LogFAQs > #939824495

In the midst of what was easily the best match of the contest so far and probably top 3 overall, there was of course talks of rallies and hypocrisy and everything in between. All the things about what you are allowed to think and what you are not. Shovel Knight used a rally to win in the end, so clearly any anti-rally person should be against it right? Oh, but Octopath had a big rally earlier, so it was mostly a counter, meaning Shovel Knight should be the game you cheer for as an anti-rally person. Oh, but wait, Shovel Knight did have a rally up first, so clearly its the villain, right? As an anti-rally person, you must figure out how the match, where the games are within a percentage of each other, would have ended with no outside interference and thats the game you can root for. Except its hard to judge, so someone will disagree with you either way, its probably best to just not be happy at all then. If youre pro-rallies, the only other option, then you had the time of your life, but you better have had the same stance in any other match with rallies regardless of size, otherwise youre a major hypocrite and thats no good.

Its probably obvious what I think of all that. I know, Im beating a dead horse with some of the points but let me just make it clear how much I think all of the above is a major load of s***. First of all, the good old idea that you either have to support all rallies or dislike all rallies. I wont ever hear counterarguments here because it makes no sense. Why am I obligated to enjoy Draven making Mega Man X and Ryu look like complete fodder on his way to swallow a contest whole if I enjoyed two games today rallied a bit back and forth using their subreddits? Nothing else in the worlds works that way. Its no goddamn different that telling me I have to enjoy every single Final Fantasy game if I like one of them and no one is doing that. Its not hypocritical by default. Sure, its probably hypocritical if you hate a certain type of rally influence in one match because it knocks one of your favorite games out, but then rally yourself in another match in similar fashion to help another favorite game of yours out. That does not mean youre a hypocrite if you enjoyed todays match, but hated Undertale and Draven and I really cant stress this enough.

Youre also allowed to dislike the tweet or the pinned rally more than the one rally this match had that didnt do as much, because theyre not the same thing. Its my clear observation that most people just want exciting matches. If rallies make a match more exciting, thats great! Thats likely what happened today, but people got called hypocrites left and right if they had previous anti-rally in any context. If a rally makes what would have been a close match no contest, then thats not great. Its very simple! The last part goes in particular if it flips a result, and even more it goes on for several rounds to take away interesting matches from us. Still, were actually pretty consistent with these things. We disliked the rallies when they didnt flip a result too, just look at Melee last contest or Bloodborne this one. A lot of also has to do with the fact that people want the games to fight on equal ground, so if one game can pull all the outside forces in the world, but the other one can pull none, then its not as well liked as if both pull people in. Thats completely reasonable!

My own stance on rallies is somewhere in between. A lot of the issues with them these days is our very small votals, which makes it easy for a small really to have a big impact. If we still had 100k in total votes each match, then those small 100 vote boosts would barely be noticed and even some of our larger rallies this contest would be negligible. I like the idea that we give our site attention elsewhere and boost votals, but I would enjoy it a lot more, if people stayed around afterward. It makes predicting less fun most of the time because its so random what gains traction. I can appreciate a match like today despite rallies. I had a lot of fun following it all day, but I did not find Melee and Undertale fun for giving me one good match at best while likely ruining all of SMB3 vs. RBY, RBY vs. SMW, CT vs. FFVII, RBY vs. SM64, CT vs. RBY and CT vs. OoT (or however those wouldve turned out). Yes, the first one happened, but it was heavily influence and one of my best predictions ever was heavily clouded by the rally spillover. I suppose, Im generally against them, but its circumstantial and I never really get angry I just care a bit less, and I would mind less if our natural votals werent as bad.

Finally, I was rooting for Shovel Knight from before this match began. I love the game and I had it in my bracket too. Not only that, I would have been eliminated in the guru today if Shovel Knight didnt win because Luster and I have identical brackets post round 2. I could go on a while about my passion for Shovel Knight, but you get the point. I was loudly cheering for Shovel Knight when the excitement was at its peak and I was happy that It won. I never stated that I was happy with the way it won, and I might have expressed earlier in the match that I thought it was a shame that one of the subreddits was pinned instead of zero or two. Suddenly, I was hypocritical for being happy when a game won that rallied itself past the goal line in the end. I was not being rude about it. Seriously? You are not a hypocrite if you hope the game youre cheering for gets the same support the opposing game has had. Period. Its not too surprising, but when not only trolls, but plenty of users were throwing the word hypocrite around back and worth, I wanted to bring it up. I was genuinely a bit sad at the end of that match that it did not seem like I could be happy without fueling that discussion. Was I just supposed to stop rooting for the game in the middle of the match because of how it turned out?

Regardless of what you think about rallies and what you think others can think about rallies, these contests are all about rooting for your favorite games. Ultimately, its all about having fun and hoping that the games that made your decade better does well. Predicting and analyzing and all that stuff is secondary to that. Could we all f***ing stop being jerks to each other for cheering for our favorite games, please? Its a shame we couldnt have this match without having these pointless discussions near the end, but make no mistake, this was a fantastic and memorable match. In a few days, round 2 was already way better than round 1.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.