Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1378

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3789-jenova-division-round-1-crono-vs-missingno

If you were to ask me what the most significant result from this contest was, my answer would be either this match or Snake/Sephiroth. Crono had originally broken the Noble Nine in 2007, and almost all of them had lost to a non-Noble Niner in 4-ways. However, some people clung to the caveat that they were still unbeaten one-on-one (I think the record was 129-0 up to this point).

Well, that excuse ended with this match (although some people moved the goal posts to say they were unbeaten in full 24-hour matches). Crono led by 1 vote at the freeze and never led again. Missingno got the lead over 400 by the end of the first hour and held steady between 400-600 votes until the night vote hit. Crono made a run and got the lead down to 115, but Missingno struck back and pushed the lead out beyond his reach again and held on for the win.

Naturally, there were outcries of cheating, but Allen insisted there was no foul play and the result stood. We got 91,000 votes in a 12-hour match, and I'm pretty sure that ended up being the overall record for this format.

Crono broke the Noble 9.

Missingno. is cool. But, I didn't want this.

Leonhart4 posted...

Well, he had a decent run in 2018

Ehhh, don't think I agree

Going into that contest, afaik, conventional wisdom had Auron and Yoshi as pretty easily the two strongest characters never to have advanced past the third round. Each had faced perhaps more than their share of unfair draws in that time. And Auron proceeded to get handed a whole division on a silver platter, while Yoshi proceeded to job to Pikachu as largely expected (as much as I denied the latter right up until the match itself).

...though I suppose it's reasonable to say that Pikachu > Yoshi 2018 is about equivalent to Squall > Auron 2010.

I mean he got a fair shake in 2018, he just lost to Pikachu

Pikachu in round 3 was a pretty rough draw that bracket, but he had a decent a performance against him.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3790-jenova-division-round-1-soap-mactavish-vs-big-daddy

I believe this is the biggest win by a 14 seed over a 3 seed, breaking the record held by Tina Armstrong > Gordon Freeman. This wasn't a particularly surprising result though, as Big Daddy was a strong favorite on B8 and was even the overall bracket favorite.

This is the first time we've seen a SF2 poll with just the original 8 (no bosses) since 2010. Ryu and Chun-Li are still neck and neck (she beat him in the full roster poll a year or so ago).

Blanka in fourth

maybe he gets a crack and we can go with the Blanka Chan picture

Serves Soap right for hating dogs. If you hate dogs, you just can't be a good person.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3791-jenova-division-round-1-ness-vs-geno

This is the highest percentage Geno ever got in any match. Maybe he'd do better these days now that Super Mario RPG has a remake, but he never came close to advancing past the first round as it is.

Geno just could never catch a break with his match ups while SMRPG got to feast on non-Nintendo/Square games.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3792-jenova-division-round-1-yuri-lowell-vs-tifa-lockheart

This was probably about as bad of a matchup for Yuri as you could get outside of a Noble Niner, and it was one of the biggest blowouts of the contest. It was so bad that, in one of the strangest Guru choices we've had (and there have been a few), SuperNiceDog picked Yuri Lowell for his Guru nom leading up to CBIX because he thought he didn't get a fair shake here. While that may be true, it turns out he still sucked and got blown out in the first round again (although not as badly as here)!

Yuri deserved better. Has Tifa ever had a bad performance in her career? She even has a 1v1 win over a Noble Nine member under her belt.

Tifa's next two matches in 2010 are probably her only two 'poor' showings, but they're forgotten because her performance against Sephiroth later on was crazy good in light of 2008.

Yeah, Tifa rarely disappoints. She's about as dependable as it gets.

Unless it's 2007 and she somehow misses the field entirely

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3793-jenova-division-round-1-gordon-freeman-vs-princess-peach

Outside of the female bracket in 2006, it feels like Peach's fate is either get wrecked by Nintendo LFF in multiways or be underseeded and lose respectably one-on-one.

Also Peach is projected to get 73% on Gordon based on the 2018 X-Stats lawl

KamikazePotato posted...

Unless it's 2007 and she somehow misses the field entirely

Still not over that. After giving the Noble Nine a scare on Samus and the reward is nor being in a 128 character bracket.

Also kind of annoying it's the same two NNers she gets to every single time since her debut though at least she beat one of them.

I feel the same way about Squall getting Cloud and Snake all the time!

Yeah that sucks too. I guess 03 and 05 are the exceptions. Would've been Snake again in 18 if he had gotten to the NN.

And Sonic got the best boost available in 07 though L-Block would have eliminated them at the same time anyway.

Well, Tifa got Sonic in 2005, but Squall could've at least finished ahead of Sonic in 2007 if not for the Brawl announcement augh

I'm trying to think of which contest regulars have faced the fewest number of Noble Niners and who's faced the most

Squall - Snake, Samus, Cloud, Sonic
Vincent - Crono, Sonic, Link, Samus, Sephiroth
Auron - Cloud, Sephiroth, Crono, Sonic, Snake
Tifa - Sonic, Samus, Sephiroth
Aerith - Snake, Sonic
Bowser - Cloud, Mario, Sephiroth, Snake, Crono, Sonic
Ganondorf - Link, Samus, Sonic, Mario, Mega Man
Kirby - Sephiroth, Sonic, Snake, Cloud
Zelda - Mega Man, Snake, Samus, Mario, Link, Cloud, Sonic
Pikachu - Cloud, Crono, Samus, Snake, Mega Man, Link
Luigi - Sonic, Mario, Link
Tidus - Sonic, Mega Man
Knuckles - Snake, Mega Man, Sonic
Alucard - Cloud, Sephiroth, Crono, Link, Snake
Zero - Sonic, Mega Man, Mario, Crono, Link, Snake

Kirby is in a weird position where he never encountered a Noble Niner until 2008, and then he faced four of them and beat two of them.

Zelda appears to have faced the most due to her 2018 run, only missing Sephiroth and Crono.

Tidus and Aerith have both faced two, but Tidus faced Mega Man twice, so I guess Aerith has the fewest total matches against a Noble Niner.

Also I guess Sonic has faced the most contest regulars because he's faced all of them except Alucard and Pikachu

Who is the strongest character to never face a Noble Niner? Yuna? Geralt, I guess, but he's only been in one contest.

Yesmar_ posted...

Who is the strongest character to never face a Noble Niner? Yuna? Geralt, I guess, but he's only been in one contest.

Yeah, Yuna might be the answer, at least among characters who have been in multiple contests.

Ryu ties Zelda, he is only missing Link and Mario.

Ryu - Samus, Snake, Sonic, Mega Man, Cloud, Crono, Sephiroth

Some more that only missed one contest at most:

Yoshi - Link, Mega Man, Snake, Samus
Jill - Link, Cloud, Sephiroth, Samus, Mega Man
Knuckles - Snake, Mega Man, Mario, Sonic, Samus
Dante - Crono, Sonic, Snake, Sephiroth

Even CATS has met four of them

Oh yeah, I had Knuckles on there, I just forgot the other matches for some reason.

Totally blanked on including those others. Ryu probably deserves the title because he didn't need the 2018 run to get them all.

Yeah since Ryu never beat them, it's in 7 different contests, with the three he encountered in 07 as repeats.

Only in 05 and 13 he didn't reach a NNer.

Fewest is a bit harder because of when you're a regular. Aerith missed three contests and Tidus missed none.

Of the others there, Tifa missed the most with four contests. Pikachu and Vincent also missed three.

Yuna also missed three so if that counts as regular, she takes it. Though not as strong as this field.

Honorable mention to Master Chief who with only one contest miss has only ever met Crono and Snake, almost beating the latter.

Oh yeah, somehow forgot Chief, too. It's kinda wild he had that deep run in 2007 and only met Snake.

I initially forgot him too.

And yeah, in particular because he clearly could've beaten some of them that year. But 07 had only two NNers in the bottom half of the bracket and they were even both in the same quarter where L-Block also came from. If L-Block didn't catch on like that Chief very likely makes the final and meets two more.

The only time Terra has faced a Noble Niner is Rivalry Rumble.

And while I haven't checked the math I think Terra's number on Charizard in 2018 suggests she's marginally stronger than Yuna (and Kefka as well).

I don't think Terra has been in enough contests to be considered a regular.

Maybe Gordon in his peak? The only time he faced NNers was in 4ways

Phoenix Wright never has either

Oh yeah, we should probably include Sora, too. Magus and Frog, too, I guess. Oh right, and Vivi.

Sora - Samus, Snake, Mega Man, Sonic, Cloud
Magus - Link, Crono, Mario, Sonic
Frog - Snake, Samus, Cloud
Vivi - Sephiroth, Snake, Mario

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3794-hyrule-division-round-2-link-vs-alucard

Round two! The Oracle average was 71.71% so yeah, we basically nailed this one.

All part of the plan.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3795-hyrule-division-round-2-red-vs-mega-man-x

A solid debut for Red, and he proved he was worthy of inclusion. However, MMX's path this contest is kind of what makes me hesitant to say he's on par with the original Blue Bomber. It makes Price and Ocelot seem way too strong (although Red has validated his strength here in his other appearances, and he was worth 43.18% on MMX in the 2018 X-Stats).

I suppose Ocelot could have been riding off of the MGS4 high (that he somehow didn't get in 2008 when the game was brand new), but it makes it weird that Liquid seemed to get the boost in 2008 and fell off in 2010. Maybe it took people a little time to process what actually happened in MGS4...!

Red probably did better here in a day match, that could explain some of it.

If there is anything to gather from Ocelot matches, it's that he's not going to make sense.

As convoluted a character as he is, that's kinda fitting.

But as Red's short morning vote saved him against Ocelot, I'll at least stand by that a day match made him do noticeably better.

The split between Day/Night matches was also probably near its peak for Red/Ocelot since that was one of the first matches, and people might not have realized yet that there were two matches a day.

The day/night split would account for some of that, but it would still make Ocelot stronger than he's ever been. Red probably gets up to 53% at most with a full 24 hours. It's not like it would drive Ocelot down that much.

X and Ocelot met in 2018 and X got over 68% on him, but it could be a stronger X and was probably a weaker Ocelot than in 2010.

I think Red just clearly got stronger over time. He did better in 2018 against Big Boss than in 2010 against Ocelot.

KamikazePotato posted...

I think Red just clearly got stronger over time. He did better in 2018 against Big Boss than in 2010 against Ocelot.

I agree with that. That's why I think this performance against X is weird if you think he's on Mega Man Classic's level because ordinarily being close to equal with Ocelot isn't great!

So either X grew closer to MM over time (because they don't look that far apart in 2018 going through Tifa) or Ocelot was oddly strong in 2010! I wish X hadn't faced Link next round so we wouldn't have any question about SFF in that match.

Leonhart4 posted...

because they don't look that far apart in 2018 going through Tifa

Unless Samus overperformed on Mario !

Or Tifa overperformed on Samus!

Leonhart4 posted...

Or Tifa overperformed on Samus!

Wouldn't be the first time. >_>

We should get Classic vs X one time

Leonhart4 posted...

Or Tifa overperformed on Samus!

If you examine Samus/Mario through Tifa/Sephiroth, and assume that Tifa/Sephiroth had no weirdness at all (lol), that Samus should've won against Mario with room to spare.

imo Samus was indirectly the #2 strongest character in 2018. I think she would've beaten Cloud straight-up where Mario failed. It's just that Mario is her kryptonite due to the Nintendo Hierarchy.

Been saying it for years! Glad to finally have an ally in that fight! I think Samus would've beaten Cloud, too.

No PotD today

We have to wait for one of the admins to put up a new poll for today.