up, that was that. Game over. Ocelot never threatened to win, and we were all left here scratching our leads. Because again, Jill had no actual tangible reason to get second place here. My best guess, outside of MGS fans simply not liking Ocelot all that much, is that Kratos did a ton of damage to Ocelot's votes here. They practically have the same fanbase, while Resident Evil has considerably less overlap with everything else in this poll. That's my best guess, anyway.

As for round 1, I'm not gonna lie. Most of these matches sucked, and this is a hard PCA to get through. If this was 128+ matches instead of the old school 64, I probably never would have gotten around to writing these. Division 1 was a lot of fun. L-Block, Hogger, the Cube, BrawlFEAR, Sandbag, and a few other things were fun. Most of the round, however, was a predictable drag. Even matches that blew our minds were often a character getting first instead of second, which doesn't affect eliminations in a 4way format.

That said, it did continue to get better, and vote totals this year were NUTS. So obviously there were tons of people out there having a ball this year.

---

Whew, halfway done!

That's a good stopping point.

---

I feel like the real reason Jill won in 2008 as opposed to 2007 is that a four way with Cloud and Midgar Zolom is completely different from a four way with Kratos and Heavy. The FF7 duo commanded 66% of the vote combined, whereas Kratos and Heavy commanded only 50% of the vote. For whatever reason, Jill Valentine did better when there wasn't an elite level character drawing so much of the vote compared to a decently strong midcarder like Kratos.

---

Final Fantasy Tactics also won a match in 2015!

---

While I do agree that Cloud/FFVII would hurt Jill more than Ocelot I just couldn't see it being that significantly different. Ocelot also had MGS4 on his side and he had a big role in that game.

---

Maybe Jill also boosted from Resident Evil hype? Since RE generally looked really good that contest, especially compared to the previous year where Chris lost to Pyramid Head.

---

Good old Leon Lennedy.

---

Division 1 Round 2: Zack, Wario, Link, and Zidane

Zack - 33069 [23.9%]
Wario - 14665 [10.6%]
Link - 73802 [53.34%]
Zidane - 16819 [12.16%]
Total Votes - 138355

A lot of people think the ZackFAQs hype started right from the jump in this contest, but I truly think it started right here with this match. Call me a sucker for the bandwagon effect, I guess!

Wario was fresh off of looking decent in round 1, but he was guaranteed to get SFFd into the ground by Link here. And get SFFd into the ground he did. Link was out for blood this contest, and it showed. The dude was straight up not going to let 2007 happen again, and brought his A+ to every match this year. It's truly a marvel looking back on Link's numbers now and again, but this poll wasn't about him.

The debate here, obviously, was Zack vs Zidane. Shadow was a chic second place pick here pre-contest, but with him out the debate obviously had to shift. Zack was coming off of one hell of a performance in round 1, while Zidane was coming off of his cute little upset over Shadow. Based purely on eye test regardless of competition (Zack an easy first, Zidane a distant second in their respective matches), Zack felt like the easy favorite here. I'll go far enough to say that a lot of the people honking for Zidane were just bitter Shadow backers that wanted their mistake to not look so bad.

In retrospect, this wasn't much of a debate. Final Fantasy 7 is always going to be above 9 in The Hierarchy, but Zack had a very popular game in his own right to work with. I think Crisis Core is trash, but people seem to like it. Whatever. The point is it can do nothing but help Zack. There's also the "common sense factor", for what that's worth, that puts Zack over Zidane here. Honestly in looking back on this, I don't understand where any of the pro-Zidane arguments were coming from.

When the poll started, <b>ZackFAQs</b> and the bandwagon were in full swing! Forget Zidane. Zack left him in the dust so badly that Zidane almost finished below an SFFd Wario. That's real. That actually happened. Zack did so well here -- or at least, as well as "30% on Link" can possibly look -- that people's imaginations started running wild. ZackFAQs was the big Board 8 bandwagon of this contest, and people really wanted to see him make a deep contest run. If he could get through this match, what was stopping him from getting through the likes of Duke Nukem? And from there, who knows?

I've said this a few times now, but you had to be there. Believe it or not, Board 8 used to love things like jokes, rallies, and bandwagons. ZackFAQs is one of the better ones we've had. I miss these days. Link may have won this match, but Zack was the star of it.

---

Division 1 Round 2: Marth, Duke Nukem, Altair, and Lucario

Marth - 30755 [23.16%]
Duke Nukem - 41268 [31.07%]
Altair - 40504 [30.5%]
Lucario - 20288 [15.28%]
Total Votes - 132815

For a lot of people, BrawlFEAR died in round 1, which makes sense. Brawl by itself clearly wasn't enough to make a weak character win contest matches. The final nail in that coffin where it was buried for good was likely this match, where Lucario followed up his trash round 1 showing with.... whatever you want to call this. Pokemon after 151 clearly aren't anything in contests without the joke factor, and Lucario bombed so badly in this contest that he was never invited back. Seriously, his pair of matches in '08 are his only showing. He was that awful. Even worse, his being here completely screwed Marth out of making it into round 3. Marth outright won his poll in round 1 where Duke Nukem got second place, but any hopes of Marth advancing here died with Lucario's leech job. Marth held on for about 30 minutes, but then he just totally died.

The shocker of all shockers though was Duke Nukem being out in first place when this poll first started. Altair getting second place was equally surprising, but Duke himself just blew everyone away with how good he looked. To put this into some perspective, here are the guru numbers for this match.

https://i.imgur.com/8MSCw9D.png

6 people picked Duke Nukem to get first place here. They deserve to be immortalized, so here are their names: TheRye, alblito, Smurf, Rhyhorn, Han, and LinkLegend27. You guys are geniuses or crazy men, and probably both! Good picking. Only 19 gurus had Duke making it into round 3. Equally shocking was Altair; only 17 had him making round 3.

Altair making a hyped new guy run makes some sense. Great character design, popular series, and in most contests we see a new character or game make a run. Duke however makes no sense at all, and I say this as someone who picked the guy to get second place here. It was pure luck, because I thought Altair would be crap and Lucario would SFF Marth into the ground. What actually happened was even sillier. Once Altair shook Marth off, Duke and Altair were locks to advance. Altair actually made a crazy push for first place here, but it was too little too late. Duke had a 2700 lead at one point, and Altair cut almost 2000 votes off of that to lose out by only 750 or so. It was super impressive performance by both characters, and Duke almost blowing the lead does not take away from how shocking this all was.

Reason being, here is Duke's entire contest history up until 2008.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/945-north-division-round-1-duke-nukem-vs-iori-yagami
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/974-north-division-round-2-alucard-vs-duke-nukem
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1331-west-division-round-1-ryu-vs-duke-nukem
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1734-midgar-division-round-1-cloud-strife-vs-duke-nukem
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2893-division-8-round-1-duke-ike-gordon-guybrush
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2910-division-8-round-2-duke-gordon-sonic-sub-zero

This dude was bottomfeeder trash for years, and only advanced in 2007 because he was up against a motley crew of losers. This year, however, was no fluke. Duke didn't just squeak by here; he <i>destroyed</i> Nintendo in this one, in one of the most randomly insane matches we'll ever have in a contest. It's up there with Kefka > Arthas and DMC5 > Tropical Freeze on the WTF scale, and it's within reason to assume Duke Nukem will never make round 3 of a contest again.

Balls of steel, son. You got em. Sure his destiny was getting destroyed in round 3, but for a guy like Duke Nukem, making it into round 3 is basically his version of winning a contest outright.

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Division 2 Round 2: Luigi, Liquid Snake, Bowser, and Phoenix Wright

Luigi - 35630 [27.88%]
Liquid - 39084 [30.59%]
Bowser - 29000 [22.69%]
Phoenix Wright - 24072 [18.84%]
Total Votes - 127786

After seeing how round 1 played out, and having just come off of a match where Nintendo self-cannibalized, people were very concerned for Luigi's safety in this match. After all, we had hard data that Bowser > Luigi:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1342-east-division-round-2-bowser-vs-yoshi
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1751-hyrule-division-round-2-yoshi-vs-luigi

The board consensus for this match was Luigi > Bowser even in the face of the LOL x-stats, which people were actually right about. Regardless of any stat, common sense would tell you Luigi would beat Bowser heads-up. I actually picked Bowser > Luigi because direct matches as seen here in our example are a bit different than extrapolated stats. So for those who called me an idiot back then, you were right.

What almost none of us saw coming, however, was how Liquid Snake and Phoenix Wright would factor into all this. After Phoenix did his usual thing and won the early board vote, one thing became readily apparent -- the Nintendo vote was being split three ways, which allowed Liquid Snake to waltz into first place unopposed, much to the dismay of many Nintendo fans. This was supposed to be a simple result where Bowser and Luigi stomped.

Nope. Liquid probably would have advanced regardless, but Phoenix being here definitely diluted the Nintendo support. Remember how Luigi finished ahead of Liquid in round 1? Well add in Bowser and Phoenix Wright, and you get Liquid walking to first place with Bowser being the odd one out. And if there wasn't a weird Hierarchy with Nintendo's second level, a universe exists where Luigi gets third place here. The universe we're in though saw Bowser almost lose to Phoenix himself and finish in last place, which is especially embarrassing in its own right.

Hats off to Liquid and Metal Gear Solid 4, though, for taking advantage. You don't choose who you go up against on the schedule, you just have to beat whoever's there. Liquid took advantage of lucky bracket placement and did what he had to do.

Oh, and my best guess as to why Luigi finished ahead of Bowser despite the direct results is because main characters tend to overperform against villains in their own series. It's not the only time this has happened. Bowser may look stronger indirectly based on some stats, but I would never pick him to beat Luigi in a match again. The hero > villain thing among voters is very real.

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Division 2 Round 2: Mario, Zelda, Mega Man X, and Mudkip

Mario - 42599 [31.04%]
Zelda - 27572 [20.09%]
Mega Man X - 41146 [29.98%]
Mudkip - 25908 [18.88%]
Total Votes - 137225

After round 1, you could cut the tension for this match with a knife. With all four of them being Nintendo characters and us not fully understanding The Hierarchy yet, plus Mudkip being the wildest of wild cards, any possible order of these four characters was in play. Looking back on it, would any of them winning the poll or getting second had truly surprised anyone? The Zelda series is king, IT'S FREAKING MARIO, Mega Man X was a potential monster, Mudkip had the joke bandwagon factor, and who really knew which way the Nintendo leeching would fall? I know I personally remember thinking it would be Mario > Mega Man X > Mudkip > Zelda, but I wasn't at all confident in it. You can imagine the insane amount of arguing going on for this one, not to mention the palpable hype with Mudkip.

When the poll began, it was very clear that Mudkip would be no factor at all, at least not with actually advancing into round 3. There was too much Nintendo in this poll for him to get any real joke support going, and typically these joke characters catch these absurd rallies and make the rest of the match irrelevant, a la Undertale in the finals against Ocarina of Time. That didn't happen here. Mudkip got some support, but not nearly enough to actually threaten in the match. He <i>did,</i> however, get enough support for third place. The unlucky loser in this spot was...

Zelda?! I know it's crazy to think about given the utterly obnoxious boost in strength she got from Breath of the Wild, but Zelda used to be a pretty middling character in these things. Even in 2006, she was the beneficiary of a stupid bracket gimmick. That run was fraudulent, and she didn't <i>really</i> matter in these things until Breath of the Wild. After that though, all bets are off. Whatever the tier is directly below Link, she's on it now. But back then, not so much. She actually finished behind Bidoof in 2007, and after falling behind by 800 votes to Mudkip in 2008, she required the day vote to bail her out and save her dignity. It was a pretty sad display for an upcoming contest legend.

The true shock and awe in this match came in the fight for first place. Yet again, I will point this out. The 1v1 format robbed us. Can you even imagine how nuts it would be if Mega Man X threatened to beat Mario 1v1 in his contest debut? Instead we have these ridiculous 4ways where it doesn't even matter who wins, because both advance. That said, your eyes do not lie to you when looking at the updater for this one. That is Mega Man X proving he was worth the hype and building up a 900 vote lead on Mario overnight. And it's not like Mario could claim he was being screwed over by the Nintendo presence, either, because Mega Man X deals with the same exact factor.

What ended up happening is very easy to explain, thanks to the little graph we have here on the wiki page. We all know Mario won the morning vote to take first place, but what the graph makes readily apparent is that Mario did this by stealing support from Mudkip. Mario is a very difficult character to have a joke rally against, and this match showed it. The second Mudkip's support died, Mario got all of it. He erased the entire 900 vote lead Mega Man X had by the time everyone had finished eating breakfast, and what started as an entertaining poll ended with a dud. Mario and Zelda had simultaneous comebacks, and the rest of the poll was a continuation of the momentum. This match was very hyped going in, but once Mario and Zelda caught up to 1st and 3rd place respectively, the match was over. Mario > Mega Man X was the result.

Still, Mega Man X advanced anyway and Mudkip being somewhat fraudulent doesn't take away from either's showing in this contest. For Mega Man X especially, a 4-Nintendo match early in his contest debut are some difficult waters to swim through. Even with blowing a lead to Mario, he proved he deserved to be here, and Mega Man X is hardly the first character to lose a lead to Mario with the morning vote. He can thank his lucky stars for the format, too, because the laughable 4way junk meant X got to fight another day.

For Zelda, she was probably happy to see this 4way crap disappear. There is also that open world Zelda game that would come in 2017, but skip to the 2018 writeups to see the effect <i>that</i> one had. For now, it was another leeched Nintendo loss. It would happen again in 2013 before she went godmode.

This would set up the one and only time we have ever seen Mario and Luigi in a match together. It's true. Look it up.

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Division 3 Round 2: Samus, Nightmare, Ganondorf, and Frog

Samus - 49439 [40.21%]
Nightmare - 18744 [15.24%]
Ganondorf - 30282 [24.63%]
Frog - 24502 [19.93%]
Total Votes - 122967

This match was little more than heavy favorites taking care of business. Frog may have some magic against the likes of Master Chief, and Liquid Snake, and Kingdom Hearts's C tier, but Ganondorf is a bridge too far. It's sad to think about, but other than the contest Chrono Trigger almost won in 2015 (go back and look at how INSANE that game looked before the giga-rallies started), the game and its characters have gotten a little weaker each year. Frog's magic was long gone by the time this match happened, let alone when I actually got around to doing these writeups in 2020.

There would be no drama, no comebacks, no picture screwjobs, nothing. Just an easy, simple Samus > Ganondorf result that was never going to be challenged. It was a good breather after the silly Mudkip match, too, so it's not like anyone complained of boredom here. Every contest, much like every great wrestling match, needs the occasional rest break.

That's what this match was. A rest break.

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Division 3 Round 2: Vincent, Falco, Scorpion, and Gordon Freeman

Vincent - 52084 [40.05%]
Falco - 21492 [16.53%]
Scorpion - 24631 [18.94%]
Gordon Freeman - 31845 [24.49%]
Total Votes - 130052

<b>We've created a monster!</b> Gordon Freeman Never Wins? Fat chance. Now, all he does is win like DJ Khaled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGXzlRoNtHU

It was a total out-of-left-field shocker, too. Vincent was always going to get first place here. We all know that. This might not be the case if you redid this poll with 2020 voters, but hey. The story was the battle for second place. As you can see by the Oracle numbers off to the right, no one knew what would happen. As you can see by the guru predictions, Scorpion was the massive, massive favorite to advance. And off in the lurch was Falco, who had no other Nintendo characters to deal with and the remnants of BrawlFEAR at his back.

There was also the matter of the round 1 results. Scorpion beat Gordon for first place in round 1, albeit only by 2100 votes. And unless you think Big Daddy siphoned off a percentage of Gordon's votes due to some weird Orange Box/Bioshock overlap (which is actually what did happen there, by the way), Scorpion was set to do it again in round 2. Falco.... we should have seen coming. He had no Nintendo competition in round 1 too and only got 27% of the vote, and that poll had Vincent, GLaDOS, and Wander in it. That is weaker than what Gordon dealt with.

Still, given what we had just seen in round 1, Scorpion felt like the favorite here. If anyone was going to pull the upset, it was most likely to be Falco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_asNhzXq72w

When the poll started, it was never close. Gordon Freeman -- yes, THAT Gordon Freeman -- the guy who lost so often that he got meme'd, was sitting there pulling off contest upsets and getting into round 3 like it was nothing. He beat the absolute piss out of Scorpion right from the jump, and Falco was never a factor. The poll was never close, and Gordon walked right into round 3 like he was born to be there. Even typing these words out makes no sense, because I still remember how <i>awful</i> this dude looked for so many years. It's like those two random years the Jets made the AFC title game under Rex Ryan.

As for why it happened, a lot of people blamed Scorpion's match picture. And while it was indeed trash, I don't think it was the only factor. Remember, Scorpion only beat Gordon by 2100 votes in round 1. Big Daddy was in that poll, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if there was a lot of overlap between Bioshock and The Orange Box, the latter of which clearly boosted Gordon to the moon in this contest. With Big Daddy out of the way and nothing to really leech Gordon's votes, the turnaround makes sense.

We may never know for sure, because the odds of Gordon and Scorpion ever being against each other again are low. You guys will notice I'm not doing as much picture commentary as usual with this PCA, and it's for two reasons. One is that this was pre-picsmith days for me, and two is 2008 was by FAR the worst year of match pictures these contests will ever have. Starting in round 2, the picsmiths thought it would be funny to get cute with almost all of the match pictures, leading to a series of pure garbage as they kept putting more and more useless trash and bad filters into every single one. I love Zen like a brother, but I include him in all this.

You say Scorpion's picture was bad, but I say pretty much every picture starting in round 2 was bad. I could rant about these match pics being dog shit for half the contest, and part of why I became a picsmith who submitted basic stuff for every match in the first place to prevent this kind of garbage from ever happening again. Pictures are supposed to be a fair representation of the entrants, not a failed high school art project. It's like Gordon sitting there looking like Season 1 Water White had some huge picture advantage; his win goes much deeper than that.

Thankfully Allen realized the error here and stopped allowing idiots to submit dumb stuff outside of matches with rotating images late in contests. Bathtub Geralt versus Peeping Link is okay as a joke when a match has 10 pictures, but half of the 2008 contest match pics had that type of, uh... "quality". Screw that.

I will say that as the years went by, people got much, much better about what they submitted. But it's impossible to talk about 2008 without mentioning just how <i>trash</i> these pictures were overall. It's not why Scorpion lost, but it sure didn't help.

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Yeah this is a perfect stopping point. I need better energy than 2am fuzz for L-Block.

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On the note of Scorpion's match picture, I vividly remember being pissed when that one was submitted, because I had submitted the only other Scorpion picture, which was from the Mortal Kombat movie.

It wasn't much of an improvement, but it at least looked like traditional Scorpion, and if I am going to do match picture shitposting, it's at least going to be funny.

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