Ulti's Analysis[]
In their first match I discussed the history these two have, why I love Mario, and why the rivalry these two have is so important. No need to relive it, just read about it here: https://board8.wikia.com/wiki/(2)Samus_Aran_vs_(7)Mario_(Legends_Bracket)_2018
I stand by what I said at the very end, too. It's great and all that these two had an epic rematch and gave us our best match of the entire contest, but it's awful that these two, of all people, had a rematch at all. We had a fantastic conclusion to that nonsense from 2005. This match happening and being as close as it was ripped everything back open. In the first match, Mario slowly built a lead and won, but only with 51.42%. This was great, because it proved everyone right at the same time. Samus can beat Mario, but "it's freaking Mario" kicked in even though it really does feel like Samus is indirectly stronger.
In my Crono/Mega Man writeup, I mentioned Board 8's love affair with Crono. If you subtract all the close contest losses, Board 8 has a similar love for Samus. Of all the Nintendo characters, Samus might be the coolest. Link is cool, but he's an elf. Mario is a fat plumber. The princesses were all damsels in distress until very recently. But Samus? Samus is a shit-kicking, bounty hunter badass who goes on these insane missions and pulls them out against wild beasts despite insane odds. Look at Super Metroid logically. Who else is doing any of that?
Add all that together with the contest history these two have, plus Mario being the contest villain for some, and people freaked. the hell. OUT when this thing started and Samus was close at the beginning. Then Mario looked like he was going to take off, but Samus.... built... a 100 vote lead? Say what?!
But Mario got rid of that lead pretty quickly, and we all figured he just just auto-win again. That's what he does against Samus. But when Mario caught up, Samus... built a lead again? Huh?
Then the night vote kicked in and all hell broke loose. Samus not only started winning the night vote, but she beat down any attempts by Mario to slow things down. She got that lead all the way up to 200 votes. But when we got into the dead zone, Mario finally decided to go to work. He got that thing down to 100 fairly quickly, after a mighty struggle by Samus, Mario had the lead all the way down to 30. I'll just spoil this now. The match never got farther apart than 206 votes, which means...!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S53fZTbKHG0
This match, right here, is our record for closest 1v1 24 hour wire to wire match. Couldn't have happened in a better rivalry, either. Unlike all the other ones from this contest, this one didn't get broken like 1 week later. This one will stick for awhile.
Yet again we all assumed Mario would auto-win. And yet again Samus got the lead back up to 100. Samus wasn't just proving she could hang with Mario and proved me and all the doubters wrong, she was sitting there actually doing it. It was quite a sight to behold, and if this was a 2010 era 12 hour night match, Samus may very well have won.
But when that morning vote showed up, Mario finally went "bitch, fuck off". Sort of. He erased the lead over breakfast, but Samus went out there and refused to actually get buried. She stalled as best she could, but Mario was finally able to build up a lead of 100. Game over, right?
Over lunch, Samus yet again fought back and started building up a tiny lead. Come ASV time (very few matches this contest had an ASV due to polls starting in the evening, but this was one match where even a miniscule difference mattered), she had a lead of 60. Had Samus won the ASV, she wins this match. But it was Mario who took advantage of the 19 middle school and high school kids combined who still visit this site. He erased Samus's lead in an hour, and for about the 17th time this match, we all assumed Mario's auto-win clutch would kick in. IT'S FREAKING MARIO, after all.
https://pre00.deviantart.net/f219/th/pre/i/2012/211/b/7/samus_portrait_by_poojipoo-d597782.jpg
"Next time someone says you fight like a girl, remember Samus."
I would love to say the final three hours of this poll were as epic as some of our famous duals from the past. Mario vs Crono. Frog vs Master Chief. The Metal Gear Solid series vs Star of the Contest. Melee vs Brawl. Link to the Past vs Chrono Trigger. Undertale vs The World. Pokemon vs Final Fantasy 7. Jill Valentine vs 27 votes. Crono vs Vincent. Starcraft vs The World. Even Link vs Cloud. These two qualify as a rivalry worthy of this list, but I know full well this match doesn't quite stack up due to the low vote totals, it being a loser's bracket rematch, and our site being dead. I get it. But by modern standards, this is as good of a match with as good of a history as you'll ever see. It's why this was my favorite match of the entire contest. People cared about who won, and were heartbroken by the result. That's what these contests are all about. Cheering on your favorite and having a result actually matter. The LOL x stats robbed us of most of that, because now you get people cheering for percentages instead of characters, but every once in awhile you get a match like this breaking through and getting everyone back to the good old days.
For the last three hours of this poll, these two characters were never more than 27 votes apart. They only had five updates, or a grand total of 25 minutes in the last three hours, where they were more than 20 votes separated. They had 27 updates where they were between 10 and 19 votes.
They had 16 updates in the single digits, which is just insanity as a poll is closing up. It's the best we could have asked for, and it all came down to the final update. With one update left, Mario was leading by only 2 votes. 15 minutes prior, he was winning by 21, meaning he was trending down fast and Samus was the favorite to win this match and slay a 13 year old contest rival. This was going to come down to who rallied the best at the end. Simple as that.
When this match was closing up, I was helping tutor my classmates in clin lab hematology animal nursing. I've been in this profession for a long time, and in most of my labs I end up either officially or unofficially tutoring people, because I already know everything going in. There's a long story about why I left vet school and went back to nursing school to finish that certification instead, but the short of it is I'm not interested in being a doctor. I have enough money to where I can just choose the career I want, and nursing makes me happier than being a doctor. They don't tell human doctors or veterinarians that well over half the job is spent writing medical notes or joining up with the cover-your-ass please-don't-sue culture. You're ordering supplies, treating people or pets or employees as a way of making money or cutting costs, as if they're just another bill to be paid or another source of income. You're managing egos and worrying about a bunch of dumb shit. I want to go to work, interact with clients and their pets, help them, get along with everyone, do my job the best I can, and go home. I'm not interested in all the side show BS that comes with medicine. Shows like House and Scrubs are a lot more accurate than you guys might think. Granted I don't have experience on the human medicine side of things, but I've been around the block with animal medicine and good hell. Give me nursing and a patient schedule any day.
It also might not seem like it based on Board 8 interactions, but I'm very well liked in the real world. I know, sounds weird. So at 6:55 pm in that clin lab hematology grind when I was tutoring people on the coming final, I said fuck it and asked for Mario votes on cell phones. All 15 fellow students voted for him, plus myself. I made sure to save my vote for late, like I did all contest because wasting a double vote early is just silly. You know the rest. Mario got 54 votes in the final update to Samus's 37, and Mario won the poll by 19 votes. It was Mario's biggest update in over six hours. Make fun of me all you want. I give no fucks. I think I explained pretty well during the last match these two had why I love Mario so much, but I also hope this writeups shows how I also love Samus. Mario's just a 10 to Samus's 9.9 is all. Simple as that.
Some people in the stats topic had epic meltdowns over this result and THE CLUTCH kicking in when Samus was clearly about to win, but there are some things to discuss here. A couple people said I made this up about classmates voting (a common accusation of late is saying I make things up, which is just outright stupidity), but it's easy enough to prove if Allen ever wants to show us voter logs. Anyway. Me plus my classmates amounted to 17 votes. Mario won by 19. Even if you remove all their votes and I switch to Samus, it's only a tie. I also played by the same rules as everyone else. Samus only got 37 votes in the last update, which was about the same as she had been getting. Where were all the Samus rallies? Any of the people rooting for her could have asked for a few votes. Was no one playing Smash with some friends or something? In looking at this match, I'm pretty disappointed with the effort of Samus and her backers in those last five minutes.
It's. Freaking. Mario. You can't stand pat and hope he loses. You have to go beat his ass. Why Samus backers didn't rally there, I have no idea. The other major reason Samus folks were upset over her losing is this loss symbolically ended the contest, which is logic I can actually understand. When this match happened, people assumed the rest of the contest would just be Link > Zelda, Mario > Cloud, Zelda > Mario, and then Link > Zelda again.
Whoops. That, as Chris Berman would say, is why they play the games. But yeah, shout out to Mario and Samus for becoming our new hot rivalry. I wish people acted a little better as this was ending, but I think a bunch of passion is better than people being boring. I'll take meltdowns over nothing any day, even if they're idiotic meltdowns like what TheStupidRaptor was doing. It's part of what makes contests fun.
Last point, and I'm putting this one the record now. If these two have a 1v1 rematch after Metroid Prime 4 and that game is good, I think Samus can finally win and I would pick it. Mario Odyssey came out only a year before this contest, and outside of some funny wedding pictures and Mario dabs, that game didn't really boost him. Samus is already a badass and is on the cusp of great things here. One more game could do the trick. I miiiiiiiight even root for her to do it! :p
Safer777's Analysis[]
Another rematch! Need to say anything? Just look at the result? Huh? Yeah this match was the best of contest no doubt. We had some exciting matches this contest but nothing like that. Mario had won before with almost 51.5% so almost everyone said it wouldn't be possible for Samus to reverse it. Yeah about that...
In the 1st match at the 5 minute mark, Mario was winning with around 51.6% and in this one he was losing with around 51.9%! Damn! Now that is a reverse. In the 1st match after 1 hour Mario was winning with around 52.4% and in this one he was winning with around 50.4%! A full 2% minus! So of course the board was in uproar because as with the previous trends it would seems that eventually Samus would be ahead after some hours because in the previous match she begun cutting too and she came close but couldn't do it. But now? Now it was her turn! And in the 1st match we hadn't a single lead change too. But here? We had numerous ones! Exciting stuff!
So they went back and forth for some hours. Eventually Samus went ahead and stayed there for a few hours. After about 13 hours after the match started Mario went ahead again. So Mario stayed ahead for around 5 hours too. Then Samus went ahead again! Then Mario, then Samus, then ties! Damn! Now that is a match! So with less than 1 hour to end the match Mario was ahead by 7 votes! Everyone was waiting for the updates! Mario ahead with 24, then with 6! Samus was not giving up!
With 2 updates left Mario was ahead with NINE VOTES! Then with 1 update left Mario was ahead with TWO VOTES! Damn! Do I need to tell you how was the board? Glued to their screens! Of course some were saying that Mario has it, others that Samus has it, others that Mario was vote stuffing, others that Samus had rallies and that is why she would win(she did have some actually but rallies are okay!)and basically everyone was excited! Would Samus be able to FINALLY beat Mario? The last update came and Mario won with 19 votes. Samus was SO close but she lost. But the future refused to change! So she lost again!
Of couse the board was in uproar! What did you expected? Others were happy, others were sad, there was fighthing from both sides, the usual stuff. Man this match is why we love the contests. Also according to stats this is the new 24 record for closest match, since the maximum lead was 206 votes only. And the 5th closest in terms of votes winning, the winner won by 19 votes. Now these are matches. Imagine if this was the final match! Also 1 guy (XIII_rocks) said he went door to door at work to ask people to vote! I think also that Ulti did something similar at the end of the match, meaning finding some people to vote! People do anything for the contests! Others put porn rallies, others ask from people at work to vote! So is this finally the time for people to stop saying Samus>Mario right? AS IF! IT WILL NEVER STOP!
Actually Mario dominated in registered users, he scored 52.64% where with anonymous he scored 45.84%! So there you go. One of the best matches of all time. Of course now Mario is the villain and people want to see him beaten! But he can't lose! He will cheat, vote stuff, anything to win! In all seriousnes though amazing match. I don't know if it is the best of all time, but it is up there for sure.
As I said before anyone can lose from someone else, even Mario! Except Link of course, duh.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
Board 8ers love them some status quo. There were many matches where the registered and unregistered voters were in disagreement, but just three where the registered vote bonus actually flipped the match: Phoenix vs. Ike, the first Mega Man-Pikachu match, and this one. This one was by far the most dramatic, though--both Ike and Mega Man would've won by fewer than 50 votes if all votes counted equally. In this match? Let's give a hand to the two lowest-scoring Oracle predictions, Samus 51.00% by Furious Fura and Samus 51.27% by paulg, because in a world where all votes counted equally, they'd have been a very close 1-2. That's right, 51.13% of all votes cast in this match were for Samus Aran...and yet because of the huge disparity between registered and unregistered voters, Mario still won by 19 votes. To be more precise, Mario had a 467-voter edge among registered voters, and Samus had a 915-voter edge among unregistered voters. I'm really disappointed that the registered voter bonus is back for GotD2; it isn't really going to do much to stop a genuine rally, but it can still flip a close result.
That said, this was an intense, back-and-forth match. Samus led for most of the early match, including building the match's peak lead by either side, 206 votes at 1:20 AM Eastern. That's just over a quarter of the way into the match. Things continued to be interesting throughout, featuring a dead tie at the 8:55 AM update, Mario winning an update by 2 votes at 4:20 PM and it constituting a lead change and Samus winning the next update by the same margin, and of course, the 50.00% on the penultimate update (Mario ahead by just two votes). It was a down to the wire match, setting a new record for closest wire-to-wire 24 hour match (only Shadow of the Colossus over Metal Gear Solid 2 in the first GotD was closer) and making the top 5 for closest final margin as well (trailing Liquid-Alucard in 2007, Frog-Chief in '04, the third-place match from Rivalry Rumble, and Charizard's win over Zelda in 2013). And in that respect, the registered voter bonus did make things more interesting, because like I said, in raw votes, Mario didn't even break 49%. Our update trackers can only show the listed totals, with us only getting the raw vote data for the end, but just looking at the final margin, it certainly wouldn't have come anywhere near the record for closest wire-to-wire match--even if Samus's biggest lead was right at the end it would've been more than double what it was. Wouldn't have even made the top 25 for closest final margins even among 1v1 matches alone. It probably would've still gotten lesser spots on the wire-to-wire lists, and it might've even scored fairly high on "wire-to-wire matches where the loser never takes the lead"--because with a maximum lead of 128 with the registered voter bonus, it's hard to picture that Mario would have ever had one without it. Well, maybe when he had the 104 vote lead a mere 40 minutes into the match. That would've already precluded it from the loser-never-takes-the-lead list, since Samus did lead at the freeze and one update later as well. Geez, you guys really hate it when the status quo is upset, don't you? Because make no mistake, this is "FREAKING MARIO" to the max. You always expect him to pull out any close match, because he's Mario. And right here, he did.
But this is definitely a reason to pay close attention to the types of games this site likes and doesn't like for GotD2. RPGs will reign supreme. So will remakes that somehow were allowed into the contest, because this site absolutely adores the 20th century. Keep that in mind, and you'll probably go far.