(3)Super Smash Bros. Melee vs (6)Undertale 2015

Ulti's Analysis
So remember what I said about feeling weird with my Pokemon picture getting spread everywhere? This was even more nuts. That picture was everywhere during this match, and while I usually try to act humble about my match pictures, this was not going to be one of those times. That's about as good a picture as one could possibly get for this match, especially on the Undertale side. My lone regret is not finding a way to get Muffet in there, but try as I might it simply wasn't going to work. There was no way to fit her in. But even still, that's a damn good picture and all these Undertale fans kept thanking me for it from all over the internet, which was a really humbling experience. A cool experience and one I really enjoyed, not gonna lie, but still humbling. greatone can relate, because they were doing the same thing with him during the final. What an awesome fanbase to be a part of.

What an awesome match to be a part of, too. Most contests, even bad ones, have a legendary match or two, and for Best Game Ever 2015, it was for sure this match right here. In the annuls of contest history, this is right there among the best matches ever. This has been a PCA of lists, so I might as well throw a list out there of Best Matches Ever™:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/994-west-division-semifinals-sonic-the-hedgehog-vs-samus-aran http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/996-north-division-final-mario-vs-cloud-strife http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1000-tournament-semifinal-mario-vs-crono http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1357-south-division-semifinal-mario-vs-crono http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1365-tournament-semifinal-link-vs-cloud-strife http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1625-division-128-round-1-halo-combat-evolved-vs-starcraft http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1655-division-32-semifinals-starcraft-vs-the-legend-of-zelda-the http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1658-division-final-chrono-trigger-vs-the-legend-of-zelda-a-link http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1660-division-final-starcraft-vs-super-smash-bros-melee http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1756-20xx-division-round-2-frog-vs-master-chief http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2455-tournament-final-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-final-fantasy http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2558-tournament-quarterfinal-sonic-the-hedgehog-vs-crono http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2925-tournament-final-link-cloud-l-block-snake http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3306-contest-final-link-crono-snake-cloud http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3789-jenova-division-round-1-crono-vs-missingno http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4183-east-division-final-smash-bros-melee-vs-smash-bros-brawl http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4194-final-rounds-semifinal-final-fantasy-x-vs-zelda-majoras-mask http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4195-game-of-the-decade-super-smash-bros-brawl-vs-the-legend-of http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5253-character-battle-ix-division-1-final-link-vs-shepard-vs http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6163-best-game-ever-day-33-division-i-final-chrono-trigger-vs http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6072-best-game-ever-day-6-undertale-vs-mass-effect-3 http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6165-best-game-ever-day-34-division-iii-final-pokemon-red-blue-vs http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6175-best-game-ever-day-39-semifinal-smash-bros-melee-vs

There will be snubs according to people, but some of the things I snubbed were for good reason. Sure it was neat seeing Jill Valentine lose by 27 votes twice, but how much did those two matches really matter? Kefka/Vercetti was great, but it was only worth one point at the end of the day. I wanted to include Trainers vs FF7, but it was only a bonus third place match that meant nothing to the actual bracket. I picked these matches based on historical contest importance, hype leading up to the match, how good the match itself was, and how relevant the match is to contests now. There is real historical significance there. If people really want, I can make a separate topic after awhile to rank the best matches ever. I can defend any of these choices well, as well as any snub. Though if I did legitimately forget anything, please let me know. I am an idiot, so I might have just honestly missed something!

The point here is after some reflection, this match to me solidly ranks as the #2 match we've ever had on this site. Only Mario vs Crono in 2003 tops it. This match had everything. Hype, intangibles, controversy, the instant classic factor, Allen having to step in and calm the board down, and above all the match itself was amazing. So sit back, take a trip down memory lane with me with me, and enjoy the ride.

In getting here, both games made one hell of a run. Melee had an easy win in round 1 against Portal, a match against Pokemon GSC in round 2 where the Melee fans rallied even though they didn't have to, and then am embarrassing win against Kingdom Hearts 2 in round 3. That match was so bad that it really seemed as if Melee would go out there in the divisional final and get pasted by Chrono Trigger.

It did, but only for 20 minutes. Then r/Smashboards and pros got involved. One rally later, and Melee had survived Chrono Trigger. It rode the momentum right through Final Fantasy 7, which didn't have a chance thanks to the episodic de-hype killing its momentum. Its reward? Undertale, the biggest bandwagon these contests have ever had. Melee was equipped to handle it, but would have to give full effort for a solid 24 hours to actually win. Undertale was the clear favorite here.

For Undertale, the journey and the rally was well-documented. It came back from down 9252 against Mass Effect 3, 6834 against Fallout 3, 3224 against Super Mario World, 7570 against Pokemon RBYG, and against Mario 64 it had a rather normal match and "only" came back from down 1083. The bandwagon and the rally increased in strength every round, to where its normal strength was on par with Mario 64's.

Undertale and Melee were positioned to have an unbelievable showdown here, and if both games rallied at maximum capacity we could potentially look at new vote total records. With the stage set, the only thing left to do was to actually start the poll and have the match.

Theme songs! Melee fans, and anti-rally fans, all viewed Melee as the final stand for the contest's integrity. You know, the same people that whined for 24 hours and acted dejected when Melee rallied to beat Chrono Trigger because reasons. The same people who are only anti-rally until a game they support is the one being rallied. The same people who wish the year was still 1999 and all brackets could be predicted with 100% accuracy. They felt that Melee was the true hero of this contest after trying to bury it against Chrono Trigger two rounds earlier. You know, the double standards crowd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCMJC1Ig6s

Undertale's theme song was easy, because it was about to go full Megalovania on this bitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jVbSI9H4o

When the poll started, the first thing of note is that vote totals were completely insane. Both games showed up ready for a fight, with Melee actually winning the board vote and taking a 100 vote lead. But right before the freeze, Undertale began its blowback. That 100 vote lead for Melee dropped down to 74 at the freeze, with total votes being at 1576. For reference, Undertale vs Mario 64 had 1161 votes at the freeze. Undertale/Pokemon had 1293. If ever the vote ceiling theory was to be tested, this was the match where we would find out.

Come the next update, it was clear this match would be off the charts. Literally. Undertale won it by a score of 689-668, which cut the lead down to 53. Undertale took the lead next update by winning the update with a score of 749-643. Both games were going just totally nuts here, but Undertale had the clear advantage. There was no rhyme or reason to it, since both games were bandwagon bait and just rallying their asses off.

The one cause for concern Undertale had is that last round against Mario 64, it proved it was an awful front-runner. It blew two different leads against Mario before finally putting the match away for good. Had it repeated that performance here against Melee, it would have been in a lot of trouble. Melee was clearly out for blood this match. After the next two updates were 721-687 in Undertale's favor, then 769-751 in Melee's favor, we got our answer to what Undertale's final form was.

2015-12-13 00:30 - Undertale 941, Melee 673 2015-12-13 00:35 - Undertale 924, Melee 653 2015-12-13 00:40 - Undertale 890, Melee 653 2015-12-13 00:45 - Undertale 866, Melee 800 2015-12-13 00:50 - Undertale 797, Melee 682 2015-12-13 00:55 - Undertale 775, Melee 645 2015-12-13 01:00 - Undertale 742, Melee 634

After one hour, Undertale went beyond any level Draven had and dropped a nuke on this poll. Melee was out there going absolutely apeshit, and it still got completely rolled. People reading this years from now may not truly appreciate how insane these numbers are, so I'll pull up the best two comparisons I've got.

Record for most votes in a 1v1 poll (158527): http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2455-tournament-final-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-final-fantasy

Record for most votes in any poll (195360): http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2925-tournament-final-link-cloud-l-block-snake

An hour into this match, there were 17928 votes, which was on pace to completely shatter both of those records and just fly past 200,000 total votes. Those numbers are unheard of, and it's a testament to both games. Undertale might have been pulling in the craziest numbers we'd ever seen, but Melee wasn't exactly a slouch here. You have to tip your cap to the whole match, and on a personal level I was with toby fox. I was rooting for Undertale because it was the better story, but I would have been happy with either game winning and was really just rooting for the highest possible vote totals. tobyfox put this tweet out during the match that sums up my thoughts nicely. It was a true win-win for everyone: https://twitter.com/fwugradiation/status/676014982396518400

For the record, both tobyfox and the Melee pros that were tweeting all match shared the same "wow this is pretty cool" sentiment. There was very little vitriol on either side, which I wish the anti-rally crybabies would see as an example. There are times when the messenger counts, and this was one of those times.

At this point, we were about to see how well Undertale could truly function as a frontrunner. It dropped the ball against Mario 64, and Melee during this match was a far, far cry away from Mario 64's strength from a round ago. For a few hours, Undertale responded far better than it had against Mario. As rally-filled as this match was, there were some clear trends here. After both games went completely nuts during Undertale's initial power hour push, both slowed down by about the same rate. I know it's hard to say that two games getting 400+ votes each update was slowing down, but compared to the early rush it really was true. During this time, Undertale slowly built its lead up to 1950.

Normally this would signal the beginning of the overnight vote and drastically lower vote totals, but this was not a normal match. Undertale and Melee were both firing on all cylinders, with both games having massive social media presences on every site you can think of. Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, reddit, 4chan, you name it. This match had trends, sure, but it was all about the rallies. Both games had a steady stream of just insane numbers pouring in, but Melee felt capable of many more spikes on Twitter than Undertale did. It showed as much whenever a pro tweeted about the match, as there would be a noticeable spike in Melee's votes for 15 minutes. With Undertale, there was really only the @undertale_bot account, which was quite large, but still only one account.

Overnight, Melee made one of those impressive comeback attempts you'll ever see. People always complain about rallied entrants ruining contests, but we have been rallies and bandwagons lose before. People have this assumption that every rallied contest entrant automatically wins, but it's simply not the case. Mario and Scorpion lost in 2002. Magus and Link lost in 2003. Starcraft and Frog lost in 2004. Diablo and Vincent lost in 2005, and Mario got blown out in the Tournament of Champions. 2006 doesn't feel like it had a bandwagon, but Snake probably comes the closest. He lost in the final. Zack, the Weighted Companion Cube, Master Chief, Pikachu, and L-Block all ultimately lost in 2008, in a contest specifically built for joke characters. Charizard, Missingno, and Solid Snake lost in 2010. The trainers lost in Rivalry Rumble.

The only true bandwagons that finished the job were L-Block, Majora's Mask, Draven, and Undertale. These rallied/bandwagoned entrants are not guaranteed contest wins. Melee knew this, and sought to end things overnight. At 2:30 am, Undertale had a lead of 1920. Overnight, Melee shaved away at that lead very slowly. There was some back and forth, but the overall trend was in Melee's favor. It won some updates by 10 and others by 20 or so, but it was winning updates consistently even with the very high vote totals.

Come the morning vote, Melee had shaved it down below 1500 and still kept going strong even as more and more total votes kept coming in. The two games kept fighting neck and neck with Melee having the slight trend advantage, and it kept shaving and shaving all morning long. Undertale did a lot of fighting back, but Melee would always maintain that slight trend advantage. I feel that had Melee fought the entire match like this and tried making its move as late as possible, it could have had a great chance of winning the match.

As it would stand, Melee made its big move at 10:30 am. After hours and hours of 50-50, Melee caught a rally and started pulling in 500+ votes per update. A 1400 vote lead started disappearing really quickly, and though Undertale countered here, Melee kept pushing. This is very important to note. From the time Melee got that 551 vote update at 10:30 am until the time Melee took the lead, two hours passed. Undertale noticed, but Melee was still able to catch up and win. So I'm fairly confident that a late rally that started at 10 pm would have been a much better idea for Melee, especially late in a poll when there are less votes coming in.

But Melee decided that this was the best time to go for the win, so it did. It got a 551 vote update and just kept right on rolling, and even though Undertale noticed the push and tried to counter, Melee was easily winning updates. While Undertale was sitting there pulling in 450-500 votes per update, Melee was pulling in 500-550. This trend continued all the way until lunch, where Melee would take the lead. The lead change update and the updates that followed had some insane numbers, so I'll just transcribe them here:

2015-12-13 12:35 - Melee 618, Undertale 488 2015-12-13 12:40 - Melee 644, Undertale 573 2015-12-13 12:45 - Undertale 673, Melee 598 2015-12-13 12:50 - Melee 552, Undertale 551 2015-12-13 12:55 - Undertale 655, Melee 578 2015-12-13 1:00 - Undertale 720, Melee 520

Other than the early parts of this poll, Melee held a lead for 5 updates. Undertale responded by pulling out some more completely insane numbers to take the lead back, and though I wish the final 11 hours of this poll would have been as good as the first 13 hours, it was not to be the case. Melee simply made its big move too early, and the biggest mistake it could have made here was taking the lead too early. Had it kept the match in the 1300-1500 range until 10 pm and then done this, it might have won. As is, it was impressive to take the lead but it accomplished little more than taking a baseball bat to a hornet's nest instead of a flamethrower. This whole match was like watching wasps (Melee) take on hornets, and the hornets (Undertale) would ultimately just get pissed off and bury Melee for good.

Undertale was at its best this entire contest when getting pushed. The Mario 64 match showed us the model to actually beat Undertale, but organizing a late rally is really difficult. It was much easier to just try and get in as many votes as early as possible, and for whatever reason all this did was cause Undertale to go completely insane all contest long. Melee was the best example of this. Once Melee took the lead, impressive as it was in doing so, Undertale just went thoroughly insane and put this match on ice. At 1, the match was tied. For the rest of the match, despite all of Melee's best efforts, Undertale steamrolled the poll and would ultimately win by 4213 votes. It put all frontrunning talk to rest, it put Undertale in the final for a date with Ocarina of Time, and because everyone knew during the second half of the match that things were over, the rallies slowed down considerably -- that is, considerably when looking at the rest of this particular match. It's not like the two games stopped pulling in ridiculous numbers.

The match would end with 176159 votes, which would be far and away our new 1v1 record. It didn't score higher than the 2007 final or break 200k votes, but this was still really impressive in its own right. Melee finishing with 85973 votes made it the most impressive loser we've ever seen, breaking Final Fantasy's record of 77702 in the series contest final. People were upset with Melee's loss, but really, the old cliché of a match like this having no losers rang true. The only real issue this match had, aside from the final 11 hours being a boat race, is that it wasn't the actual contest final. If it was the final with the same rallying circumstances involved, I have no doubts this thing breaks 200k total votes. But I sure won't complain about how things turned out. Two of my favorite games went out there and tore the house down in a match that will be discussed as long as this site is around, which is all I could ask for.

A lot of people accused Undertale of cheating during the match after analyzing its trends, and to a man some of those updates did look a little weird, especially when you factor in geolocation stats. People brought up China, and for a fair reason.

China's stats for all 7 Undertale matches:

Mass Effect 3 81.82%, Undertale 18.18% Fallout 3 81.82%, Undertale 18.18% Super Mario World 58.06%, Undertale 41.94% Pokémon 57.78%, Undertale 42.22% Super Mario 64 48.72%, Undertale 51.28% Melee 28.14%, Undertale 71.86% Ocarina 56%, Undertale 44%

Melee's match is a huge outlier, which is even more obvious in retrospect after looking at the final. Allen noticed these concerns, and stepped in by giving us a ton of info during and after the match.

On cheating: "Undertale isn't vote stuffing. The biggest attempted vote stuff yesterday was a guy who used a bot to create 643 accounts and vote... for SSBM. He, like all other cheaters, were easily caught and their votes ignored.

If we restricted voting just to Comcast users in the US (the most popular ISP, with around 15% of the total vote), UT wins 51.13% to 48.87%, which is extremely close to the actual result."

On rallies: "I think the real issue and why people are upset is the fact that the rallies make it impossible to predict the bracket." -Black Turtle

"...but that's the entire point." -Allen

On traffic, and the accusation that the poll gets less votes because less people come here regularly (which is true regardless of any PR spin, though what's often missed here is that the site treats its users like children instead of not modding everything and letting users act like adults; this has chased a LOT of people away over the years): "That's because more AAA titles are coming out now, and the people working on guides are being spread more thin. Also in this age, people value quality over quantity. Back when something like FF7 came out, everyone wrote guides for it because it was THE game to play and there wasn't anything else to do. Now when FFXV comes out, there will be plenty of other popular games to play, too. Authors have also started shying away from creating a billion In-Depth guides because they aren't necessary. It's a shift in mindset and the way that gaming works now, not a sign of our impending doom.

Also the traffic on the boards has increased Y2Y every year since they've existed. Again, everyone is more spread out amongst different boards and also the emergence of other forms of entertainment (i.e. YouTube, Twitch, etc) means that people aren't sitting on our boards 24/7 anymore. They are still just as active, if not moreso, just in smaller bursts. Thus you don't get the giant total of people active all at once, but the amount of posts made daily doesn't go down. I'll probably do some kind of information digest when the contest is over.

Oh and to nip it at the bud before someone says it, the PotD gets fewer votes now because Google takes people directly to the content that they want to rather than taking them to our front door. Someone can search something verbose like "How do I defeat the Ninja boss when he has the Cloak of Onions?" and Google takes them right to the proper FAQ/board post/Answers post to answer that exact question and then they go back to playing their game. They don't need to poke around anymore so they don't end up seeing the Poll."

I wish Allen had delved into the China geolocation, but this was as good as we were going to get. With him legitimizing the result, it cements the match as our solid #2 of all-time, and had the final 11 hours been as good as the first 13, it would have been #1.

How about you guys? Where do you rank this match on the all-time list?