Results[]
Saturday, May 9, 2020
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Contest Quarterfinal |
|---|---|
| Match # | 122 |
| Match Date | Saturday, May 09, 2020 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Smash Bros. Ultimate - 62.62% 46 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Smash Bros. Ultimate - 28.79% |
| User Votes |
Smash Bros. Ultimate - 5471 Xenoblade Chronicles - 3559 |
| Anonymous Votes |
Smash Bros. Ultimate - 4495 Xenoblade Chronicles - 3343 |
Outside of the early parts of one match, the entire final eight of this contest really felt like one big dud and it all played out like mop-up duty. Just for fun, here is every contest where the final seven matches (so quarterfinals and on) was a dud. 1v1 only:
-Villains Contest
-Rivalry Rumble
-Best Year in Gaming
-Game of the Decade 2
Of the seven matches that closed out this contest, only one could even remotely qualify as "good" and it surely wasn't this match! For those playing the home game, this is the only normal contest we've ever had where the final three rounds blew. The only drama in this particular match was whether or not Xenoblade would hold Smash under 60%. Smash was just over 60% to start, and the Europe vote helped Xenoblade keep this under a 60-40. That's all she wrote.
Given how strong Smash Ultimate is going to be on this site for many years, this was a very respectable way for Xenoblade to bow out. It definitely capped off its bandwagon with a good showing, and you can't ask for much better than that from a game that was clearly never going to be on par with the contenders.
And make sure you all buy Xenoblade Remastered!
Ctes's Analysis[]
Except for the Breath of the Wild matches, this was the least exciting match of the second chance challenge. Not a single serious bracket had the winner of division 4 beating the winner of division 3. It doesn’t matter what permutation of Ultimate, Odyssey, P4G and Xenoblade we had today, the upper game would win easily and prepare itself for the biggest SFF slaughter in a long time.
Xenoblade did better than we expected of it though, about 3%. It’s definitely better than almost all of us gave it credit for before the contest, but I think it got a bit too much credit today. I’ve praised the game a lot this contest and I personally love it, but let’s take a step back here. The idea was that Ultimate SFF’d Xenoblade today and therefore Xenoblade was likely better than this indirectly. An idea which I’m not personally a huge fan of, because that doesn’t really consider the bandwagon Xenoblade was on at this point quite enough.
No matter the size of whatever bandwagon Xenoblade might have had already, it certainly was on one now. Xenoblade getting to this point of the contest was the biggest surprise judged by prediction percentage by a good amount. That’s the main material used for making a bandwagon. This reminds me a lot of the Mario vs Charizard match 10 years ago where Mario won by a good bit below 55-45 because Charizard was on a huge bandwagon by that point and had used a game release to each that point. It’s a good comparison because except for L-Block, Draven and Undertale matches, Charizard winning a 1/8 final match is the only match ever to have a lower prediction percentage than Xenoblade going so. Back then everyone knew Mario would have beat Charizard by more than that under normal circumstances.
People didn’t exactly discard the idea of Xenoblade being on a bandwagon as much as they didn’t believe it mattered more than SFF. At least many felt that way. I disagree with this and I believe the stats overestimates Xenoblade because of it. Why are were so sure that there was SFF here again? I’m sure it’s partly so that some part of the x-stats look better, like Three Houses being better than Awakening for instance, but they’re covered up by layers of rallies and SFF matches on top of the uncertainties that come with it to begin with. Regardless of how you adjust here, something will look weird. It’s like that when we’re this late in the contest. Fixing one thing here will just break something else.
Instead of looking at the x-stats, I’ll look at this match in itself and say I just don’t really think Ultimate would SFF Xenoblade by much if any amount. Sure, Xenoblade is a Nintendo game represented in Smash the Nintendo hierarchy doesn’t reach that far out. It’s mostly the first party titles and characters that work that way and even those can divert from the norm. What’s mostly consistent is the SFF between the strongest Zelda, Smash and Mario things. Metroid is often like that too but has shown resistance before. Let’s bring up that Mario vs. Charizard match again. Does anyone think that had SFF? Pokemon has often been immune to Nintendo SFF. I don’t see why Xenoblade should be all too much different. At the very least, we should be open to the possibility.
In any case, it’ll be very interesting to see Xenoblade back in the contests in the future. It was a lot stronger this time and next time it will have a Switch release to help it as well. It’s definitely the biggest outlier in our top 8 games, but division 4 was almost certainly going to be the division to give us that from the start. Cheers to Game of the Year 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016 and soon 2020.
Safer777's Analysis[]
So 2 Nintendo games here and we all know the hierarchy. XC star of the contest obviously. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. Nobody expected to do that good. One of the lowest percentages winning division finalists ever too. At least for a non rally, non multi way matches. Yeah XC was beasting in this contest.
So for the match. Well obviously Smash won BUT XC did better than expected. Very few expected to go above 40 and yet it did managed to do just that. I think the future is looking good for the contests for XC because I am sure that something new has been announced for the series so it only can become stronger. Plus how many people before the contest had it reaching this far? Like 6% only. And I think like 2 Board 8 people had it reach thus far. Still nice results for XC!