Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1378

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3796-hyrule-division-round-2-luigi-vs-amaterasu

Ammy always manages to look respectable in defeat. Luigi was over 63% at the freeze, and she gradually whittled it down below 60% by the end. I imagine Luigi gets it back over 60% with the ASV in a full 24-hour match though.

I've been thinking about prediction percentages and blowouts. Morrigan Aensland more than doubled Spyro the Dragon in 2002, and yet only 42.xx% of brackets got it correct. Is there any round 1 match where the winner both doubled the opponent and had an even lower prediction percentage (excluding rallies)? And what's the lowest prediction percentage we've seen for someone that pulled off 70% (or 75%) in Round 1?

I'm not sure where to find a comprehensive list of prediction percentages...

Charmander used to keep track of all that stuff, but I haven't seen him in forever. Closest I could find was this:

https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Most_Surprising_Results

All the contest pages still exist on this site if you wanna go through them.

Leonhart4 posted...

Charmander used to keep track of all that stuff, but I haven't seen him in forever. Closest I could find was this:

https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Most_Surprising_Results

2018 has the two most surprising results that didn't involve a significant off-site rally, with Zelda>Mario at 1.66% and Tifa>Sephiroth at 2.35%. Not bad, 2018.

Tifa > Sephiroth is the highest thing on there I correctly predicted. Second is somehow Bowser > Alucard in the same year, which is the only one other one I have on that list. I'm surprised it's that high. On the 1v1 only below I also got Brawl > Fallout 3, Crono > Mega Man, Charizard > L-Block and Auron > Geralt. 2018 is really well represented on here!

The note on there that Zelda > Mario on second chance brackets itself would've made top 25 most surprising 1v1 results is cool.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3797-hyrule-division-round-2-wccube-vs-the-boss

The Oracle average for Cube was 60% so this was a big underperformance. Anyone who banked on it being able to repeat its 2008 and maybe beat Luigi next round now had to put those hopes to bed with this showing.

I remember the panic around WCC potentially being L-Block again.

Yes, the opposite of what I said holds true. If you were worried about the Cube beating Luigi, you felt immense relief after this match.

KamikazePotato posted...

2018 has the two most surprising results that didn't involve a significant off-site rally, with Zelda>Mario at 1.66% and Tifa>Sephiroth at 2.35%. Not bad, 2018.

I would also point out 2018 has Bowser > Alucard in Losers at 21st place. Notable in that it's the most surprising result that was an overall board favorite of all time.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3798-chaos-division-round-2-sonic-vs-knuckles

Poor Knuckles, fated never to make it to round three so we didn't get to see his awesome sprite in a match picture

If we ever get another we should probably try to get Knuckles a high seed

though knowing his luck he’ll face like, Pikachu or Aerith round two

Squall was a tough 2 seed to face, in particular in a bracket that had Lloyd and Ocelot there.

LiquidOshawott posted...

If we ever get another we should probably try to get Knuckles a high seed

though knowing his luck he’ll face like, Pikachu or Aerith round two

Yeah, a high seed doesn't necessarily help if you get a bad draw, like Tidus in this bracket with a 4 seed!

But at the very least, Knuckles needs to stay out of the 8/9 slot because the 1 seed will almost certainly be someone out of his league. Even in 2018, he drew one of the weakest 1 seeds in Zero, but that's still out of reach for him.

Well, he could've beaten 2B or Geralt, but yeah, that's it among the 1 seeds in 2018. And that required taking the entire Noble Nine out of the main bracket to get that kind of setup.

Leonhart4 posted...

he could've beaten 2B or Geralt

Could he have? I'm skeptical.

He could have, especially if he got them in round 2. I'd take Knuckles over either of their round 2 opponents, and they didn't beat them by that much.

It's not a guarantee, of course, but it's a possibility

Might be even more likely now in the wake of the Sonic movies

Honestly Sora may be more beatable than either and a more intriguing matchup

I think Knuckles is more likely to win those now, rather than in 2018. Automata and Witcher 3 have nowhere to go but down since then. And we've now had the Sonice movies.

I would love Simon Belmont to be that good but idk

LiquidOshawott posted...

Honestly Sora may be more beatable than either and a more intriguing matchup

Eh, I don't think I'd take Knuckles over Red, and Sora/Red was basically a 50/50 match. Now? Maybe, unless KH4 stuff actually starts coming out and it looks good.

For what it's worth, Knuckles did finish below all the 1 seeds in the 2018 X-Stats, but there's a lot of wonkiness that's hard to account for there.

Last time one of the core contest rules was broken, we got 4-ways. If Knuckles made it to the third round, the contest after would end up being one massive Rumble, with the last place character eliminated each day.

Seanchan posted...

I think Knuckles is more likely to win those now, rather than in 2018. Automata and Witcher 3 have nowhere to go but down since then. And we've now had the Sonice movies.

I actually do not think the latter point there is true, especially on The Witcher 3. It had its biggest year ever in sales after 2018, it came to Switch, it got the show (and the people who turned on the show still love The Witcher 3), The Witcher 4 was announced, and more. Its peak was probably around 2021 or so but 2025 Geralt still beats 2018 Geralt. As for 2B, it’s a similar case but not as significant. Nier Automata is an evergreen title for Square, new people keep discovering it and playing it. It has also had a number of rereleases since then. Both would be stronger now. Having said that I reckon the Sonic cast are all stronger now too so I might still take Knuckles anyway.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3799-chaos-division-round-2-ganondorf-vs-ken

For match pics, round 2 is traditionally closeups or head shots, but Allen put a little twist on the formula this year by using a picture frame with a grainy filter for a vintage look.

As such, sometimes the pictures looked a little cramped, such as this one of Ganondorf, which I dubbed Elevator Ganon (because he looked like the dude who farted in the elevator and was just waiting for everyone else to smell it).

That Ganon pic is worse than any sprite he ever had.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3800-chaos-division-round-2-kirby-vs-glados

Kirby outperformed the Oracle average by about three percent here, although he was close to 70% at the freeze and GlaDOS brought him down with the night vote. There were some people who thought Kirby could repeat his 2008 performance and upset Sonic again, and this was a decent showing if you were hoping for that.

GLaDOS being represented in the picture by a Core was an interesting way to get around the lack of pre-Portal art of GLaDOS, even if the cores should be entirely different characters in their own right.

GlaDOS' getting stronger over the years was an interesting case. I think most of it was just from her initial lack of recognizability. People have always loved 'the evil snarky AI from Portal', but the vast majority of players didn't even know her name at first.

Yeah I think Portal 2 did a huge solid for GLaDOS with more focus and more actual good picture opportunities.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3801-chaos-division-round-2-vivi-vs-altair

Believe it or not, this was considered a tossup by the time it rolled around. Vivi had a very slight advantage in Oracle average and Altair had a very slight advantage in total pickers.

Well, the match itself was a total anticlimax. Vivi had nearly 60% at the freeze and a 1300 vote lead by the end of the first hour. Altair brought the percentage down with his day vote, but he never seriously threatened to cut into the lead at any point.

Zelda vs. Ezio was actually also debated a bit. Not a toss up but still. People expected things of AC.

Well, it was debated pre-contest. After round 1, most people knew Ezio had no chance. Vivi/Altair was debated afterwards based on Altair's beatdown of Liquid. I dunno what the Guru stats were, but I'd imagine Vivi was the overall favorite.

LightningStrikes posted...

Yeah I think Portal 2 did a huge solid for GLaDOS with more focus and more actual good picture opportunities.

Did GLaDOS get any potato pictures?

OrangeCrush980 posted...

Did GLaDOS get any potato pictures?

Nope, although I know people tried

Leonhart4 posted...

Nope, although I know people tried

Granted, I threw everything I could into this one, but how could I not with these three?

Huh, I forgot about that one, I guess, or it blended in and I missed it

I mostly remember the Obama homage picture from that match!

The Obama what now?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3802-mushroom-division-round-2-mario-vs-big-boss

I had high hopes that a night match combined with a good pic would enable Big Boss to break 40% on Mario or maybe come close, but alas, that did not happen. He still ended up with a good final number in the X-Stats though.

I guess one of the highlights of no contests is that we haven't gotten any MAGA match pics.

I mean we didn't get any in 2018 or 2020 so I doubt we'd have to worry about that too much

What is a downside of no post-2020 election contests though is that we haven’t been able to post “STOP THE COUNT!” when it looks like a comeback we don’t like is happening or there is an unusual result before the freeze. I was looking forward to doing that!

Big_Bob posted...

I guess one of the highlights of no contests is that we haven't gotten any MAGA match pics.

Imagine a match pic of Link with his fist up and the rest of the Noble Nine guarding his body

LightningStrikes posted...

What is a downside of no post-2020 election contests though is that we haven’t been able to post “STOP THE COUNT!” when it looks like a comeback we don’t like is happening or there is an unusual result before the freeze. I was looking forward to doing that!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is like this.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3803-mushroom-division-round-2-zidane-tribal-vs-ike

This is probably one of the clearest examples of the 12-hour format determining the outcome. Zidane probably wins this if it's a night match, but it's a day match, so Ike wins. Too bad we couldn't have gotten a full 24 hours of this.

Also it would've been nice if Zidane had won so we could've gotten cleaner X-Stats

All-time favorite "2" game poll today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9837-

Different lineup from when this was run in 2019, too

We've replaced Dark Souls 2, Halo 2, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 with Diablo 2, Silent Hill 2, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3804-mushroom-division-round-2-mega-man-vs-zack-fair

For the second round in a row, Mega Man exceeded expectations against an FFVII character. The Oracle average was only 57.5% here, but Mega Man started the match at nearly 65% before the FFVII and Mega Man European night votes enabled Zack to make this look a little more respectable.