Board 8 > think you know the contests well? here's some character battle contest trivia.

(+) Yeah! (+)

greengravy294 posted...

1) solid snake

Owned noobs I was right in under 1 minute and five seconds feels good bro

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7, not 8. counting is hard for me today

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I'm honestly surprised Tingle made it and not Skull Kid. Who the f*** was nominating Tingle into 3 contests?

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Actually, I want to see if I can name all 36 FF characters off the top of my head.

1. Cloud
2. Sephiroth
3. Tifa
4. Aerith
5. Vincent
6. Barret
7. Cid
8. Zack
9. Squall
10. Seifer
11. Rinoa
12. Zidane
13. Kuja
14. Vivi
15. Tidus
16. Auron
17. Yuna
18. Rikku
19. Jecht
20. Sin
21. Balthier
22. Vaan
23. Lightning
24. Noctis
25. Cecil
26. Kain
27. Rydia
28. Ramza
29. Gilgamesh
30. Kefka
31. Terra
32. Locke
33. Celes

Dang, who am I missing? I'm assuming we aren't counting Bartz and Golbez from Rivals here.

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squexa posted...

I'm honestly surprised Tingle made it and not Skull Kid. Who the f*** was nominating Tingle into 3 contests?

me probably
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you missed Boko
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Really cool topic!

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

you missed Boko

darn you 2013

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and Zolom
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spoilers theyre both villains

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Ultros is the last one

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

and Zolom

man and Zolom was totally wasted too

after seeing what Epona did in 2013 I'm legit curious to see how Zolom could've done back in 2007 when FFVII was still pretty beastly

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

Ultros is the last one

darn you Villains

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On the note of Zelda characters, how has Impa never won an NRT or something?

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

On the note of Zelda characters, how has Impa never won an NRT or something?

because B8 was too busy making sure Pokemon won it every time

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Which of these Final Fantasy VII characters has received the most total votes? (Aeris | Tifa | Vincent | Zack)

I'll ignore Zack for obvious reasons. He's not in contention with the other three (though his best run is probably better than Aeris's best run)

This one is actually pretty close, at least by rank. By the numbers:

Tifa - 22nd overall - 903,639 votes - 23 matches - 16-7 record
Vincent - 24th overall - 800,353 votes - 20 matches - 13-7 record
Aeris - 26th overall - 671,138 votes - 18 matches - 11-7 record

Tifa leads by over 100,000 votes, but a lot of that is the female bracket. Let's compare their 2006 runs: Tifa got Ivy, The Boss and Princess Peach before making it to Samus. Vincent got Ganondorf and Sonic.

The argument between Vincent and Tifa for best FF7 supporting character has always been really fascinating. I won't recount everything, but Vincent had some really impressive results while Tifa always felt like she was good enough but never given a chance. Vincent beat Squall, beat Ganondorf and beat Crono in a fourway. Tifa lost narrowly to Sonic, almost beat Samus due to a wardrobe malfunction, missed the 2007 contest and got saddled with Sephiroth in 2008 (back when that mattered). Tifa didn't really get a chance to strut her stuff until 2018 when she beat everyone before going down hard to Samus, and by then Vincent became a nobody.

Aeris had great results as one of the original cinderella runs as an underseeded character in the 2002 and 2003 contests, but has been a clear step and a half behind ever since they let Tifa and Vincent into the contests in 2005.

Fun fact: Sora is actually ahead of all these guys in votes.

Which contest gathered the most total votes? (2003 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2010)

2003 - 6,666,441
2006 - 8,233,828
2007 - 8,537,038
2008 - 8,424,961
2010 - 8,161,178

It's really close! By comparison, 2018 had 4,377,530.

Which winless character has gathered the most votes? (Guybrush Threepwood | Ramza | Kratos Aurion | Cecil | CATS)

CATS - 157,168
Kratos Aurion - 123,806
Ramza - 103,892
Cecil - 103,280
Guybrush Threepwood - 82,877

CATS is actually a fascinating contest character. This dude is a contest legend. Kratos Aurion, Ramza and Cecil are 0-5. Guybrush Threepwood is 0-6.

CATS is 0-9. Only 29 characters have been in 9 or more contests! Of them, the lowest number of wins after CATS is 5. Despite being in 3 more matches, and being most notable during our vote total apex, he *still* is only 30,000 votes above the others. CATS isn't the weakest character of all time but we should probably think of him that way as a badge of honor. We didn't need Jay Solano. We had CATS.

Which non-Noble Nine member has the highest average number of votes across all their contest matches (minimum 10 contest matches)? (Dante | Master Chief | Aeris | Yoshi | Yuna)

Master Chief - 44159
Yuna - 42156
Dante - 41975
Yoshi - 40345
Aeris - 37619

For the record, Master Chief is only 300 votes behind Sonic and Mario. When we have our next character battle, he'll probably be ahead.

As others have pointed out, this is more about avoiding the recent contests where vote totals dropped off. One of the contests' lost memories is Master Chief's 2007 contest. Chief was probably a top 5 character in that contest, but it's forgotten because L-Block blew a hole in the whole thing. Chief *destroyed* everyone, was almost equal to post-Brawl Snake and pulled in a ton of votes. He's fallen off as the site has gone even more in the tank for Nintendo, and as a result hasn't been dragged down by the recent mediocrity.

Fun fact: As you would expect, Link is #1 with 56,854 votes. But if you remove the 10 match minimum, #2 is Kairi. 2006, man.

Which of these Pokemon characters has received the most total votes? (Charizard | Mewtwo | Red | Missingno)

This one is a two-character race.

Mewtwo - 298,506 votes - 12 matches - 7-5 record
Charizard - 288,543 votes - 10 matches - 7-3 record
Red - 194,073 votes - 10 matches - 7-3 record
Missingno - 139,449 votes - 5 matches - 3-2 record

2013 being such a messed up contest really inflates these guys' records.

Which Noble Nine member has the least number of contest matches? (Mega Man | Sonic | Solid Snake | Crono | Mario)

Solid Snake - 54 (I may have put him in as a swerve for an earlier question)
Mario - 44
Mega Man - 41
Crono - 39
Sonic - 39

My bad here. I meant to write votes instead of contest matches, in which case it's easily Sonic, who trails Crono by over 100,000 votes. The difference there is almost completely 2002.

For those who don't know, the 2002 battle took a while to gain steam. Some early matches had really bad vote totals, not quite as bad as 2018 but not far off. It wasn't until the contest got going that they really moved, and by then Sonic had lost that shocker with Samus. Crono was ahead by ~150,000 votes thanks to an epic Mario match coming off of Mario/Cloud. Crono shot ahead of him there and never gave it up.

Crono had some really bad contests, 2010 being the most obvious one, but the 2018 contest brought him back to a tie thanks to the losers bracket. Crono was able to beat Bowser and Mega Man to stay alive while Sonic got slaughtered by Snake and Zelda. Sonic would have lost to Crono too - he looked pretty terrible. 2018 was a real paradigm shift.

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transience posted...

CATS is 0-9. Only 29 characters have been in 9 or more contests! Of them, the lowest number of wins after CATS is 5.

Tidus? Let's see...His wins are 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008.

wow has he really not advanced past the first round since then?

and 2007 and 2008 were both 2nd place advancements to boot

also I always forget how many contests Kratos Aurion has been in

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I actually did really well with this set of questions, and the ones I was wrong about were generally the next best option anyway.

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LeonhartFour posted...

Tidus? Let's see...His wins are 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008.

wow has he really not advanced past the first round since then?

and 2007 and 2008 were both 2nd place advancements to boot

also I always forget how many contests Kratos Aurion has been in

Subby, Mizno, and Donkey Kong beat him in the first round of all of the 2010s character battles.

Meanwhile, Jecht got 2 wins in his only contest appearance that decade.

On the note of Kratos Aurion, he hasn't been in that many, but he drew Diablo in 2005 and Sackboy in 2010, so he got like 40% in both of those matches, which was equal to two or three 80/20s for CATS.

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yep, Tidus is 5-10.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

Subby, Mizno, and Donkey Kong beat him in the first round of all of the 2010s character battles.

Meanwhile, Jecht got 2 wins in his only contest appearance that decade.

there are few contest runs that actually fit the characterization of those involved like Tidus literally never making it to the third round in 10 appearances, while Jecht shows up in one contest, gets to the third round first try, and never shows up again

(although even Tidus probably could've made it to the third round with the draw Jecht got!)

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LeonhartFour posted...

(although even Tidus probably could've made it to the third round with the draw Jecht got!)

Not if he draws it now, because I would never bet against the one character who fits the characterization of these contests even more so than the Jecht/Tidus rivalry.

I would never bet against Phoenix Wright in a close match with a choke artist.

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Oh, Phoenix definitely beats Tidus now, but he wouldn't have in 2010.

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I mean, a Deku Stick could have made it to the third round in a fourpack where Ratchet was the second round opponent and pre-votal drop Phoenix.

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Ratchet actually wasn't bad in 2010!

Certainly not the absolute bottom feeder he had been in his contest appearances up to that point.

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This topic is some of the most contest fun I've had that didn't involve ongoing matches. Great work transcience!

Looks like I have been pretty good at this! the only one so far I've gotten wrong is picking 2008 and not 2007 for highest vote total. Realizing the importance of destroying fodder, which was easily achieved in villains and female contests, was what made me get most of them. Including that L-Block (and Draven) were bait, which I was the one (or at least one of the people) to point out. Best votals for a match ever does not mean you'll have the greatest vote total individually when you're against Link, Cloud and Snake!

Funny enough, I was right about Solid Snake having the most matches. I figured not missing other contests than 2018 and getting maximum or one away from maximum in the contests you could get the most from, while not ever going out before top 8 would put him ahead of Samus and Sephiroth. Samus also never missed top 8, but she also only once had as deep a run as Snake and that was a shorter contest by number of rounds. I completely ignored Link and Cloud as possibilities however and they were tied for second! I didn't consider the importance of getting additional late round matches in so many contests, which made up for the missed brackets.

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Which "kain" has the most contest votes? (Kain (Legacy of Cain) | Kaim Argonar | Kane | Caim | Kain Highwind)

Kain Highwind - 34477
Kain (LOK) - 33927
Kane - 11476
Kaim - 6467
Caim - 1586

This one is obviously silly so I won't go into detail. LOK Kain did make two contests though, not one, so I'm a little surprised that that wasn't enough. But whatever.

How many characters have received less total votes than Tanner? (0 | 4 | 11 | 28)

Tanner 4492
Steve 4488
Kat 4401
Ragna the Bloodedge 4240
Dan Hibiki 4217
Alan Wake 4152
Red Bird 3976
Zero (999) 3866
Teemo 3788
Marisa Kirisame 3402
Hades 3352
Reyn 3332
Dunban 3233
Adol Christin 3228
Cirno 3215
Isaac Clarke 3193
Captain Viridian 3128
Welkin Gunther 2999
Commander Keen 2769
Sen. Steven Armstrong 2721
Francis York Morgan 2692
Peacock 2685
Nier 2640
Sissel 2426
Wolf 2322
Commander Video 1814
Spring Breeze Dancin' 1587
Caim 1586
Chester 924

Tanner was in last place from 2004 until 2013, when he fell to 28th. Interestingly, 2018 didn't add a single character to this list. The lowest vote total in 2018 was Isabelle with 5923, good for 41st worst. As it turns out, three-way battles and 243 characters are more important than lower vote totals.

Link has the most votes in contest history. Who is second? (Cloud | Solid Snake | Sephiroth | Samus)

This one's close.

Cloud - 2,558,296
Solid Snake - 2,510,510
Sephiroth - 2,370,932
Samus - 2,252,595

The bar chart race in post 51 explains this one pretty well. Cloud and Snake have been neck and neck since 2010, and were 30,000 votes apart at the end of the 2013 contest. Cloud's run through the losers bracket gave him a bit more of a cushion, though not as much as he maybe should have gotten due to the low vote totals.

This makes me wonder if I can make some adjustments based on average # of votes so that every contest is equally represented, or perhaps use something like adding up each character's percentage from each round. I don't have that tabulated though and it would probably be heavily weighted towards characters that have been in more matches, even more than total votes. I'll think about this and probably do nothing about it.

Which franchise has the most character battle wins? (Half-Life | Fire Emblem | Portal | Mass Effect | Mother/Earthbound)

Portal - 9-8, 3 characters
Mass Effect - 7-8, 4 characters
Half-Life - 6-11, 2 characters
Fire Emblem - 6-14, 6 characters
Mother - 5-10, 3 characters

Everyone forgets Weighted Companion Cube! (and rightfully so.) WCC has some really good wins that feel completely weird because WCC lives in a post-L-Block world where stuff like this was already normalized, and because it never truly had a deep run. Its best was making the quarterfinal in 2008. It did beat Mega Man thanks to Zero being in the poll though, something that made the Mega Man over Charizard win in 2013 all the more impressive.

Which perennial contest failure has received the most contest votes? (Kefka | Tidus | Magus | Donkey Kong)

Tidus - 542,199 votes, 5-10 record
Kefka - 521,680 votes, 9-9 record
Donkey Kong - 496,792 votes, 8-9 record
Magus - 440,423 votes, 5-8 record

I didn't include Gordon, but I should have:

Gordon Freeman - 498,175 votes, 6-10 record

Which one is the biggest contest failure? I'd probably go with Tidus, a dude who almost always had winning chances in later years but could always find a way to drop a match. His losses are to Sonic, pre-boost Ganondorf, Mega Man, Kirby, Squall, Pikachu/Leon/Vivi, Cube, Sub-Zero, Missingno and DK. I don't have the drive to look through the Guru but I bet he was the favourite against Kirby, Vivi, Cube, Sub-Zero and DK.

But Tidus is also one of only 17 characters to make 10 character battles (18 if you include Sephiroth, who is the only character to have made all 11), and was halfway decent in our best years which helps. Gordon had a better post-prime than Tidus in terms of results but he was terrible from 2002-2006 when vote totals were still healthy. Both characters are more than 200,000 votes below the next lowest character to have made all 10 character battles (Alucard).

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Aw yeah, got all those too! Did remember WCC though and I did not expect all 28 characters to be from 2013 lol.

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Nah, I knew it was going to be 2013 or bust. So many bad characters, 3-ways, and bad vote totals.

But yeah, I totally forgot about those two good contests WCC had.

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2013 was the reason I took the high number, but I'm surprised no one went below Tanner at any other point, especially 2018.

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How many of the top 25 highest voted characters were developed outside of Japan? (0 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 9)

Master Chief is 21st.

Just to show off the disparity:

Top 20 - 0
Top 30 - 2 (Master Chief, L-Block)
Top 40 - 5 (Gordon Freeman, Sub-Zero, Kratos)
Top 50 - 7 (Scorpion, Lara Croft)

The worst winning percentage for a contest character who has won a match is 12.5% (1-7). Who is it? (Lloyd Irving | Laharl | Ratchet | Wesker | Sam Fisher)

Wesker: 1-7
Laharl: 1-6
Lloyd: 1-6
Sam Fisher: 1-4

(Simon Belmont and Vyse are both 1-5)

Wesker has losses to Kefka, Lloyd, Sora/Lara, Snake/Vivi, Ken, Leon and Sephiroth. The most notable one here was Ken, a match that he looked like he'd take before the "California ASV" saved Ken.

Which of these Metal Gear Solid characters has received the most total votes? (Big Boss | Liquid Snake | Revolver Ocelot)

I think most people think of this as a 2 person race, but Ocelot isn't far behind thanks to being in a lot of contests:

Big Boss - 380,517 votes, 8-6 record
Liquid Snake - 368,187 votes, 5-5 record
Revolver Ocelot - 292,197 votes, 4-7 record

For once, villain contest factor doesn't sway the result!

Which of these series' has had the most character battle matches? (Fire Emblem | Tales of | Xeno- | Starfox | Ace Attorney)

I really just made this to show off just how inept Tales is.

Tales: 2-19
Starfox: 8-12
Fire Emblem: 6-14
Xeno: 5-15
Ace Attorney: 5-12

Lloyd beat Wesker and Velvet Crowe beat James Sunderland in what might be the worst combined strength of any 1v1 match ever. Don't quote me on that, but it's gotta be up there. Kratos Aurion, Sheena, Mithos, Jade Curtiss, Yuri Lowell, Zelos and Luke are a combined 0-14. Remember this the next time we get a Tales/Hollow Knight type of match.

Which 'sidekick' character has the most contest wins? (Knuckles | Zero | Yoshi | Vivi)

Zero: 15-9
Yoshi: 14-9
Vivi: 10-7
Knuckles: 8-9

If I was being a little more honest in my questioning, I would have included Luigi as an option but everyone would have picked him. Luigi is 17-9, not that much better than Zero but that 2006 match puts him over the edge.

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here's a bonus question. I hope I have this right.

Every Noble Nine character has faced the other eight characters with two exceptions. One is obviously Mario vs. Sonic. Who is the second pair?


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Sephiroth vs. Crono, I think

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So Zero lasting one round longer than Yoshi last contest made the difference there.

I missed a lot of these but at least I picked 2nd place a lot and my logic was mostly sound for doing this off the top of my head.

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I decided to do some trivia of my own! We talk about all the innumerable fodder that appears for one contest, gets blown out, and is never seen again.

However, there are 32 characters who have only appeared in 1 contest and have won a match.

Furthermore, there are only 3 characters who have been in just 1 contest and have won 2 matches. There is only 1 character who has been in just 1 contest and won 3 matches.

How many can you name?

(Granted, I included 2018, too, which isn't totally fair)

Hope my math is right!

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lets see. Jecht, Geralt... Kairi?

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Oh dang, I completely forgot about Geralt. That means there have been two characters who have won three matches in one appearance. Geralt is one of them.

Jecht is one of the three who's won 2. Kairi only won 1, so she's one of the 32.

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oh, I see. whenever something seems out of whack, just blame Pokemon in 2013!

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sporcle is still a thing right? you should put this on there

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Oh yeah, I've got "can you name all the contest entrants?" Sporcle quizzes for most of the contests. I should get it up to date.

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I thought about sporcle but I would definitely let it lapse as more contests happen. I hate old quizzes that dont get updated.

I might do a bar chart race on winning percentage but Ill need to do a little work to get the numbers by contest. maybe tonight.

edit: I might want to set a minimum number of matches, say 5, just so someone like Geralt doesnt end up in the top 10. its hard to get 5 matches and not have at least 2 losses unless youve won a contest.

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Furthermore, there are only 3 characters who have been in just 1 contest and have won 2 matches. There are 2 characters who have been in just 1 contest and won 3 matches

Jecht, 2B, and Pokemon Trainer Blue

Squirtle and Geralt

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Correct.

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I think that I have 26 of the one-timers too.

Tina Armstrong, Kyo, Strider, Serious Sam, Sigma, Lavos, Ansem, M.Bison, Bidoof, Sandbag, Nero, Lucario, Kairi, D. Va, Lugia, Tharja, Urdnot Wrex, Barrett, Dracula, Epona, Aqua, Mr. Game And Watch, Captain Toad, Hogger, Gilgamesh, Katherine/Catherine? (One of them won a match I think)

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All of those are correct as well.

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I need some feedback. for the 2008 contest, would you consider Snake to have 'won'?

I would typically consider the second place finisher to be a 'won' match as they qualified and moved on. how about for second place in the whole contest? did Link 'win' 2007 by coming in second?

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Eh, there's no next match to "advance" to, so I'd say only 1st place actually won in that scenario.

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More.

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I got only 3 wrong of the original questions.

I'll take it.

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I got most wrong, chose the second placed option in a lot of them, so I was generally close.

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