(7)Starcraft vs (2)Mass Effect 2 2015

Ulti's Analysis
Before getting into anything else, let's get into some round 2 Stars and Turds! Last edition for the contest as a whole, since I don't think anything getting into round 3 and beyond can be classified as a turd. Even if something looked bad.

Star of the Round - Chrono Trigger, honorable mentions to Undertale and the Zelda series. I know Zelda looked off, but it was sporting a 10-0 contest record after round 2. That counts for something.

Turd of the Round - The Grand Theft Auto series, with honorable mentions to Final Fantasy X, the Fallout series, the Metal Gear Solid series, and Starcraft.

Speaking of Starcraft, let's talk about how utterly dumb this match was and how horrible a match this was for Starcraft. I named it a turd because watching Starcraft fail to show up in a rally vs rally match was just asinine. In 2004, Starcraft scored 56631 votes against Halo, 40698 votes against Kingdom Hearts, 41480 votes against Wind Waker, and 48548 votes against Melee. In 2009, Starcraft scored 33616 votes to get second place in its round 1 match, then 21854 votes to get third place and lose in round 2. For whatever reason, Starcraft didn't show up in that contest.

In this contest, it scored 24176 votes against Destiny in round 1, and then followed that up with this nonsense in round 2. 21228 for Starcraft in a 24 hour rally match, given how everyone used to be scared to death of this game being able to win any match at will, was unforgivable. I don't really blame Starcraft though, I blame Activi$ion for just ruining Blizzard beyond repair. I cannot even begin to tell you how awful Starcraft 2 is.

Can you believe that 11 years after that 2004 contest, Starcraft would be in a match that was entirely decided by whether or not its opponent allowed rally threads on Reddit? It seems ridiculous, but that's what happened. When I made my bracket, I picked Mass Effect 2 here out of pure, unapologetic fanboyism. There are logical reasons to be sure, but I wanted Activi$ion to lose. These contests are more fun when you just cheer for your favorites and root against what you hate. I also figured Mass Effect 2 would be exactly the kind of game Starcraft would have trouble rallying against, but this was no time for logic.

Early on in this match, Mass Effect 2 rode bracket votes to a very slim early lead. This match was 53-47 at the freeze, and everyone immediately assumed Starcraft would just rally and win because Starcraft does not lose close matches unless it cheats. Mass Effect 2 began to slowly build a lead over the next couple hours, which would peak at 340 at 2:30 am.

At this time, Starcraft began to rally. It was hardly a rally on the scale of Undertale, but it was enough to get the job done. Mass Effect's 340 vote lead disappeared before the sun came up, and Starcraft was easily able to blow on by Mass Effect and win the morning vote. There was some resistance by Mass Effect 2, but not enough to prevent Starcraft from trending upward and looking like it was well on its way to a comfortable win in the 52-48 range.

But then shortly after 10, the counter-rally started. It was pretty impressive in scale, too, because Mass Effect 2 was able to erase a 566 vote lead in all of 2½ hours. Against an opponent that was rallying in its own right, and that opponent was Starcraft of all things. But once Mass Effect 2 tied the match and started building a lead, things got really weird. The subreddit mods started disallowing rally threads there, which led to the match staying deadlocked for a few hours. But then around ASV time, the mods allowed rally threads, and the combined force of rallying plus the ASV buried Starcraft for good. This match was basically tied at 3 pm, but finished with Mass Effect 2 winning by 977. The lead actually peaked at 1110 at 10:30 before Starcraft made a last-ditch push for the last 90 minutes, but it did nothing more than make Mass Effect 2's final margin of victory a little bit smaller.

Props to Mass Effect 2 for winning here, but Starcraft shit the bed. I never thought I'd ever see the day where Starcraft lost a close match where both sides were rallying, but here we are. It's the twilight zone to think about the fact that this match was only decided by whether or not r/masseffect mods felt like allowing rally threads. One would assume Starcraft could out-rally anything, but then again Activi$ion ruined everything that used to be good about Blizzard and gamers have really noticed.

Then again I never thought I would see Samus 60-40 Mario in any realm, yet this contest gave us that too. This whole contest was awesome when it pertained to paradigm shifts, and we got a lot of those as things transpired.