GameFAQs Contests

So is calling Lightning > Dante the furthest off the mark a non-rally based pick has been this year yet on the crew? I think it might be.

your shame for picking Richter has been outdone

actually Bayonetta/Riku is pretty close to this margin

you can at least defend the Riku pick. the Lightning pick has inspirational quote pictures

well yeah just about nobody expected that result, even the people who picked Bayonetta

even the highest Oracle pick was just 60%

Is my Metal Man pick and write-up that forgettable?

apparently so

Metal Man I felt had more basis in reality I guess which is why I didn't scoff at it as hard. Like if you took a modest estimate of Lara Croft vs like Protoman or Dr Wily you could maybe humor it. And hell I know we're all poking fun at me taking Richter but Richter was at least an unknown quantity.

Lightning > Dante though like... nah, that was never happening. Not in any universe. The only way I could see psyching yourself into believing it was like stanning really hard for Chloe being theoretically stronger than cuphead, but even then you pretty much gotta discard all of Lightning and Dante's previous results to hope for it.

Seeing DK ahead of Leon, even for a time, has made the revisiting of these contests all worth it.

I was talking mainly in terms of percentages, by which margin Metal Man should still have the lowest percentage for a character a Guest picked to win, though Lightning could make it close.

Sure yeah it does win on technicality (for now, Dante may go up!) I'm just explaining why I overlooked that pick as insane because I thought it could possibly happen at the time.

Lopen posted...

So is calling Lightning > Dante the furthest off the mark a non-rally based pick has been this year yet on the crew? I think it might be.

Yea... some noob picked it lol

transcience posted...

you can at least defend the Riku pick. the Lightning pick has inspirational quote pictures

hahahahaha.

ZenOfThunder posted...

Ken
Incineroar
Piranha plant (not petey)

That’s it

A real whimper for a final direct, isn't it?

wow DK. Does he beat Vivi next round?

No way. I think Vivi is stronger. Possibly.

RoseChevalier posted...

Moltar I'm sorry

yeah, time for this apology to mean something

RoseChevalier posted...

RoseChevalier posted...

Moltar I'm sorry

yeah, time for this apology to mean something

oh god now i see what this was about

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7298

Ryu does okay against Lloyd.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7299

Shepard almost gets smashed by his opponent.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7300

KOS-MOS doesn't get away from Ellie that easily.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7301

Aqua looks good against Quiet.

Crew Predictions: 58/64

Next Round Thoughts: If Shep could barely get past King K Rool, Ryu shouldn't have any trouble with him. KOS-MOS/Aqua could be debatable depending on how strong you think Ellie is and how impressive you think Aqua's margin of victory was.

Crew Prediction Challenge:

transience: 59
Moltar: 57
Leonhart: 54
Kleenex: 53
Guest: 50

Crew Accuracy Challenge: transience gets the point for Ryu, Moltar gets the point for Shepard, Leonhart gets the point for KOS-MOS, and transience gets the point for Aqua.

Guest: 17 (BetrayedTangy, SuperNiceDog (2), pjbasis, garetha200 (3), ZenOfThunder, Ranticoot (2), Hbthebattle (2), NowItsAngeTime, spooky96, RoseChevalier, Lopen, paulg235)
transience: 15
Moltar: 12
Kleenex: 11
Leonhart: 10

None of the matches are super interesting today so I'm just gonna pre-empt all of em.

Lopen's Unofficial Analysisx4

Zero v Knuckles
I kinda just wanna take a day break from these, you know? Props to the official crew members who can put actual effort into 4 per day. I have pretty much nothing interesting to say about any of these matches though. Zero vs Knuckles. Who knows? Zero wins that much should be clear but I can't really feel any strong inclination towards a percentage or anything like that.

Zero with 57.56%

Wario v Master Hand
Well except this one. We saw freakin Dr Robotnik blow Master Hand up off the heels of a similarly silly victory for it back in the day. I expect Wario to follow suit. Master Hand doesn't seem one to hold up to SFF and Wario should be enough to dish it out.

Wario with 62.34%

Yoshi v Velvet Crowe
Go Velvet! That's all I got.

Yoshi with 73.12%

Kratos v Pikachu
Kratos looked pretty legit last round. You can't be Ezio or Nathan Drake level fodder and put 73% on much anyone. I'd go so far as to say he's probably the newest character in the bracket with any sort of legitimate strength to him left. It's not enough to put Pikachu at any real risk, though he'll look respectable enough.

Pikachu with 58.00%

Round 2 – Zero vs. Knuckles the Echidna

Moltar’s Analysis

Zero
Round 1 - 74.18% vs. Primrose

Knuckles
Round 1 - 56.80% vs. Zidane Tribal

Knuckles showed last round that he’s stronger than a lot of people thought after 2013, but Zero is on another level. Mega Man > Sonic in the hierarchy on GameFAQs, and the same should hold true for two actually pretty similar characters from each franchise. This just looks like a 60-40 kind of match with not a lot else to say about it.

Moltar’s Bracket: Zero

Moltar’s Prediction: Zero – 60%

transience’s Analysis

Zero is generally assumed to be a tier above Knuckles, but these guys feel like they should be about the same. They both occupy the same fan-fave status in their respective series'. Mega Man's always been higher than Sonic in my eyes, and Zero has his own games, but Knuckles is coming off of Sonic Mania whereas Zero's best thing from the last decade is probably collections and being overpowered in Marvel 3.

I'll always back Mega Man when I can, but I wouldn't be TOTALLY shocked if Knuckles makes a match of this.

transience's prediction: Zero with 56.14%

Leonhart’s Analysis

Oh hey, it’s the battle of red platforming deuteragonists who are often both friend and rival to the titular character! Sadly, unless the Sonic Mania boost has been massive, the outcome here should never be in doubt. Knuckles has never made the third round before because poor seeding usually causes him to have to face a strong character in round two (remember three straight years of Snake/Knuckles?), and that’s the case here again.

I do think Knuckles will hold up really well though and give people who have Zero winning the division (like me) even more reason to be nervous about his chances!

Leonhart’s Vote: Knuckles the Echidna

Leonhart’s Prediction: Zero with 56.44%

Kleenex’s Analysis

Credit where credit is due, the Sonic characters (minus Metal Sonic) have looked alright so far. Knuckles might be able to put up a bit of a fight here, but Zero is still in another league, and I haven’t seen anything in the first round to make me doubt Zero comes through with a comfortable victory in this match.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Zero with 60%

Crew Consensus: oh no

Round 2 – Master Hand vs. Wario

Moltar’s Analysis

Master Hand
Round 1 - 57.55% vs. Noctis Lucis Caelum

Wario
Round 1 - 64.56% vs. Monika

ahaha Wario with a path to round 3? what is this contest~!

I guess after counting out the Hand in R1, I probably shouldn’t do it again. It’s easier to believe that Noctis was just fodder and Master Hand was able to capitalize since everything from Smash during the rest of round 1 overperformed for the most part.

Wario takes a lot of power that Master Hand gets from Smash though, and since Wario also extends outside Smash, he’s got much more swing with Nintendo voters. Wario should have this unless voters see Master Hand purely as a Smash proxy, which is unlikely.

Okay, everyone! It’s time to give my prediction!

Moltar’s Bracket: Wario

Moltar’s Prediction: Wario – 57%

transience’s Analysis

Now here's a weird one. Master Hand is coming off of a nice win (?) while Wario shrugged off a rally character. Both had impressive performances, and both look worse now. Lightning's getting doubled by Dante and rallies characters have proven to be total junk. Pac-Man 70%'d Sans and Draven, well, yeah. Wario could only manage 64% against a visual novel character?

Here's what this one comes down to for me: I pretty strongly believe that Wario is the bottom of the barrel for Nintendo. Nintendo fans vote for their own.. but Wario doesn't even feel like one of theirs. He's more well-known than well-liked. He's there. He fits the weird role for Warioware. He's got those weird games.

Oh, and if we're judging every match in the universe based on what impact Smash has, I'm taking the stupid hand who's embarrassed two Final Fantasy things over the fat guy who farts with the motorcycle. Master Hand should get mercilessly SFF'd against anything notable but I'm going with it!

transience's prediction: Master Hand with 58.54%

Leonhart’s Analysis

We’ve seen a bunch of low tier Smash characters do well and it’s clear that Ultimate hype is permeating this entire contest, but this is the ultimate (get it?) test of that hype. If Master Hand (who is all Smash) can beat Wario (who is still Smash but it only comprises a portion of his strength), then all bets are off and the gauntlet will have been thrown. Wario is the perfect Nintendo character to get swallowed up by a wave of hype, to boot.

I’ll…reluctantly back Wario here though. It just feels weird to think that Master Hand would be higher on the pecking order than someone else who is also in Smash, except for people like Isabelle. I am fully ready to be dead wrong though!

Leonhart’s Vote: Wario

Leonhart’s Prediction: Wario with 55.75%

Kleenex’s Analysis

Hold on to your butts. Okay, so Wario kind of slaughtered Monika last round. But in my mind, that doesn’t mean much considering how pretty much all of the other rally-bait characters flopped hard in round 1. I still think Wario sucks. I also think the idea of Master Hand beating Wario is funny because really, fuck Wario. RallyFAQs may be dead, but JokeFAQs riding high on a Smash Bros. character? I glove it.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Master Hand with 53%

Guest’s Analysis - DoctorJimmy133

This is actually the first Nintendo-on-Nintendo match in the bracket!

Wario has never looked good. Sure, he sticks out visually, and he's got some wins, but he's never beaten anyone who didn't suck. He's iconic in that everyone knows who he is, but few really care about him – he doesn't have anything to prevent him from folding against Nintendo characters who actually have fans. He has appeared in some of the most well-loved Nintendo games out there, but most people know him as one of many famous characters in a party game. He doesn't have much strength to himself, like the benefit of being the focus of an all-time classic on the level of Super Mario 64 or Super Metroid. Of course Smash characters are getting boosted across the board, but there's only so much Smash can do when nobody on GameFAQs cares about you. He's just not a good character in these contests.

Everything I wrote above applies even more so to Master Hand.

Wario wins with 58.49%

Crew Consensus: Wario bites the hand that feeds in a 3-2 Crew split.

there are two good results here

master hand winning, or wario crushing master hand badly enough that noctis is the weakest member of the fourpack

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

master hand winning, or wario crushing master hand badly enough that noctis is the weakest member of the fourpack

I'll go ahead and give you the number to watch for then!

58.26%

That's a lot lower than I expected.

And also pretty plausible. I feel like if Wario wins it'll be big, but Hand wins anything remotely close.

Well, Master Hand beat Noctis pretty badly!

Yeah I'm not sure if my surprise was that Hand won that big over Noctis, or that Monika did that well(?) on Wario.

imagine if Monika had been able to beat Noctis on pure strength and we all thought the rally worked in round 1, only for her to get crushed by Wario in round 2

imagine save_us.HAND overtaking the board

Well, I don't think Master Hand beats Wario if that's what the match is in round 1. I think the glove has a better chance facing him after he's already embarrassed a Final Fantasy protagonist.

Ooh, I decided the crew split! How riveting.

No guest writeup for Zero vs. Knuckles the Echidna? If not...

Emergency Guest-Writeup for Zero vs. Knuckles the Echidna
Zero > Knuckles/Zidane Winner was a lock pre-contest, but after Knuckles' impressive performance over Zidane in the last round, the match might be much closer than we initially thought. Knuckles might try to make a match out of this early on, but his chances of actually winning are still somewhat little to none, particularly since Final Fantasy as a whole has looked weaker than in the past.

Winner - Zero (59.65%)

Zero vs Knuckles

BT's Analysis

Both Zero and Knuckles are coming off of respectable round 1 performances. Zero laid a beating on Primrose, while Knuckles pulled through a Guru upset against Zidane.

A lot of people seem to be writing that result off as a sign of Zidane weakening, but Vivi's result couple with other Sonic overperformances in round 1 lead me to think it's more of a general Sonic Mania boost than anything. I don't think the result of this match is in question, but where Knuckles ends up certainly is pretty wide open.

2013 stats have Zero getting a doubling, while 2010 stats have it 56-44. With everything else we've seen, and given 2013 being pretty unreliable given the fact he was stuck behind Mega Man again, I would think we will see something closer to the 2010 stats. I expect another Knuckles overperformance that will make Zero look bad going into the round 3 matchup against the Yoshi/Pikachu winner, but we'll see how things go.

BT's Prediction: Zero with 57.45%
BT's Bracket: Zero
BT's Vote: WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOR!!!!

EDIT: Whoops, the Yoshi/Pikachu match will be Round 4, not 3

Round 2 – Yoshi vs. Velvet Crowe

Moltar’s Analysis

Yoshi
Round 1 - 74.27% vs. Shantae

Velvet
Round 1 - 61.04% vs. James Sunderland

Velvet is probably one of the weakest entrants in R2. This match probably doesn’t go as badly for her is Vivi/Aya (since there’s more overlap there), but Yoshi shouldn’t have any problem winning big.

Moltar’s Bracket: Yoshi

Moltar’s Prediction: Yoshi – 72%

transience’s Analysis

Yep, this is a round 2 match.

transience's prediction: Yoshi with 74.44%

Leonhart’s Analysis

Like Vivi, Yoshi gets to sleepwalk through his first two matches and neither one will tell us much of anything about his chances next round unless he just goes really low here. Is Velvet stronger than Shantae? Who knows, but I imagine they’re probably in the same neighborhood. I wish I could come up with something more interesting to say about this match, but I can’t!

Leonhart’s Vote: Yoshi

Leonhart’s Prediction: Yoshi with 73.46%

Kleenex’s Analysis

Another in the long line of “just happy to be here” contestants, Velvet is going to get stomped. I’d love it if she turned out to be something other than just straight fodder, but that seems pretty unlikely at this point. Yoshi shows no mercy.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Yoshi with 71%

Guest’s Analysis - SuperNiceDog

All Yoshi needs to do is stick his tongue out and then you’ll need to use Life Bottle on Velvet. Velvet actually is really cool and kinda wasted here, but at least she got to win a match in this contest. Even being in this bracket is a big honor.

Yoshi wins with 66% of the vote.

Odds of Yoshi winning: 99.77%

Crew Consensus:Yoshi flutters on.

I wonder if Master Hand might get a boost from the adventure mode trailer, seeing the couple hundred Master Hands being used as energy too wipe out everyone but Kirby might be memorable so soon after the trailer.

I doubt it. I'd bank more on the fact that Wario is such a smash nobody if anything.

Who says Wario is a smash nobody

People dig the bike

Round 2 – Pikachu vs. Kratos

Moltar’s Analysis

Pikachu
Round 1 - 66.41% vs. Scorpion

Kratos
Round 1 - 73.18% vs. John Marston

Pre-contest, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Kratos did worse on Pikachu than Scorpion. After Round 1, does Kratos have more of a shot?

At beating Scorpion’s numbers? Yeah

At beating Pikachu? Nah

God of War does look to have boosted Kratos up from his dire 2013 levels, but Pikachu put on an elite level performance last round. Kratos ain’t no elite-level competitor.

Moltar’s Bracket: Pikachu

Moltar’s Prediction: Pikachu – 63%

transience’s Analysis

Both of these guys had really nice r1 performances. One difference: Pikachu beat a gaming icon hard whereas Kratos beat a newer character who largely shares the same general fanbase. Sub-Zero put down a Smash character easy when Ocelot, Shepard, etc couldn't.

Pikachu probably had the best r1 performance of the round and it's really easy to see a core icon beating a PS2 icon. GOW PS4 is a legit game, probably good for second or third in this year's GOTY poll, but it's not getting Pikachu to Kratos's level. Pikachu's the fave to win the division and Kratos isn't stopping it.

transience's prediction: Pikachu with 61.54%

Leonhart’s Analysis

Kratos was one of the few western characters to look really good in round 1, but he also had the advantage of facing another western character. This is the real test for him here against Pikachu, who looked pretty beastly against Scorpion. Kratos once got 45% on Charizard in 2010 (which was the first big warning sign of the Zard’s fraud status). Can he do it against another Pokemon? Even with the recent success of the new GoW, I’m gonna say no. I’ve been in the camp that Pikachu is the strongest Pokemon for a while, and nothing’s really dissuaded me from that yet. I don’t think Kratos will get totally blown out just because he’s still relevant right now, but at the same time, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

Leonhart’s Vote: Pikachu

Leonhart’s Prediction: Pikachu with 59.65%

Kleenex’s Analysis

I’m ready for Kratos to get EXPOSED (does he really even need to?). I think Pikachu is a legit pocket monster this year, and Kratos doesn’t stand a chance. I’m banking on Pikachu rolling this division, and Kratos is only a slightly bigger speed bump over Scorpion. Maybe I’m wrong and the Pokeflop begins now, but probably not!

Kleenex’s Prediction: Rat with 65%

Guest’s Analysis - spooky96

There's no debate for this match whatsoever as we all know Pikachu's winning here easily. Since we all know Pikachu is a good bit stronger than Charizard, it'd be interesting to see if Pikachu can double his opponent once again. In a Scorpion vs Kratos scenario, I think I'd pick Scorpion without thinking twice simply because he's a much older character. Kratos' performance definitely was impressive in the first round as he destroyed Marston with ease, I really don't know if that's Kratos' game giving him the boost or that's Marston outright sucking, its probably a mix of both.

I'll give some credit to Kratos (even though a doubling here is easily possible) and have him at least break 40%, maybe even a bit more, Pokemon hasn't impressed at all this contest, except maybe for Pikachu himself. Doubling Scorpion is actually quite impressive now that I think of it >_>

Pikachu wins with 59%

Crew Consensus: Pika Pika, Pikachu!

Master Moltar posted...

Crew Consensus: oh no

Hah

man I had a feeling about Knuckles too

pretty sure MH is losing this big too

edit: huh, Knuckles got the board vote? weird

lol I had Knuckles > Zero for the upset

yet I didn't take Tails over Drake

what a bracket

rip hand

lol noctis

Pikachu impresses in his match so far. Seems like @ZeldaTPLink must be eating his words about Pokémon dropping. Both he and @LusterSoldier should know that Pokémon Let's Go actually isn't a spinoff; if anything the games are boosting Pikachu here.

_Dog_ posted...

Pikachu impresses in his match so far. Seems like @ZeldaTPLink must be eating his words about Pokémon dropping. Both he and @LusterSoldier should know that Pokémon Let's Go actually isn't a spinoff; if anything the games are boosting Pikachu here.

They may not be spin-offs, but they're certainly not boosting anyone on this site.

I still have no idea what to think about pokémon. pikachu looks great, at least.

Man, I almost went 60% on Wario. Should've trusted my gut.

darn you SmashFear

Pikachu is going to drop a lot overnight. Kratos is known for having a pretty bad early vote, plus the traditional day vote has been non-existent for Nintendo in this contest.

Pikachu also had one of the biggest drops from the freeze outside of Ace Attorney in the first round.

_Dog_ posted...

Pikachu impresses in his match so far. Seems like @ZeldaTPLink must be eating his words about Pokémon dropping. Both he and @LusterSoldier should know that Pokémon Let's Go actually isn't a spinoff; if anything the games are boosting Pikachu here.

Pokemon LG is still a spin-off regardless of these results. And there's no way it's affecting this match. It's way too casual for this site.

And Pikachu is as strong as he was in 2010, from what I've been reading. I suppose what happened here is that I didn't bother to calculate what the 2010 stats were supposed to be.