Results[]
Round One
Thursday, July 25th, 2013
Ulti's Analysis[]
So hey, remember when we looked at this match and all picked Zack to win twice? And how those who thought Kefka would leech Zack to death picked Ryu Hayabusa instead?
No, really, this happened:
http://thengamer.com/guru/CB9/stats.php?match=36
There were stragglers and legit brilliant people who picked Kefka, but the MASSIVE consensus was Zack or Ryu Hayabusa winning twice. Then this match started, Kefka kicked the crap out of Zack and Ryu, and people realized what a godtier-level contest troll Kefka truly is. It isn't just that he won; it's that he easily won with a Final Fantasy 7 character also in the poll, against a third character that, in theory, should have easily taken advantage of this for the win.
Everyone knows the list by now, but I'm busting out the ol' poll search feature and bringing it up one more time. Kefka's contest history might be the most insane thing ever. Look at this.
Summer 2003 Round 1 - 50.95% against Pac-Man in a match he's heavily favored in, Lettuce Kefka is born.
Summer 2003 Round 2 - SFFd into the ground by Crono.
Summer 2004 Round 1 - Leads Knuckles for hours before the Sonic day vote crushes him.
Villains Contest Round 1 - 64% on Mithos, people credit Kefka having a good picture.
Villains Contest Round 2 - 70% (!!!!) on Wekser, people credit the God Kefka picture.
Villains Contest Round 3 - 46% on Diablo after leading for 3 hours.
Summer 2005 Round 1 - Kefka leads Vercetti by 1100, loses lead, CJayC removes 1500 Kefka votes, then Vercetti cheats like hell at the end just because.
Summer 2007 Round 1 - Second place, Marcus Fenix in first, some people expected Kefka to lose outright.
Summer 2007 Round 2 - Kefka almost gets second place even with Cloud in the poll.
Summer 2008 Round 1 - Last place against Duke Nukem, Marth, and Niko Bellic in a poll where all 4 characters led at some point.
Fall 2010 Round 1 - 60% on Arthas as a massive underdog, people credit Dissidia.
Fall 2010 Round 2 - 38% on Bowser, possibly the first Kefka match ever where something dumb doesn't happen.
Rivalry Rumble Round 1 - Total blowout of Vyse and Galcian.
Rivalry Rumble Round 2 - 39% on Samus and Ridley.
And then this happens. I understand the FF7 decline, I really do, but still. Kefka could do anything at this point from beating full-strength rallied Draven to losing to Soap MacTavish, and nothing would surprise me. That dude does something nutty in every single contest he's ever been in other than the Rivalry Rumble.
The explanation is easy enough -- he has a Dissidia boost plus pictures that aren't garbage -- but it feels so odd that he's done so much more with Dissidia than other characters that also should have benefitted from Dissidia. Final Fantasy 4 for example has yet to win a match in any capacity, and F that. You talk about something that deserves a win in the worst way, FF4 is it.
The crazy thing is Kefka wasn't even done trolling us this contest. You think one crazy upset is enough for that dude? Oh no.
Zen's (Late) Analysis[]
Kefka always gives me writer's block. I never know how the hell to talk about this guy. He's the king of inconsistency. In my last writing project I stalled for almost two weeks trying to think about what to say about Kefka.
So instead I'm going to talk about how cool it is that Allen made the dimensions of the match pictures 299 x 187. He could have made it 300 x 187 but Character Battle IX whoa what an easter egg better put it in my shitty clickbait article with a picture of Morrigan's boobs and a giant red arrow pointing to nothing
Let's talk about how great Zack the Living Buster Sword looked here. I went on a big rant last post about how the Monado ended up amounting to nothing, but here's the Buster Sword pulling so much support from Kefka that it managed to get Zack into second over Ryu Hayabusa, a proven contest vet that's looked good in a ton of situations over the years.
Maybe Kefka was really just that weak, or maybe Zack really is just that strong. I find it hard to get reads on either of them, because FF looked so bad this contest that I feel like I can't be sure of anything. Usually Ulti and Leon are better at analyzing FF's popularity trends.
At least this was an entertaining match. Kefka never fails to disappoint. I remember having some big projects due in college this week so my memory is a little blurry for some of these matches, so if anyone has personal anecdotes relating to them please jump in and share.