Noble Nine



The Noble Nine were an elite force consisting of nine of the most popular video game characters EVER. And have appeared in every "GameFAQs Character Battle".They always performed well in the GameFAQs character contests. The most notable fact about the elite group is that until Winter 2010 NO member of the Noble Nine had ever been defeated in a 1v1 environment... except by another member of the Noble Nine. This held true over the course of six and 1/2 tournaments, as they extended their streak to 124-0 against outside competition. The Noble Nine's winning streak officially ended on Valentine's Day 2010, when Crono was defeated by Missingno in the first round of the Winter 2010 Character Battle.


 * Link
 * Cloud Strife
 * Sephiroth
 * Mario
 * Samus Aran
 * Sonic
 * Mega Man
 * Solid Snake
 * Crono

When will the NN be broken?
It won't. Even though a character has finally lost, all it means is the winning streak is over. The 9 characters are still the same. They will not become the Elite Eight. Why? Because their Contest Histories create a domino effect that, once set in motion, cannot be stopped. Using Crono as an example...− The same chain is created no matter which member of the NN falls first; the end result is always that the Noble Nine becomes the Noble Zero. For another example, look at the following chain of what has occurred in battles: −   −
 * Crono is beaten by Missingno!
 * Crono needs to be removed from the NN
 * but Crono has defeated Mega Man in the past!
 * Mega Man needs to be removed from the NN
 * but Mega Man has defeated Sonic in the past!
 * Sonic needs to be removed from the NN
 * but Sonic has also defeated Crono  in the past!
 * Crono needs to be removed from the NN
 * but Crono has also defeated Mario in the past
 * Mario needs to be removed from the NN
 * but Mario has defeated Samus in the past!
 * Samus needs to be removed from the NN
 * but Samus has defeated Snake in the past!
 * Snake needs to be removed from the NN
 * but Mario has also defeated Cloud in the past!
 * Cloud need to be removed from the NN
 * but Cloud has defeated Link in the past!
 * Link needs to be removed from the NN
 * but Link has defeated Sephiroth in the past!
 * Sephiroth needs to be removed from the NN
 * Link has beaten Sephiroth
 * Sephiroth has beaten Samus
 * Samus has beaten Snake
 * Snake has beaten Mega Man
 * Mega Man has beaten Sonic
 * Sonic has beaten Crono
 * Crono has beaten Mario
 * Mario has beaten Cloud
 * Cloud has beaten Link

In other words, Link &gt; Sephiroth &gt; Samus &gt; Snake &gt; Mega Man &gt; Sonic &gt; Crono &gt; Mario &gt; Cloud &gt; Link. Anyone falling breaks the chain.

Why can't we remove Crono and call it the Elite Eight?
Once again, if Crono is no longer an NNer, then he becomes part of the "outside competition." But, he beat Mega Man in 2005, he beat Snake in 2002 and he beat Mario in 2004. Now neither of those three are undefeated against outside competition either. But, they beat... and so forth, creating the chain of destruction seen above.

Close Calls for the NN
Though the NN was not beaten until 2010, there were several close calls over the years. The matches where an outside opponent brought a member of the NN to below 55% during their 124 match win streak were as follows:


 * Sonic over Zero, 52.34% in 2003
 * Sonic over Aeris, 53.02% in 2003
 * Snake over Frog, 51.39% in 2004
 * Snake over Bowser, 50.59% in 2005 (1,196 vote margin)
 * Snake over Zelda, 54.41% in 2005
 * Samus over Tifa, 50.49% in 2006 (1,418 vote margin)
 * Sonic over Vincent, 52.09% in 2006
 * Mega Man over Sora, 54.28% in 2006
 * Crono over Auron, 54.50% in 2006

Noble Nine Controversy - 1v1 Only?
There is debate as to whether Vincent's finishing in 2nd place (ahead of Crono and behind Link) in Round Three of the 2007 Character Battle should qualify as a "breaking" of the Noble Nine, and whether or not this result has created a "Terrific Ten" as an alternative to the NN. To discuss the matter further, please make use of the NN discussion page. For the purposes of this article it will be assumed that the Noble Nine's streak can only be jeopardized in a standard 1v1 tournament, as that is the environment where the concept was born and where the streak has always taken place.

NN upsets in 4-ways
The Noble Nine was "broken" several times in the 4-way format, but because of the complexity of 4-ways, only a 1v1 loss would have been considered a "streak-breaker." The following is a list of 4-way breaks:


 * Vincent had an epic brawl with Crono in 2007, and the former eventually won (though Crono got his revenge in 2008).
 * L-Block defeated Link, Cloud, Solid Snake, and Sonic during the later stages of the 2007 Character Battle.
 * Auron defeated Sonic in the 2008 Character Battle. Even though Sonic advanced, he was later stopped by Kirby for no adequately explained reason.
 * In a meaningless 3rd place finish, Kirby swallowed up Sephiroth in the 2008 semifinals.
 * Due to a generous serving of LFF cake at the hands of Zero, Mega Man choked on Weighted Companion Cube during a division final in 2008.

NN upsets in 3-ways
Again, the different format in the Summer 2013 Contest (which incidentally made the N9 the 1-seeds) allowed for some LFF-related upsets.


 * Round 2
 * Pikachu defeated Crono, with the presence of Magus being a possible factor.
 * Vivi beat Mario due to both outside rallying and the presence of Ganondorf to leech the Nintendo vote.
 * Round 3
 * Draven defeated Link (with Commander Shepard as the third contestant), partly due to rallying from Reddit and the League of Legends forum. There was also an 85 minute website downtime during Link's best rally that was also a major contributing factor. Some feel the impact of the downtime is overestimated. Their was an immediate surge in Link votes following the downtime (and Draven votes, to a much lesser degree), suggesting that voters who experienced problems simply queue'd their votes for after the site issues instead of being prohibited from voting. It is also possible; however, that the match would have been won by Link if the 85 minute downtime had not occured, due to the ending diffrence being 765 votes. Even assuming that many voters returned, this hurdle could have been crossed as Link's votes stayed in general at the level of the rally line started right before the downtime. Draven's rallies came from Reddit and the LoL forum, so it is likely most of the downtime Draven voters would have returned. Seeing as how the post downtime votes for draven were low compared to  Link, it can be assumed that his voting line would have been much lower than Link's. This overall would point to a Link victory in the abssence of the downtime.Poll.png


 * Mewtwo defeated Sonic (and Bowser), in a match where LFF doesn't even start to describe given all contestants are strong and share basically the same fans.

Noble Nine Characters Which Have Never Faced Each Other
This list does not include the 2006 Battle Royal, 2007, or 2008 Contests since they were not one-on-one.


 * Link: Snake
 * Cloud: Crono,Mega Man
 * Sephiroth: Sonic,Crono
 * Mario: Sonic
 * Samus: Crono,Mega Man
 * Snake: Link
 * Mega Man: Cloud, Samus
 * Sonic: Sephiroth, Mario

Represented by Company

 * Nintendo and Square created 3 of the Noble Nine each. Together, they represent 67% of the Noble Nine.
 * SEGA, Konami, and Capcom each hold 1 of the Noble Nine. They represent 33% of the Noble Nine.

Random Facts

 * 5 of the Noble Nine are in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
 * Crono is the only Noble Nine member to never appear in a fighting game. All of the others have at least two fighting game appearances. (Aside from Smash, there's the Marvel vs. Capcom games for Megaman, Sonic Championship and Battle, DreamMix TV for Snake, and Ehrgeiz and Dissidia for the FF7 representatives.)
 * 4 of the Noble Nine wield a sword.
 * 3 of the Noble Nine fight with guns.
 * 3 of the Noble Nine are from Nintendo
 * 3 of the Noble Nine are from Square
 * 2 of the Noble Nine traditionally defeat enemies by jumping on them, though a third has done so in the past... *wink wink Sephiroth wink wink* (Actually Link did stomp on goombas in Links Awakening too)
 * 2 of the Noble Nine wear bandanas in their usual outfits.
 * Mario and Samus are the only ones who have yet to lose to outside competition in 4-ways.
 * Mario is the only character who does not wield a sword that was represented in the 2005 Tournament of Champions.
 * Samus is the only female member of the Noble Nine.
 * Out of the 147 non-Noble Nine characters that have appeared since Summer 2005 Contest, only 69 of them have ever faced a member of the Noble Nine.
 * Sonic is the only furry member of the Noble Nine.
 * Sephiroth is the only villain of the Noble Nine, and also the only Noble Nine character that has never been in a game for a Nintendo console.
 * Mega Man is the only robot and character from Capcom.
 * Solid Snake is the only Konami character and the only Noble Nine character to have been in a video game with an ESRB rating higher than "Teen" (unless you count Mario's cameo appearance in The Twin Snakes, which was rated "Mature").
 * Cloud and Sephiroth are the only two to have originally appeared in the exact same game.
 * Cloud and Sephiroth are the only two to have originally appeared in the exact same game.