LogFAQs > #948047120

Division 1 Round 2: Marth, Duke Nukem, Altair, and Lucario

Marth - 30755 [23.16%]
Duke Nukem - 41268 [31.07%]
Altair - 40504 [30.5%]
Lucario - 20288 [15.28%]
Total Votes - 132815

For a lot of people, BrawlFEAR died in round 1, which makes sense. Brawl by itself clearly wasn't enough to make a weak character win contest matches. The final nail in that coffin where it was buried for good was likely this match, where Lucario followed up his trash round 1 showing with.... whatever you want to call this. Pokemon after 151 clearly aren't anything in contests without the joke factor, and Lucario bombed so badly in this contest that he was never invited back. Seriously, his pair of matches in '08 are his only showing. He was that awful. Even worse, his being here completely screwed Marth out of making it into round 3. Marth outright won his poll in round 1 where Duke Nukem got second place, but any hopes of Marth advancing here died with Lucario's leech job. Marth held on for about 30 minutes, but then he just totally died.

The shocker of all shockers though was Duke Nukem being out in first place when this poll first started. Altair getting second place was equally surprising, but Duke himself just blew everyone away with how good he looked. To put this into some perspective, here are the guru numbers for this match.

https://i.imgur.com/8MSCw9D.png

6 people picked Duke Nukem to get first place here. They deserve to be immortalized, so here are their names: TheRye, alblito, Smurf, Rhyhorn, Han, and LinkLegend27. You guys are geniuses or crazy men, and probably both! Good picking. Only 19 gurus had Duke making it into round 3. Equally shocking was Altair; only 17 had him making round 3.

Altair making a hyped new guy run makes some sense. Great character design, popular series, and in most contests we see a new character or game make a run. Duke however makes no sense at all, and I say this as someone who picked the guy to get second place here. It was pure luck, because I thought Altair would be crap and Lucario would SFF Marth into the ground. What actually happened was even sillier. Once Altair shook Marth off, Duke and Altair were locks to advance. Altair actually made a crazy push for first place here, but it was too little too late. Duke had a 2700 lead at one point, and Altair cut almost 2000 votes off of that to lose out by only 750 or so. It was super impressive performance by both characters, and Duke almost blowing the lead does not take away from how shocking this all was.

Reason being, here is Duke's entire contest history up until 2008.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/945-north-division-round-1-duke-nukem-vs-iori-yagami
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/974-north-division-round-2-alucard-vs-duke-nukem
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1331-west-division-round-1-ryu-vs-duke-nukem
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1734-midgar-division-round-1-cloud-strife-vs-duke-nukem
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2893-division-8-round-1-duke-ike-gordon-guybrush
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2910-division-8-round-2-duke-gordon-sonic-sub-zero

This dude was bottomfeeder trash for years, and only advanced in 2007 because he was up against a motley crew of losers. This year, however, was no fluke. Duke didn't just squeak by here; he <i>destroyed</i> Nintendo in this one, in one of the most randomly insane matches we'll ever have in a contest. It's up there with Kefka > Arthas and DMC5 > Tropical Freeze on the WTF scale, and it's within reason to assume Duke Nukem will never make round 3 of a contest again.

Balls of steel, son. You got em. Sure his destiny was getting destroyed in round 3, but for a guy like Duke Nukem, making it into round 3 is basically his version of winning a contest outright.

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