(3)Vivi vs (14)Yu Narukami 2018

Ulti's Aanlysis
I would love to go on a massive rant about Persona fans being among the worst in all of gaming for this match, but I'm actually not going to do that for this PCA. Hop over to Joker/Claire if you want to know why. I was going to, but not anymore. I have a good reason for it, which I'm saving. Plus I haven't actually played a Persona yet, only dealt with the fanbase online during these contests, so for all I know maybe they have good reason for being the ultimate weebs.

Not that Yu had a prayer of winning this match anyway. Overall, Squaresoft would end up having a laughably terrible contest, and this includes Old Square, New Square, and everything in between. One of the only exceptions, somehow, is Vivi. He's retained the magic he's always had, and he came out with a purpose this year. I know he had Ganon's help last time, but him beating Mario was clearly no fluke. People absolutely adore Vivi, and he's clearly going to be a character that retains his upper midcard strength no matter how far Square falls..... and man are they falling off a cliff fast. Turns out almost two decades of bad PR and being largely mediocre will do that.

The obvious comparison here was between Vivi and Ganon, but they got similar scores against fairly equal levels of fodder. The only difference between them was prediction percentage, which we didn't actually have until halfway through the contest this year. So at the time this match happened, Vivi and Ganon looked like equals and it could have gone either way. We didn't know until later Ganon was the clear favorite, Breath of the Wild or no.

How Allen missed on prediction percentages and stats beyond registered voter bonus is beyond me, by the way. That's pretty basic stuff that we all want.