(6)Undertale vs (2)Super Mario World 2015

Ulti's Analysis
"Looks like free exp."

This was the match where Undertale showed us its true strategy. It basically sits there and plays dead at the beginning of the poll, then does the spider dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WDFUcjWARU

By the time its opponent actually knows what's going on, it's already dead. Mario World made the fatal mistake of not buying Spider Donuts and contributing to the unification of all spiderkind. Never forget that Muffet was the true hero. She had the most noble goal of anyone!

Although to wind it back for a moment, Mario World was well above 70% at the start of this poll and looked to be in decent shape. But much like Fallout 3, Mario World began bleeding an insane amount of percentage overnight. But unlike Fallout 3, there was no illusion of Mario World actually being able to win this match. Don't forget that despite Fallout's percentage bleed, it built up a 6800 vote lead.

Mario World barely tried half as hard. It built up a 2400 vote lead a couple hours in, and Undertale starting firing off rallies right then and there. It got the lead down to 2000 overnight before Mario World stabilized and recovered overnight, but the damage was already done. Undertale had found a new form where the bandwagon was getting started earlier and earlier in its matches, to where even though Mario World was building up a lead after Undertale cut 400, we all knew what was coming once everyone woke up later on.

Mario World would ultimately peak at 3224 at 7:30 am, and from there the slow downward spiral began. Undertale usually doesn't peak this early and wasn't used to actually making cuts during the morning vote, so it had to get its 8 legs under it during this match and start practicing!

These two would stay relatively even for the next couple hours, but around 9:30 it just all fell apart for Mario. The rallies started kicking into high gear, and by this point in the contest everyone knew what was coming. Those 150 vote updates and Mario World's struggle turned into a complete burial, with Undertale quickly pulling in 250 vote updates and getting upwards of 60% of the vote.

The scary thing with this match is Undertale took the lead before its best time kicked in. The lead change happened at 2 in the afternoon, which is usually when Undertale takes off. And true to form, Undertale went completely berserk during this time and started pulling in regular updates with 65-70% of the vote. A once-promising match turned into a very comfortable 55-45 win, with a final margin of 9559. Mario World fought valiantly for a little while, but ultimately it got buried like the rest. I think a big reason for this is even though everyone knows Mario, it's very difficult to rally for the guy. So while Undertale got going rather early in this match, Mario wasn't able to counter very well and put up perhaps the weakest effort of any of Undertale's opponents to this point.

You can imagine how bad the whining got here, too. Mass Effect 3 was mostly a "whatever" response, since many felt the game deserved it. Fallout 3 got the whining and idiotic threats going, because people are dumb, but even then it was just a Western RPG losing. But Nintendo is sacred on this site, and when Mario World lost and it looked like Undertale might bandwagon and win the contest, people went far enough to give it 0 ratings both on this site and Metacritic. Past that, the whole narrative of "Undertale is ruining matches we wanted to see!" started up, which is beyond idiotic to me. If you look at this bracket in the same way you look at sports (which I kind of do!), that logic makes no sense. You can't get excited about a tournament based on games that might happen; you get excited based on "anyone can win" and rooting for your favorites. Kentucky losing their undefeated season before the final game in the NCAAs last year didn't ruin anything, the Panthers losing their undefeated season today didn't ruin the NFL season, the Cardinals routinely choking in the baseball playoffs after having the best regular season record doesn't ruin the baseball season, the San Jose Sharks regularly choking in the hockey playoffs after having the best regular season record doesn't ruin the hockey season, and Undertale's run in this contest sure as fuck didn't ruin anything. Getting bummed out because of not seeing a potential event is always going to leave you disappointed, but if you just take things as they come you'll generally lead a pretty satisfied life.

This would set up a titan vs titan showdown for the division, and everyone felt it would decide the contest one way or another. Pokemon is the game on tumblr, so at least one of Undertale's rally points would potentially be compromised. We saw a lot of evidence for this with how Pokemon exploded along with This is also why the phrase of the Fall 2015 Contest was "backfire rate". I personally think that theory is a bunch of made-up shit that people threw out there to convince themselves Undertale could be out-ralled, so I'll let someone else explain it. The reason why I think it's dumb is because when you ask people to rally, the result is almost always one of two things: a vote for what you asked for, or no vote. A large enough group of people voting against what you ask is a very dubious, negligible stat at best. But some people believe in it, so hey, good for them.

Either way, Pokemon vs Undertale was shaping up to be a legendary match.