(3)Auron vs (11)Vincent Valentine 2018

Ulti's Analysis
It dawned on me during this match that Auron always seems to be in matches against other badass male characters, which is probably just a quirk of bracket placement but it's kind of silly when you actually look at his history. He has gone against Cloud, Scorpion, Sephiroth, Big Boss, Ganondorf, Alucard, Sub-Zero, Crono, Chris Redfield, Pyramid Head, Shadow the Hedgehog, Ryu, Bowser, Marcus Fenix, Sonic (he counts as a cool and badass male character, shut up), Kratos, Zero, Squall, Revolver Ocelot, Ezio, Vincent, Geralt, and Snake. It's nuts how long that list is and how relatively few rematches there are, all without him ever facing Link, the king badass of GameFAQs itself. Auron is this remarkably consistent upper midcard dude that wins matches every year at the bottom of the bracket and is great for people who like consistent characters to adjust stats with.

This year he added Vincent to the list, and man was this embarrassing for Final Fantasy 7. While this wasn't quite as trashy as the Vincent we saw during that hellacious match picture in 2013, this was still really bad and I dare say Magus might have done better. This was well over 60% at one point, and Vincent's only saving face was bleeding Auron's percentage for awhile. I would love to say Vincent might have made a game of this a few years ago back when everyone believed in the dude, but his recent performances give me serious doubts there.

What exactly has Vincent done that's supposed to give me any faith in him? He did well in 2005 when he debuted. Okay, sure. He beat Dante and went 50-50 with Squall. Then he had a close match with Ganon before getting 48% on a neutered Sonic, overperformed in lol 4ways, and collapsed a bunch as the years have gone on. Auron has always been good. Vincent is all over the place. It should be no surprise to anyone this match was never close, and from the looks of it Board 8 pretty much all knew Auron was taking this fourpack. He was the overwhelming favorite in this division period and was definitely performing like it.