Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Time Division |
|---|---|
| Match # | 32 |
| Match Date | Friday, October 13th, 2006 |
| Vote difference | 2,426 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Sub-Zero - 41.87% 6 for - 121 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Sub-Zero - 20.28% (8,649 brackets) |
GFNW, meet Halo Never Wins (HNW). HNW, meet GFNW. You two should get along well together. Oh? Gordon Freeman has a more recent victory in contests than Halo does? You can't be serious.
If Halo gets upset and no one cares, is it really an upset? I can't name more than two people that picked Sub-Zero to win this match out of anything more than fanboyism. The prediction percentage for this match is the lowest first round prediction percentage in the history of these contests. And yet... there was virtually no outcry. People welcomed this match on sheer badass factor (really, Sub-Zero has long been overdue to make noise in one of these things) paired with the fact that no one outside of some elitist snobs cares about Halo. It's a tailor-made FPS for people that otherwise suck at FPS games, with noisy-ass fans who think it's the second coming of Jesus himself. "Dual wielding and awesome graphiX!1 Man this has never been done1!1". These people seriously make me never discuss being a fan of the series, because being associated with them isn't exactly one of my goals in life.
There are some long-standing reasons why people don't care about Halo getting bit by upsets, not the least of which are the fact that people never learn their lesson when it comes to Halo. If you make a table of lowest first round prediction percentages, Halo or Master Chief losing in the first round takes up three of the four top spots. (Cue RPGuy throwing me a bone here <_<)
As for how it happened, Master Chief managed a whopping 34 vote lead during the bracket vote surge. Sub-Zero tore into him after that and just beat the piss out of the Chief all through the night vote, all through the morning vote, and all through the in-school vote. Subby's lead peaked at near 4300 votes at one point.
Now, remember Castlevania vs Halo in the series contest and how people announced Castlevania dead for not having a lead of 23489562 votes before Chief's afternoon vote kicked in? Same deal here. People announced Sub-Zero dead all through his lead increase, only there was a slight difference. Master Chief actually did make a good push come the afternoon surge he always gets, but it was all for aesthetics. The Chief was never in contention to actually come back, but he did manage to cut off almost 2000 votes from Sub-Zero's lead before finally going down in the end.
Which no one will remember when discussing this match, much like no one gives a crap that Magus lost to Knuckles by 1750 votes instead of 2750 votes.
But no one will learn. Master Chief's legions of graphic whores and wannabe FPs pros will overseed him again and again, and more often than not, the Chief will lose one round before he's supposed to in a close match that never should have been close. It's happened to Halo twice, it's happened to Chief twice (with a close call against DK in a match of who choked harder), and it will happen again. Two is an accident, but anything more is a trend. It'll be even funnier if this continues on after Halo 3, which it will.
By the way, are these poll results funny or what?
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=2097
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=2004
In three of the past four contests, the final match has seen a 7 seed upset a 2. The lone exception featured Shadow Hearts as the 7 seed, and Shadow Hearts will never win anything. Also lost in the shuffle is that this was Sub-Zero's first contest match; four years after Scorpion's ridiculous run to the Elite 8 and we finally get to see Sub-Zero in a match.
But what may suck above all else is that we keep looking for reasons to ditch the 2002-2003 stats, and for good reason. But matches like this allow those stats to stick around. According to 2003 stats, Scorpion scores 47.3% on Master Chief. Anyone with knowledge of Mortal Kombat or the fighting game fanbase in general knows that Sub-Zero has been stronger than Scorpion all along regardless of who has been put into brackets. If 2003 stats were taken seriously, more people would have picked Sub-Zero. Which everyone knows makes no logical sense, because Halo 2 and Chief actually impressing has happened since. Damn you X-Staaaaats! shakes fist
And with that, round one came to a close! No zero brackets yet again thanks to Zero (ironic...), yet somehow I doubt anyone would have cared about losing their zero had they lost it to the Chief upset.
Match Trends[]
Ed Bellis' Analysis[]
Master Chief and Halo always make for interesting matches, even when we think they won’t be. Case in point: this little disaster of a capper on the first round on 2006. Despite Scorpion’s great run way back in 2002 (and the convenient release of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon the day of this match), very few really gave Sub-Zero a chance here. Yet Master Chief proved once again that we were all fools for believing in him, and he choked away the match that, for all intents and purposes, was his to lose. And lose he did, in a spectacular upset that made us all forget about how the female bracket was returning the next day.