(1)2B vs (9)Ness 2018

Ulti's Analysis
2B's prediction percentage here was no accident. A lot of people, myself included, felt like the Ness/Shadow winner could win this match and that 2B was a hilariously overseeded character. People have major recency bias about this and think her match with Bowser proves she's legit, which shows a lack of context. Not dumping on her or Automata here, but it's just facts.

She beat Ness and beat him easily, but this match was close enough in percents to prove she was not a legitimate 1 seed. Maybe a 2 or a 3, but 1 seeds are held to one standard and one standard only -- "Can they win the contest?". Some will point to characters like Sonic and Mega Man, but low rank noble niners could, conceivably, win a contest without an insane rally. Even high midcarders like Zero or Luigi could do it. Just remove Link from a bracket, have Mario and Samus get randomly upset somewhere, and Luigi or Zero could catch fire. We saw Zelda do something similar just this year.

2B? Nope. Not when you're getting 54% on Ness you aren't. People look at one good match with Bowser as proof, but one good match doesn't erase the point here. Legitimacy means having results like that over and over again for years. Consistency. I like her a lot, but I harshly judge 1 seeds. It's part of the deal, lady, and 54% on Ness is just bad news. I don't care about Smash. You're a 1 seed.

To put this a different way, is Shadow the Hedgehog legit? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1345-south-division-round-2-mario-vs-shadow-the-hedgehog

Is Magus? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1353-north-division-semifinal-link-vs-magus

(The hilarious irony here is 2B might actually get into Smash and cause this writeup to fade away and classify itself as ob-so-lete by 2020. Shout out to the Hardyz.)