Board 8 > The Show EP 11 - Wrapping Up CBX & Looking Ahead to GotD! with Leon and Advo

(+) Yeah! (+)

@CaptainOfCrush

Actually ZeRo the best Smash Wii U player thinks Link is high tier in Smash Ult:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBqjNVFv6Go" data-time="

Mostly due to Detonating Bomb Traps, lots of options in that alone. All 3 Links are considered really good.
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ZeldaTPLink posted...

Fun fact: in 2013 I tried to listen to The Show but gave up in the first episode because I couldn't understand half of what the guys said.

Don't beat yourself up about it, you were probably thrown by @ExThaNemesis trying to find Sephiroth a path to the Grand Finals. Trust me, even native speakers were mentally shaken trying to wrap our minds around it.

MetalmindStats posted...

Poor Kleenex... The only Crew member Ng didn't mention.

HE knows what he did...


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Oh I don't really beat myself, if anything I'm happy because of how much I progressed since then.

But lol extha
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I disagree on the idea of the 128 characters being shown to B8 before the bracket is made. It could legally be seen as a conflict of interest, legally, as everyone on B8 would immediately start posting ideas for how they want the bracket to be made, which would be seen as us helping make a bracket that we would eventually participate in for prize money.
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Thanks for the shoutout to my Analysis topic, Advokaiser!
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20% of the voters in Best Song would actually listen to the songs before voting. Best System I don't like. Series Contest would be fun though.
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Here's a few more thoughts I have on CBX's format, now that I've finished listening to that whole section:

I really wish Allen had structured the Losers bracket like any standard tournament losers bracket, with the loser of a winners bracket ejected to the opposite side of the losers bracket. I frankly don't think one runback and another near-runback was worth all the wasted matches that resulted from that missed opportunity. Like three-ways in 2013, I consider the Losers bracket something that was worth seeing once but really has no need to return. As for the Legends bracket, the only situation in which I would want to see it return is for greatone's idea of a sort of test trial of an all-fictional character battle (which I think is a worthwhile compromise between B8's two camps on this matter for the next character battle). This would contain eight all-fictional characters with special significance to video gaming as the "Legends" facing off against the eight divisional winners in round 1 of a single-elimination format.

Speaking of brackets and legends, I can't say I really get the grasping at straws to not retire Link from matches that actually matter, at least in any future 1 character v 1 character character battle besides a true all-fictional bracket. I would even venture that Link is so far ahead of the rest of the field at this point that nothing short of another all-encompassing rally will ever dethrone him, particularly when you consider his trajectory versus those of the other potential contenders. For any future character battles that aren't truly all-fictional, I would just stick Link in an unscored bonus match versus the actual winner and, if the winner's someone like Mario, have another bonus match with Link vs. Cloud or whatever.

Advo's 8-Link bracket idea is kinda funny, though, and certainly not in a bad way. It does give GameFAQs what we want, after all, which of course is more Link! Because I could, I quickly made an Advo-style mini-bracket with CBX's divisional winners versus eight different Links:

(4) Ganondorf vs. Dark Link
(7) Pikachu vs. CDi Link (needs to have a surprised Pikachu pic for extra quality)
(3) Alucard vs. Link (Zelda 1)
(4) Bowser vs. Toon Link
(4) Zelda vs. Link (Breath of the Wild)
(3) Auron vs. Young Link
(3) Tifa vs. Linkle
(1) Sephiroth vs. Fierce Deity Link

A couple of other minor points I wanted to make:

First, I do have a nit to pick about Allen's handling of the nomination form. While it was nice that he responded to early B8 trends by including various characters among the auto-suggest options, there was nought but radio silence on his end after the first 24 hours or so. The result was a bunch of notable snubs from the nomination form, including trending recent and popular B8 characters such as Cuphead, Papyrus, Max Caulfield, Metal Man, and Rosalina, as well as established characters such as Missile from previous character battles. As we've abundantly seen by now, the characters who aren't included on the nomination form have a very low chance of reaching the bracket - only something like a dozen CBX characters at most weren't included on the form, and none of them went above a 12-seed.

Second, I'll concede that my previous take on Allen's CBX pictures was probably a bit too critical, as most of the pics he chose do look quite good. I just would like all of them to look good. That being said, I tend to err on KP's side and say that Allen dumping the full list of characters in the next character battle on us beforehand and asking us to make pictures isn't a good idea. I absolutely agree with having B8 make the standardized pics for the matches; I just think those can afford to be different from the standardized pics when the bracket first goes up. Similarly, I like the teaser matches Allen gave us in 2015; that just shouldn't be the whole darn teaser list of names, at least in my opinion.
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Now I've finished listening to the future contest ideas section, and I have a fair few things to say!

First off, I absolutely agree about GotD II being a capital idea, regardless of the obvious winner. Personally, I would prefer to see a mini-contest in late 2019, followed by GotD II in late 2020, but GotD II as our next contest in early 2020 is more realistic. I did make and post a mock bracket for such a field a few weeks back, which probably needs a minor revamp, but here it is anyways: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1THs2OxKDopw_OjYpojEKCqyZkK0AtPCH7SGd0bgvzy8/edit?usp=sharing

As for the section on ideas for said 2019 mini-contest, wow, I didn't expect shoutouts from both Ng and Yo about my Series II mock bracket. So thank you, and I'm glad you both liked it so much! My order of preference for Ng's three ideas would be Series II > System > Song. Personally, I don't have a strong opinion on whether or not to retire Zelda from Series II - on the one hand, it would make for an interesting final, and Zelda did win Series I of course, but on the other hand, I don't think the precedent is strong enough to retire it, and contests with an obvious final can still be great, as long as the bracketmaking's up to snuff.

On the other hand, I have to agree with Yo, Leon, and KP, and say that a Best Song contest just wouldn't work, for all the reasons they already stated. As for a Best System bracket, you would see an absolutely dominant winner in the SNES, and a whole load of staggering blowouts. However, good bracketmaking could still overcome those concerns, particularly by stuffing most of the next-biggest contenders (PC, PS1, N64, PS2, and Switch mainly) in the other half of the bracket, as already discussed. I'm going to go with a controversial opinion here, though, and say that I don't see any point in having a nominations phase for a Best System contest. All you're realistically changing with one in a 32-system field is the fodder, and if anything, nominations are more likely to hamper Allen's ability to make the best possible bracket.

I'm leery about the idea of a Best Character of the Century contest. Despite its frequency in comparison to other fields, characters already aren't something people care about as much as games, series, or systems, and then you reduce that limited interest quite a bit further by restricting it to 2000 and after. On top of that, the winner wouldn't even be in question, anyways - Vivi looked a clear step ahead of everyone else who would be eligible, unless you consider Fierce Deity Link. If we do have such a contest, it should definitely be a smaller, 64-entrant field, in order to minimize the concentration of fodder and get it done sooner.

As for an All-Fictional field, I honestly agree with Yo and Leon in that it would still be decent, but the time has kinda passed. I also feel like Advo has a good point in that, once we do a no hold barred All-Fictional character battle, unless it turns out to be a fiasco, that will pretty much be the point of no return where we won't really be seeing video game-only character battles after that. I guess you could sort of solve that by making All-Fictional a totally distinct format, rather than calling it CB11, but I feel like then going back and only having video game characters in a future bracket would just confuse most people.

Finally, lumping Game of the 90s and BGE Ultimate together because I'm running out of space, I like the idea of both contests, including a full 128 entrants for the former, just like the other GotD contests. I don't, however, like the idea of having a Legends bracket in the latter, because CT and Ocarina are the only games definitively ahead of everything else, and because some of the games you'd be sticking in there are arbitrary, versus other, stronger games that get snubbed just because they haven't won a contest (ex. Majora vs. LttP).
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MetalmindStats posted...

While it was nice that he responded to early B8 trends by including various characters among the auto-suggest options, there was nought but radio silence on his end after the first 24 hours or so. The result was a bunch of notable snubs from the nomination form, including trending recent and popular B8 characters such as Cuphead, Papyrus, Max Caulfield, Metal Man, and Rosalina, as well as established characters such as Missile from previous character battles. As we've abundantly seen by now, the characters who aren't included on the nomination form have a very low chance of reaching the bracket - only something like a dozen CBX characters at most weren't included on the form, and none of them went above a 12-seed.

I tend to err on KP's side and say that Allen dumping the full list of characters in the next character battle on us beforehand and asking us to make pictures isn't a good idea.

Yes that's one criticism I forgot to bring up, further suggestion list additions beyond the first day would have been a big help. And as I've mentioned many times, I was 100% okay with sticking to traditional characters again in this one, I just wish he'd clarified things within the first couple days so we could have focused our discussion and rallies elsewhere (such as our Spidey one that went over 200 posts).

I think it would be fine legally if SB created the bracket privately, gave us the 128 names so we could create all the pictures, then opened things for predictions a week later. Regardless though it's a minor point; there would be plenty of time for us to get great images uploaded well ahead of the first day of matches even without any advanced info.


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I've finally finished listening to this final episode of The Show for this season, and I just have a couple other things to say.

First, a minor correction to the Guru standings: Everyone who picked Link to win the final match has 76 points more than listed on the Guru site.

Finally, I just wanted to say that I'm really glad I was able to get a chance to guest star on The Show and that I didn't disappoint in the process, so thank you Ng and Yo. And to shift the subject away from me, this episode was the best one yet, and an awesome cap on a spectacular season. As a onetime guest and now-weekly listener, I wanted to give my own shoutouts first to all the guests who have contributed so much to making The Show what it's been this season, particularly greatone for our episode, and Leon and Advo for this last highlight. Finally, Yo and Ng, this whole thing just wouldn't be possible without your tireless efforts, let alone as consistently great as it's been the whole season. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of you - Ng, Yo, and the guests - for everything.
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I'm still at the halfway point.

I wanna comment on the stuff about GotD2. I agree with Advo. Like him, I don't have much of an interest in the games included, as my gaming input reduced a lot after 2010 (not just because of money, but also college and a gradual change of interests).

But hey, Best Year in Gaming was pretty bad and I enjoyed the fuck out of it. Will probably enjoy this one, because bracket, Crew, Show and all are pretty fun to do and watch. And it can always make me play a few new games. The 2018 contest made me play Berseria and DDLC, for example. I'm not gonna catch up on all mainstream gaming anytime soon, but I check things from time to time.

And yeah, it's a one in ten years thing so we can't simply not do it. It has too much potential for great things to happen (or controversial ones).

Just make sure Link Between Worlds gets nominated, because that's one modern Zelda I played and really liked.
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I stopped in the middle of the subject and now I came back and NG said the same thing I was thinking.
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Nice to see you that you keep doing this. Now I want to say some things too.

I like the 4 matches per day, 24 hours. All people from all countries can vote.

I also like that we have to vote in every match too. I want to keep that.

I suggest we have 4 matches per day, except the Final 16 where we should have 2 matches per day and of course the Final Match would be alone. Same with the Losers Bracket too.

If we have a 2019 contest I want a Best System or Best Company. Something we haven't seen before.
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been following the show for many years now but i never post in these topics lol

just wanted to say great job on another great season!
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Bump
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Finally finished listening to it.

Great episode guys, and thanks for doing this. Really made the contest a way more fun experience to me. And yeah, gratz for Advo, Luster and Axem for winning your side contests.

I'm a little impressed no one mentioned Draven as a turd, though. It's almost like it was too obvious so you guys decided to be more creative or something. Draven is the turd as much as Zelda is the true winner of the context, imo.
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Eh, Draven was basically just a footnote by the time the contest ended. A hilarious and cathartic result, to be sure, but it's not like we had any real expectations for him to be good.
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Rallyfear in general was mentioned as a turd of the contest, was it not?

Draven doesn't really deserve the decency of even standing in this contest as a lone turd, though it does put him into exclusive territory as the only character to place both first and last in a Character Battle.
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A very Merry Show Christmas
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I'm gonna bump this one more time.
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did Allen at some point say that we'd have a game of the 2010s contest or is that just an assumption?
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It's just an assumption.
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Advo you did well!

In looking back at the R1 pics, only four of them were truly abominable. Quiet, Joker, Claire Redfield, and Chris Redfield.

Joker/Claire in general was just an abomination and was handled every bit as badly as 2013.
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My epic quest to complete every mock bracket continues! If you'd like to give a little more thought to how a Game of the 90s Contest might go, check out my writeup on greatone's tournament setup:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77312325#41


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Finally had time to finish - great last episode, guys! Advokaiser seemed in his element.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Send in your feedback tickets, boys. That contest MUST happen, and Breath of the Wild isn't as obvious as people think.

http://thengamer.com/guru/GOTD/stats.php?match=127

It is highly in the realm of possibility for Smash Ultimate to win that contest.

I would love to see another GotD contest. My preference is to begin the contest as soon as possible after the start of 2020 (once the GotY polls come to an end). Starting GotD in January 2020 means we would have to open up nominations around mid December in 2019.

Eligible games include all games with a confirmed North American release date between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019. Even if a game hasn't been released yet when the nomination form goes up, this eligibility rule won't disqualify any games that are scheduled to be released before the end of 2019. Although to be fair, very few games are released during the final 2 weeks of the year and what does get released are minor games like Mobile or Indie games.
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Brawl could only manage 52% on TP, a divisive Zelda game. No way Ultimate beats the most beloved entry since OoT.
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If you want to look at how strong BotW is just look at how strong its 2nd protagonist became due to it.

No supporting character has been that strong since... Sephiroth. Because of Final Fantasy fucking Seven.
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@MetalmindStats #55 got eaten! Can you recover it?

https://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Transience%27s_75_Most_Important_Contest_Matches_-_Detailed


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I'm on it!

And done!
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This is the last one of the year, so don't miss it!
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Unbelievable! Mark your calendars Zelda fans, January 20th will mark the BotW-TP crossover event you've always dreamed of.

https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/A-Super-Blood-Wolf-Moon-eclipse-is-coming-in-January-503545631.html


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Ngamer64 posted...

Unbelievable! Mark your calendars Zelda fans, January 20th will mark the BotW-TP crossover event you've always dreamed of.

https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/A-Super-Blood-Wolf-Moon-eclipse-is-coming-in-January-503545631.html

I actually got excited for that >_>
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Finally went back and finished episode... 9
Hopefully I'll catch up before this purges!
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Better keep this bumped then
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to 500
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I want to personally thank Ngamer for hosting yet another great season, want to send a special thank you to everyone who guest hosted this year - you were ALL amazing and contributed tons to make this my favorite season yet - and of course, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who listened to our ramblings. I really hope our off season is not an extended one, and that we can resume this awesome project (almost certainly the funnest I've ever participated in as a Board 8er) in 2019.

Much love, everyone. <3
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Up.
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More.
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So I felt like procrastinating a little bit on this topic, so before this purges (and before we reach New Year), I wanna thank everyone for their comments of support towards my debut on The Show. I was a little worried about the outcome, but I'm truly grateful to everyone who commented on the subject. I also want to thank Ng, yo and Leon for helping me feel more comfortable about the actual recording part (it was awesome talking to you in the backstage about chilaquiles and stuff, lol), I was affraid to be interrogated from the start and I turned out to be the one asking questions and talking a lot in the backstage. I was also very happy to see that the board was so cool and chill, more than I thought.

Fun fact: I usually go to bed pretty early and sleep a lot. That night though, we finished recording at 3:30 a.m. where I lived, so the next day I slept all day, and that particular day was incredibly short, as you can imagine, to the point where it practically didn't exist. Still, it was a blast hanging out with you guys and it was really worth it.

Another fun fact is that I remember Ng posting a topic just before the contest started, offering anyone who posted an invitation to The Show. I didn't post since I was affraid I wouldn't do a good job; but when I won the Guru, I knew it was my opportunity to get over my own fears and experience something different.

Some other things I'd want to cover and clarify as well:

-I ran out of words about the start times thing, but ultimately what I was trying to say was that you'll never have everyone happy with one specific start time, since there are tons of factors that have an influence, not only about people preferring morning, day, or night start times, but also people doing lots of other activities around the globe. I guess you can make a case out of GFAQs being a site primarily for U.S. residents, but other than that, there's not much you can do about it.

-Link vs. Link as a mini-bracket may be a good thing to do as a bonus if they don't get to retire him just yet. But if it was done before a contest starts so they face off against Division Winners or Noble Niners, the opponents should be paired up accordingly. Adult/Young Link, as well as maybe TP Link would be way too powerful for the rest of the field, but I can see the rest of them having fairly debatable matches.

-I loved BYIG as opposed to most people, so when I said that Best System would be like BYIG 2.0, I meant that I would love it, but surely the rest of the board won't.

-Similarly, Best Song sounds awesome to me on paper, but as everyone said, it has too many cons to make it viable.

-Game of the 90's was that kind of contest that I wasn't so sure of running it at the beginning since I thought the whole purpose of Game of the Decade was to exclude OoT and FFVII from a main bracket with newer games, as well as I conceiving GotD to be a contest that happened every future decade and not going back to something like the 90's. I actually changed my mind about all that when the podcast ended since not only did I grow up with lots of 90s games but also OoT may still become vulnerable to Chrono Trigger based on 2015, and FFVII Remake hype (or even its release by then) may also keep FFVII fresh again. It would be awesome to have that contest, especially since I could root for underrepresented series like the Soul Blazer trilogy (or other Enix games), as well as Crash Bandicoot, for example.
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Game of the 90s seems like it would be fun but also seems a bit redundant because our regular BGE is already pretty much the same thing.
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bump
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