Ho ho. It's almost Gauntlet time, I just got ToS, and school's starting in less than two weeks, so that means I get to move again. Go me.

Shadow actually overperforming on Mario would be the biggest coincidence ever, because the actual match result was one of the biggest arguments for Magus winning his division (global Vincent underestimation notwithstanding). It'd be hilarious if it turned out to be true, because then we really could call dumb luck on those who picked Squall > Magus. ;)
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

I have a feeling Knuckles will "upset" Squall...
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Summer 2005 Contest - 32/36 points
Current Match Prediction: Samus Aran vs. Frog

Both Vincent and Tifa have their work cut out for them with each match. They could both lose next round or go for several rounds more. It should be interesting.

Squall, though, will put a stop to Vincent, and would have crushed Magus.
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Revenge is a dish best served cold. ~Old Klingon Proverb

because then we really could call dumb luck on those who picked Squall > Magus. ;)

It's not my fault you ignored the signs.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

Zebes Division Round 2 - Match 35 – (1)Samus vs. (5)Frog

Samus - Master Chief only WISHES he was this sexy.
Round 1 – vs. Ryu H. (Samus: 87.32% - Yuri: 12.68%)

Samus meets fodder. Samus destroys fodder. Fodder gooood.

Frog - Last seen beating CATS in a 51-49 match.
Round 1 – vs. Riku (Frog: 51.67% - Riku: 48.33%)

Riku did a lot better than we expected, but still couldn’t take down the amphibian.

Round 2 is off to a great start so far…alright, maybe it isn’t, but this match should tell us a lot of Frog’s matches in the past. I mean, he couldn’t possibly pull off a close match with Ms. Aran. This match should finally put Frog, Master Chief, Liquid Snake and Riku in their proper places.

Or it could screw up everything even worse than they already are….which is pretty darn bad. Samus wins.

Moltar’s Bracket Says: Samus will win.

Moltar’s Prediction is: Samus: 68% - Frog: 32%



Ulti’s Analysis

(Special note from Ulti: I'm either getting married or on my honeymoon as you're reading this, so know that all of my second round writeups will suck. I'm doing the same short writeups that I did for the last round, because I don't have time to be extensive.)

(Special note from Moltar: Braaaaiiinnnsss. Need more braaaaaaiiinnnnsss.)

The first match Frog will have in which the margin is greater than 52-48!

Prediction: Samus with 64.56%



Soul’s Analysis

How they got here

Samus defeated Yuri Hyuga 87.32% - 12.68%
Frog defeated Riku 51.67% - 48.33%

Hmm... where to start on this one. Samus is going to win quite easily. As strong as Frog is in these contests, his 51% win over Riku is his strongest. You could argue that Frog could put up a fight when he got 48.61% on Snake, but most people know that Snake underperformed because of a horrible, unrecognizable picture. Master Chief proved it against CATS, Liquid proved it in Spring, and Frog somewhat proved it with his massive struggle against Riku.

Samus is the strongest character here, statistically. Of course, take that for what it's worth. Although, there is no denying that she is part of the top three (with Crono and Mario). She's also had Metroid Prime 2 come out for the Gamecube, and a few DS titles on the way. She's also going to have Metroid Prime 3 as a launch title with the Revolution. Basically, she's only going up from here.

So, we have a very strong Samus Vs. a disappointing Frog. Yeah, I think you know who wins it.

My prediction: Samus wins with 68.64% of the vote. Yawn, next match please.



Outback’s Analysis

Anybody who thinks Frog can escape a doubling is kidding themselves. If Frog/Riku proved anything, it's that Frog is weak.

Samus with 70.37%



Inviso’s Analysis

Samus got the blowout of the contest, or at least, her opponent got the lowest number of votes in the contest. Then again, no one besides The Real Truth and Kyle Bowen care about Yuri anyway, so it’s to be expected. Frog…on the other hand, struggled with Riku of Kingdom Hearts fame. Now…wasn’t Kingdom Hearts the only game that Starcraft pwned the **** out of in 2004? KH has never been all that well liked, and Frog did very poorly against Riku. I realize that Riku is definitely more badass than Sora, but still, come on. It attribute this all to a general mix up in the stats for last contest, and a decline in Chrono Trigger power. I mean, we all saw what Knuckles did to Magus, and Magus was considered top 12 material. Frog’s gonna lose, and although he has never had a blowout match one way or the other, I think Samus has the power to beat him soundly.

My Bracket: Samus Aran
My Vote: Samus Aran
My Prediction: Samus Aran with 69.07%

Tnote’s Analysis

Well, I was kidding… sorta. This match is extremely intriguing for me, because Frog has yet to take place in a match outside of 53/47. Is this a trend, or just four matches in a row of dumb luck? I am one of the biggest Frog fans out there (folks, I spent over two hours trying to self-program his theme as my ringtone… which reminds me: if anyone knows where I can get his theme as a ringtone; AIM me now), and I cannot see him even breaking 45% on Ms. Aran. If this ends up being the sprite round, I would be a bit more inclined to think he could crack 45%, but even then, it is only about 50/50. This match will set up a killer division final, with Samus drawing either the 2nd best villain ever, or one of strongest sidekicks in this contest setting. Stay tuned to see which I believe she will duel.

Pick: Samus with 58.27%



Vlado’s Analysis

Blah. Another painful match where we'll see a good character get owned by a Nintendo avatar. According to the stats, Samus is supposedly the favourite to win the tournament, but, as we saw many times already, the stats fail at life. Mario will beat her so badly, it's not even funny. Either way, she will win this match with ease... Frog had troubles with Riku of all opponents, which came to show that the Chrono Trigger side characters' popularity has taken a fall since last year. Which was confirmed by Magus' loss. It really pains me to see Frog make it to the second round, while Magus, who's much superior, failed in the first...

Basically, the only difficulty here is determining the percentage by which Samus will win, more specifically, whether Frog will get doubled or not. Samus scored the biggest win of Round 1 against Yuri, but, to be quite honest, it could be said that Yuri received more votes than the copies his game has sold, which makes him another Luca Blight. No, in fact, I think Luca would beat the hell out of Yuri, Suikoden at least has some kind of following. Bottom line, I don't think anyone should be that impressed by Samus' win. Tifa's win over Vyse was the only really impressive thing in Round 1 (Vincent's was, too, but, after all, we don't know Kerrigan's strength, unlike Vyse's).

Frog will have to take his leave now... Not much could be done. His lackluster performance against Riku proved that he has lost his touch... I'll go as far as to speculate that all this will have affected not just him and Magus, but Crono, as well. I can see Crono losing to Vincent, to be quite honest. But we'll see... The Round 2 matches will certainly give us better base for conclusions than the pointless first ones.

Predicted percentage: Samus with 65.86%.

You know, I always thought Squall>Magus was an excellent upset pick, but I did not believe enough in Vincent to have him take the division, and I just do not like Squall enough to have him take the division. Knuckles benefited against Magus from going up against another sidekick-type character. He will not have the same benefit against Squall. Solid Snake usually slaps up 60/40 on Knuckles, and Squall should be a bit weaker than Solid. 45% for Knuckles is probably the ceiling for the Echidna.

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RIP: Tnote827 - 4/4/2005
SC2k5 - 33/36 (Kefka, Magus, Ocelot)

Hehe, everyone thinks Frog is going to do good. We shall see. ;)

From: Sir Crono | Posted: 8/21/2005 10:42:28 PM | #454
because then we really could call dumb luck on those who picked Squall > Magus. ;)

It's not my fault you ignored the signs.

Problem is, there were "signs" Magus was going to win as well. Just as Luca and Fisher fell in line with each other, the Shadow "overperformance" along with Link/Magus fell in line with each other in the opposite direction. I don't know if you get what I'm saying, but it's worth trying.
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

I think people are still trying to convince themselves that Magus is pretty strong, so they're thinking Knuckles can pull this off. Nothing really indicates that Squall will lose this one (other than people who want to say, "Knuckles has faced Solid Snake all three years! He might not really be where the stats say he is!" which seems rather silly, considering Crono turned out to be exactly where the stats said he was after facing Mario for three years).
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

Samus - Master Chief only WISHES he was this sexy.
Round 1 – vs. Ryu H. (Samus: 87.32% - Yuri: 12.68%)

Samus meets fodder. Samus destroys fodder. Fodder gooood.

Poor guy. >_>
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"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." ~ Isaac Asimov

Of course there were signs that Magus would win, but to chalk Squall > Magus up to "dumb luck" is ridiculous.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

It's not Squall > Magus that is dumb luck. It's you seeing it coming, if that Shadow performance turned out to be a fluke. Discerning which matches were flukes and which weren't isn't particularly easy, hence where some luck comes in in the end.
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

But it's not "dumb" luck, which would imply that we just picked it for no reason whatsoever without any signs pointing to it being probable or even possible.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

Oh, excuse me for being no linguist. If English were my first language I'd have known better, but it isn't, so EXCUUUUUUUSE ME PRINCESS.

Okay, with that out of the way, you do have some merit for putting that in question. Whether it would turn out to be true or not was a complete coin toss. It just happened to work out for you.
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

Now…wasn’t Kingdom Hearts the only game that Starcraft pwned the **** out of in 2004? KH has never been all that well liked, and Frog did very poorly against Riku.

Kingdom Hearts isn't well liked??? Huh? Starcraft pwned the **** out of KH with a 54/46 victory by all of 5000 votes. You underestimate the popularity of Kingdom Hearts...

And what the hell is up with Vlado's "analysis"?

Another painful match where we'll see a good character get owned by a Nintendo avatar. According to the stats, Samus is supposedly the favourite to win the tournament, but, as we saw many times already, the stats fail at life. Mario will beat her so badly, it's not even funny.

Frog a good character, but Samus is just an avatar? Mario crushing Samus? Uhhhh... a little biased aren't we?
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MM are my INITIALS "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

Match 35: (1) Samus Aran vs. (5) Frog

Past Performances

Samus Aran

Summer 2005
Beat Yuri Hyuga, 87.32% - 12.68%

Win - Lose Record
11-3

Frog

Summer 2005
Beat Riku, 51.67% - 48.33%

Win - Lose Record
3-1

Analysis

We’re almost near the string of what’s been thought of a bunch of close matches. We have to get through one more boring match which will probably be used to discuss on what will happen during those matches. Frog may have gotten passed a man in a suit, but he won’t pass the women in the suit.

Despite what the prediction leader board says Samus’ run for winning the bracket is looking great with her getting the biggest blowout in this contest. Sure Yuri is nothing, but fodder, but was a great performance.

Frog on the other hand doesn’t look so great. By using the adjusted rankings that would make Riku stronger than Sora, but that leads us to think either the 20XX division shouldn’t have been adjusted or Frog was just simply overrated. With Liquid Snake and Master Chief’s performance this year shows some very strange results. Even if we use Frog’s unadjusted numbers that’ll still make both Master Chief and Liquid Snake overrated. Another thing to note is that both MC and LS are far away from each other (MC would easily get 60%+ on Liquid) so could it be that like Freeman, Frog performs roughly about the same against each character or is the Spring Contest really that messed up? I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true since all of his matches have been 52/48, but if Frog was to get 48% there will be wide panic from the board saying that she’s weak, but that still doesn’t leave out the possibility that Frog may overperform against her.

This match has a wide range of Samus winning 55/45 to winning 70/30 and I think Frog may over perform. Frog is probably just one of those characters that can’t really get blown away, but can’t destroy his opponent. Another thing I want to point out is due to his strong first night vote Frog might make this really close until he dies off in the morning where Samus turns into a beast (I’m really looking forward seeing Samus gaining 5-10% on Frog throughout the day)

charmander6000’s Bracket: Samus Aran over Frog

charmander6000’s Prediction: Samus wins, 60.45% - 39.55%

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I've been Pwned by KoaC. He really is the king of all cosmos.

It's Vlado. You come to expect these things.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

Yeah, methings he decupled the daily caffeine intake after Tifa's near-quadrupling of Vyse.

But why in the world is everyone having tomorrow's match being so close?
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

Because Frog has only had close matches thus far.
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

But why in the world is everyone having tomorrow's match being so close?

As much as I hate Frog you can't forget that he's really never been beaten to the ground or vice versa.
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I've been Pwned by KoaC. He really is the king of all cosmos.

Well, I suppose Frog did give Snake a scare... but after Liquid's spring double chokejob against Lavos and Sephiroth (No ****ing way in hell does MB > Ridley, EVER) and MC going back to 2003 levels AFTER HALO 2, I'm thinking it was a fluke Frog won't be able to repeat.
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

Frog has no solid strength. 45% will vote for him no matter what, 45% will vote against him no matter what. It's that last 10% that makes a difference.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

Frog will croak against Samus. He might not even get 30%.
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The King of all Cosmos' route to summer victory:
Round 1: (0) Voters

Well, croaking IS what frogs do.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

I actually named Frog "Croak" during my first playthrough of Chrono Trigger. I didn't want the original names, but I couldn't think of anything better.
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MM are my INITIALS "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

I think it'd be great to see Frog pull over 40%.

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To the man whose spirit was so free it was bothersome... Kurosaki Ichigo, my sword has been broken by your freedom of spirit.

i still say that Samus will break 70% tomorrow. yup.

oh, and i'm guessing less than 50% of the brackets will have Zero winning today; somewhere around 48%. don't forget that for some reason the casuals always underestimate Zero. i mean, less than 70% had him winning against Hayabusa (9th hardest of the first round) and only 31.57% had him over Vercetti last year in Round 2 (3rd hardest match to predict of ALL of SC2K4).

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"Start wearing purple, for me now. All your sanity and wits, they will all vanish, i promise. It's just a matter of time..."

Whoever marked my post, thanks a ****ing lot for getting me warned. It was completely unintentional if you couldn't tell by my "o_O WTF" post directly after it. I come in here all the time, don't disrupt the topic, or troll, yet somebody felt the need to do that. Awesome. Yeah, in hindsight I could have deleted it, but I didn't think about it until just now.

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Explicit Content.
Cheer Up Emo Kids.

Whoever marked my post, thanks a ****ing lot for getting me warned. It was completely unintentional if you couldn't tell by my "o_O WTF" post directly after it. I come in here all the time, don't disrupt the topic, or troll, yet somebody felt the need to do that. Awesome. Yeah, in hindsight I could have deleted it, but I didn't think about it until just now.

You can appeal to the mod by explaining that it was a mistake.

If you're lucky, he might lower it down to a NKL, or at least to a notification.

But at least you learn a valuable lesson, always delete your post if it contains any potentially moddable mistake(s).

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Reserved for the winner of the SC2K5 Guru Challenge.

Did he censor bypass or something?
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

Did he censor bypass or something?

Nope, check out post 443 and 444 on this topic.

He posted something weird that came out ugly, and got warned for disruptive posting.

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Reserved for the winner of the SC2K5 Guru Challenge.

o.0;;;

I see... So it was considered glitch abuse? He's technically lucky he didn't get banned. Not that that would be FAIR, but it's the normal punishment.
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

Yeah, I posted something about Zero, I forget what exactly now, and it came out as mass squares, then I went out to eat... and came back to see that I was warned.

---
Explicit Content.
Cheer Up Emo Kids.

Oh... The little syntax error thing? Eh, whatever, you'll live.
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

Yeah, I know, it's really not a big deal, I've been warned an assload of times, and banned my fair share, I just thought for something that was obviously not intentional it was pretty lame.

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Explicit Content.
Cheer Up Emo Kids.

Samus > Mario.

BOOK IT.
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PETITION: Ability to preview contests to moderators before posting it. http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7&topic=19643565 (231 Signs!)

Tai, that's been in the books for a while. Well, I haven't booked it, but I'm sure that someone has.
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For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to refer to Gordon Freeman versus Tanner as Schrodinger's Match. -Phoenix Flattener

Excellent. People realize the cunning plan has died. :-)
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PETITION: Ability to preview contests to moderators before posting it. http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7&topic=19643565 (231 Signs!)

I can't wait for Samus to start kicking butt tomorrow. Don't be tempted to vote for Frog, guys, Samus has to do well tomorrow. Frog's first non-close match... kind of a shame though.
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Vote for Yoshi
You have no chance to survive make your time.

I say Frog is able to get up at least 42%.
---
.

Frog gets 42.72 next match. Book it.

---
Explicit Content.
Cheer Up Emo Kids.

I'll go with at least 40% for the awesome Frog.

---
To the man whose spirit was so free it was bothersome... Kurosaki Ichigo, my sword has been broken by your freedom of spirit.

o_O
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'tobias xelkythe' anagrams to 'Sexy, bat-like, hot.' - ssbmdemon18
i've been like that for 3 whore years - Mew2King ~MaskedSheik's Sig

Frog avoids the doubling on his best day. Tomorrow won't be it. Samus with 69%.
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Board 8: Where people treat each other right.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Sanmus break 70%. Frog has just faced three opponents somewhat close to him in strength, and lucked out on snake because snake got a completely unrecognisable pic. Just because the casual always changing part of the voter pool caused a few slight anamolies in some of his matches doesn't mean he'll overperform by over 10% for no reason whatsoever.
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Please sign this petition for a history board:
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7&topic=21995996

Samus will probably get almost exactly 68% as the stats project. If not, then Frog always has too close of matches.
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Vote for Yoshi
You have no chance to survive make your time.

Solid Snake ftw.


~RPGGamer~

No last minute rush to 500? How strange.
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Please sign this petition for a history board:
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7&topic=21995996

Mario is the best!

Dante is better than VIncent!

Vote Mario and Dante!
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Frog gets 42.72 next match. Book it.

Samus gets 72.42% in the next match. Book it. I don't care what anyone else thinks, Samus >>> Frog.

And...Samus would get over 60% on Snake. I can't see Frog doing better than Snake, no matter how realistic his performance was last year.
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Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.