Character Battle X Contest Analysis Crew - Part 88888888888888888888888~ GameFAQs Contests

Question for the "Noble Nine not being broken unless it's 24 hours 1v1" holdouts

If Pikachu wins this because of registered voters counting double, do you put an asterisk on the result?

of course

if a noble niner loses to a non-noble niner because the match wasn't held in 2002, it also doesn't count

too bad we weren't two hours ahead right now

The Mana Sword posted...

KamikazePotato posted...

Noble Nine's been dead for 11 years

sorry can't hear you over all these moving goalposts

Yeah, but finally there's no more excuses. 24 hours, 1v1, the Noble Nine has finally lost a match.

Remember, the Noble Nine being the Noble Nine was only ever non-arbitrary for one year. In the first year, obviously there's no real reason that the line had to be drawn at nine. It just was. I guess you could claim that it was validated by 2003, when the top nine finishers in the unadjusted X-Stats from 2002 again all finished in the top 10 (and the interloper that prevented them from again being the top 9 was only #9), with #9 not being the one who fell to #10 (which would've suggested that maybe nine was too many) and #10 falling all the way to #18 (suggesting that nine wasn't too few, either). But in the terms of the Noble Nine being "breakable", yes, the nine of them had been in both contests without ever losing to anyone outside their group, but the same could be said for expanding the group to 2002's Top 10 in the X-Stats or for contracting it to 8, 7, 6, 5, or 4. Sonic and Snake hadn't beaten any of the other eight and Samus, Mega Man, and Crono each only had one win against a fellow Noble Niner, all three coming against the aforementioned Snake and Sonic. The only unimpeachable quartet was Mario, Link, Cloud, and Sephiroth, as Seph and Link had both beaten Mario but both had lost to Cloud, while Cloud beat Link and Link beat Seph.

2004 saw Crono take his spot with the top four, finally beating Mario, but Samus and Mega Man merely doubled down on their previous wins over Sonic and Snake respectively. Again, you could pick any number from 5 through 12; Ryu might have been notable for how well he held up to the Noble Niners in his three losses but Knuckles and Squall had also been in every contest and never lost to a non-NN.

2005, at least, finally solidified 9 as the maximum, as both Squall and Ryu lost to characters that hadn't been in the first contest while Knuckles...lost to Squall. But Clinkeroth had been retired to the Tournament of Champions, and Mario and Crono's latest rematch came in the Finals; Mega Man solidified his position somewhat with his own win over Sonic.

In 2006, it was simple. Crono alone of the "big five" was in the main bracket, and all he'd have to do was win said main bracket; it was obvious that Samus would be the first one out of the Battle Royale due to SFF from Link and Mario. But one day after Snake managed to beat Mega Man, a character he'd lost to twice previously, Sonic upended Crono, immediately putting all nine of them into the mix. Finally, there was no ambiguity: there were exactly 9 characters that had stood above all others, no more and no less. Snake managed to beat Sonic, then in the Battle Royale he outlasted two of the four protected past champions thanks to SFF.

And that lasted all of one year. At first, it would've been easy enough to just take out the requirement of having been in every contest; Vincent hadn't lost to a non-NN. That idea lasted all of a few days, because thanks to the fourway format, a character debuting that very year had managed to lose to non-NNs and then beat NNs. In fact, L-Block debuted by coming in second place to Kirby, a character that had been in every contest and had yet to even face a Noble Niner! And still L-Block won the whole contest.

great post dude thanks

this isn’t even going to end close

boring

Legends Bracket: Round 1 – Crono vs. Bowser

Monika’s Analysis

Runback from 2006 - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2545

Back in 2013, the upset potential would be there. CT looked weak enough that Pikachu knocked out both Crono and Magus.

Then Chrono Trigger looked like a beast in the games contest and everything changed.

Magus and Frog rebounded this year, but Crono was the one that always had the most to gain back. Bowser is a very good test for Crono as an elite or near-elite. If Crono is still on the lower end of the Noble Nine, Bowser will threaten him in his match, and possibly score the upset in this strong Nintendo/Mario year.

Still, back in 2006, even in a down year for Crono, he had no problem winning this match-up. Even if Bowser is stronger now, we’ve seen an upswing of CT recently, and Crono doesn’t need to be at his peak to win in the rematch. All signs point to Crono being stronger than he has been in recent years, so I’m sticking with him winning this match.

Monika’s Voting Tip of the Day: Just because someone is silent doesn’t mean they can’t express themselves in a variety of other ways!

Monika’s Prediction of the Day: Crono – 56%

...That's my advice for today! Thanks for listening~

transience’s Analysis

Bowser's a tough nut to crack. He alternated great performances with pretty mediocre ones. Crono breaks 60% on 2B, right? It sure *feels* like Crono should win this. Then again, I'm not convinced he puts 54% on Kirby, and Pikachu's currently got 49% on Mega Man and looks about even odds to beat him outright. The line between the elites and the bottom rung of the NN is as close as ever.

I'm going to take Crono here. I felt really good about it pre-contest, and by the end of round 1/2 I felt like Crono could be a legit threat to Cloud. But then Auron bombed against Geralt and Luigi went down kind of softly to Tifa, and those Frog/Magus performances look in line with what you would expect from the ninth strongest character on the site. Is he stronger than a guy who's contending for #10? Probably -- but I never feel too comfortable about it, especially when it's Crono we're talking about. As the site contracts and our core audience becomes more and more pronounced, dudes like Crono rise above -- but so do dudes like Bowser. This one should be close. Go Crono.

transience's prediction: Crono with 50.05%

Yurihart’s Analysis

My initial thought was that Crono would win this easily, but as I’m watching Mega Man hold on for dear life against Pikachu, I’m not so sure! I’m not convinced that Crono is any stronger than Mega Man, but it’s honestly looking like Pikachu is the strongest non-Noble Nine Nintendo character at this point. I definitely wouldn’t take Bowser over him, so that gives Crono some breathing room. I think he’ll have enough to get the job done. Either way, this Legends bracket could be crazier than I originally gave it credit for!

Yurihart’s Vote: Bowser

Yurihart’s Prediction: Crono with 53.13%

Kleenex’s Analysis

Crono was a pretty big question mark this year. He’s had a tumultuous history throughout every contest dating back to 2002, and was definitely on a downswing for most of the past decade. But then Chrono Trigger absolutely tore up the games contest (until outside intervention stopped it cold), and it seemed that perhaps things might start looking up. Magus and Frog both looked pretty alright in the main bracket, and that bodes reasonably well for Crono. Bowser also looked great though, and this is absolutely the kind of match that might give Crono trouble. There’s a pretty huge range on where the results for this battle could fall, but I have a lot riding on Crono doing (unreasonably) well, so I’m going all in.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Crono with 58%

Guest’s Analysis - spooky96

There's definitely some buzz for this match as many of us strongly believe Crono is the weakest N9 member. First of all, there's no question that Sonic is the weakest of them all. If you look at the past results, Sonic feels more like a slight step above the elites rather than a concrete N9er like Samus or Snake. Anyway, Bowser has looked pretty decent in all his matches. We have no data on Crono whatsoever. I think quite highly of 2013 Crono's performance against Pikachu as not only Magus was leeching off votes from him, it was a contest when Pokemon was on full-steroids mode.

This seems like a standard 55-45 beat down, or at the best Bowser breaks 47% or something. There's nothing going on for Bowser, we've already seen that literally no one outside of this website cares about this contest, so any of those 'bowsetitities' memes would be meaningless.

Crono with 55%

Crew Consensus: Go Go Crono

oh

oh dear

The curse.... when will it stop

KPStats predict a 56% win for Crono
Also updating Cloud to a 58% win

*explosion

*MM death tune

)=

Okay we’ve known for a while that Pikachu is not as fraudulent as his Poké cohorts

But how is he <this> legit compared to the others?

Really plays into the idea that boosts and deboosts are not company- or even series-specific.

Iconic Character Boost™

MasterMoltar posted...

Yurihart’s Vote: Bowser

Yurihart’s Prediction: Crono with 53.13%

oh man when I saw this my initial thought was that I did this by mistake

Lopen's Unofficial Analysisx2

Crono v Bowser
Not buying the Crono hype. I don't think Crono is on some sort of island this year, but I also don't think Bowser is really up to the task of taking him down either. His one and only strong performance has been beating Kirby. I would've taken the Kirby upset but I think Bowser pulled some sorta hierarchy nonsense to rob Kirby, meaning while a Kirby may have been up to the task a Bowser will not be. Pikachu could've done it!

Crono with 54.35%

Alucard v Cloud
Board vote should be fun to watch with this one. I don't expect Cloud has dropped to the level people who are humoring miscellaneous underlings beating him do as FFVII has looked pretty okay this contest and Cloud could have boosted slightly from Smash, but I do kinda believe in Alucard to be somewhat legit this year. So while this percentage is low it's mostly faith in Alucard.

Cloud with 55.86%

also once again tran and I have a match where we somehow come very close to the same prediction

damn, sorry for stealing the guest spot from someone who would have picked Pikachu

never change, FF7 board vote

yeah Crono's in trouble

I’ll wait for the 10 minute update to really start sweating but I’m ready to throw this contest in the trash

Not that Cloud loses, but this is already a fairly bad result for him. That rise to heaven better be big.

what a swerve, Link and Pikachu booted to the losers bracket !!

Yeah, not even Sephy let anyone be this close to him at the freeze.

Is Alucard stronger than Ryu?

Alucard seemed about equal to Bowser, so him over Ryu seemed right after his div 3 performance. this isn’t surprising me — I think he still goes down to the low to mid 40s.

there we go

.

Cloud's board vote is apparently on another level from even Sephy's these days

also I do kind of wonder if the Noble Nine are getting anti-voted at this point just because the people still here are mostly long time vets who'd rather see them lose now

My Alucard > Bowser upset is looking possible

I mean, this is kind of the ultimate bandwagon, rocking the baby bracket in anticipation of being sacrificed to the (former) N9.

transcience posted...

Alucard seemed about equal to Bowser, so him over Ryu seemed right after his div 3 performance. this isn’t surprising me — I think he still goes down to the low to mid 40s.

He'll go down to the low 40s, but everyone in the Crew had him with like 62%.

The KPStats will be looking pretty good if Cloud ends up at 58%, though...!

cloud’s gonna look just fine here, he can probably make it to 60

Link – 50.00%
Ganondorf – 20.36%
Vivi – 19.56%
Dante – 17.75%
Donkey Kong – 17.62%
Chun-Li – 16.73%
Leon Kennedy – 15.62%
Tidus – 15.17%
Spyro the Dragon – 14.67%
Lightning – 12.21%
Cuphead – 10.09%
Yu Narukami – 9.83%
Dragonborn – 9.78%
Aya Brea – 9.61%
Neku Sakuraba – 8.71%
Victor Sullivan – 7.77%
Chloe Price – 6.30%

LOL Chloe

KamikazePotato posted...

He'll go down to the low 40s, but everyone in the Crew had him with like 62%.

The KPStats will be looking pretty good if Cloud ends up at 58%, though...!

I almost predicted high 50s, but I still want to believe in Cloud.

more like lol that entire division

although I would like to see Link get 85% on tidus

Cloud with ~60% isn’t really that far from 62! this kinda throws the playstation sff out the window though

transcience posted...

Cloud with ~60% isn’t really that far from 62! this kinda throws the playstation sff out the window though

Unless the real result is supposed to be better for Alucard and he's getting SFFd without us knowing

Really makes you think

After the last few updates, Cloud and Crono are looking significantly better than before. If Cloud gets to 60% I think it's a good result for him, yeah.

Cloud vs Crono looking to be an interesting one right now.

not really - I don’t really trust Crono to hold this while Cloud will just rise all day.

yeah the upset is probably dead, given Cloud probably keeps going up from here.

if you took a snapshot 10 minutes ago and asked me if I thought 54% on Bowser vs. 56% on Alucard, I’d jump on the former without a second thought, though

especially if Crono’s already going to start getting cut 🤷‍♂

Bowser cut, eh

Yeah Crono is underwhelming here. Swap Pikachu and Bowser and you get two very different results.

it’s kinda sad how Crono used to tangle with Mario and now he’s struggling to hold off Bowser

I dunno if I’d call this struggling

This is maybe Crono's best performance since beating Mario in 2004.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2545-time-division-round-2-crono-vs-bowser

Second best maybe

this is juiced up bowser though!

totally different!!