Ulti's Analysis[]
For the sake of this writeup, I'm only historically looking at 1v1 results. If someone else wants to look up 4ways or 3ways, have fun.
In our very first contest, the Summer 2002 Contest, Ms. Pac-Man only scored 5257 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/968-west-division-round-1-mega-man-vs-ms-pac-man
In the Summer 2003 Contest, something called AiAi scored 8802 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1305-north-division-round-1-link-vs-aiai
In the Spring 2004 Contest, our first games contest, Adventure only scored 4686 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1606-division-8-round-1-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-adventure
In the Summer 2004 Contest, Tanner only scored 4492 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1733-20xx-division-round-1-solid-snake-vs-tanner
In the villains contest, Giygas only scored 11966 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2001-triforce-division-round-1-ganondorf-vs-giygas
In the Summer 2005 Contest, Yuri Hyuga only scored 10813 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2070-zebes-division-round-1-samus-aran-vs-yuri-hyuga
In the series contest, Madden NFL only scored 9186 in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2433-mushroom-division-round-1-super-mario-bros-vs-madden-nfl
In the Summer 2006 Contest, Carmen Sandiego only scored 16578 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2507-triforce-division-round-1-zelda-vs-carmen-sandiego
In the Fall 2010 Contest, Falco only scored 10419 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3746-mushroom-division-round-1-mario-vs-falco-lombardi
In the Rivalry Rumble, Arthas and Illidan only scored 4598 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest, and good, because fuck Blizzard. They are indefensible trash: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4526-south-division-round-1-link-vs-ganondorf-arthas-vs-illidan
In the Fall 2015 Contest, Hearthstone only scored 3604 votes in a poll. It was the lowest of that contest, and good, because Hearthstone is by far the worst video game ever made: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6083-best-game-ever-day-9-zelda-ocarina-of-time-vs-hearthstone
That brings us to this match, but before we do, take a deep dive into those polls. The winners, in order: Mega Man, Link, a Zelda game, Solid Snake, Ganondorf, Samus, the Mario series, Zelda, Mario, Link + Ganon, and a Zelda game. Snake is the only odd one out, and his Tanner match was pretty blatant SFF on top of Snake himself bending the knee to Nintendo. Hold that thought.
Everyone knows the story of the 2013 contest by now. Draven escaped round one with a late rally, caught fire in round 2, and then it was a shitstorm. We don't need to revisit how embarrassing Board 8 and the League subreddit both acted, though anyone on Board 8 who acts like B8 wasn't just as bad as them is being intellectually dishonest. You all acted like garbage. Anyway Draven won the contest, which we all know by now.
People knew Draven would be weaker this time, but no one saw this insanity coming. Amaterasu scored something like the first 70 votes of the poll, and before long people realized Draven was about to pay, big time, for what he did in 2013. The crazy thing is Amaterasu never stopped going up and never lost percentage. There would be no rallies. There would be no miracles. Just Amaterasu of all characters scoring the biggest blowout of the contest. By pure votes one on one, Draven and his 3439 votes were the lowest we've ever seen in a 1v1 poll. Ever. Only the failure of Blizzard even comes close, but here's the thing. Amaterasu did this. Can you imagine if Draven was up against a universally loved character or game instead of a mediocre contest entrant like Amaterasu? How many votes does Draven get here against Zelda, Mega Man, Solid Snake, or Chrono Trigger? 1500? Maybe 2000?
It can't actually be overstated how nuts this blowout was, and it shouldn't be a footnote in contest history just because it happened during the dead era on our web site. I've alluded to this match several times in the PCA so far, but rallybait characters got destroyed in this contest and Draven himself ate the biggest blowout of them all. It's a fitting punishment for 2013, and I say this as someone who supports rallies. There was one more rallybait character to get rid of, but this match showed us we had nothing to worry about. D.Va wasn't going to pull off a damn thing this year. Not in this environment. It's also really hilarious to see Amaterasu up there with the likes of Nintendo elite in our record books. It shows just how badly people wanted Draven to get his ass whipped. Hell before this match, only Mega Man X had broken 80% in a poll. Amaterasu beat that by 8%. That's just nuts.
It leads to the obvious question: Can a rally ever happen again on our site? I think so, but this just wasn't the year for it. Simple as that.
Safer777's Analysis[]
Look at this result. What to say? If Draven could get a rally he would win. But if not he would lose. But back in 2013 he was losing to Jak and Chie without a rally. And these 2 are really weak anyways! And 5 years have passed since then and LOL isn't as big as it used to be. So Draven would be weaker. And he didn't get a rally of course. But I don't think anybody expected this! One of the biggest wins of all times and Amaterasu did it? Damn!
Most people were ecstatic to see Draven doing that badly. Me not so. Like it or not he was the Champion! And the board was butthurt back then it was fun to see all the memes and the discussions and the mayhem. Hey it was exciting! Of course most didn't liked that thing and I get it. But then again another champion lost in the 1st round too. I am reffering to L-Block of course too.
Still no matter what this prooved that no rallies were in Round 1. Rallies make things exciting. Yeah it is my opinion and all that. But man! I think Draven is the weakest character in the bracket! So the strongest character in the previous contest goes to be the weakest in the next one! Now that is a reversal! Also imagine if a strong character was her instead of Amaterasu. We could see more than 90%!
Someone did the math and Link would score like 98%! Damn! Also I believe this is the lowest a character/game has ever scored in 1 VS 1 match! If you check some previous statistics as Ulti posted them you will see that once upon the time even the worse losers were scoring a lot more. Times have changed. Amazing win for Ammy of course. To tell the truth I don't want to have Draven again in a contest. Think about that. 2 contests, in 1 he came first, in 1 he came last! Perfect to retire that character!
Lightning Strikes' Analysis[]
What happened?: I won't get into the 2013 Draven rally but it was the worst example of rallying we have seen from a very toxic place, and I am not staunchly anti-rallying. So this match was pure catharsis. It was always going to be a beatdown, even if the League of Legends subreddit hadn't banned rallies it isn't what it was and the joke wouldn't work twice. For it to be this strong however, was stunning. It also built over time which was surprising as well, it wasn't just diehards anti-voting.
What could this mean?: Draven is the only character in this bracket to truly have a claim at being Tanner level. This really hammers home how much that rally hijacked the last contest, now let's never see him again. Good show for Ammy too.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
Remember what I said about poor first-place Oracles? Yeah, nobody had Amaterasu winning this handily. This is somewhere between a septupling and an octupling; the highest anyone predicted was merely between a quadrupling and a quintupling. Arti took first place with a prediction of 82.28% and only three other Oracles had Ammy breaking 80%. I was one of them, which honestly surprises me because I usually have a mental block about predicting huge blowouts. This place was AntiBlowoutFAQs for a while in the early 2010s, and I had some horrendous Oracle predictions on the biggest blowouts of 2015 because I refused to go much higher than the low eighties even on obvious blowouts like Ocarina of Time vs. Hearthstone. I mean, granted, "low eighties" is exactly what I did pick here--82% even--but it worked because Oracle consensus was in the low seventies. Interestingly enough, exactly as many Oracles picked Ammy to fail to break 60% as picked her to break 80%, but three of the four that had her under 60% had Draven winning outright.
Also, I feel it should be mentioned again that in 2013, Draven was legitimately the Guru favorite in his Round 1 match. 64.08% picked him to beat Jak and Chie, though only 2.04% picked him to beat Ryu and Mega Man X the following round. That's how weak his opening draw was. I talked about this during the Aloy-D. Va match. Allen does this every time, and he'll continue to do it. I'd give a hypothetical, but given how infrequent contests are, there is a 0.00% chance that anything already released would have the rally potential. Unless it's something Pokémon-related, because that's always a possibility. We had Mudkip and Bidoof in 2007 and Missingno in 2010.
I could totally get behind a Mimikyu rally. Of course, given how infrequent contests are, by the time CBXI rolls around we'll probably be rallying behind a Gen IX Pokémon.
There was also something that went around the board for a bit in later rounds called the "Lineal Noble Nine." Basically, it was a hypothetical scenario where beating a member of the Noble Nine would make a character a member of the Noble Nine, but rather than expanding, the defeated member would lose their status. It doesn't take into account past results, so it's not like that "defeating one is defeating all of them" argument. At the start of the Legends Bracket, it looked as though there could be as many as eight original Noble Niners in the Lineal Noble Nine, and Amaterasu was the one non-original Noble Niner whose spot in the Lineal Noble Nine was safe. As it turned out, there were only five original Noble Niners thanks to some weird upsets--up from the four that were there entering the Legends Bracket. The idea of it consisting of eight actual Noble Niners and Amaterasu was well received. She's beloved here. Combine that fact with how hated Draven is for hijacking the 2013 Contest, and it added up to a huge blowout. I hinted at this in my L-Block write-up, but it seems highly likely that whenever Character Battle XI comes around, it will likely mark the first time that a former contest champion misses the field entirely. I can't imagine that he'll get any nominations from the regulars, and since we only get a contest every other year and 2020 is reserved for a Game of the Decade contest, we probably won't see CBXI until 2022, at which point Draven's run will be nine years old and few trolls would feel the need to try nominating him again.
Draven's vote total of 3439 is the lowest we've ever seen in a 1v1 contest. Vote totals may have been down, but that number is actually inflated thanks to the registered voter bonus; his raw total is only 2287. Is that the lowest ever?
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5153-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-1-lucina-vs-dracula-vs-caim
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5157-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-1-chester-vs-mewtwo-vs-zero-999
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5184-character-battle-ix-division-5-round-1-dancin-vs-zidane-vs-ridley
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5209-character-battle-ix-division-8-round-1-squall-vs-rayman-vs-video
It is not! Damn, was 2013 filled with awful fodder. And that's just the ones that fell short of Draven's raw total; far more fell short of his adjusted total, including at least one character that might actually be worth something (though not above the fodder line) when not eating hero > villain SFF.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5196-character-battle-ix-division-6-round-1-fox-vs-blue-vs-wolf
I am a huge Star Fox fan and this makes me sad. Wolf wasn't the only one to get screwed over in this fashion in 2013, but the third character in Leon Kennedy-Albert Wesker was weak enough that Wesker managed to get second place anyway. Wolf, on the other hand, potentially screws Fox out of a victory. It's tough to say for certain but Blue didn't make it to 50% and it's unlikely that Wolf was eating much of Fox's Smash support. That 7.75% is probably about 90% SF64 fans, and if you give even 75% of that 90% to Fox, you get...well, okay, you still get Fox only at 49.32%. So Fox really does need almost all of Wolf's votes to pull off this win.
Wolf's only appearance other than this was in Rivalry Rumble, where he and Fox got to beat up on one of the contest's many "non-rivalries" in Round 1 (Fox would probably be an underdog against Yuna 1v1 at the time, though not now, but Wolf easily outclasses Seymour and the rivalry was stronger) before being unfortunately fed to Ryu and Ken. I can't even advocate for giving him a chance to actually prove his strength, though, because the Star Fox series is completely irrelevant now and he'd just be "Random Smash Character #37.25964".
We can't completely forget about 2017's Years Contest, because sub-3439 wasn't all that rare and even sub-2287 was somewhat common.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6686-best-year-in-gaming-wildcard-round-day-1-1979-vs-2009 https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6689-best-year-in-gaming-wildcard-round-day-2-1978-vs-2005 https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6690-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-1-1995-vs-1986 https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6692-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-2-2001-vs-2014 https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6697-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-4-1996-vs-1989 https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6698-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-5-1991-vs-1988 https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6702-best-year-in-gaming-round-1-day-7-1998-vs-1993
There were only 35 matches in that contest, so this is fully 20% of them. Allen really achieved his goal of a rally-proof contest with that one, didn't he? I'd ask for a moratorium on gimmick contests, but we have so few contests as it is and I'd still prefer gimmick contests over no contests.