Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 385 ft Min Min, Vaas Montenegro, Faith C.

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is a topic to rate the contest strength of potential newcomers in the current contest environment.

I will pick the characters to rate and discuss for each day from user nominations - whoever the 3 most nominated characters are at that time. If there are more than 3 I will pick randomly. You can nominate any number of characters at any time, but you cannot nominate the same character twice.

All characters who were present in the 2018 Character Battle will NOT be eligible. Otherwise you can nominate any character that has appeared in video games; even comic book characters. This will exclude real-life athletes who have only appeared in long running sports series, however I will accept those who have their own games such as Shaq. I will accept nominations for iconic gaming duos too, if there is a compelling reason for both characters to be linked (either co-starring in a game ala Banjo & Kazooie, or always appearing together like Callie & Marie from Splatoon).

Each day will have a separate topic, and nominations will carry over. As far as actually rating the character's contest strength; I ask that users rank a characters potential strength with one of the following qualifiers - LAW Fodder, Low Fodder, Mid Fodder, High Fodder, Fodder Line, Low Midcarder, Midcarder, High Midcarder, Near Elite, Elite, LAW Tier (capable of beating Link). I will average all the ratings given to a character to come up with their final ranking. I have included a highlighted entrant from Character Battle X on each tier of the strength rankings below, to provide a baseline for each.

Note that LAW Fodder is meant to be a tier reserved for the weakest possible characters to put into a contest. A character will only be placed there if at least 3/4ths of the voters for that day agree on the LAW Fodder rating, and no ratings above Low Fodder are given. If either of those conditions are not met, the character will not be eligible for the LAW Fodder tier.

Current Character Strength Rankings: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P1AIhHywBiLd6VAMZMNEGX-HW2td8u1D0Iw_tzHsORw/edit?usp=sharing

Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KnSBDzppzPK5Ug1zmx8_x0bG4tqFDMPPH2k8J3s8sk/edit?usp=sharing

If you feel that a character has been over or under-ranked, or if a new development has come up that would affect their contest strength, you may nominate them for a re-ranking. You may nominate one character per day for this, and 3 votes are needed to get them on the slate. One character with 3 votes will come up for re-ranking today.

Re-ranking Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6dx-tu-FD1rCxbX69eQwEzE7x1F6nNRNFochYHu1dc/edit?usp=sharing

Results from Day 384:

Balder (Bayonetta) is Low Fodder
Liara TSoni (Mass Effect) is Mid Fodder
Jim Raynor (Starcraft) is Low Fodder

Re-Ranking Result:

Mr. Game & Watch (Game & Watch) is now High Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Min Min (ARMS)
Vaas Montenegro (Far Cry 3)
Faith Connors (Mirror's Edge)

Today's Re-Ranking is:

Captain Olimar (Pikmin)

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Min Min: Mid Fodder - GameFAQs clearly doesn't care one bit about Arms, so Min Min's fan favorite status shouldn't matter here, right? Surprisingly, I'm not so sure about that. It at least felt like the announcement of an Arms character opening the second Fighters Pass was met with a collective groan all those months ago, and yet the wider Smash community seems to have embraced Min Min in a way I suspect they wouldn't have done for someone like Ribbon Girl or especially Spring Man. That's in addition to the waifu factor that Ribbon Girl would have also had going for her in this spot and the honeymoon phase any Arms character would be going through in Min Min's spot right now, of course. However, I don't think those two points alone would have been enough to propel any other Arms character above Low Fodder.

Vaas: Low Fodder - Far Cry 3 is not the most well-remembered game today, but that doesn't seem to be because of any major change in consensus opinions. It's just kind of what happens to all but the biggest AAA open-world games on a site like GameFAQs, regardless of how big they were at the time (and Far Cry 3 was quite big in 2012-13). Vaas was and still is clearly the game's standout character in addition to starting as its main antagonist, and he should be able to preserve a modicum of the not-completely-awful strength he displayed in 2013 as such.

Faith: Low Fodder - Mirror's Edge feels like a great fit for the cult hit label, and it's certainly not a very GameFAQsy game. However, I do believe pretty much everyone who's played Faith's game likes her, plus she has some potential waifu appeal.

Olimar: High Fodder - Compared to G&W, another mildly popular quirky Smasher, Olimar trades Melee for a source series with some actual relevance. That's obviously a very negative trade on pure game strength merits, but it allows Olimar to stand out in a way an effectively Smash-only character who's never been a casual favorite can't match. In fact, Pikmin 1 and 2 might both be just as strong as Olimar himself, plus he has that 2013 match to hang his helmet on.

I'll also nominate Rin Tohsaka for reranking. Quite simply, I doubt any VN character (besides the Ace Attorney cast, if you count it) is sufficiently well-known to exceed Low Fodder here. From what I recall, the crux of my original argument was that Rin would benefit greatly from the waifu factor I've mentioned twice before. Even along those lines, though, we have fellow Fate character Saber at Low Fodder and both Pyra and Mythra from the far more popular Xenoblade 2 at Mid Fodder, all of whom probably draw more votes along those lines than Rin. I'm not convinced we've instead underranked any of those aforementioned three, none of whom have much else going for them.

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Agree with metalmind and re-rank Rin

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agree with metalmind's ratings.

re-rank Lilith (Borderlands)

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Day 386 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78823060

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