GameFAQs Contests
Rivalry Rumble Contest Analysis Crew - Part 3
loses 51/49 to Ryu get your facts straight old man --- I wish I could wear skirts and dresses :( -GMUN |
Time for the crew to lose its first. Primary argument against Dante is of course one based on superstition. There's probably an age joke and/or religion joke here to be made here but I don't feel up to it. Upset city. --- No problem! This is a cute and pop genocide of love! |
finally a split thank goodness tranman knows where it's at! --- thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris |
Primary argument against Dante is of course one based on superstition. In that case, they deserve to lose on principle. Go Dante. --- 2002 Link, 2003 Cloud, 2004 Link, 2005 Link, 2006 Link, 2008 Link, 2010 Link, 2011 Cloud. Link 6, Cloud 2 |
Dante vs Sora This should be the best match of the round! And I think people are a little TOO confident in Sora, based on (I guess?) what they remember of Kingdom Hearts back in that 2006 era, because frankly the series hasn't shown us anything on that level in years. Unfortunately there's almost nothing to say about this match due to last round's poll being almost entirely meaningless... In the end I'm going with Sora just because the Square fanbase cares more and he'll have at least a slight Day advantage, so I don't see him losing a close match. But it's pretty much a toss up in my mind. Go Dante! Sora - 50.13% --- thengamer.com/guru thengamer.com/xstats board8.wikia.com I'd search B8 for The Show if I were you. *wink wink* |
Er, tranny? DMC lost to Sonic in the series contest. --- Xbox Live: Mach Tornado PSN: HeyGuysItsGhoul |
tranny never claimed it was a comprehensive contest history! --- thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris |
his series wasn't good enough to be in the series contest --- Xbox Live: Mach Tornado PSN: HeyGuysItsGhoul |
he was in it? man, I totally forgot about it. that might be more damning than not making the contest! --- xyzzy |
vote for Sora Dante is ahead by 7 votes well then! --- http://myanimelist.net/profile/applekidjosh <Die the death>! <Sentence to death>! <Great equalizer is the death>!! |
Dante still has a slim lead --- I do because I can.....and because I'm bored. |
It seems the people who picked the winner with less than 51% are right.But I don't think anyone expected that close of a match. --- GameFaqs is NOT the place to go for relationship advice.Nobody here gets any action unless it is their right or left hand.Including me.~Dawn and Dusk~ |
(1) Mario/Bowser vs. (2) Sonic the Hedgehog/Dr. Robotnik (R1) Mario/Bowser: 85.36% on Earthworm Jim/Queen Slug-for-a-Butt (R2) Mario/Bowser: 80.47% on Ike/Black Knight (R1) Sonic the Hedgehog/Dr. Robotnik: 73.12% on Katherine/Catherine (R2) Sonic the Hedgehog/Dr. Robotnik: 62.21% on Kirby/Meta Knight This will be the first time Mario and Sonic, the characters, have ever shared a poll, which is quite incredible if you think about it. There's no doubt who wins here, but there is a lot of doubt as to the percentage. Mario/Bowser pulverised their opponents in the first two rounds, while Sonic/Robotnik have merely done acceptably, which has led most to think they'll be able to get well over 60% here. Earthworm Jim was bad fodder, while Ike had a poor rivalry and was open to SFF, so their first real test will be Sonic/Robotnik. They gave up a little more than was expected to the 'atherines, but performed well against Kirby/MK. One thing that weighs on me is I expect a large part of that increase from 55% in 2010 to 62% a couple of weeks ago was down to rivalry factor, which they won't be winning so easily this time. If you take Mario's and Sonic's numbers on Link literally from 2010, Mario is projected to win with about 59% of the vote. Rivalry factor likely lies with Mario/Bowser, but not by a whole lot. The wildcard is the possibility of SFF. Sure, Link SFF'd Sonic into the ground in 2010, but can Mario? Most people would say yes - he certainly didn't struggle with Samus in 2005 or Mega Man in 2010. The only reason for thinking otherwise is that match with Shadow. But in the nearly 10 years it's been since then, Mario's gone one way, while Sonic's gone the other. This should be another bad beating for Sonic at the hands of a top N9er. His last five matches against them, dating back to 2006, have went thus: 29.77% against Link (CBVIII) (Night match) 35.8% against Sephiroth (2k8, with Kirby and Dante) 42.2% against Sephiroth (2k8, with Auron and Kratos) 42.76% against Solid Snake (2k7, with L-Block and Squall) 45.01% against Solid Snake (2k6) (Snake would go on to get 46.89% on Samus) Still don't expect Mario/Bowser to go wild, it wouldn't shock me. Mario vs. Bowser with 63% of the vote. --- Praise the Black Turtle, Game of the Decade Guru Champ. (Well, I never promised creativity, did I?!) |
Looks like I've missed the best match of the contest by being away all day! Oh well! (LOL Lopen why is Squall the favorite) --- http://i848.photobucket.com/albums/ab48/Leonhart4/Squall.jpg |
Squall is gonna bend Sora and Riku over while Seifer watches. --- http://i498.photobucket.com/albums/rr345/Rakaputra/pjbasis.png |
Also, thanks to all the Sora pickers for not predicting a close match. Much appreciated! --- http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2369/mythbattlers.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/Sensui22/1248835958206.png |
well at least it wasn't as bad as my leon prediction --- boring and mundane signature Now with more bold! Less Italics due to bold |
North Division: Round 3 - Match 49 – (1) Mario/Bowser vs. (2) Sonic/Dr. Robotnik Moltar’s Analysis Mario/Bowser Round 1 - 85.36% vs. Jim/Butt Round 1 - 80.47% vs. Ike/BK Mario/Bowser looking real good Sonic/Robotnik Round 1 - 73.12% vs. Katherine/Catherine Round 2 - 62.21% vs. Kirby/Jill Once again, Sonic silences his doubters. Finally, after so many years, it’s the pair we’ve been asking for! Mario vs. Sonic! Well, we’ve been asking for it in a 1v1 match, and then we wanted the Mario vs. Sonic rivalry for this contest, but instead we got them in the same division for the inevitable beatdown. That’s close enough...right? So we’ve got two iconic rivalries here, but what makes this easy is that Mario is stronger than Sonic in just about every way on GameFAQs. Mario > Sonic, Bowser > Robotnik, Mario games > Sonic games, and I’m willing to bet people hold more respect for Mario/Bowser than Sonic/Robotnik. This could get really, really ugly for Sonic, or this could be Mario vs. Shadow all over again. I’ll go somewhere in the middle Moltar’s Bracket: Mario/Bowser Moltar’s Prediction: Mario/Bowser - 64% Lopen’s Analysis But the upset never happen. Vergil: "Why do you refuse to gain power!?!" Chokete. Etc. Leave me alone ;_; Oh this uninteresting match. Let's say Sonic does what Maridon't which makes this an upset pick to casuals, meaning 60-40. But as the old saying goes the Robotnik adds 10 pounds. Because he's fat. Lopen's prediction: Mario vs Bowser with 70.40% Leon’s Analysis No, this doesn’t actually count as a Mario/Sonic match. Not any more than Sonic 2/Mario World or Mario 3/Sonic 1/SF2/FFIV did. This match will probably be very boring and not in doubt from the get-go. I don’t think it’ll be quite as big of a blowout as people are expecting. Link may be able to SFF Sonic or whatever you want to call it, but Mario vs. Sonic is different. It’s something special, that may defy explanation. I could see Sonic doing relatively well here. Which is why we needed Mario/Sonic as a team in this contest, augh! Put them up against Link/Ganondorf in the Bonus Match, Bacon! I’m begging you! Leonhart’s Prediction: Mario vs. Bowser with 58.55% |
Kleenex’s Analysis Finally, after almost 10 years of waiting, we get the match that everyone's wanted to see! And I'm not really sure why. Granted, it's not the exact match everyone seems to want, but you take what you can get. Back to the matter at hand, I'm not sure why anyone would be interested in a Mario vs. Sonic match. Is it a "just because" kinda thing? Is there anyone out there who thinks that Sonic has a remote chance of winning the match? Who knows! Today, Mario crushes. I wager this could probably get pretty ugly. Pretty ugly indeed. Kleenex's Prediction: Mario vs. Bowser with 66.67% Applekidjosh’s Analysis oh em gee it's finally mario vs sonic I am so- you know what let's not even pretend. Let's just take another day to look back at the great match that was Sora vs Dante, maybe a little bit more "Called it!" for awesome people like me. Today's match feels like a gut punch for the Mario vs Sonic nominators, and on top of all that it's just going to be boring. Looking forward to tomorrow though!! AKJ predix Mario vs Bowser with 62.00% Dante’s Analysis You know, I never understood the mario vs sonic at the Olympic games thing. I mean, I never played it myself, but it seems pretty obvious at mario is going to win the high jump and sonic will win the races. They both seem like good athletes in completely different areas so they'd both take home a good number of golds but why pit them against each other? Thats boring. Speaking of pitting giants against each other in boring matchups, welcome to round 3. Home of mario beating sonic, just like old times. sorry guys not all matches can be Dante/Sora's Winner - Mario/Bowser - 57.85% Guest’s Analysis - paulg235 I'm expecting a SFF blowout here somewhere in the mid-60's. Looking back, Super Mario World did crush Sonic 2 a few years ago and ****ing around with the 2009 X-stats gives the likes of Mario 3/World around 65% against Sonic 1. Also, Bowser would rock Robotnik 1V1, so... Winner: Mario vs. Bowser - 65.19% Crew Consensus: Mario > Sonic, who would’ve thought |
Whoa, I wasn't the lowest prediction! I'm kinda surprised! From: Master Moltar | #068 Read it as Chokette instead of choke-tay --- http://i.minus.com/iH9vIGOBoyTQ2.gif |
Sorry Leon, I just couldn't let you be unbounded --- boring and mundane signature Now with more bold! Less Italics due to bold |
From: Master Moltar | #069 so is the fanbase we're talking about here.... people that were alive in the early 90s? --- http://myanimelist.net/profile/applekidjosh <Die the death>! <Sentence to death>! <Great equalizer is the death>!! |
From: AppIekidjosh | #072 The majority of the site was indeed alive during that time, so I'm not sure what the issue is! --- http://i.imgur.com/fe05x.png http://i.imgur.com/stNJf.png |
Mario vs Sonic It's finally here! Mario vs Sonic, literally the #1 matchup that fans have been demanding to see since 2002! ...wait, what's that? No one's cared about this poll since 2004 when Samus smashed Sonic with 58% and the winner became obvious? Whoops. While I still maintain that Mario/Sonic COMBINED would have been super interesting and easily the top team for Link to worry about, SB did us a major disservice by separating the two and throwing us this poll as a consolation match, because it's going to be awful. Credit where credit is due, I'll admit that Sonic impressed me against Kirby. The problem is he impressed me last year as well (didn't expected a convincing 57% on Ganon)- didn't stop Link from smashing his face in with 70 plus. I'm thinking we see a similar level of overperformance from Mario in this one... he's no Link and so 70 is out of the question, but attaching Bowser gives the two a rivalry advantage in addition to the nice boost they'd normally get from Sonic becoming "too Nintendo" in recent years (which I think makes him more susceptible to SFF from N's heavy hitters). One thing I'll say in Sonic's favor though: I don't like this Mario pic. Well, let me rephrase that- the top half of this pic looks fantastic and I love it, personally, but in a "more iconic rivalry?!" match Mario would have been better served to draw a screencap from the Mario 1 or 3 boss fights rather than invoking Brawl and Galaxy. Anyways, he could easily push this into the mid 60s, but I'll stay a little more conservative with Mario - 63.29% --- thengamer.com/guru thengamer.com/xstats board8.wikia.com I'd search B8 for The Show if I were you. *wink wink* |
Hah. Awesome. Looks like I can still call a blowout when I see it even if I'm terrible at actually getting matches right. There were reasons for the 70% I just didn't feel anyone was interested. DAT RIVALRY FACTOR (or OLD/REPETITION FACTOR) being foremost. --- No problem! This is a cute and pop genocide of love! |
What's Moltar's email? I'm working on my write-up right now. --- GameFAQs isn't going to be merged in with GameSpot or any other site. We're not going to strip out the soul of the site. -CJayC |
it's in the opening post >_> --- thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris |
Oh thanks. I looked for it before but couldn't see it. My eye is kind of messed up right now. --- GameFAQs isn't going to be merged in with GameSpot or any other site. We're not going to strip out the soul of the site. -CJayC |
Nice prediction for Mario Lopen. --- GameFaqs is NOT the place to go for relationship advice.Nobody here gets any action unless it is their right or left hand.Including me.~Dawn and Dusk~ |
(1) Mega Man X/Zero vs. (2) Sub-Zero/Scorpion (R1) Mega Man X/Zero: 80.45% vs. Captain Falcon/Black Shadow (R2) Mega Man X/Zero: 77.2% vs. Bartz Klauser/Gilgamesh (R1) Sub-Zero/Scorpion: 73.22% vs. Leon Kennedy/Ada Wong (R2) Sub-Zero/Scorpion: 64.48% vs. Donkey Kong/King K. Rool Another match with an obvious winner, but a huge percentage range. Logic says to me that X/Zero would go higher on Leon/Ada and DK/K.Rool than the MK ninjas were able to. But how much higher? Well, I doubt that Bartz/Gilgamesh could beat Leon/Ada - and even setting them equal only projects 58% for X/Zero. You could argue that match was a fluke and focus on the ninjas vs. DK, which projects them to get 71.5% on Ezio/Rodrigo. Again, I think X/Zero could do better than that, but not by more than a few points, or you'd be getting dangerous close to Ezio struggling to beat someone who failed to double Guybrush. Still, the stats only ever tell half the story - can the ninjas retain their strength against a strong opponent, or will they do what Hayabusa did against Mega Man last year, and Solid Snake before that, and collapse? I'm not willing to go out on a limb and trust them completely yet, so something in the high 50s seems a good compromise. Mega Man X vs. Zero with 57.62% of the vote. --- Praise the Black Turtle, Game of the Decade Guru Champ. (Well, I never promised creativity, did I?!) |
Northeast Division: Round 3 - Match 50 – (1) X/Zero vs. (2) Sub-Zero/Scorpion Moltar’s Analysis X/Zero Round 1 - 80.45% vs. Falcon/Shadow Round 1 - 77.20% vs. Bartz/Gilgamesh lol ff5 Sub-Zero/Scorpion Round 1 - 73.22% vs. Leon/Ada Round 2 - 64.48% vs. DK/K. Rool Nintendo doesn’t look too bad here Last round pretty much signaled the end of the hope for an upset here. Sub and Scorp looked great in R1, but after failing to double DK/K. Rool, we know now that was more Leon/Ada sucking in this format than Sub/Scorpion being really strong. X/Zero have looked great so far, but this is going to be their first real challenge. Sub/Scorp won’t win, but they are a legit and respected rivalry, so they’ll probably put up a decent performance. Moltar’s Bracket: X/Zero Moltar’s Prediction: X/Zero - 59% Lopen’s Analysis X and Zero have the raw strength advantage from the members, and both are good rivalries and have any old (OLD?) factor you wanna say matters to this format, so I think this match is more a test of how well fighting game rivalries hold up if faced against strong opposition than anything. Me, I think they'll hold up more than well enough. While I don't think GameFAQs gives Fighting Games their just due, I do think that they'll give respect to their uh legacy if nothing else. Well enough to pull out the win? Well no. (But if they don't hold well at all, everyone should swap to Trainers over Fighters without delay.) Lopen's prediction: X vs Zero with 55.56% Leon’s Analysis After round 1, we were excited about the potential of this being an exciting match, but after Subby/Scorpion disappointed somewhat against DK/K. Rool last round, those hopes were dashed. That being said, I still think Subby/Scorpion will do fairly well. Just that this won’t be a close match. I’m glad to see that they’ve been able to do so well in this contest since it’s one of the better rivalries of the bunch. Not much to say about this one, I guess. Well, I suppose if X/Zero go absolutely insane here, we can start at least discussing the potential of an upset next round, but I don’t expect that to happen! Leonhart’s Prediction: Mega Man X vs. Zero with 60.40% Kleenex’s Analysis Here it is. The match everyone's been waiting for-wait no that's not right. Tomorrow's the match everyone wants to see. This one is just a formality. X and Zero have been looking too good to really entertain the possibility of an upset, I think. The ninjas should end up looking respectable, but I have a hard time seeing this ever really be in contention. X and Zero win the right to lose to Mario next round. Hooray! Kleenex's Prediction: X vs. Zero with 56.81% |
Applekidjosh’s Analysis Man I can't get over how boring that Mario stompfest was. At least today will be a little better? Maybe? We all sort of got our hopes up early on that the ninjas sudden miraculous strength would signal a crazy upset here, but they just didn't look good enough against Donkey Kong for anybody to have any serious faith in this upset. I've seen people say X vs Zero, as a rivalry, is easily top 10 on the site. That makes total sense to me. So unfortunately it's back to matches that would be cool if gamefaqs was better but instead they will be boring. AKJ predix X vs Zero with 58% Dante’s Analysis I'm actually kinda scared by this match - mostly because of just how badly the ninjas stomped Leon. Yeah, it was two rounds ago, but it still stings! Anyway, the ninjas also did respectably against DK, but X/Zero are just on another level. I'm not sure if people still buy "rivalry factor", but any advantage the ninjas had due to that is gone against X/Zero. X/Zero shouldn't struggle too much here but it'll be closer than I'd like it to be. Winner - X/Zero - 54.37% Guest’s Analysis - The Real Truth This is actually a pretty cool math. At least, it shouldn be relatively close. I was almost certain I would take the Ninja's to win, even if I didn't think they would win. Something weird happened if you check out both the matches the Ninja's. In the match again team RE, they had 29,957 votes. In the match against team DK, they had less than 2,000 more, yet there was roughly an 8,500 vote total increase. So even with the nearly 9,000 vote jump, they barely managed to garner more support than the previous match. Meanwhile with the robots, you have a match nobody cares about, and then in round 2, you have Gilgamesh. This is actually tough to read.The only reason I'm giving the win to the robots here is because if we put them in team DK's position, can they syphon enough of the votes to win that match? Yeah, they should be able to pretty easily. Looking at the seeds, well we have Team Robot with the 1 seed, and Team Ninja with the 2 seed. No match pic as the time of me writing this to speak of. Both teams have a large selection of great pictures to choose from. Both teams are fairly well known. Link's match is the highest total with 56,000? Really? I thought this one might break that. It still could I suppose, but probably not. We'll go for a hovering somewhere around 54-55,000 votes. I feel like I'm undershooting but this contest has sucked so much. I just wanted to get that in there. Prediction: Team Robot with 54.70%. Possibly higher with bracket fear. Crew Consensus: X/Zero beats some ninjas |
Wow Leon You came that close to being price is right'd. I almost made a 60/40 joke and put 60.41 as my prediction. Granted 60.39 would've been smarter for this match probably. --- No problem! This is a cute and pop genocide of love! |
Let's go 60% --- "But you have been given freedom. Freedom to be...outside." "I am lightning...the rain transformed." |
Squall Leonhart vs. Seifer Almasy 66.76% 30464 Siegfried vs. Nightmare 33.24% 15166 TOTAL VOTES 45630 Dante vs. Vergil 49.15% 23715 Sora vs. Riku 50.85% 24538 TOTAL VOTES 48253 Crew Predictions - 48/48 What Happened: Squall barely doubles Soul Calibur, and DMC vs. KH is our closest match yet Why it Happened: Squall didn't look that great, and his rivalry with Seifer may be holding him back. Most people expected Dante/Sora to be close, and thanks to KH having a stronger morning/day vote, it managed to win here. What will Happen: Squall vs. Sora again. Will the format make a difference? Crew Prediction Challenge - lol people who think upsets will happen Moltar - 48 Leon - 48 Guest - 45 Kleenex - 44 Dante - 44 AKJ - 44 Lopen - 42 Crew Accuracy Challenge - Kleenex gets the point for Squall/Seifer, Leon gets the point for Sora/Riku Leon - 10 Lopen - 8 Moltar - 8 Kleenex - 7.5 Guest - 7 (Luster: 2, Menji: 1, pjbasis: 1, Korayashi: 1, GfK: 1, Kotetsu: 1) AKJ - 4.5 Dante - 3 --- Moltar Status: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/60973141 Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/ |
Is that some Crew Curse I'm seeing? --- http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh293/zukiraphaera/war-sig-1.png http://i.imgur.com/597oi.png |
I sure hope so! In fact, I think I'm going to quit the crew and contests altogther if we go perfect this contest. I'll just die. --- No problem! This is a cute and pop genocide of love! |
Mega Man X vs Sub-Zero We'd been expecting this to be one of the best matchups of the season ever since SB uploaded the bracket. Yet the spread is up to 57%, and everyone's shooting toward 60 in the Oracle. What happen? While I'll agree that X/Zero have looked fantastic so far, I still think everyone's overreacting to Mortal Kombat's 65% on Donkey Kong. We've already seen Mario look Linkish and Pac-Man overperform significantly despite not having a real rival... maybe being iconic slash really old just counts for more in this format than we expected? Plus DKC gave their team tons of SNES nostalgia, and clearly you don't want to bet against the Nintendo fanbase this season. All that combined leads me to believe our eyes were too clouded by DK's past struggles to realize that nearly doubling him in this format was actually pretty impressive! Of course the trouble is that many of the above advantages apply to MMX as well. Still, I don't think this team is quite as iconic or as Nintendo or as nostalgic, so I'm banking on Subby and Scorp hanging in there better than you'd expect. Plus let's not forget that X has the whole Night Vote to deal with (he went from 80% in NA to 62% in Europe last round)! I still think he manages the Ulti blowout, but probably not by much... let's go with X - 55.89% --- thengamer.com/guru thengamer.com/xstats board8.wikia.com I'd search B8 for The Show if I were you. *wink wink* |
A commanding accuracy challenge lead --- http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2011/8/22/2094c2de-bae8-4f5b-9f27-67eaff0aaeaf.jpg |
From: Ngamer64 | #089 What? No, we didn't. We got excited that the match might be close after round 1, but round 2 quickly squashed that idea. --- "Why must we always choose between certain death and probable death?" "I'm in an epic battle to the death, FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF!" |
Not as commanding after today. Mario's mine! --- No problem! This is a cute and pop genocide of love! |
X/Zero will cancel it out...! --- "But you have been given freedom. Freedom to be...outside." "I am lightning...the rain transformed." |
LeonhartFour posted... From: Ngamer64 | #089 We'd been expecting this to be one of the best matchups of the season ever since SB uploaded the bracket. What? No, we didn't. We got excited that the match might be close after round 1, but round 2 quickly squashed that idea. Strongly disagree. Pre-lockdown we weren't sure if "rivalry matters" was going to exist, but if so we'd always assumed that Subby/Scorp would be one of the biggest beneficiaries, right behind Ryu/Ken. R1 just confirmed those suspicions. --- thengamer.com/guru thengamer.com/xstats board8.wikia.com I'd search B8 for The Show if I were you. *wink wink* |
I firmly believed in RIVALRIES MATTER But it's not like X/Zero wouldn't benefit from the format either. I don't remember there being any sort of serious discussion about this being a good match. --- http://i.minus.com/iH9vIGOBoyTQ2.gif |
Yeah uh X vs Zero is probably number 3 beneficiary there so yeah-- not really a big thing going in favor of Sub/Scorp there. --- No problem! This is a cute and pop genocide of love! |
#1 beneficiary is Red/Blue! --- thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris |
Too bad it won't be enough...! --- "Hold on a minute! That testimony stinks!" "Witness! You can't just say 'Hello' and expect us to get anywhere! I want you to testify!" |
now this is a percentage --- Boring and mundane signature informing you I'm on a Droid Now with more bold! Less italics due to bold. |
(1) Pokemon Trainer Red/Pokemon Trainer Blue vs. (2) Ryu/Ken (R1) Pokemon Trainer Red/Pokemon Trainer Blue: 76.92% vs. Jim Raynor/Sarah Kerrigan (R2) Pokemon Trainer Red/Pokemon Trainer Blue: 77.96% vs. Luigi/Waluigi (R1) Ryu/Ken: 81.63% vs. Ratchet/Dr. Nefarious (R2) Ryu/Ken: 64.98% vs. Fox McCloud/Wolf O'Donnell We're right now seeing the two MK ninjas putting up massive numbers on X/Zero, a team comprised of low noble nine and a high midcarder. Are Ryu/Ken stronger than Sub-Zero/Scorpion? Some people would disagree, but I lean towards yes: 65% on Fox/Wolf strikes me as better than 65% on DK/K. Rool. Fox's history against non-Nintendo is better than DK's, and rivalry factor likely favours the SF64 team more than DK. And my gut tells me 60% on Yuna/Seymour is better than 60% on Ezio/Rodrigo, especially since none of these other new rivalries have done much. If I accept Ryu/Ken > Sub-Zero/Scorpion, then I get Ryu/Ken being at least as strong as X/Zero. I doubt Red/Blue's achievements more than most. Sure, they battered Luigi/Waluigi into the ground, but SFF beatdowns can be strangely one-sided without being evidence of huge strength. It's not difficult to imagine anything Nintendo pulling the Nintendo base away from Waluigi. And they had a huge picture advantage there that they don't here; at least that's how I see it. The (I'd expect more legit) match that few talk about is the 77% on Raynor/Kerrigan. To be fair, that was a night match and they'd likely have gone up near a % during the next 12 hours. Let's call it 78%. If you take Leon/Ada's 60% on Raynor/Kerrigan as valid (from the vote-in), Sub-Zero/Scorpion are projected to put 78.6% on Raynor/Kerrigan. It at least puts them in the same ballpark as Red/Blue, and if you think Ryu/Ken > MK ninjas, then they are surely there or more. As any Red/Blue backer will have you know, they pull in the votes. Their night vote tally in R1 was bested only by Mario/Bowser and Link/Ganondorf. In R2 they pulled 42K votes in an SFF match, bested only by Link/Ganondorf. That's all well and good, but there's been plenty of occasions throughout the history of these contests where pulling in big vote totals hasn't counted for much come the showdown, and those votes contribute to a higher percentage anyway - without them, they'd have got less than 77-78% on Raynor/Kerrigan. Pokemon has a mixed history of living up to the bill 1v1 - while Charizard fired up CBVIII, GSC made a mess of its match with MM, Red did everything but lose to Ocelot. And yet, despite all of that, I find it difficult to trust Ryu/Ken here. They need to win with a cushion if they want to win at all, but can they? They blew away Ratchet, but eh. I expect Dante/Vergil could have done something similar. That comparison from before with Sub-Zero/Scorpion, and by implication X/Zero is fine and all, but the Mega Man rivalries haven't looked great this contest. MM/Wily failed to double Zidane, and based on this match X/Zero would struggle to get more than 55% on a lot of rivalries I'd have thought they could beat with ease. Pokemon rarely gets huge blowouts, so to get near 80% twice is quite something. That extrapolation through the vote-in might be accurate, but I think Leon's presence would cause a slight overperformance in that format - I can imagine some voters just scanning for a known character, seeing someone like Leon or Crono and voting them. In the end I'm siding with Red/Blue on the basis that the match will probably be close, and Pokemon, with a strong opening, a powerful ASV and rallying/clutch ability, isn't going to let a close match go to something that isn't clutch itself. More or less the default position of "if in doubt, back Nintendo." I hate this match. Pokemon Trainer Red vs. Pokemon Trainer Blue with 51.25% of the vote. --- Praise the Black Turtle, Game of the Decade Guru Champ. (Well, I never promised creativity, did I?!) |
