Board 8 > About 3 weeks in, what was the one result you're most annoyed you didn't see com

(+) Yeah! (+)

ing?

Man I don't know why I went with Squall over Zelda. I knew Nintendo was gonna look better than Square, I knew BOTW would elevate her, I knew FF8 isn't even that strong on this site yet I still ignored all these gut instincts because of past history and because so many gurus were so convinced it was possible
---

same one for me, honestly. every other big match i've missed so far i don't think there was any chance of me correcting. but that one i could have gotten right.
---

I wish I had the stones to go with DK > Leon.

Also, I knew that both Kefka and Alucard would do well with this site becoming more and more insular, but I backed the wrong horse to escape the division.
---

Probably Vivi taking the bottom quadrant I guess. I kinda forgot his Mario upset when making my bracket

I mean my bracket was super dead either way but that one I would've honestly picked

Oh also I have Charizard > Bowser via input error which irritates me but whatever.
---

DK, I like the big ape and even remember thinking "hey he's probably gonna be pretty strong thanks to Tropical Freeze" while I was looking at the bracket. Then I took Tidus for some reason.
---

Ignoring that I bought into Rallyfear, I guess it's that I believed Mewtwo was actually a somebody and so I had him winning his division.
---

Tifa getting to (at least) division finals. I thought surely X would beat her if Mewtwo didn't.

I've been baffled since like three days in as to why I took Yuna > Alucard. What the heck, brain.
---

i chose wauligi to win it all
havnt checked my bracket in like 2 weeks
---

Oh, I also let myself get psyched out by the DDLC subreddit when I knew the game was already ancient history in the channels actually needed to get a rivalry going. I only took Monika for two matches, but I could have been on the leaderboard for quite a long time with those added three points.
---

I actually had Wauligi winning till he fought Snake.
Losing to Snake
Then winning out.

yeah.
---

LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

i chose wauligi to win it all
havnt checked my bracket in like 2 weeks

---

Still Knux>Zidane

All the other matches were either experimental (Alucard/Kafka, Boss/Red) or bound to be close (Tifa/X, Dedede/Ocelot), so I ain't mad
---

Bump
---

I was shocked that this ended up being a contest with no rallies at all.

I had Waluigi winning it all because modern contests are all about predicting who the rally target will be.
---

Been kicking myself for picking Squall over Zelda since R1.
---

Contrary to everyone else kicking themselves over DK, I took DK over vivi

Oops

Amaterasu over Draven. I should've known outside sources would no longer care about these contests. Draven losing in round 1 completely fucked up my bracket because I had him going all the way due to rallies. I guess he was a fraud all along. #JakGotRobbed

still annoyed that I didn't take Knux > Zidane and Crash > Cecil

picking Hayabusa to win three times was the big pick I felt the worst about but that entire upper half of the division was super close together in the end so I don't totally regret it

I felt bad about Zero winning the division pretty early on too

still not sure why I did that
---

Definitely Bayonetta to Round 3 over Riku. I was never a believer in KH3 hype making a big difference, I even had Bayo at first, and then I switched to Riku for...some reason. Maybe I put too much stock into her game being weak in 2015 and how hated she apparently is among the Smash 4 competitive community?

haloiscoolisbak posted...

Man I don't know why I went with Squall over Zelda.

Because until this year Squall has consistently been stronger than Zelda. Pre-contest we had no reason to believe that Zelda would win her division, let alone make a guy who was in the running for "strongest non-N9er" look like he didn't even belong in the contest. As the first two rounds played out Zelda > Squall looked pretty obvious, but still the absolute stomping she gave him came completely out of left field.
---

I took L-Block to be the runner up if its division. Didnt expect it to have fallen that much.
---

Fucking annoyed that I took Sora to win his division.
---

Underleveled posted...

haloiscoolisbak posted...

Man I don't know why I went with Squall over Zelda.

Because until this year Squall has consistently been stronger than Zelda. Pre-contest we had no reason to believe that Zelda would win her division, let alone make a guy who was in the running for "strongest non-N9er" look like he didn't even belong in the contest. As the first two rounds played out Zelda > Squall looked pretty obvious, but still the absolute stomping she gave him came completely out of left field.

In retrospect, I actually think Squall had already weakened somewhat in 2013, and no one realized it because of the circumstances behind his matches.

Starting with his Round 1 match, Rayman was pretty much right on the fodder line back then if you consider Squall to still have been a near-elite, which seems suspiciously high for a character who had previously lost to Vyse in 2007. That's doubly the case when you consider that Commander Video was also in that match sucking up about seven percentage points, a majority of which likely would have gone to Rayman. I also highly doubt Rayman Origins was that big of a difference-maker for him, though it probably did at least boost him a bit.

In Round 2, Squall only did a few percentage points better against MissingNo. than Tidus had the previous round, which I think most people blamed on the joke being non-transitive and MissingNo. thus improving from Round 1. Furthermore, Squall fared better against Amaterasu than Luigi had back in 2010, even though she consistently improves every contest - which could be taken as validation for Squall's near-elite status at the time.

Given how lackluster Squall is now, and considering how similar characters such as Cloud and Vincent looked quite bad in 2013, I think it's just as likely that MissingNo. was largely transitive, as jokes without notable rallies generally appeared to be then. As for Amaterasu, I believe that she was Last Place Factor'd due to that bruising Squintendo, Bracket vs. Joke battle that took place between Squall and MissingNo.

Finally, in Round 3, Squall finished substantially behind Vivi, and got roughly 60-40d by Red in the process. All it would take for that to not be a near elite-level result by Squall is Vivi being roughly equivalent to where he looked this year, or perhaps even a bit stronger. Maybe that's a reach due to him dispatching Mario in those circumstances, but it's nonetheless possible. It's also worth noting that, given what we've seen of Red this year and back in 2010, Red would have needed a Fraudtwo-level boost in order to comfortably dispatch Squall and Vivi the way he did, assuming the former was still a near elite.

All that is why I think that Squall could have already seen much of his shocking decline from 2010 to 2013.

MetalmindStats posted...

I also highly doubt Rayman Origins was that big of a difference-maker for him, though it probably did at least boost him a bit.

I mean with the way mascot platforming characters performed in 2013 and have performed this year, it's probably not that hard to believe Rayman was much stronger than he had been previously in addition to the popularity of Origins.

But yeah, all those things are possible, but they all also came with caveats to explain why they happened, so not many thought anything of them.
---

Well, while it's true that mascot-type icons, especially platforming characters, generally fared well in 2013, they've consistently been that much better this year.

To give a list (for the benefit of anyone else who's reading, since I suppose you already remember all of these results):
- Pac-Man: Almost beat Bayonetta vs. Lost to Nathan Drake in 2013
- Crash Bandicoot: Broke 47% on (Old Man) Big Boss vs. Lost to Elizabeth in 2013 (with Kirby in the match, admittedly)
- Spyro: Fared well against a boosted Chun-Li vs. Lost to Morrigan Aensland in 2013
- Tails: Beat Drake and Master Chief in succession vs. Easily lost to Ezio in 2013 (though he was potentially held back by Bomberman)
- Knuckles: Handily beat Zidane followed by a strong result against Zero vs. Fell short of 50% against two foddery FF characters, followed by being SFF'd by Samus in 2013
- and of course DK, the big kahuna: Comfortably beat Tidus and Leon Kennedy in succession, then improved on his past two results against Vivi, despite Vivi himself leaping upwards since then vs. Beat Lightning with Falco in the match in 2013

Though I do believe that Rayman had a more general boost from 2007 to 2013, in addition to an Origins boost, I just can't see those having taken him from losing to Vyse all the way to the fodder line (albeit he probably is there now).

And yeah, I don't take my theory as some sort of definitive explanation of what happened to Squall - it's just my best guess. While I thought Zelda would win from day 1, I didn't expect Squall to collapse so hard, so while searching for an explanation as to why he was hit even harder than other FF characters, I found that his 2013 results looked deceptive and could fairly be interpreted multiple ways.

i took alucard to division finals but i had him losing to big boss

like i had the foresight to see alucard's path to finals but not him winning it and i have him losing to not even the other dude to make it to that match
---

ZenOfThunder posted...

i took alucard to division finals but i had him losing to big boss

like i had the foresight to see alucard's path to finals but not him winning it and i have him losing to not even the other dude to make it to that match

That's better than a lot of people played division 3 though. I didn't pick either finalist correctly lol
---

yeah but i was just so close. i had a lot of dumb picks but it's that one that annoys me most because i could have gotten it at least semi-right and been a hero

only one guru had alucard winning his div finals
---

Bowser>Kirby. EVERYONE here was sure that Kirby would win. The only later match where I picked the winner and didn't thought anything about this, because it was a sure win.
---

Why did I pick Sans to do so well?
---

I think you (Safer_777, that is) misread the question. Also, Bowser was the guru favorite anyways. It was their comparative results that changed people's opinions.

Oh I see. Okay then. Still Squall>Zelda was the safer pick before the contest. And yeah I also picked Kirby over Bowser of course.
---

Zelda > Squall because I actually changed to Zelda before chickening out. Also I had the winner beating Sonic in losers either way so it was a big match

Also I should have known Sora was going to suck
---

Well... Right now I'm 17th overall (lol, surprising, because I chose a bunch of long shot upsets), but my bracket is pretty much destroyed because of Zelda over Squall, and Aerith over Fox.

I figured there were enough FF fanboys to power Squall past that match. Apparently they all love Aerith, which isn't surprising, though I figured Fox was more popular.

(I'm also semi annoyed that Geralt is gonna lose. I KNEW Auron would win, but I changed my pick in the end.)
---

Tifa>X is truly very irritating.
---

Monika to get all the way to Link cost me the most points.

But Sora > Red bugs me the most even though it only ended up being 6 points, I had Red for a long time but chickened out because the board was so sure that KH would boost while Pokemon would drop, and I bought into the Pokemon dropping part (which did have a lot of truth to it). But then Kingdom Frauds happened.
---

Ganondorf > Vivi
Pikachu winning division 2, had him losing to Yoshi, and then Yoshi losing to Zero.
Divison 3. My final was Big Boss > Kefka. (lol)
Happy with divisions 4, 5 and 6 as I would never have guessed 2B > Ness, and Bayonetta's 4-pack was a clusterfuck.
I'm pretty sure Luigi is going to beat Tifa, shouldn't have taken X to win the division.
KOS-MOS > Ellie, I knew the winner would win in R2 though, I just took the wrong one.

Taking that in to account, my Legends is looking as good as one could hope for as only Vivi has a win there (vs Zero).
---

Charizard > Bowser was probably my dumbest move. I knew Bowser was favored, but I couldn't get over the fact that Charizard had previously won their match before, in spite of knowing that it was the day a Pokemon game was released.

Division 6 was a complete shit show for me too, I had Vincent > Bayonetta in the finals. I was completely wrong, of course, but I feel like it wasn't something so obvious before the contest started.

At least I called Alucard and Tifa correctly.
---

Having Riku winning two rounds.

The frustrating thing about this contest is how my myriad wrong division final picks that killed my bracket still seem like totally reasonable choices in retrospect. There is no scenario where past me would have gone Zelda > Squall (didn't see it coming) or Bowser > Kirby (even knowing that one was a calculated risk).
---