Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 161 ft Two-Face, Blanka, Mystique

(+) 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

Results from Day 160:

Neo (The Matrix) is Mid Fodder
Gambit (X-Men) is High Fodder
Aquaman (DC Comics) is High Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Two-Face/Harvey Dent (DC Comics)
Mystique (X-Men)
Blanka (Street Fighter)
---

Two-Face: Mid Fodder

Mystique: High Fodder

Blanka: Mid Fodder
---

Two-Face: Mid Fodder. The Dark Knight was a long time ago now, and he was not overly memorable in that because Joker stole the show. He's not an iconic Batman villain and therefore will only get the vote of people who care about him or his story specifically.

Mystique: High Fodder. Extremely recognizable since she actually has that consistent appearance with the red hair and blue skin, so that helps her quite a bit. She's also been utilized far more than someone like Gambit, so that should help her be stronger than him.

Blanka: Mid Fodder. He's not overly popular in terms of character, is he? He's recognizable enough, but... nobody really cares about him.
---

Agree with Mid Fodder for Two-Face.

After refreshing myself a bit on Mystique's appearances, I will say Fodder Line for her. She's been a mainstay in the movies, cartoon series and X-Men games, and plays a large role in the former 2. Voters are likely going to remember her from the first X-Men movie trilogy or from more recent movies where she was played by Jennifer Lawrence. She's a sexy blue chick who basically runs around naked - who wouldn't remember that? Even if her pic ends up being her OG design, she's still very recognizable and benefits from TJF greatly.

For Blanka I say High Fodder. He really stands out on the roster of Street Fighter 2: being a green beast-man among a host of human characters. He does have a decent amount of popularity, particularly in Brazil. Blanka has come back for all the major Street Fighter releases (minus 3), and I think his story of reuniting with his mother is memorable too. Blanka is also the favorite character of SF series director Yoshinori Ono, who prominently displays a figurine of Blanka at most of his promotional appearances. While presented seriously in SF2, his humorous character in all later games can help him get some votes too.
---

Obviously Dark Phoenix would hurt Mystique, since Jennifer Lawrence's makeup was horrible and she let out the infamous "X-women" line.
---

Two-Face/Harvey Dent (DC Comics) - Mid fodder
Mystique (X-Men) - High fodder
Blanka (Street Fighter) - Mid fodder

Guile has pretty much poisoned the well for all further Street Fighter characters as far as I'm concerned. Don't think anybody we haven't gotten in yet is gonna do notably better than he did. He had memes and prominence in the cartoon and movie back in the day going for him too.

---

I don't think Guile's bad performance in CBX is the death knell for all future Street Fighter entrants. Guile in particular hasn't come close to recapturing the popularity he had in the 90s, and has been irrelevant in the series for so long that Gfaqs just stopped caring about him. His design has aged horribly, and most of the memes associated with Guile (Guile's theme goes with everything, Sonic Boom) don't focus much on his character. And tbh, he hasn't really developed as a character since his debut.

Guile was pushed as the protagonist of the series in the west after SF2 came out, but that ended basically the second Street Fighter Alpha hit arcades. He was replaced by Charlie and did not appear in the Alpha series until the console release of Alpha 3. His next appearance in the main series was Street Fighter 4 - nearly 12 years later. He was DLC in Street Fighter 5, and kind of a joke since he looked like Paul Blart.

In conclusion, Guile is an overrated chump living on nostalgia from 17 years ago and a few dead memes.

Also Bison and Zangief would kick his butt. Sagat and Sakura might too for that matter.
---

Day 162 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78148428
---