LogFAQs > #915512696

Match 87: Auron vs. Vincent Valentine

Auron 16396
Vincent 12989

Bracketmakers were not fooled here; 37.61% may not sound high for a second-round match, but it's higher than three of the previous four winners. Besides, Vincent was a slight underdog in Round 1, and Auron himself had under 70% prediction percentage in Round 1. So let's look at the Gurus instead!

...Whoa.

Board 8 loves to hold on to the past. Once they're convinced that someone is strong, it takes a while for them to accept that they aren't. And in particular, there's this feeling that even if a Final Fantasy 7 character is naturally a little weaker than their opponent, they'll pull off the win anyway if that opponent is from a Final Fantasy game other than 7. And honestly, FF7 does have a damn good record against other FF games. Squall beat Aerith twice in 2007, and Auron beat Aerith in 2010, and Kefka beat Zack in 2013. But that's it for FF7 characters losing to characters from other FF games, and it's not just Cloud and Seph who keep the record afloat--Vincent beat Squall in 2005, and Tifa, Aerith, and even Zack all have wins against other FF characters. (Though admittedly Aerith's is pretty weak.) And when something doesn't fit Board 8's preconceived narrative, they like to come up with excuses for why the result isn't "legitimate". The single highest-profile Board 8 failing is Knuckles beating Magus when literally no one in Guru, Oracle, or Board Odds Project predicted it. It no longer qualifies as the "Most Embarrassing Result" because that's measured by the difference between the Gurus and the casuals and the casuals were surprised by that too, but it was a complete blindsiding and it came because Magus was fed to Crono in 2004 and rather than trying to figure out what the degree of SFF was, the adjusted X-Stats just gave him his 2003 number, which was entirely bogus. The reason I bring this up is because nearly everyone wanted to make excuses for Vincent's 2013 performance, namely that he'd been sabotaged by a picsmith. (They refused to use "rallies" as an excuse, even though that was a much better one, because admitting that Mewtwo was rallied meant they couldn't call him a FRAUD for not retaining his 2013 strength. And yes, that is a perfectly valid explanation for why Vincent finished in third; Phoenix's consistent overseeding alone should be evidence that his fanbase is dedicated, and as such he retained a greater portion of his natural strength in the presence of a rally than Vincent did.) But in spite of all the justifications available for Vincent, 95.625% of Gurus picked Auron! The Oracles even more so, at 98.5%, though that's understandable because Oracle picks are made far closer to the match itself and Vincent's struggles with Magus made Auron > Vincent even more obvious than it already was.

We don't have a list for the matches where we outpredicted the casuals by the greatest amount, but this one probably has to rank up there pretty high. 58.01% difference. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of our greatest "triumphs" came in later rounds, because prediction percentages naturally wane there but a lot of times we're still nearly unanimous where Noble Niners are concerned.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.