Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Division 5 Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 53 |
| Match Date | Sunday, November 9th, 2008 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Solid Snake - 35.24% Mega Man - 25.68% Weighted Companion Cube - 23.96% Zero - 15.32% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Snake first place (8pts) - 38.40% Snake second place (4pts) - 37.75% Cube second place (8pts) - 5.84% Cube first place (4pts) - 15.30% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Snake - 76.15% (32,671) Cube - 21.14% (9,070) |
Board 8 is a very fickle group. One day after losing their shit in elation with L-Block losing, a lot of you guys were cheering for the Weighted Companion Cube to pull off a crazy upset here. Obviously this never would have happened if Zero, of all people, wasn't also in the poll, but that's the breaks in a format like this. Replace Zero with almost any other character in this contest, and Snake + Mega Man walk into the quarterfinals.
As-is, Mega Man almost managed to scrape by even with Zero in the poll. Solid Snake was on a whole other level in this contest, and when the poll started he just flew off into first place. Snake is the only character that had to be in four matches against L-Block in 2007, so he had a little bit of practice in dealing with rallied inanimate objects. You basically have to put them down ASAP, or they become unstoppable. That's what we saw from Snake, as well as a lot of other heavy hitters, in this contest. The upper half of the Noble Nine, Snake included, was all business this contest. They were not dicking around, which is why they looked so good right from the jump.
The bottom half, not so much. Sonic showed his cracks in round 2, and Mega Man just straight up failed to place in this one. Zero or no, Mega Man was the only Noble Nine character that didn't get out of their division this contest. It's just a brutal, embarrassing loss. I know we all love the Cube and all, but all love Mega Man too and it would have been nice if this had happened to someone else.
Worse still is how close it was. Board 8 loves the Cube and all, but they love Mega Man. They had a feeling what was coming with Zero being in this poll, and voted accordingly. Mega Man built up a small lead early, and then with the first update after the freeze he went up again. All looked good, but then... the wheels came off. Cube erased the lead almost instantly, the two stayed tied for awhile, and then Cube started building up a lead overnight. He got a lead close to 300 at one point, and people assumed the match was done. After all, it's very difficult to come back when a character who so closely has your fanbase is in the poll with you.
But Mega Man was determined to go down like a champ. He's the robot master, after all! This dude has been fighting things like the Weighted Companion Cube since 1987! Mega Man, lovable beast that he is, fought against the European trends and the joke trends to come back, caught a little bit of morning vote, and erased that entire 300 vote lead Cube had by breakfast. He kept the momentum going, built up a lead of his own, and before anyone knew it Mega Man had a 250 vote lead of his own.
But the Cube once again started to stall and fight back, and unlike the beginning of poll where these two had a good tug-of-war going, Cube brought help. Cube slowly shaved votes off the lead at first, but once he got it down to 150 or so, he rallied. It wasn't as blatant of a rally as Master Chief used, but it was a rally nonetheless and it worked. If you look on the graph here on the wiki page, you'll see a big blue mountain in the middle. That's the rally that ultimately decided this match. Cube swung more than 400 votes in no time at all, and after one last attempt by Mega Man to hold on to this thing, he finally ran out of gas. Cube slowly (very slowly) climbed up to 450, and held on for dear life for the rest of the match in hopes we wouldn't throw him into the incinerator.
But Mega Man, fuckin champ that this little guy is, gave one last push at the very end. He was down by just under 400 with just over an hour to go. He gave one final push the rest of the way, but he just.... ran out of time. Ran out of real estate. No more votes. Final margin 238. It led to a lot of complaining, but let's be real here. Zero cost Mega Man this match. It's an easy win otherwise.
Cube and Snake would advance to go up against Cloud and Mewtwo, and by beating Mega Man, a lot of Cube's good will disappeared. This wasn't 2007 anymore; the joke bandwagons didn't have the same appeal.
As for Mega Man and his fans, don't worry. Much like Vivi would get his revenge in hilarious fashion in 2013, Mega Man would get his in even funnier fashion.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5261-character-battle-ix-division-9-final-mega-man-vs-zero-mmx-vs
Zero was not going to pull this garbage on the Blue Bomber twice, and what made the 2013 rerun even sweeter is everyone expected Charizard to win. Even the gurus who picked Mega Man to win. You all thought he was losing at some point during that match. I see you workin.
So yeah, Mega Man lost here, but it's okay. It was all just a part of the redemption arc.
Stats and Analysis[]
- Weighted Companion advancing was the #7 most surprising result of 2008
Anyone could see the SFF coming from a mile away. Zero was going to get pasted. Snake, on the other hand, was a lock for Round 4, and would definitely get first place. The only question was the fate of LFF'd Mega Man tackling a 9 ton block of steel, and it turned out to be one heck of a brawl.
The match started out with Mega Man diving into first place, Snake taking a close second, and Zero getting pasted. WCC was just sort of there. Snake trades places with Mega Man in the next update and never lets go of his lead, while the other two straggle. Mega Man loses ground fast afterward, while WCC's Portal fanbase finally kicks in and pushes the cube up a few percentage points. In thirty minutes, the Weighted Companion Cube scrapes past Mega Man.
The Cube maintains a threadbare lead until eight and a half hours into the match, when the morning vote causes the brawlers to change places. Mega man keeps a tiny lead until about lunch time, where his lead hits an apex and falls to WCC. The blue guy tries to catch up at the very end, but he can't chop the cube's infinitesimal lead, and loses by 238 votes.
A member of the Noble Nine was taken down by a giant box with hearts on it. And there was much complaining.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
I've been so busy celebrating all day that I didn't leave much time for this writeup! So let's jump right on in.
X-Stats from Round Two
- Mega Man - 29.54% (based on '07 Tidus)
- WCC - 25.97% (based on '07 Tidus)
- Snake - 35.99% (based on '07 Vivi)
- Zero - 23.72% (based on '07 Vivi)
Pretty reasonable results all around there... Those are solid numbers, but we're going to have to bend at least three of them. First we'll have to lower MM and Zero a bit to make up for their shared fanbase- but which way do we go? Could Zero be able to rSFF his blue pal, as he appeared to back in 2004, or are we going to see a more standard SFFing of Zero, kind of like what we just saw in Mario/Luigi? Personally I'm leaning toward the SFF option... yes Zero impressed by surviving a high powered onslaught from Vivi, but let's not forgot how easily he was (apparently) LFFed by having two Nintendo guys hanging round in R1, or how he has generally disappointed the last few years.
The voters seemed to have brightened up this year as we move further into the bracket: they knew to drop Tifa in order to push Seph through, and were quick to drop Ganon in favor of assuring Samus a win a couple days back. If the Cube threatens, and I've got to think he will, I'm picturing voters once again coming to the rescue by dropping that Zero and going with a hero. Even so, I think he'll have a tougher time of dispatching this joke than Pika did today... this was L's 10th main page Contest poll in the last 13 months, 11 if you count that "who is going to win this year?" question where he featured prominently, so I could see how voters might have tired of the joke. WCC on the other hand is still pretty new and fresh, and has the more dedicated Portal fanbase to fall back on if all else fails. Even so... nay, just can't bring myself to pick the joke, not after today.
And as for Snake, well, he's going to destroy everyone, of course. We're on an incredible hot streak for Nintendo overperformances here in this round, which means that as the only Brawl representative Solid's going to have to keep the pace. Rock their world, Snakey!
A big Snake win, a tight MM survival, Zero getting pounded, that would look something like... *stirs the pot very quickly*
- Solid Snake - 38.14%
- Mega Man - 23.24%
- Weighted Companion Cube - 23.18%
- Zero - 15.43%
That looks... like Snake has his work cut out for him. But MM is no king of the Day Vote, so he'll pull it off!
Ngamer Says: Snake > Mega Man
Next Day Review[]
Haven't been able to follow the poll today... looks like Mega Man went out to a comfortable lead this morning, and then the Cube went on a big surge out of nowhere? Darn these jokes! Ah well, here's hoping that MM can pull a joke-hate fueled Frog in these last hours while I'm out at the theater. But if not, eh, Cloud and Snake will cook his goose next time around, so nothing to worry too much about.