(5)Master Chief vs (13)Miles "Tails" Prower 2018

Ulti's Analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ap-fm75Grk

My best and most favorite call of the entire contest. One of my favorite characters as a child was Tails (and I still love him as an adult even though admitting this is embarrassing thanks to all the furrydom weirdos but what can you do), and one of my favorite games was and still is Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I kicked myself for years over not picking Tails to beat Viewtiful Joe, and this year I couldn't resist taking him on the upset train in this fourpack. This wasn't just years in the making for my love of GameFAQs contests. It was an ode to my childhood and one of the best games I played back then.

Beating Drake was awesome, but I legitimately kind of saw that coming and covered why in the round one writeup. This match was another thing entirely. I had no doubts Chief would win and only picked Tails on a blind fanboy pick. When this match started and Tails was blowing the dude out, I audibly cheered and I don't really do that for contest matches anymore. On top of that, it wasn't some board vote fluke. Tails had a 500 vote lead after an hour and maintained a 55-45 beating for the entire match. There was no day vote nonsense for Chief or any miracles. Nothing. Just a good old fashioned ass beating from one of my favorite, long-deserving characters. Tails had finally made it to round 3, I picked him purely on a favorites pick, and got to cheer my ass off for the dude. That's what these contests are all about and all the advanced metrics have robbed us of that joy (just like in real sports, by the way).

It was such a great throwback to the old days os just cheering for favorites, picking favorites in brackets, and having a good time. Good job, Tails. Now we have to get Knuckles into round 3, boys.