(8)Garrus Vakarian vs (9)Ramza Beoulve 2018

Lightning_Strikes's Analysis
What happened?: The first true nailbiter of the contest. This was generally expected to be Garrus's match, he would win relatively comfortable based on 2013 and Ramza has never been especially strong. Then it started and was neck and neck, with multiple lead changes in the first two hours. This continued throughout the night with both contestants unable to get over a 100 vote lead. Ramza eventually pushed away a little bit, getting over 200 votes which he held for a couple of hours. Things quickly went back to back and forth though, until Garrus finally gained a consistent lead with the day vote. Ramza started to cut again in the last hour but by then it was too late. In the end this match had the smallest peak lead of any character battle match at just 419 votes, and will definitely go down as one of the most exciting ones this contest.

What could this mean?: Poor Ramza. His record is as bad as Cecil's, but he has had fewer winnable matches. He at least kept this match much, much closer than most people here expected. I think a lot of this has to do with the fortunes of Mass Effect. That series has died an absolute death over the last several years, since Andromeda in particular, and I think all Mass Effect characters, even the ones people like, are going to suffer. There is still a poor taste in people's mouths from Andromeda without a doubt. Brace yourselves for an uninspiring Shepard performance.