Board 8 > transience presents: the top 75 matches in contest history: part 2, the top 25.

(+) Yeah! (+)

2003 is the only year I finished in the top 50 because I literally just picked my favorite character to win it all: Cloud Strife.
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TheRock1525 posted...

2003 is the only year I finished in the top 50 because I literally just picked my favorite character to win it all: Cloud Strife.

After all, that's what the character battles were supposed to be.
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Great list - I enjoyed your balanced and equable assessments of each match, the best example being your final paragraph on the Link/Shepard/Draven match.

Despite Cloud being my favourite character, I would argue that the 2003 match holds less relevance each year as he loses to Link more and more - especially as the best chance of beating Link nowadays is a rally that catches fire. And as for the argument that it 'saved' contests, well... who can say? Nonetheless, I was still glad you put it at #1 over L-Block, which I did not find funny no matter how significant it was.

Think we could have had a bit more of the recent Poke-fear of recent years, like:

OoT/RBY/FFVIII/MGS & OoT/RBY/Melee/FFX - I remember the months of debate about how much SFF RBY was being held back by after these matches. These performances were completely crazy.

Charizard v Bowser & Charizard v Mario - Charizard may now be weaker than Pika, but the inflamed version we saw in 2010 was awesome, dismissing Bowser like he was nothing then making Mario sweat.

Squirtle > Cloud - I mean it's 2013 which was just a mess of a contest, but still. Even now beating Cloud is no mean feat.

And perhaps a nod to a strong performance from a western 2010s game:

Skyrim v Goldeneye and/or Metroid Prime

Or a non to how even non-elite 90s games usually trounce strong/popular games from the last two decades:

SMRPG v RE4
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Weird how a match could create such a war between xstats lovers and haters.

When the best answer is probably that they are like all other computational engineering methods: they work, as long as there is a human to interpret what the results mean, understand what is actually happening, and analyse if they can be used case by case.

Samus is stronger than Mario among non-nintendo fans, and weaker than Mario among nintendo fans. That much seems obvious now.
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That's a good match for #1 as Link/Cloud 2003 is the true worst match of all times.
Sure Draven/Link/Shepard "ruined" one contest, but had Link won , he would have been removed way earlier and not have "ruined" 10 more contest !

Really enjoyed reading this, good write up.
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here's a list of matches that I considered but didn't make it:

Mega Man/Charizard/Zero (2013)
Dante/Vincent (2005)
Cloud/Samus (2004)
Dante/Terra (2005)
Link/Magus (2003)
Dante/Amaterasu/Leon/Pikachu (2007)
FF7/CT/SM64/007 (2009)
Kuja/Master Hand (Spring 2005)
Snake/Sora (2005)
Cloud/Sonic (2003)
LTTP/FF6 (Spring 2004)
Mario RPG/SF2 (Spring 2004)
Ocarina/MGS/RBY/FF8 (2009)
Charizard/Bowser (2010)
Snake/Sephiroth (2010)
KH1/KH2 (2010 GOTD)
Mario 3/RBY (2015)
Undertale/RBY (2015)
Tifa/MMX (2018)
Zelda/Mario (2018)
Tifa/Vyse (2005)
Magus/Ganondorf (2003)
Frog/Master Chief (2004)
Gordon Freeman/Tina Armstrong (2002)
Crono/Lara (2002)
Pokemon Gold/Xenogears (Spring 2004)
FFT/MGS (Spring 2004)
Mario 3/Zelda 1 (Spring 2004)
Kefka/Diablo (Spring 2005)
Master Chief/DK (2005)
Master Chief/Sub-Zero (2006)
Yoshi/Dante (2006)
Zack/Wario/Cecil/Jade (2008)
Shepard/Magus/Sandbag/Sonic (2008)
Super Metroid/SMK/Sonic 1/Gunstar Heroes (2009)
MGS4/Brawl/TP/RE4 (2009)
Ryu/Dante (2010)
Cloud/Snake (2010)
MGS3/SOTC (2010 GOTD)
Squirtle/Cloud/Leon (2013)
Mario RPG/MGS3 (2015)
Bowser/Kirby (2018)
Mario/Sephiroth (2018)
Mega Man/Crono (2018)
L-Block/Ryu/some other guys (2008)

I can do a quick blurb on any of these if anyone has a specific interest.
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transience posted...

Anyway, this match ended up being a bit of a snoozer when compared to other matches in the top 25. Importance doesn't equal drama. It didn't get as many votes as you would expect -- if I remember right, I think there was something with a redesign and poll placement having shifted during that? This should be the biggest vote total of all time.

I read through some archived stats topics from that contest and some people didn't like the redesign and how it changed the poll placement (being located farther down on the homepage). The rest of the contest suffered from reduced vote totals after the redesign. It would take until the 2005 Character Battle for vote totals to get above 100000 votes on a regular basis, despite an unchanged poll placement. By the time 2005 arrived, the site was pretty familiar with the new poll placement.

HaRRicH posted...

Seriously. The game was over-hyped and flopped in the contest, but WWF No Mercy is one of the greatest games of all time.

It also produced one of the funniest matches I've ever had to make a prediction for in the Oracle Challenge:

http://www.oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SC2k10&type=match&match=22

A minority of the board was hyping the shit out of WWF No Mercy in the last GotD contest to the point where they had the board very scared of the upset happening. Even those who thought the upset wouldn't happen were going low in their predictions. Even I didn't feel safe picking Fire Emblem in the Battle Challenge contest, but I still went with it.

Despite Board 8's wrestling community making up a very small portion of the total board, the amount of power they had in striking fear into everyone else was unreal.
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Nice anallysis man! I agree about the number 1 pick. It will alway sbe the most important one.
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red sox 777 posted...

Predicted MWC reactions:

Mario/Cloud 2002:

Mario stuffing, totally outrageous, the contest lost all credibility.

Mario/Crono 2002:

Mario stuffing again and getting away with it again, CJayC has the gall to accuse Crono of doing what Mario did, an outrage.

Mario/Samus 2005:

Nothing to see here, move along.

2007 final:

Stuffing. Stuffing. More stuffing.

Link/Cloud 2003:

The most important match in contest history.

Pretty much yes.

Although on Mario Samus Ill add on Mario has NEVER not one single year in this contests history been stronger than Samus. He probably also cheated in this match. Because if you dont think his fans are depraved enough to care about a 60-40 win instead of 54-46 you dont know Mario fans.

ExThaNemesis posted...

I wish I had positive emotions about Link/Draven but all it does is make me furious.

this result is why when people are like "oooh look at how good of a job Allen did" when he put in pretty much the bare minimum for this last contest, I have to laugh and can't give him any credit. This match should've ended with Link capping the biggest comeback of all time to slay the outside evil but that [redacted] worthless piece of [redacted] who runs the site didn't do his job.

The match should've been re-started, or extended for an hour. DDOS or not, Link lost an hour and a half of his best time when he was absolutely slaughtering the poll. Without that assist, Draven loses.

And don't let me forget the steaming garbage piles who voted for Shepard, either. They suck.

Everything about that match sucks and if you still like SBAllen after it you should feel bad.

Also, all this....

But more. Ill say the more later. Needless to say, I have words about the guy who is at fault here...

transience posted...

5.



This was the original contest miracle. Think about it: Mario just beat Cloud but was in a fight for his life against Crono? If I had been watching 2002 closely, this would have probably been the most shocking contest result of all time for me. Crono was already on a miracle run with beating Lara and Snake. But Mario? After he beat Cloud?

This is the birth of our greatest contest rivalry. It hasn't been a rivalry since 06 or so, but the four matches from 02-05 really defined contest lore. There's three more if you want to talk about the spring 2004 matchups, including CT/Mario 3 which didn't make this list but felt like a really big deal at the time. It was Crono and Mario's biggest games facing off yet again.

I wish we had match updates or something here. The oral histories that are out there, plus Ceej, say that Crono stuffed the hell out of this poll, and a few votes were removed. Who knows exactly how many -- 2002 feels like the dark ages. No oracle, no match updates, no Guru, no nothing.

Chance are the stuffing was due to the Mario/Cloud result. I don't let pesky facts like that get in the way of a narrative though. This match elevated Crono into the very top tier which is really where he belonged given where Square would go in 2003 and 2004. Maybe he doesn't belong to at 49.95 on Mario, but I love that he got there. It made 2003 better. I doubt Mario and Crono get matched up in 03 and 04 if not for 02. You can tell that even CJayC liked that this was a thing.

Mario cheated
Crono didnt.
CJayC is a fucking Nintendo fanboy.

Stuff it!

KamikazePotato posted...

Actually that would be a fun discussion - which matches have sparked the most "I-told-you-so" reactions? Mario/Samus is the obvious #1 but I'm honestly drawing a blank after that.

Regardless, that was a really good writeup. This has been a fun topic.

From one individual the record is GOING TO BE Zelda>Snake.

Trust me...

transience posted...

Kuja/Master Hand (Spring 2005)

I was thinking this was your biggest snub, but relooking over your list I also see no mention of Ridley/Diablo and that's pretty surprising.

Diablo came between Starcraft's run and Kerrigan's bomb, it was a 2/7-seed match, Ridley came before Samus was rSFF'd into oblivion, and we were dealing with two newcomers who we thought were division contenders. For many people -- myself included -- Ridley/Diablo was the reason why we didn't have a perfect bracket that contest.

If the Villian Contest deserves a rep here, it's Ridley/Diablo (though Kuja/Master Hand is infinitely funnier).
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the funniest VC match had to be CATS/Ansem

edit: in regards to Ridley/Diablo, it was only notable because of how dire the villains contest was. that division was the only real debate thanks to Bowser/Seph/Ganon dominating the other divisions. Diablo/Ridley/Kefka/Bison determined the winner of that contest but had absolutely no relevance after we finished that division.

edit 2: despite that, I have pretty fond memories of the villain contest. I might rank it over a couple of mainline contests, maybe 2008 or the series contest.
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transience posted...

By 2013, we had seen ? Blocks, Matt the Mii, Hogger, Mudkip, WWF No Mercy, you name it.

Some of those were in 2007 though.

Solid list. It's fun to hear about board reactions to things I wasn't here for. Following contests is really something else when you don't really think about contests too much.
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transcience posted...

the funniest VC match had to be CATS/Ansem

...fair.
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_SecretSquirrel posted...

No Mercy is probably second or third on my list of favorite games from GotD.

Why anyone thought it was beating Fire Emblem: PoR is beyond me though.

I'm still confused by the result, those N64 wrestling games were dope, and I say this as someone that grew out of WWF 17 years ago (compared to the manchildren on this board). Who would have thought bullshit Fire Emblem game #1792 would win it? I still stand by this pick
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Diablo sure came and went didn't he? Star of the Villains Contest, looks fine in 2005, then loses to Arthas in 2007 and is never heard from again.
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I remember in my analysis for that match I called Fire Emblem a 5th tier Nintendo series, but then I called WWF No Mercy a 5th tier Nintendo 64 game which is why PoR would win.

Didn't expect that big of a blowout though.
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I think what it comes down to is that wrestling games are basically like sports games. If you don't care about the sport, you typically don't even consider playing the game.
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Blurb about SMB3 v LoZ please?
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yeah, this was a match of results vs. expectations. Zelda basically killed the first 3 rounds. 75% on Tetris is huge, a result that made us underestimate it when it went up against Mega Man 2 in the next contest. Mario 3, on the other hand, had to endure franchise voting from Final Fantasy, which it could could only get to 60% on. seriously, does FF1 even beat Tetris?

but then you stop and think and, yeah, NES is the only generation where the Mario came has truly outlasted the Zelda game. not a lot of people still play Zelda 1. it's a little more antiquated, while Mario 3, especially at the time, was the very best of what Mario offered. it was the unquestionable #1 Mario game in 2004.

this was also part of the "all Zelda final four" hype that I've talked about elsewhere, and Zelda went down fairly softly to Mario 3 after one of the most hyped performances you'll ever see going through 3 rounds. Spring 2004 is strange in how much garbage was in there. I like Zelda 1 but I had to vote Adventure because, come on, look at that matchup. Mario 3, on the other hand, looked like it could stand up to CT after beating such a killer down so easily. I think the Mario 3/CT consensus was like CT with 52%.

I guess that's a little more than a blurb!
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Samus Mario aside your top 10 is good. I probably put the top 10 at something like...

10. Mario/Samus (2005)
9. Link/Crono/Vincent/Zero (2007)
8. Starcraft/Melee (Spring 2004)
7. Final Fantasy VII/Ocarina of Time (Spring 2004)
6. Draven/Link/Shepard (2013)
5. Starcraft/Wind Waker (Spring 2004)
4. Mario/Cloud (2002)
3. Mario/Crono (2003)
2. L-Block/Link/Cloud/Snake (2007)
1. Cloud/Link (2003)

Other things of note.

Highest Master Chief 07 match would be much higher. Definitely top 25. Also would've probably picked r2 or r3 rather than r1.

Probably Ansem/CATS and Kuja/Hand on there. Definitely snubs imo. Maybe Trainers v Ryu/Ken too as the one token Rivalry Rumble match worth mentioning.

Less 2015 and 2018 in general. 2013 really felt like the final hurrah for these contests for me. 2015 just felt like a footnote, and 2018 will soon too. Once you can turn a 65-35 with only like 8000 votes these things feel kinda unimportant in general.

Mario/Crono 02 is somewhere in the next few. I feel like 03 is the one people always talk about and what made it a real rivalry and 02 is just kinda the necessary first in the series, but *shrug maybe I'm wrong. I wasn't here till 2004 after all.
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transience posted...

I guess that's a little more than a blurb!

you didn't skimp on it, for sure! Thanks.
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Kuja/Hand is top 20 material imo. That really showed me the extent of Smash's influence on character strength vs their original series.
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that's one way to look at it. I think the proper way is to say how bad Kuja, and FF9 was, though. it has been nice to see a resurgence, at least with Zidane, but he's still pretty bad compared to Squall.
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Eh, I think Kuja is a pretty polarizing villain even for fans of the game
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Zidane almost assuredly beats Master Hand in 05. Kuja was always going to be a pretty weak villain. Especially in 05. Thonghate was a lot more real those days. It was a different time.

If anything I feel like Master Hand was as much a warning sign for L-Block as Smashfear. I'm sure a lot of his suppprt back then was from "LOL IT'S A GLOVE" rather than Smash support.
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I think I agree with that
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SMB3/LoZ is important because it was the first ever user-submitted match pic and the SMB3 pic was mine so I had the first ever user match pic

I've never had another one since

Also I think Ansem/CATS was like really lowkey an important match because it taught me that a character like CATS was not literally incapable of winning a match. It was kind of eye opening

For a while we thought certain characters would just get the same percentage in every match. CATS was one of those, IIRC? It was a big argument against him in the Villains contest. Some people thought he couldn't get over 20%.
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oh Lopen I missed your post

Mario/Crono 02 is notable for starting that rivalry, I think, whereas 03 is most notable for being super sketchy + landing on the same percentage a second time. I don't think 03 works quite as well without 02, basically. like, if Frog/Master Chief had a previous 50/50 and then 2004 happens, that's a much bigger deal.
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I would have snuck Frog/Master Chief into the lower reaches of the top 75 just because the crazy closeness of the match makes it feel "canonical" in a way even if it didn't really have future impact

02 is still notable yeah dont get me wrong. and makes 03 that much more infamous by existing but I just think 03 was ultimately the more important match even if it couldn't exist as it was without 02. Which I admit makes it tricky to place.

It's kinda like the same idea that you couldn't have L-Block finals without L-Block getting through earlier rounds. It's still the final that's most important, even though it can't exist without gaining momentum in earlier rounds.
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ayyy I'm #1.

BGE 04 is what prompted me to make an account on this site, but that 03 Link/Cloud match was the impetus for my name.

Also I think Draven/Snake/Samus also deserves to me mentioned somewhere. I know after he beat Link it was pretty much a foregone conclusion, but its still important that he finishes the job and (until this year) ended character battles forever.
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I think that Link match just finished me for Draven. after that I barely even paid attention during his matches because what else could really happen?
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David Hayter could rally for Snake and it could work

best moment of CBIX hands down
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Link/Draven/Shepard was sort of the culmination of GameFAQs contests. Nothing can ever match that again. The rally, the votals, the drama, and the (possible) DDOS attack, it has everything you could ever want in a match.
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Snake winning over Draven because the League subreddit took down the rally topic would have been awful. You can't just win a contest without beating Link fair and square.
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red sox 777 posted...

Snake winning over Draven because the League subreddit took down the rally topic would have been awful. You can't just win a contest without beating Link fair and square.

I mean Draven didn't beat Link fair and square either
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the biggest issue with Link/Draven is that it happened in round 3

we were lucky to get L-Block/Link/Cloud in the final

edit: actually, we were really lucky across the board. L slowly graduated from weak opponents to strong ones and culminated in the best possible final 3.
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merry christmas everyone! my kids woke me up at 4am because that's what you do to your parents when you're young. here's a list of my favourite matches (completely subjective):

20 - Samus/Mario (2018)
19 - Cloud/Link (2003)
18 - Ryu/Dante (2010)
17 - MGS4/SOTC (2010)
16 - Wesker/Ken (2010)
15 - Pokemon RBY/Majora (2009)
14 - Mega Man/Sonic (2005)
13 - Mega Man/Charizard/Zero (2013)
12 - Ansem/CATS (2005)
11 - Vivi/Mario/Ganondorf (2013)
10 - Chrono Trigger/FFX (2015)
9 - Halo/Starcraft (2004)
8 - Sub-Zero/Master Chief (2006)
7 - Mario/Crono (2002)
6 - Xenogears/Pokemon Gold (2004)
5 - L-Block/Link (2007)
4 - Starcraft/Wind Waker (2004)
3 - Super Metroid/Majora's Mask (2015)
2 - Snake/L/Sonic/Squall (2007)
1 - Chrono Trigger/LTTP (2004)

the more interesting and more revealing list is probably least favourite matches of all time. maybe tomorrow
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I'm sort of sad because I can't really think of 'favorite' matches I have. Aside from Mega Man/Sonic and Mega Man/Charizard/Zero, I can't really think of any matches in contest history that had a result that was particularly awesome for me so I guess the most interesting matches to me are just the ones that were close

I'm pretty contrarian I guess

MGS2/SotC would be one of my favorites. I was against the whole board on that one, it was close, and it pulled it out in the end.
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wow no DK Vs. Aya, that was like the first back and forth.
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Teacher saying "I go for teenagers, myself"

Kawakami's spirit is so strong that it affects the previous games.
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alright, seems like that's it for this topic series. thanks for joining me, everyone. see you next contest! if anyone wants to add these writeups to the wiki then go for it, but if not that's fine too. up to you all.
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