(1)Mario vs (6)Vivi vs (9)Ganondorf 2013

Ulti's Analysis
For my money, this was the coolest upset of the entire contest. We saw most of the other coming at some point in some way, or they just didn't mean as much. But this one? Holy crap. A random beloved character like Vivi beating FREAKING MARIO when a 1 on 1 match between the two would be like 63-35 is hilarious.

When Vivi kept things close early, we just blamed the board vote. But then the unthinkable happened, and Vivi kept it close past the board vote. Then somewhere in the first hour, probably right around here (http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/977/hvc3.png), the realization set in that Vivi wasn't going away.

Even more nuts is 4chan caught wind of this poll and started helping Vivi build a small lead, and it probably would have ended right then and there without Mario's legendary clutch kicking in. For the first half of this poll, Vivi would build a lead of 50 or so, then Mario would erase it all in seconds, then Vivi would build a lead of 50 or so. But then the evening vote kicked in, people realized Mario might FINALLY get bitten by the upset bug after all these years, and Vivi got all the support en route to building up a lead of 200 with only 3 and a half hours left.

Was the match over then, with Vivi's best time and Mario's worst coming? Of course not! IT'S FREAKING MARIO. He started shaving that lead away very slowly, then 10:30 hit, he went crazy and all of us assumed the Mario Clutch was kicking in.

But Vivi somehow, some way, kept his cool and got the lead back to 100. Then Mario tried again, and Vivi again got it back to 100. It says something about our respect for Mario when he's losing by 100 with 10 minutes left and none of us thought the match was actually over. It wasn't until the 11:50 - 11:55 update where Mario only cut 8 did we realize this was actually going to happen, and it took like an hour postmatch for us to really let it sink in.

To put this in perspective, Mario has NEVER been snakebit by a surprise upset or heartbreaking loss. Never. Not even in games contests. Everyone else in the Noble Nine has had to deal with it. Cloud has Mario in 2002. Snake has Crono in 2002, plus his inability to win a contest despite making the final every year, and Shadow of the Colossus running his series over. Crono has the Mario saga, plus his entire contest history since 2005 or so. Sephiroth has Solid Snake. Link has Cloud in 2003. Sonic has Samus in 2002. Mega Man has Sephiroth in 2002 and Crono in 2005. Samus has Sephiroth in 2002, and Mario "upsetting" her in 2005 because LOL X-Stats.

But Mario? Never. He always pulled off the clutch late, until today. And the best part of all is this basically opened the floodgates to make the rest of this contest completely nuts. We legitimately all looked at the bracket and realized that in a contest meant to pay tribute the Noble Nine, it was possible for none of them to even win a division. That is completely nuts.