Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 166 ft Toon Link, Olimar, Green Goblin

(+) 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 165:

Saber (Fate/stay night) is Low Fodder
Jay Solano (Operation Shadow) is LAW Fodder
Santa Claus (Elf Bowling, etc) is a Midcarder

Here is today's trio to rank:

The Green Goblin (Marvel)
Toon Link (Zelda series)
Captain Olimar (Pikmin)
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Green Goblin: Mid Fodder. "'cause he's wearing that dumb Power Rangers mask - but he's scarier without it on." Yeah, a Spider-Man villain isn't going to amount to much. Nobody really cares for Spider-Man antagonists the way they do for Batman nemeses, so he's naturally among the weakest of those.

Toon Link: Elite. May be the Saturday Morning version, but he's still Link. He's not going to beat Link Link, but he'll still be able to beat Solid Snake or Mega Man.

Olimar: Mid Fodder. His prior matches corroborate this. He's in Smash, so by rule he can't be Low Fodder because of recognition, so yeah.
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BlueCrystalTear posted...

Green Goblin: Mid Fodder. "'cause he's wearing that dumb Power Rangers mask - but he's scarier without it on." Yeah, a Spider-Man villain isn't going to amount to much. Nobody really cares for Spider-Man antagonists the way they do for Batman nemeses, so he's naturally among the weakest of those.

Toon Link: Elite. May be the Saturday Morning version, but he's still Link. He's not going to beat Link Link, but he'll still be able to beat Solid Snake or Mega Man.

Olimar: Mid Fodder. His prior matches corroborate this. He's in Smash, so by rule he can't be Low Fodder because of recognition, so yeah.

Agree with all ratings. Green Goblin is mostly just remembered for the first Raimi Spider-Man movie, which had it's fair share of memorable moments and cheesy lines from Norman. Toon Link is definitely capable of beating some Elite-tier characters.
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I'll also concur with all three ratings.

I think Toon Link is increasingly coming into his own as a separate character, and should track closely with Wind Waker's strength. I would expect him to lose to any other Elite character, but he should still have just enough strength to make that tier.

Olimar looked better than Mid Fodder in 2013, but Pikmin 3 was about to come out then, and I'm generally uninclined to have much confidence in a low-tier Nintendo series protagonist.
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Green Goblin - Mid Fodder

If we're all confident enough in Goblin to make him Mid Fodder, Venom probably should have been High, huh?

Toon Link - Near-Elite

Wind Waker is strong but people don't really like or care about Toon Link's other games. (I guess Minish Cap is good but kinda forgettable if you count that? He looks pretty toony in the official art anyways) I don't think the Link name is gonna be an insta-win either. It probably helps Dark Link a lot because he doesn't have a lot else going for him but if you want to climb to Elite strength you're on par with the most beloved characters on the site and I just don't think Diet Link is gonna be good enough. Personally, I'd also cut off Elite after Pikachu/Crono/Mega Man and yeah, I'm not taking the main of Wind Waker to get particularly close to the main of Chrono Trigger.

Captain Olimar - Mid Fodder

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AxemRedRanger posted...

If we're all confident enough in Goblin to make him Mid Fodder, Venom probably should have been High, huh?

I already explained why I rated Venom so low back then, and I still stand by the reasoning I used then. FWIW, I think Venom's only a bit stronger than other tier 1 Spider-Man villains, but I would opt for High Fodder on a redo because the circumstances that caused me to lowball him have changed.

As for Toon Link, I don't actually think Crono, Mega Man, and Pikachu are strong enough to be called Elites - I'd put all of them at the top rung of the Near-Elites. I'd also mention that comparing Toon Link to Crono is pretty misleading, considering Crono is nowhere near as strong as CT itself and has had substantially different strength trends over the years compared to his game. I wish we had a clear read on FF6's 2015 strength - in the absence of that, I'll change my vote to Near-Elite.
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I will also change my vote on Toon Link to Near Elite.

Day 167 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78163931
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