LogFAQs > #939582091

This next writeup is pretty big (2000 words) and it's 3 am, so please don't be shy if there are typos to fix them in the wiki article. I'm going to sleep after this one, boys.

Division 2 Semifinal: (3)Resident Evil 2 vs (2)Bloodborne

(3)Resident Evil 2 - 13421 [50.16%]
(2)Bloodborne - 13333 [49.84%]
Total Votes - 26754
Prediction Percentage - 32.58%

This was by far the best match of this entire contest. It had everything. High stakes, lots of hype leading up to the poll, a ton of controversy, a bunch of trolls trolling each other, a bunch of whining, a bunch of rallying, and some far-reaching consequences. It's also the easiest photo finish match to analyze in the history of these contests. Resident Evil 2 won because the mods on r/Bloodborne mysteriously and inexplicably disallowed rallies midway through the poll. Had those rally threads been allowed for the entire match, Bloodborne wins by around 1000 votes. Maybe more. Had those rally threads never happened, Resident Evil 2 wins this match by about the same amount. That was the singular and obvious deciding factor here. Read on if you want the juice, but that's really all you need to know.

In the leadup, Resident Evil 2 wasn't tested much. It easily beat some anime VN thing in round one, and easily beat Doom 2016 in round two. It was clear RE2 meant business in this contest, and had a boost from a mid-contest series release at its back. Bloodborne's path, while similarly easy, was a bit different. It had a simple 2-15 match in round one, and easily beat Fire Emblem Awakening in round two. But during that Awakening match, rallies took hold on the Bloodborne subreddit for some inexplicable reason, allowing it to beat Fire Emblem easier than it perhaps deserved to.

On both sides, everyone figured the match would be close and everyone figured rallies would play a part. Everyone was definitely right on all points, and we were in for one hell of a match here when the poll finally decided to start. Of course a match like this would start '''two hours late''', because what's a classic match without a dumb controversy thrown in? What the hell? There was apparently a site glitch with a site update paired with the contest switching from four matches per day to two, and it caused the poll not to start. Amazing. When this thing was being delayed, most of us figured it would be delayed for 24 hours.

Nope! The poll started just after 10 PM EST, and... inexplicably kept going. No delay, no announcement, nothing. Seriously, Allen? You did a good job in this contest, but you massively botched this match. To put in perspective how stupid it was to just not delay the poll by a full 24 hours, we hadn't had a 2+ hour delay to start a contest poll since Sonic vs Samus all the way back in 2002 -- 18 years ago! Largely because of that match and a few other controversial matches with much smaller delays, the poll start times were automated. Any glitches since then, such as in 2004 when Jill Valentine versus Ryu Hayabusa got taken over by CATS, resulted in full 24 hour delays.

But no delay here, for some reason. This delay also affected Mass Effect 2 versus Horizon Zero Dawn, but it didn't affect that match so who cares. Some people might say this match result is tainted, much like how people to this day do not feel the Sonic/Samus 2002 match was legitimate. I don't personally think it's a tainted result, but it was still ''very'' dumb not to delay it.

When the poll got going and some trends materialized, Bloodborne got some early bracket votes, and then Resident Evil 2 started wresting control after the initial freeze. After a small bit of Bloodborne resistance, Resident Evil 2 started climbing overnight. There were some stalls and cuts here and there, but overall Resident Evil 2 had clear control of the match and was climbing fairly easily. It won the evening, it won the midnight hours, and then as the overnight vote started.... the match hit a stall point. Europe is apparently not a fan of Resident Evil 2, so things stayed deadlocked until around 4 am. America voted for Resident Evil 2, and Europe was voting Bloodborne. Things stayed in the 350 range for awhile, with Resident Evil 2's lead peaking at 400.

And then it happened.

https://i.imgur.com/DjIBdiD.mp4

r/Bloodborne had a very widely seen rally thread go up, and Bloodborne was off to the races. It was the most obvious and effective rally in this entire contest outside of the ending of Shovel Knight vs Octopath Traveler. That 400 vote lead that Resident Evil 2 had? Gone by 6 am, and Bloodborne just ran right past it en route to taking full control of this match. Had things continued like this, Bloodborne would have easily won. It was ''flying'' in this poll, and there was a vote swing of almost 600 votes in about 4 hours during the dead zone. This match was as over as over could be, and then..... poof. Gone.

Just as quickly as the rally happened, the mods on the sub inexplicably deleted the threads and banned them for the rest of the match. Resident Evil 2, seeing an opportunity to turn things around, quickly pounced. Bloodborne had a ton of momentum and a lead near 200 votes, and though some word of mouth would remain for Bloodborne for the rest of the poll, it was nothing compared to a dedicated rally thread being there. This allowed Resident Evil 2 to come back, and come back it did. For the next few hours in the morning, Resident Evil 2 went through the painstaking process of erasing Bloodborne's 200 vote lead, and tied it at around 10 am.

This trend favored Resident Evil 2, right? ...nope!

When people think of insane stalls and ties in contest matches, this is the gold standard that everyone cites: http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/node/22?matchnum=1658&num=2

For about 12 hours starting at 8 am, that match was ''agonizing'' to watch. That magic will never, ever be repeated. The stakes were insane, the match was insane, the hype was insane, and on top of all that, you had two titans in pure deadlock for half the match with live updating going on. On top of ''that'', Chrono Trigger didn't get buried by the day vote against a Zelda game. Ultimately, the night vote showed up to end that match. The stall was great, but once Chrono Trigger took the lead at night, we kind of figured the match was over.

Resident Evil 2 and Bloodborne, thanks to the final ten hours of this poll, belong in any discussion among all-time classic matches in these contests. At 9:40 AM EST, Bloodborne had a 9 vote lead. This match stayed completely and thoroughly tied, with some small blips, for the next '''ten hours'''. When it looked like Resident Evil 2 might finally make a push to build s lead, Bloodborne smacked it down. When it looked like Bloodborne might finally take a lead, Resident Evil 2 smacked it down. It was a joy to watch it all unfold, though I will say that in spots like this during contests, there's usually one entrant that looks better while the other is holding on for dear life. Bloodborne was definitely the one holding on for dear life here, because almost every push to actually take a lead was going RE2's way.

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