GameFAQs Contests

From: TsunamiXXVIII | #100
Hmm...I'm not entirely sure I like the way these x-stats shake out. See, one thing I've always found annoying about tournaments that work out exact "placements" using loser-bracket type games is that it can be very inaccurate. Take, for example, the various early-season tournaments that exist in NCAA basketball. We'll use this year's Maui Invitational as an illustrative example.

Day 1: First-round games
Duke 77, Tennessee 67
Michigan 73, Memphis 61
Kansas 67, Georgetown 63
UCLA 92, Chaminade 60

Day 2:
Winners' bracket:
Duke 82, Michigan 75
Kansas 76, UCLA 56

Losers' bracket:
Memphis 99, Tennessee 97 (2OT)
Georgetown 88, Chaminade 71

Day 3:
Seventh-place game: Tennessee 86, Chaminade 60
Fifth-place game: Georgetown 91, Memphis 88 (OT)
Third-place game: Michigan 79, UCLA 63
Championship Game: Duke 68, Kansas 61

They allegedly have a defined 1-8 order, but aside from the champion and the last-place finisher, nothing is really terribly defined. The third-place game winner lost their match to the champion, not the runner-up, so either one could easily be the true #2, and UCLA, which had the good fortune to draw the host team (who comes from a lower division and almost always finishes in 8th place) in the first round, goes 1-2 with both losses by large margins and finishes "4th", while Georgetown is 2-1 and is "5th". Madness. But let's look at the flipside, this year's Paradise Jam.

Opening rounds:
Norfolk State 61, Drexel 56
TCU 57, Virginia 55
Mississippi 63, Drake 59
Marquette 95, Winthrop 73

Winners' bracket:
Norfolk State 66, TCU 53
Marquette 96, Mississippi 66

Losers' bracket:
Virginia 49, Drexel 35
Drake 66, Winthrop 62

Seventh-place game: Drexel 68, Winthrop 45
Fifth-place game: Virginia 60, Drake 52
Third-place game: Mississippi 80, TCU 69
Championship Game: Marquette 59, Norfolk State 57

It's still not perfect because the seventh-place finisher lost to the fifth-place finisher, not the sixth-place finisher, and the second-place finisher beat the fourth-place finisher, not the third-place finisher, but...TCU, which came in fourth, got their lone win against Virginia, who came in fifth. So at the very least, the "1-2 for fourth place, 2-1 for fifth" problem is a non-issue. Which brings us back to why I object to these X-Stats...


1. Link vs. Ganondorf – 50.00%
2. Mario vs. Bowser – 42.28%
3. Cloud Strife vs. Sephiroth – 41.74%
4. Pokemon Trainer Red vs. Pokemon Trainer Blue – 37.51%

Now, I know that in the x-stats, the runner-up isn't always even in second place, but in this contest, the final was the closest match that the champion had...and the winner of the third-place match was defeated by the loser of the championship match, so the 1-2-3-4 order should be somewhat concrete. I know, the very presence of a "third-place match" wrecks the idea of X-stats, because they're based on the idea that matches should be transitive even though they aren't, but the idea that the Pokémon Trainers could finish behind Cloud and Sephiroth in the X-stats despite having a direct head-to-head win seems ridiculous.

From: Azp2k32 | #105
Tsunami is trying to challenge LMS.

From: LeonhartFour | #091
Pokemon/Metroid
Castlevania/Kingdom Hearts
Castlevania/Halo
Street Fighter/Resident Evil
Super Mario Bros./Final Fantasy
The Legend of Zelda/Final Fantasy

Six quality matches out of 31

About twice as many as the Rivalry Rumble had.

From: Xcarvenger | #108
Only see 3 "quality" matches there. The others are kinda unexpected stats-wise but still fall in line with general expectation (Rivalry Rumble has a lot of those too!)

From: Xcarvenger | #110
Well, you're counting these type of matches as quality for the series contest, but not for Rivalry Rumble! I'm just saying RR also has many matches similar to that.

From: LeonhartFour | #112
Also, I never said what Rivalry Rumble matches I considered "quality" to begin with!

From: Xcarvenger | #113
Well, in RR most of the "quality" matches ended up as blowout instead of close matches. You should have said "close" matches instead of "quality" matches then!

From: LeonhartFour | #114
Well, Castlevania/Halo wasn't a close match, per se, but it was an unexpected result (not the same thing as an unexpected percentage. If we want to go that route, Series Contest can beat that, too). Neither was MM/MK, but it had other sorts of implications involved. Rivalry Rumble had virtually nothing exciting about the vast majority of its matches, unless "Whoa this was even less close than we had anticipated!" counts as quality or exciting.

But I'll concede and even give you Frog/GLaDOS along with those others. You can even have X/Zero vs. Sub-Zero/Scorpion! However, there was very little debate about most of these matches, pre-or-mid-contest. Very little excitement. Not much of anything. We weren't even getting excited about the matches while they were happening. The vote totals sucking worse than anything ever has also detracts from the quality of the contest.

But if we want to include a highly debated match as a quality match, then we can include Phoenix/Gordon.

The main problem with the Rivalry Rumble is that we had 63 matches worth of suck as opposed to 31 for the Villains and Series. At least those bad contests had the decency to be over quickly.

From: -LusterSoldier- | #118
Yuck, wasn't expecting a huge blowout from the 4th option in this poll.

From: -LusterSoldier- | #133
Took until vote 70 for "Yes, I just got a new 3DS for Christmas" to get its first vote. Looking at the early results, I'm surprised that more people didn't get a 3DS for Christmas.

From: Kotetsu534 | #136
Always think it's strange to force people to say either "next year" or "never"

From: TsunamiXXVIII | #100
Hmm...I'm not entirely sure I like the way these x-stats shake out. See, one thing I've always found annoying about tournaments that work out exact "placements" using loser-bracket type games is that it can be very inaccurate. Take, for example, the various early-season tournaments that exist in NCAA basketball. We'll use this year's Maui Invitational as an illustrative example.

Day 1: First-round games
Duke 77, Tennessee 67
Michigan 73, Memphis 61
Kansas 67, Georgetown 63
UCLA 92, Chaminade 60

Day 2:
Winners' bracket:
Duke 82, Michigan 75
Kansas 76, UCLA 56

Losers' bracket:
Memphis 99, Tennessee 97 (2OT)
Georgetown 88, Chaminade 71

Day 3:
Seventh-place game: Tennessee 86, Chaminade 60
Fifth-place game: Georgetown 91, Memphis 88 (OT)
Third-place game: Michigan 79, UCLA 63
Championship Game: Duke 68, Kansas 61

They allegedly have a defined 1-8 order, but aside from the champion and the last-place finisher, nothing is really terribly defined. The third-place game winner lost their match to the champion, not the runner-up, so either one could easily be the true #2, and UCLA, which had the good fortune to draw the host team (who comes from a lower division and almost always finishes in 8th place) in the first round, goes 1-2 with both losses by large margins and finishes "4th", while Georgetown is 2-1 and is "5th". Madness. But let's look at the flipside, this year's Paradise Jam.

Opening rounds:
Norfolk State 61, Drexel 56
TCU 57, Virginia 55
Mississippi 63, Drake 59
Marquette 95, Winthrop 73

Winners' bracket:
Norfolk State 66, TCU 53
Marquette 96, Mississippi 66

Losers' bracket:
Virginia 49, Drexel 35
Drake 66, Winthrop 62

Seventh-place game: Drexel 68, Winthrop 45
Fifth-place game: Virginia 60, Drake 52
Third-place game: Mississippi 80, TCU 69
Championship Game: Marquette 59, Norfolk State 57

It's still not perfect because the seventh-place finisher lost to the fifth-place finisher, not the sixth-place finisher, and the second-place finisher beat the fourth-place finisher, not the third-place finisher, but...TCU, which came in fourth, got their lone win against Virginia, who came in fifth. So at the very least, the "1-2 for fourth place, 2-1 for fifth" problem is a non-issue. Which brings us back to why I object to these X-Stats...


1. Link vs. Ganondorf – 50.00%
2. Mario vs. Bowser – 42.28%
3. Cloud Strife vs. Sephiroth – 41.74%
4. Pokemon Trainer Red vs. Pokemon Trainer Blue – 37.51%

Now, I know that in the x-stats, the runner-up isn't always even in second place, but in this contest, the final was the closest match that the champion had...and the winner of the third-place match was defeated by the loser of the championship match, so the 1-2-3-4 order should be somewhat concrete. I know, the very presence of a "third-place match" wrecks the idea of X-stats, because they're based on the idea that matches should be transitive even though they aren't, but the idea that the Pokémon Trainers could finish behind Cloud and Sephiroth in the X-stats despite having a direct head-to-head win seems ridiculous.

From: Azp2k32 | #105
Tsunami is trying to challenge LMS.