Results[]
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 3 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 75 |
| Match Date | Tuesday, April 14, 2020 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Shovel Knight - 57.85% 47 for - 6 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Shovel Knight - 18.86% |
| User Votes |
Octopath Traveler - 4623 Shovel Knight - 4759 |
| Anonymous Votes |
Octopath Traveler - 4481 Shovel Knight - 4402 |
Either this match or Resident Evil 2 vs Bloodborne was the best match of the entire contest, and both of them had everything one could ask for from a contest match -- high stakes, lots of F5 moments, controversy, arguments, whining, the whole nine. We'll get to the latter match when the time comes, because this writeup is about Shovel Knight shocking the world. 18.86% prediction percentage in round 2, folks!
Coming into this match, none of the hype at all was in Shovel Knight's corner. Octopath Traveler had ridden a wave of Undertale anti-votes right into the second round, and given the second match was against Shovel Knight, people figured Octopath Traveler would ride the momentum all the way through this match. I saw quite a lot of Board 8 users talking about how they would vote Octopath purely as a thank you vote for beating Undertale in round 1. This isn't unusual for games scoring upset wins, but a lot of people are still sore over Undertale winning the contest five years ago, which frankly speaks to how amazing Undertale's run truly was but I digress!
Given how important the Undertale run was in 2015 and how important that round 1 upset was, it was only natural for Octopath Traveler to have football-like momentum on its side. All Shovel Knight had done leading up to this match was a bunch of bad showings in Game of the Year polls, a loss to Captain Toad, and beating a game in Dragon's Dogma that no one cares about. Of course the board was going to root for Octopath Traveler. I should note here that I picked Shovel Knight > Octopath Traveler > Undertale in my bracket for one very specific reason. I had a gut feeling Undertale would lose to almost anything because of anti-voting, but that Octopath Traveler would be weak enough to lose to Shovel Knight even with the momentum. The reason for this is very simple. No actually likes Octopath Traveler. People like the story of the game pulling off a round 1 upset over a contest champion in close fashion, but when seeing discussions about the actual game itself I don't see people saying anything good. I was of the belief that almost anything could have beaten Undertale in this contest, and that Shovel Knight would be respected enough to turn around and beat the winner. The fact that his mug is everywhere can't hurt, either.
Technically speaking, I wasn't correct on all this and it took a literal act of divine intervention for things to go the way I picked. When this match started, it was a dead heat with no sign as to either game being able to win at all. Usually there's a sense of where things will go. Not this time! It was even for the first five minutes, and after a small (very small) Shovel Knight increase at the first update, it was short-lived. Shovel Knight scored another small update win, but again, it was short-lived. This pattern continued for an hour. Shovel Knight gain, tripped, Shovel Knight gain, tripped, Shovel Knight gain, tripped. These Octopath stalls and gains were fun, but Shovel Knight was slowly building a lead.
After an hour, Shovel Knight finally took off. That early struggle to establish wrist control turned into a 250 vote lead very quickly, but back came Octopath Traveler yet again to show it wasn't dead yet. But after that bump to get it below 200, Shovel Knight took actual control of the match. Late into the evening and into the overnight period, it built itself a lead that would ultimately peak at 365 votes. If indie games had any presence in Europe whatsoever, this match would have been stone cold over, but once the dead zone started overnight and Europe started waking up, the match flipped.
It started slowly (very slowly) at first, with the updates staying either tied or slight Octopath lean with every single one, with the occasional Shovel Knight +10 thrown in there. It was like watching open heart surgery, and it kept going like this all the way until the morning vote. As America began waking up, the lead fell down to 200 votes. But with America favoring Shovel Knight, easy win right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0NmGKxGGE4
If you told me Nightwish did this song, I would probably believe you.
Not only did Octopath Traveler win the morning vote, it easily won the morning vote. That 200 vote lead was under 100 in an hour, and though Shovel Knight tried its damndest to delay the inevitable, the lead was gone two hours later. After a tie that lasted another hour, because Shovel Knight was not about to just roll over and dig its own grave (yes bad pun, I am well aware!), it was Octopath Traveler that finally started winning wrist control in this matchup. It spent the rest of the morning and lunch time building itself a lead, though it never did so in any kind of domineering fashion. Octopath built up a 200 vote lead relatively quickly, but could never get beyond that.
From here, it was hours and hours of stalling with Shovel Knight, of all things, having the slightest of leans in the match trend. This wasn't a "comeback attempt" so much as it was stalling thins out and hoping for the best, but it was working. Octopath's 200 vote lead got shaved down below 100 with five hours to go, and it was anyone's match from there. At this point, Shovel Knight made its move. It basically tried everything from here to erase that lead and try to jump ahead, but Octopath Traveler held on for dear life at every turn. Lead goes from 100 to 36 in three updates? Well here comes another stall where it stays at 50. Lead goes from 40 to 18? Well let's go back up to 33 because why not?
It continued like this until Shovel Knight tied the match and seemed like it would break through with two hours to go. With two hours to go and lots of momentum behind it, Shovel Knight finally did the whole LEAD CHANGE routine, and it looked like the match would flip. Bu t true to form, Octopath Traveler just would not go away. When Shovel Knight finally got its lead back, this was what the match looked like for the next few updates afterwards:
-Shovel Knight by 11.
-Shovel Knight by 3.
-Shovel Knight by 1.
-Shovel Knight by 6.
-Shovel Knight by 8.
-Shovel Knight by 6.
-Shovel Knight by 6.
-Octopath by 30.
With only 90 minutes left in the poll, that looked to finally end this match. But of course that wasn't it, because Octopath could not retain any momentum. It got stalled out for four straight updates, and then, at 6:49 pm EST, with just over an hour left to go, this contest's version of divine intervention: https://twitter.com/YachtClubGames/status/1250194555330129920
Stalwart stewards, we're calling for your aid!!
The GameFAQs "Game of the Decade" vote is happening NOW and Shovel Knight needs your vote!
Dig in at the top of the page!
Octopath had no counter, and that was a wrap. What do you even do when the developer of your opponent rallies for their own game on Twitter? You sit there are you die, that's what. After nearly 23 hours of just beating the crap out of each other, Shovel Knight was bailed out in hilarious fashion, and it turned a 40 vote deficit into a 200 vote win in just over an hour.
We'll never know what would have happened without a developer rally popping up right at the end of the match with perfect timing, and it's impossible to know for sure. My best guess is that Board 8 would have tried to get Octopath the win as a thank you for defeating Undertale, but with the way this match went, who really knows? It was anyone's game there at the end, but Shovel Knight caught a super lucky break to advance.
Both games put on one hell of a show, and this is the type of match where it sucks someone has to lose, but shout out to Octopath Traveler here. It may have only been around for two matches, but they were two of the contest's most entertaining matches. Shout out to Shovel Knight, too, for pulling a developer rally of all things out of its ass to clutch up and win. This site talks about developer rallies a lot, especially when Witcher 3 is concerned, but to actually see one make this huge difference is always fun. It also opened up the door, however slightly, for Shovel Knight to catch fire in this contest and cause some real damage. It would need to, since its next opponent was Super Mario Odyssey.
Yacht Club Games knew it, too: "We can't give up! Not even if pitted against our beloved mustachioed main man!"
Who knows? Maybe lightning can strike twice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE
Ctes's Analysis[]
Who could’ve guessed that this would be one of the absolute best matches of the entire contest? Shovel Knight was picked by a solid number of gurus to win this match but by far the most of them had it beating Undertale today. Very few people expected Octopath Traveler to be here, but even fewer people thought it would stand a chance. Almost everyone that did not pick Undertale to round 3 did not do so, because they expected Undertale to receive some similar anti-voting to what Draven got two years ago. Most people didn’t think it would be enough and that it could use its momentum to ride to round 3 in similar fashion to what L-Block did in the past.
Not many were expecting a close match today, but it was exciting right from the beginning. They were neck to neck for the first five minutes, almost equal, and they went back and forth. Shovel Knight would make a minimal jump next update, but then Octopath stole the lead. Some argued Shovel Knight had the bracket votes and Octopath would run with it now, but others knew that most people weren’t bracket voting today because they had Undertale winning this match. Look at the prediction percentage and you see the proof. Octopath Traveler likely has quite a bit less than that, it already had close to this in round 1, and only a small handful of the gurus that picked Octopath in round 1 did so again.
True enough, Octopath looked to be the bracket vote winner, probably as a minor bandwagon factor. Shovel Knight took it all back in the coming update and build on it afterward. Octopath would make its small cuts, but Shovel Knight would gain a good bit more. In the span of about four hours it would have build a lead of about 300 votes and almost no one one thought the match still lived.
Then the night hours came and put the brakes in. It was similar to Celeste vs. Rayman Legends overnight, but Octopath initially didn’t make the same push and Shovel Knight looked to have a hold of the match. As morning came to Europe Octopath would stop stalling and start making progression. It was nothing fast at first, but it cut the lead down to below 300 again clearly moving forward. At this point people began taking notice, those of us awake at least, because Rayman had won its match with a bit of room to spare, so if Octopath could keep this up, it could win it.
Octopath kept slowly cutting the lead down. The pace was inconsistent, but it went in one direction and a lead change seemed inevitable as the lead went down below 100 votes. With about 50 votes left to be cut, a rally thread was put on Shovel Knight’s subreddit, which seemed to halt Octopath’s cutting a bit, but not to anything major. It’s hard to tell how much it actually did, because it was also when NA was beginning to wake up and everyone expected that to give Shovel Knight some more footing. The match was around 50 votes for a while.
A rally thread was then also put up on Octopath’s subreddit and that one later changed the course of the match. At first, it was successful enough to remove most of the remaining lead, but it looked to mostly a small spike. Octopath got close but couldn’t quite get there. Shovel Knight was ahead by nine votes, then three votes, then three votes again and then a single vote, but it just wouldn’t drop the lead. It looked like the reddit rallies have run their course unless they gained significant traction.
Shovel Knight gained a little bit again from there, which might have been rallying I suppose, but is probably mostly the morning vote coming I think. It wasn’t all too fast. Then came the drama suddenly. As Shovel Knight just gained to be ahead by 46 votes, the moderators of the Octopath subreddit pinned it at the top of the page, meaning it didn’t really need to traction, everyone entering that subreddit would see it right away and they would know it had the moderators support. Its effect was plain to see. Octopath had a huge spike and the next update tied the match. It did the same thing again to take the lead of 50 votes.
Octopath slowed a bit down from that point, but a lot of people thought the match was over at that point. Shovel Knight didn’t have anything to counter that with. While the first two updates were the most beastly, Octopath would have the rally thread pinned there for the rest of match, meaning a consistent boost throughout the day as more people visit the page. Octopath went up slowly but steadily and was leading comfortably with 8 hours to go.
Then Shovel Knight really began stalling. Everyone was awake again now and the rallies had reached their potential. Shovel Knight did not lead Octopath get to a lead of 200 votes, though it was close at time. Shovel Knight then attempted to move things in its direction again, but it was a bumpy vote. Every now and then, Octopath would have a killer update, which often cancelled about 3 cuts, so it took a lot of time for Shovel Knight to get anywhere. With five hours to go, it still needed to cut off 105 votes. At the current pace, everything could happen. Shovel Knight had the time, but it was moving so slow that Octopath could perhaps do more if it wanted to. It seemed that most people on board 8 wanted Octopath to win, with most Shovel Knight supports being the ones that picked it to win today. That could end up bailing Octopath out if necessary.
Shovel Knight made a solid push to get the lead from 101 and down below 50 before Octopath really hit the brakes. Then they stalled there for hours. Shovel Knight won by far the most updates, but they were almost never particularly big and Octopath had some seemingly random big updates every know and then. Octopath really stalled, as is natural in the later hours of our matches these days. Trends are hardly there anymore.
With two hours to go, Shovel Knight took the lead with 11 votes, but it couldn’t get anywhere with it. Octopath cut and then took the lead back to be ahead by a single vote. Then Shovel Knight took it back and lead by under 10 votes for four updates. It seemed like the match would come down to the last second. This was super exciting, because our lack of trends almost always has it so that matches won’t be exciting near the end, but when the match seems to naturally land at just about it even, they can still be!
Octopath had a huge spike next update, not only winning the lead, but getting 30 votes ahead, which put Shovel Knight in a very tough spot. It had such a hard time getting the lead and it couldn’t go anywhere with it. Some people believed the natural trends would give Shovel Knight the edge, but it just didn’t get anywhere, and it struggled to take this lead back now too, with only a bit more of an hour left. It was anyone’s game and at this point almost all of us were watching and were ready to do so until the end, but Octopath seemed to have the advantage. It was just nail biting and waiting for the next five minutes to pass until something following the twitter account posted this right away:
https://twitter.com/YachtClubGames/status/1250194555330129920
Yacht Club Games, the creators of Shovel Knight tweeted about this match. Someone here who follows the account posted it instantly, so we’d see the effect right away. Most people agreed it would be game over for Octopath Traveler though. We did not know how much it did, but when the match was this close, this would be deciding. It was only 38 votes ahead. Still, everyone eagerly awaited the effect. After hours of excitement and refreshing, one user summed everything up very well right before the update stroke:
"Whatever happens next, it's been an honor F5ing with you all this evening." – TheCodeisBosco
Shovel Knight took the lead back right away. Only with 1 vote, but that was still a 39-vote victory. Plus, that was from the people that were very quick to see the tweet and act. Remember that everything I wrote last paragraph happened within five minutes. The match was over, everyone agreed. True enough, Shovel Knight would gain up to 37 votes next update and quickly burst well above 100. It slowed down again then, but with about half an hour to go, Octopath had nothing to counter with, when the effect still showed. It was over. Shovel Knight came just short of 200 votes and advanced.
Yacht Club Games then made the biggest red herring in the world. Look at the comments section of that twitter post. People took notice that Super Mario Odyssey would be the next opponent and they rightly knew that would be a tough thing for Shovel Knight to get past. The account that answered that they’d still do everything they could to win, although they recognized that Odyssey is a great game at the time. No one here was worried about the match, because if this was what the twitter could do, it wouldn’t be enough, since Super Mario Odyssey are leagues ahead of Shovel Knight to begin with, but they ended up forgetting all about it, and no one here cared to give the reminder.
It lost, but Octopath Traveler proved today that it was legit. It might’ve gotten some bandwagon, mostly early on, and it had pinned rallies, but it still looks really good today. Most people credited its victory to Undertale anti-voting, but it appears was alright after all, and that its momentum and anti-voting almost canceled each other out. It’s in line with what we’ve seen of Bravely Default. Being a Square RPG on a Nintendo console has always been a good thing. Maybe they should release Final Fantasy XVI on Nintendo’s most recent console if it ever happens.
Shovel Knight ended up being the only indie game to advance to round 3 despite such a promising round 1. Whether it’s the strongest one remains to be seen. It seems to between Cuphead, Stardew Valley and Shovel Knight itself, but Shovel Knight ended up being behind several layers of SFF, so it’s really hard to determine. Cuphead was also below some. We’ll never really know.
It’s hard to tell how the match would’ve ended naturally or even how it would’ve ended if Yacht Club Games didn’t tweet in the end. I’d call Octopath the favorite if only the tweet doesn’t happen, which means Shovel Knight takes the victory without it, since it easily had the least successful subreddit rally. It probably wouldn’t come down to the last second if no rallies interfered, but it would still be an overall close match. People tend to forgot Octopath already had a really strong really if they weren’t around, because that one didn’t change the direction of the match, it simply turbo boosted the direction it was going in. Shovel Knight likely wins a good bit easier in round 1, that means if Octopath hadn’t just beat Undertale. Though Octopath would still have looked good going out.
In the midst of what was easily the best match of the contest so far and probably top 3 overall, there was of course talks of rallies and hypocrisy and everything in between. All the things about what you are allowed to think and what you are not. Shovel Knight used a rally to win in the end, so clearly any anti-rally person should be against it right? Oh, but Octopath had a big rally earlier, so it was mostly a counter, meaning Shovel Knight should be the game you cheer for as an anti-rally person. Oh, but wait, Shovel Knight did have a rally up first, so clearly it’s the villain, right? As an anti-rally person, you must figure out how the match, where the games are within a percentage of each other, would have ended with no outside interference and that’s the game you can root for. Except it’s hard to judge, so someone will disagree with you either way, it’s probably best to just not be happy at all then. If you’re pro-rallies, the only other option, then you had the time of your life, but you better have had the same stance in any other match with rallies regardless of size, otherwise you’re a major hypocrite and that’s no good.
It’s probably obvious what I think of all that. I know, I’m beating a dead horse with some of the points but let me just make it clear how much I think all of the above is a major load of s***. First of all, the good old idea that you either have to support all rallies or dislike all rallies. I wont ever hear counterarguments here because it makes no sense. Why am I obligated to enjoy Draven making Mega Man X and Ryu look like complete fodder on his way to swallow a contest whole if I enjoyed two games today rallied a bit back and forth using their subreddits? Nothing else in the worlds works that way. It’s no goddamn different that telling me I have to enjoy every single Final Fantasy game if I like one of them and no one is doing that. It’s not hypocritical by default. Sure, it’s probably hypocritical if you hate a certain type of rally influence in one match because it knocks one of your favorite games out, but then rally yourself in another match in similar fashion to help another favorite game of yours out. That does not mean you’re a hypocrite if you enjoyed today’s match, but hated Undertale and Draven and I really can’t stress this enough.
You’re also allowed to dislike the tweet or the pinned rally more than the one rally this match had that didn’t do as much, because they’re not the same thing. It’s my clear observation that most people just want exciting matches. If rallies make a match more exciting, that’s great! That’s likely what happened today, but people got called hypocrites left and right if they had previous anti-rally in any context. If a rally makes what would have been a close match no contest, then that’s not great. It’s very simple! The last part goes in particular if it flips a result, and even more it goes on for several rounds to take away interesting matches from us. Still, we’re actually pretty consistent with these things. We disliked the rallies when they didn’t flip a result too, just look at Melee last contest or Bloodborne this one. A lot of also has to do with the fact that people want the games to fight on equal ground, so if one game can pull all the outside forces in the world, but the other one can pull none, then it’s not as well liked as if both pull people in. That’s completely reasonable!
My own stance on rallies is somewhere in between. A lot of the issues with them these days is our very small votals, which makes it easy for a small really to have a big impact. If we still had 100k in total votes each match, then those small 100 vote boosts would barely be noticed and even some of our larger rallies this contest would be negligible. I like the idea that we give our site attention elsewhere and boost votals, but I would enjoy it a lot more, if people stayed around afterward. It makes predicting less fun most of the time because it’s so random what gains traction. I can appreciate a match like today despite rallies. I had a lot of fun following it all day, but I did not find Melee and Undertale fun for giving me one good match at best while likely ruining all of SMB3 vs. RBY, RBY vs. SMW, CT vs. FFVII, RBY vs. SM64, CT vs. RBY and CT vs. OoT (or however those would’ve turned out). Yes, the first one happened, but it was heavily influence and one of my best predictions ever was heavily clouded by the rally spillover. I suppose, I’m generally against them, but it’s circumstantial and I never really get angry I just care a bit less, and I would mind less if our natural votals weren’t as bad.
Finally, I was rooting for Shovel Knight from before this match began. I love the game and I had it in my bracket too. Not only that, I would have been eliminated in the guru today if Shovel Knight didn’t win because Luster and I have identical brackets post round 2. I could go on a while about my passion for Shovel Knight, but you get the point. I was loudly cheering for Shovel Knight when the excitement was at its peak and I was happy that It won. I never stated that I was happy with the way it won, and I might have expressed earlier in the match that I thought it was a shame that one of the subreddits was pinned instead of zero or two. Suddenly, I was hypocritical for being happy when a game won that rallied itself past the goal line in the end. I was not being rude about it. Seriously? You are not a hypocrite if you hope the game you’re cheering for gets the same support the opposing game has had. Period. It’s not too surprising, but when not only trolls, but plenty of users were throwing the word hypocrite around back and worth, I wanted to bring it up. I was genuinely a bit sad at the end of that match that it did not seem like I could be happy without fueling that discussion. Was I just supposed to stop rooting for the game in the middle of the match because of how it turned out?
Regardless of what you think about rallies and what you think others can think about rallies, these contests are all about rooting for your favorite games. Ultimately, it’s all about having fun and hoping that the games that made your decade better does well. Predicting and analyzing and all that stuff is secondary to that. Could we all f***ing stop being jerks to each other for cheering for our favorite games, please? It’s a shame we couldn’t have this match without having these pointless discussions near the end, but make no mistake, this was a fantastic and memorable match. In a few days, round 2 was already way better than round 1.
Safer777's Analysis[]
So yeah as you can see from this result an EXTREMELY close match. 201 votes difference. So for this match the whole crew went with SK here. Plus they had it above 60 too! So the reason was that OT won against Undertale who was the previous champion via anti votes or something so people would vote normal here and they would favor SK because somehow SK has become the face of indie games. I mean Shovel Knight even got into Smash so you know that you have made it when you get into Smash!
But here is the thing. Sure SK is the face of indies but OT is damn good. Not only it is popular and well liked but it prooved that people really care for the Old School games and that game is really old school. There is always a market for that. People just don't want constant MMO's, FPS, Battle Royale and such. They just want to play an old school game and have fun. Plus OT has a unique story. There are 8 characters and each has 4 Chapters to them BUT the other party members just don't exist in their story until the secret final chapter. So for example you can have a character getting trapped and that is since the other characters aren't there for the story, just for the gameplay battles. So theoritically you can just pick a characater and finish all their chapters and just 1 chapter of the other characters and you would have beaten the game. But why you would do that when there are so many stories to complete too?
So for the match. Well in the 5 minutes SK was already ahead. After around 6 hours SK was still ahead by like 330 votes. There was even a rally attempt for SK on Reddit but it didn't took off. So yeah tough match but still we all thought SK had it. BUT then someone posted a rally on Reddit for OT and that one took off. So OT started cutting and after around 14 hours OT pulled ahead and started gaining. So we had a real close match. Eventually OT pulled ahead with like 200 votes. But then SK started cutting again. Then OT cut. Then SK cut. Then ties! Everything really! An exciting match! This went back and forth for hours until eventually only 1 hour remained.
So like 1 hour before the end of the match we had a tie! Now that is amazing! But then something amazing happened. With like 1 hour to end the match the Official Twitter of the company that made SK started rallying on Twitter! Yeah! NOBODY expected that! So after this rally SK managed to win with 200 votes. So yeah the rally was effective! Really close wire to wire match. And the thing is that NOBODY thought this match would be so damn close! We all thought that OT was weak and SK is strong. Turns out these games are really close in strength. Strange to see an official rally decide a match but hey it happened. Rallies are always good at least for me. So yeah. I would like to see a strange game like SK winning the whole thing but alas. Still really excited match. Who know who would win without the official rally? Also lowest correct prediction percentage of the contest so far. And it made sense. Most had picked Undertale to win 2 rounds.
Also something else to notice. When the contest started we all had this indiefear, that one of them would catch a rally and generally indie games will do good since there were so many of them and it is easy to rally for them. Classic underdog story. BUT you know how many indie games reached Round 3 out of around 60 that were in the contest? Only 1 AND what was with a rally too! So yeah. Indifear was a lie. It makes sense. When you are thinking of GOTD how many indie games you think? Only one and that is Minecraft. Sure indie games are good but not GOTD good. That is how it is.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
If you thought the end of Round 1 and beginning of Round 2 were exciting...you ain't seen nothing yet.
It didn't look like it would start out that way. Octopath managed to take a lead 15 minutes in after trailing at the freeze, but Shovel Knight easily flipped it on the next update and got the lead into triple digits a mere 20 minutes after that. By the two-hour mark, the lead was over 200, and Shovel Knight followed the 35 vote gain that it made to end that hour with a 38 vote gain to start hour three. OT made some nice cuts as we reached 10:30, but again SK easily countered, tacking on 31 and 46 votes in consecutive updates. Every time Octopath looked like it wanted to cut, Shovel Knight countered.
At midnight, four hours in, Shovel Knight led by 340 votes. It would gain one vote on the next update, then spend the rest of the hour futilely trying to increase its lead. But then the next hour hit and bam! +20, +24, new max lead at 1:15 AM. Shortly after 2 AM, SK's lead peaked at 365, but then at 2:15, Octopath made a sizeable cut and followed it up with another one two updates later. SK recovered, forcing Octopath to wait until nearly 3:30 to get within 300, but from there, the comeback was slow but inevitable. Then, suddenly, it wasn't so slow. Octopath got within 200 at 10 minutes to 6, then within 100 at 7:05, and a 25-vote cut at 7:20 left Shovel Knight's lead at a mere 45 votes. From there, however, it went into a stall; an hour and a half later, Shovel Knight's lead was at 43, having not dipped below 35 nor risen above 56 during that time. Shovel Knight won the next update to increase its lead to 61 at 5 minutes to 9, only to be met with an Octopath run. 61 became 46, then 24, then 9, then 3, then 3 again, then 1...and with its lead down to a single vote, Shovel Knight finally won another update, then two more, then a net positive over the next two, and then another one. At 9:55 AM, Shovel Knight had restored its lead to 46 votes.
At 10 AM? Deadlock. At 10:05? Octopath Traveler leads by 50.
Wait, seriously? Did we have an honest to God rally going on? Because that is an insane swing for this deep into a match. Octopath slowed down after that, netting only +17 over the next half hour before picking it up again to gain its first triple-digit lead at 10:50. It hovered for a bit, got up to 151 at 11:40, let SK spend about half an hour gaining back about 30 votes, then quickly smacked it down in only 10 minutes. At 12:45 PM, Octopath led by 193 and seemed primed to win easily. Shovel Knight took a chunk back, but it could never keep much of its gains; at 2:15, Octopath still led by 171.
And then the comeback was on. Highlighted by a +21 at 2:25 and a +27 at 3:20, Shovel Knight got the deficit down to 36 before Octopath started putting up any resistance. And resist it did; it took until 5:55 for Shovel Knight to regain the lead, a +17 giving it an immediate double-digit advantage. Which Octopath wiped out in two updates to take a 1-vote lead at 6:05. Shovel Knight was back in front at the next update, but only by 6 votes, and the next update only grew it to 8...then back to 6...then 6 again...
And at 6:30 PM, Octopath spiked another of its huge updates. +36, lead of 30. They traded update wins for the next 20 minutes, with a net of +8 for Octopath.
And then, suddenly, it was Shovel Knight that had the huge rally power. A 38-vote deficit became a 1-vote lead, then 37, then 50, 76, 99, 137... Shovel Knight won 13 of the final 14 updates to end up winning by 199, the largest lead by either side since 5:50 AM. A title previously held by its penultimate-update lead of 194, one vote more than the largest Octopath's lead ever got. Shovel Knight started out looking like it would win easily, then spent much of the second half of the match trailing, and in the end, still won by a fairly comfortable final margin. The registered voter bonus carried much of that; Shovel Knight's raw vote lead was just 57 votes, courtesy of a 136-voter advantage with registered users offsetting a 79-voter deficit with unregistered.
The favorite in this match? Obviously it was Undertale. At 18.86%, Shovel Knight > Octopath Traveler had the lowest prediction percentage of the tournament so far...taking the mantle from Octopath Traveler > Undertale, at 21.58%. Undertale was the Guru favorite, too, and as for the Oracle...well, it seems that the Oracles were convinced that Octopath's win was a result of Undertale anti-votes, not its own strength. Very few people predicted a match this close, and most of the ones who did were Octopath pickers trying to mitigate the damage if they were wrong. I ended up with a top 5 for this match going over by nearly 3% on SK's percentage. So let's give a hand for everyone involved here. It's clear by the wild swings, at least relative to our vote intake, that this was a match where both sides were rallying, and it brings into question another outcome. It was, of course, noticed that Undertale had been trying to rally yet again, though it was far weaker than what it put up in 2015, and the common belief was that it just wasn't getting it done and couldn't get past the antivotes. But now, perhaps, one has to wonder if we weren't giving Undertale too much of the credit for the increased traffic. Maybe it just got outrallied?
Shovel Knight's run would be coming to an end the next round, of course, faced with Super Mario Odyssey. But it should be noted that outside of 64, 3D Mario has had a long and storied history of looking like utter trash in Games Contests. Whether it's Galaxy losing to CoD4 twice in 2009 or Sunshine and NSMBWii getting upset by Halo 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 in 2010 or the Galaxy games losing to Super Metroid and Mass Effect in 2015, Mario just hasn't been worth much as a platformer franchise this century. Maybe he continues to stay so strong in character battles because this is RPGFAQs; the Paper Mario games have done just fine in contests, after all. (Of course this isn't actually the reason, but the point still stands; PM64 and TTYD are the only Mario games from either of the past two decades to do well in any contests.) It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Shovel Knight made Odyssey look bad heading into its match with Ultimate.