2009 Nomination Rally Tournament

The 2009 edition of the Nomination Rally Tournament was held by Leonhart4 after the Spring 2009 Contest in anticipation of a Character Battle in the fall. Though there was no such contest the winners here were nominated by the board for the Winter 2010 Contest. The newcomers bracket was won by Charizard, making it the third time in a row a Pokemon candidate has won the number one spot. The other winners were Cid Highwind, Darth Revan and Yoshimitsu while the winner of the returners bracket Ken Masters who easily won his bracket.

Format
The newcomers bracket was a 64 character single elimination until the quarterfinals where the final eight characters then proceeded with a round robin. The top four would win a nomination spot. The returners bracket was a 32 character single elimination with only the winner getting a nomination spot.

Newcomers Bracket

 * Even though Pokemon Trainer Red went further in the bracket Yoshimitsu was able to perform better during the round robin.

Aftermath
Yoshimitsu was only able to reach the vote-in poll where he finished 11th out of 12 characters. Cid Highwind also finished 2nd in his vote-in poll, but was forced to go against Mega Man in the first round. Overall he pulled off a respectable performance. Darth Revan was able to avoid the vote-in poll and was placed in a winnable match against Terra Branford. However with the release of Dissidia Terra was able to pull off the upset, though in the end Revan too looked respectable. Ken was finally given a chance to get his first win in his contest career by having Albert Wesker as his opponent, but in the end it turned into the fight of his life, but he was able to use the California vote to win. In the second round he was able to bow out gracefully against Ganondorf. Charizard by far had the best performance by easily defeating Duke Nukem in the first round which set the tone for the rest of the contest. He was able to defeat Kratos and L-Block and was able to use the release of Pokemon HG/SS to easily go past Bowser and put a very impressive performance against Mario.

Trivia

 * Despite not winning a nomination spot 5 characters from the newcomers bracket made it to the Winter 2010 Contest bracket.
 * Despite not winning a nomination spot 2 characters from the returners bracket made it to the Winter 2010 Contest bracket.