(7)Charizard vs (12)Riku vs (21)Nier 2013

Ulti's Analysis
Charizard's predictable beatdown mercifully brought this obnoxious round 1 to an end, and the only thing I can even think to say about the match is that this gave us 24 straight hours of legit Square bashing. Kingdom Hearts and NieR are both published by them, and the games are what, 10 years apart? That being said, look at the match pic at how Riku and Nier are basically clones. That company is beyond clueless.

Round 1 ending on a snoozer gives me a good chance to summarize it, specifically how bad it was. Allen is obsessed with this idea of "more is better", but this contest's round 1 to me proves that quality > quantity. There is no need to have 243 characters in a contest just to make obscure fanbases feel good about themselves. 128 contest entrants should be the absolute maximum; 243 is just ridiculous, and it took us something like a month and a half to get through it. I seriously got burned out on this PCA by Division 7, though I'll get the urge to write back now that round 2 is here.

Seriously Allen, more is not better. Round 1 of this contest had 81 matches. Eighty. One. Matches. There have been entire contests with 63. Stop it.

How many of those matches were even good? Maybe ten? Round 1 is about weeding out fodder and staying true to NCAA seeding, not making more fodder matches and wasting more time. I'd much rather a few strong characters get snubbed over ever dealing with a round 1 like this ever again.

Not that the actual 3-way idea was bad, but if it's eve done again just give byes to the higher seeds and take in less characters.