Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 63 ft Thor, Max Caulfield, Jeff Probst

(+) 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 both members of said duo are named in the title of a game (Banjo-Kazooie, Sam & Max Hit the Road, etc).

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 that if all posters for that day unanimously agree on the LAW Fodder rating. If any rating besides LAW Fodder is given, the character will not be eligible for the tier. All LAW Fodder ratings will then count as Low Fodder.

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

Results from Day 62:

Manfred von Karma (Ace Attorney) is Mid Fodder
Mr. Game & Watch (Game & Watch) is Mid Fodder
Zexion (Kingdom Hearts) is Low Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Thor (Marvel)
Jeff Probst (Survivor games)
Max Caulfield (Life is Strange)
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Thor - High fodder. I don't think he'd be high on the Marvel totem pole, but a well-timed match to coincide with a release could do wonders for him.

Jeff Probst - Low fodder. Not the place

Max Caulfield - low fodder, but potentially quite a bit stronger than Chloe due to being the lead and less polarizing.
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Thor: Low Midcarder. The one-two-three punch of Ragnarok, Infinity War, and especially Endgame has taken him from somewhat of a laughing stock to arguably the most beloved MCU character, which means a great deal at this high point for MCU popularity. He's also got a decent video game portfolio including the brand-new Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. However, he's still a bit vulnerable to pic factor bringing to mind his early comic days rather than the MCU, which is why I'm not rating him on the same level as Iron Man.

Jeff Probst: LAW Fodder; do I really need to explain why? Honestly, I feel like the onus is on darkx to explain why he would be worth anything at all. (Also, has he ever appeared in a video game?)

I agree with darkx's Max Caulfield vote and reasoning.

Nominations:
Aigis
Doctor Strange (Marvel)
Groot (Marvel)
Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons)
Marge Simpson (The Simpsons)
Metroid (Metroid)
Octorok (The Legend of Zelda)
Spider-Gwen (Marvel)
T-Rex (Jurassic Park)
Waddle Dee
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Thor - High fodder. He's not the weakest Marvel character, but he's not as strong as Spider-Man.

Jeff Probst - Low fodder. I'd vote for him given how many thousands of hours of Survivor I've watched, but yeah, this isn't the place. Anyone who has ever watched the show would vote for him over a Spring Breeze Dancin' or a character they've never heard of, so LAW fodder is impossible.

Max Caufield - Low fodder, like darkx said.
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I agree with Low Midcarder for Thor. His popularity has gone up in the past few years and erased the memories of Thor: The Dark World, and he is prominent in a lot of Marvel games.

Jeff Probst I assume was in the crappy Survivor game from 2001, not that I've actually checked. I will actually say LAW Fodder for him. I just can't think of any reason for someone to vote for him over any game character at all.

Agree with Low Fodder for Max.
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half_silver28 posted...

I just can't think of any reason for someone to vote for him over any game character at all.

Here's one: Someone's watched Survivor, but hasn't heard of a stupidly-named character like Spring Breeze Dancin'.
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Also, up Thor to Fodder Line for me.
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I think some of the disconnect here is coming from how (iirc), BlueCrystalTear is treating the benchmark characters for each given tier as gatekeepers for the tier above, rather than as the average representatives of their tier (I think) they're supposed to be. I do think Jeff Probst would probably beat Spring Breeze Dancin', but just being capable of doing so should not be enough to avoid LAW Fodder designation, just as most other tier representatives are clearly not on the border between their tier and the tier above.

I would guess another part of it stems from my liberal definition of LAW Fodder as roughly any character below 10% against Base Link. On re-reading the OP, said definition admittedly does not fit, so I shouldn't have ranked Zexion as low as I did. Still, I would argue Survivor is enough of a non-entity on GameFAQs to justify my placement - for example, I'm not 100% confident any Survivor character would beat SBD.
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LAW Fodder for Jeff

agree with dark on the other 2

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Thor (Marvel) - Fodder Line

Jeff Probst - LAW Fodder. I watched probably a half-dozen or so seasons of Survivor in its early years, but I don't think I actually knew or would have recognized Jeff Probst's name at any point back then. With how long it's been since the show was huge in its early years I don't think many people other than huge Survivor fans are going to know who this is just from a name and picture. Even recognizing him, I don't think people are going to care much! If there's a demographic for reality show hosts to perform well, I don't think gamefaqs is it. He'd beat Dancin' just because almost nobody outside board 8 would even recognize Dancin' but Dancin' only got 55% on Chester in the bonus poll so that says very little. I do think he'd lose to, say, Caim.

Max Caulfield - Low fodder
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i just wanna say jeff probst's best work isn't even survivor, it's this 4-part series he did with adult swim:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX1kCun566k" data-time="

i never get to talk about this so i take my chances when i can

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Per the rules, if there are any votes for anything but LAW Fodder, the character is ineligible for the tier.

I am treating my tiering as "Can they beat even one person in the tier I am placing them?" - and since Probst beats both SBD and Gaby Espinoza, as well as a couple of total unknown Low Low Fodder characters, he ain't LAW Fodder. If there was a tier between Low Fodder and LAW Fodder, he'd be there. But, given the way the rules are worded, I err toward the side of Low Fodder. Ergo, he's ineligible to be LAW Fodder.
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I'll concede to LAW fodder for Probst but acknowledge that Reddit has a large and highly active Survivor community, and if this were held over there he could actually be fairly decent (not to mention rally potential to here).

That being said, I don't really like the rule on LAW fodder because if you do think that someone with LAW fodder votes could be just regular low fodder, you are forced to either vote dishonestly or be "that guy." But I do think that there should be some measure implemented to prevent it from being used too liberally, so I dunno. Maybe treat it like any other tier but if there are multiple votes otherwise we have an open discussion about it the next day until we come to a consensus?
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MetalmindStats posted...

Thor: Low Midcarder. The one-two-three punch of Ragnarok, Infinity War, and especially Endgame has taken him from somewhat of a laughing stock to arguably the most beloved MCU character

But those are the movies made him an actual laughing stock.
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I came into this topic because I was wondering "who is Jeff Probst"

for what it's worth I would vote Spring Breeze Dancin' over him because SBD has a funny name
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Isn't everyone except Link LAW fodder anyway? Not even Cloud is close to being a lawbreaker anymore.
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OrangeCrush980 posted...

Isn't everyone except Link LAW fodder anyway? Not even Cloud is close to being a lawbreaker anymore.

LAW Fodder is just a cheesy term, meant to imply the inverse of Link's pedestal and suggest that the character is among the worst of the worst, that I suggested and half_silver adopted. In retrospect, my suggestion might have been a mistake, but Turbofodder doesn't work because there's lots of space between the worst of the worst and non-Turbofodder, and anything involving Tanner falls short because of where we've already placed him.
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OrangeCrush980 posted...

Isn't everyone except Link LAW fodder anyway? Not even Cloud is close to being a lawbreaker anymore.

LAW fodder stands for "Low-Ass Fodder" and was created to distinguish complete and utter shit who wouldn't be able to make a dent on the weakest of the weak, from standard low fodder like, say, a Hat Kid or Victor Sullivan. The acronym was an intentional mirroring of Link Always Wins.

I mean the entire reason the tier was created was to distinguish a particular character who was a supporting character from a game that sold poorly, got mediocre reviews, has 0 board activity on GameFAQs, and even Google brings up very little on other than a single Youtuber. To boot, said character has only two usable images, both of which look exceptionally generic. I would take someone like Hat Kid or Victor Sullivan, who were officially ranked "low fodder" by their CBX x-stats, to get roughly 90% on this character, so a new tier had to be made.

By which token I would say Jeff Probst does not qualify, because he at least has iconic images to use and is from something that a significant amount of people on the site have at least heard of, if not actually seen (I think people forget just how big those first two seasons were; you couldn't go anywhere without hearing about it, especially the first one).
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nominations:

Cindy Aurum (Final Fantasy XV)
Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons)
Marge Simpson (The Simpsons)
Metroid (Metroid)
Octorok (The Legend of Zelda)
Oerba Yun Fang (Final Fantasy XIII)
Blue-Eyes White Dragon (Yugioh)
Gray Fox (Metal Gear Solid)
Trogdor (Peasant's Quest)
King (Tekken)
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Underleveled posted...

LAW fodder stands for "Low-Ass Fodder"

Ah yes, this is the piece I was forgetting, that LAW Fodder in this case stands for "Low-Ass Weak Fodder". I'm not sure there's a better term to distinguish characters who would struggle to beat even the worst characters we've seen in previous character battles.
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Day 64 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77902740

note that I have changed up the requirements for the LAW Fodder tier a bit so a unanimous decision is no longer required to put someone there. Jeff Probst barely missed qualifying btw.
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half_silver28 posted...

note that I have changed up the requirements for the LAW Fodder tier a bit so a unanimous decision is no longer required to put someone there.

Not retroactively, I assume? Since darkx changed his vote to LAW Fodder, Jeff Probst would have qualified if you changed the criteria retroactively.
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MetalmindStats posted...

half_silver28 posted...

note that I have changed up the requirements for the LAW Fodder tier a bit so a unanimous decision is no longer required to put someone there.

Not retroactively, I assume? Since darkx changed his vote to LAW Fodder, Jeff Probst would have qualified if you changed the criteria retroactively.

Oh for some reason I didn't see that. Guess Jeff makes LAW Fodder after all - updated on the new topic and doc.
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Well I only changed so as to not be "that guy" as I sort of alluded to in my previous post. But I guess it's besides the point.
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Underleveled posted...

Well I only changed so as to not be "that guy" as I sort of alluded to in my previous post.

I mean, would it really have made you "that guy" if someone else agrees with you?
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I don't vote in these things, but I think Jeff Probst would get more than 10% on Link. And the only " Max Caufield" I know is the actor who played the hot guy in Grease 2.

People on this site are old enough to know what survivor is. Even if they don't know his name if the picture has the survivor logo in it they might vote for him. Disagree with LAW.
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