LogFAQs > #915216716

Match 60: Lara Croft vs. Metal Man

Lara 19706
Metal Man 9319

Oh, hey, speaking of "Random (insert game here) Character #3.14159", have a Robot Master from Mega Man 2. I briefly entertained the idea that an attempt at a Draven rally might actually let Metal Man pull this upset, because the types of trolls that would be attracted to this would pick the most anti-establishment choices possible and Lara Croft isn't strong enough to weather that storm. Turns out, Lara's either not as weak as I thought, or nominating random Mega Man characters that don't recur across the entire series was just that stupid an idea. I prefer to think it's the latter.

X's presence in contests has conclusively proven that "Mega Man" refers only to the classic incarnation. Why have we not tried to put other Mega Men into contests? I mean, heck, if you go back far enough Mega Man Legends has seen representation in these contests.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2511-aeon-division-round-1-yuna-vs-roll

...Oh, right. Literally every other member of the Noble Nine had a female member of their franchise seeded higher than this. Marle was a 7-seed. Amy Rose was a 6. Amy Rose! And Roll was only an 8-seed, and probably only got that because people wanted to get every Noble Niner's best female co-star into the contest.

(Just quietly ignore the fact that with Brawl not out yet, no one on the female half of the bracket had actually been in the same game as Solid Snake as of that time. The Boss is easily the strongest female Metal Gear Solid character, and MGS3 was the most recent release in the franchise at the time. This was a far superior option to putting Meryl or Sniper Wolf or someone into the contest.)

If we ever have another half-male, half-female bracket, it should be mixed up rather than split, so that every Round 1 match is male vs. female. Do it evenly, though, so that stronger female characters are against weaker male characters and vice versa. Zelda probably gets a 1-seed and gets to school some 16-seeded male.

Link probably gets to feast on Hat Kid in Round 1, which will confuse people who still don't realize Hat Kid's a girl.

Match 61: Ryu vs. Lloyd Irving

Ryu 19671
Lloyd 9073

Oh hey, Tales doing Tales things again. I am pleased that Tales didn't get to fodder up this contest too much. I am also pleased that Ryu got a chance to do Ryu things. He was consistently one of the strongest non-Noble Niners in the earliest days of the contests, though he hasn't quite been the same since his loss to Bowser in 2005.

After the Lineal Noble Nine had first been proposed, I made a thought experiment as to what if the then-arbitrary cutoff for the elite tier had been placed at something other than 9 (which ultimately ended up being the perfect number, but that's with hindsight; the Noble Nine had been crowned long before 2006 proved that Nine was the correct number, no more and no less). Ryu ended up taking back his own spot twice, once when he avenged his 2005 loss to Bowser in round 1 in 2007 and once when he advanced in second place behind Auron in Round 2 in 2007, only for Cloud to SFF Auron the next round and allow Ryu to advance in second place again. Someone else commented that this was a very Ryu thing to do.

There is one Noble Niner who owns a spot in the Lineal Nine that they previously owned, but it's not their original spot. After losing his original spot to Vincent in 2007, Crono took Sonic's former spot by defeating L-Block in 2008. After losing that spot to Missingno in 2010, the spot changed hands three times in as many rounds in 2013, ultimately landing with Mega Man (who still hadn't recovered from losing to WCC in 2008), who Crono beat this year (though not before taking Mega Man's original spot from Bowser only to give it to Cloud.)
---

Also known as Cyberchao X.