(6)Pikachu vs (13)Lloyd Irving vs (22)Big Daddy 2013

Ulti's Analysis
This was our first match of the contest where second place came down to the absolute wire, and this stuff matters with an Expert Challenge floating around. Pikachu had first place wrapped up before the match even started, but a random second place match between Lloyd and Big Daddy being awesome? Baller. It was hard to really pick what the consensus was pre-match, too because no one cared. Seriously. No one. People plugged Lloyd vs Big Daddy into the LOL X-stats calculator, saw Big Daddy as a 67-33 favorite and called it a day.

But then Lloyd jumped out to a 300 vote lead in an hour and a half and threw a wrench into all that. Big Daddy would end up stalling overnight before making a push with the morning vote, but the 12 hour poll means he simply ran out of time. He probably wins second place going away if this poll was 24 hours, but again, I'd much rather a few more popular characters lose due to 12 hour polls than all the early round matches be 24 hours long. It makes for a better contest. Yeah it sucks as a huge BioShock fan that he only lost by 50, but I'll deal.

It made sense for Big Daddy to be the favorite, given a recent huge BioShock release and Lloyd having to share the poll with a Nintendo character. It also makes sense why he lost. The novelty of the dude has simply worn off. Big Daddy is barely even a character in BioShock; he's just a random thing you fight, and it would be like pretending a Hammer Bro from Mario is some awesome character that deserves wins in contests. Big Daddy only has character if you play BioShock 2, but that game's plot blows so who cares. The gameplay improved on the original, but not the plot. Not that it could, to be totally fair.

Big Daddy losing also wasn't all that painful given I am a huge Tails of Symphonia fan and think Lloyd is alright. It's not like he lost to freaking Wander, Touhou garbage or Donte. He lost to a good character, which anyone should be able to accept.