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Sephiroth's Contest History

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Who is Sephiroth?[]

The Mako-exposed, Jenova-infused, all-business, badassed villain of Final Fantasy 7. Sephiroth was once the best SOLDIER in all of Shinra, but after he learns of his true past, he goes berserk. He burns down Nibelheim, then decides to use Jenova to draw everyone else infused with Jenova cells closer to him. Sephiroth also wishes to destroy the planet by summoning Meteor so that he may absorb all of the energy that the planet would otherwise use to heal itself. As a villain, Sephiroth takes a back seat to few others. As a character, Sephiroth is very deep; as you play through Final Fantasy 7, it becomes possible to understand why his intentions are what they are, much like you can do for Magus in Chrono Trigger.

As an added bonus, Sephiroth is also one of the optional bosses in Kingdom Hearts. He isn't just any optional boss, either. He is, by far, the toughest battle in the entire game. The battle with him is much like a battle between Samus and Ridley. There is no finesse involved; two characters simply beat the holy hell out of each other until someone dies.

"Through my veins courses the blood of the Ancients... I am one of the rightful heirs to this planet!" -Sephiroth

Contest History[]

Win-Loss Record: 39-12

Summer 2002 Contest - West Division - 7 seed

  • Western Round 1 --- Defeated (10) Gabe Logan, 61367 [87.71%] - 8602 [12.29%]
  • Western Quarterfinal --- Defeated (2) Crash Bandicoot, 53956 [81.52%] - 12235 [18.48%]
  • Western Semifinal --- Defeated (6) Mega Man, 49172 [50.51%] - 48185 [49.49%]
  • Western Final --- Defeated (5) Samus Aran, 51177 [52.64%] - 46047 [47.36%]
  • Final Four --- Lost to (2) Link, 44597 [43.35%] - 58273 [56.65%]
  • Extrapolated Strength --- 2nd Place [43.35%]


Summer 2003 Contest - South Division - 2 seed

  • Southern Round 1 --- Defeated (15) Raziel, 90364 [82.00%] - 19838 [18.00%]
  • Southern Quarterfinal --- Defeated (10) Max Payne, 89595 [82.67%] - 18786 [17.33%]
  • Southern Semifinal --- Defeated (6) Alucard, 80539 [72.28%] - 30891 [27.72%]
  • Southern Final --- Defeated (1) Mario, 76129 [61.60%] - 47458 [38.40%]
  • Contest Semifinal --- Defeated (2) Mega Man, 75979 [61.18%] - 48213 [38.82%]
  • Contest Final --- Lost to (1) Cloud, 59865 [48.11%] - 64578 [51.89%]
  • Extrapolated Strength --- 3rd Place [48.11%]


Summer 2004 Contest - Midgar Division - 2 seed

  • Midgar Round 1 --- Defeated (15) Sly Cooper, 77605 [86.37%] - 12243 [13.63%]
  • Midgar Quarterfinal --- Defeated (7) Vivi, 61170 [70.25%] - 25904 [29.75%]
  • Midgar Semifinal --- Defeated (3) Auron, 55252 [67.70%] - 26356 [32.30%]
  • Midgar Final --- Lost to (1) Cloud, 40211 [44.00%] - 51179 [56.00%]
  • Extrapolated Strength --- 3rd Place [42.40%]

It's easy to go on and on about how powerful Sephiroth is in the contest setting, but the numbers speak for themselves. Sephiroth's only losses have been to Cloud and Link, both of which are contest champions. Sephiroth is the only character besides Cloud to ever break 40% on Link, and is the only character besides Link to be in the top three in the Xsts in all three Summer Contests. Sephiroth may never be able to actually defeat Cloud or Link in a direct poll, but none of the characters below him have an interest in facing him, either. Ever since Mega Man and Samus came close to taking him down in 2002, Sephiroth's strength has risen so much that it's practically a sacrifice to put anyone but Cloud or Link against him in a poll. Sephiroth's resume includes breaking 60% on both Mario and Mega Man in 2003, being the only character to break 40% on Link in 2002, and he has the added bragging right of having a large history of contest success despite never being a 1 seed.

What's even more impressive about Sephiroth's numbers are the fact that despite how good he is as a character, he is little more than a Non-Playable Character (NPC). He's easily the most popular NPC on GameFAQs, but still, an NPC putting up these sorts of performances is impressive in its own right. One can only imagine how good Sephiroth would be in these contests if he were playable. The guest appearance in Kingdom Hearts certainly gave him a boost, but even then, he hasn't shown the ability to take down Link or Cloud. To be on their level, he would need a playable role somewhere down the line, which I unfortunately never see happening for him.

Spring 2005 Contest - Jenova Division - 1 Seed

  • Jenova Round 1 --- Defeated (8) Ramirez, 70458 [83.70%] - 13720 [16.30%]
  • Jenova Semifinal --- Defeated (4) Vergil, 64294 [78.81%] - 17291 [21.19%]
  • Jenova Final --- Defeated (2) Liquid Snake, 69599 [75.92%] - 22077 [24.08%]
  • Contest Semifinal --- Defeated (1) Bowser, 57978 [59.55%] - 39385 [40.45%]
  • Contest Final --- Defeated (1) Ganondorf, 60193 [58.17%] - 43286 [41.83%]
  • Extrapolated Strength --- 1st Place [50.00%]

Pretty much everyone knew that the Spring 2005 Contest was going to be an auto-win for Sephiroth, and judging by the Tournament of Champions in the Summer 2005 Contest, it's almost as if CJayC was well aware of this fact as well; as if the Spring 2005 Contest was designed with Summer 2005's TOC already in mind.

Regardless, dominance is dominance. Sephiroth absolutely carved his way through his first three opponents (including doing 10% better against Liquid than what Summer 2004 stats projected), and though Bowser and Ganondorf shocked everyone by managing to break 40% on Sephiroth, neither of them had any chance to actually win the match. Besides, it really says something about your strength when people are shocked that someone breaks a measly 40% on you in a match that wound up being a blowout regardless. Sephiroth's underperformance in those final two matches could either be an anomaly, a Sephiroth drop or a Ganon/Bowser gain, but this only matters when predicting future matches. In terms of the Spring 2005 Contest, it meant nothing when it came to actually stopping Sephy from winning the entire thing.


Summer 2005 Contest - Tournament of Champions - 3 Seed

  • Tournament of Champions Semifinal --- Defeated (4) Mario, 64570 [56.07%] - 50598 [43.93%]
  • Tournament of Champions Final --- Lost to (1) Link, 53628 [45.06%] - 65397 [54.94%]
  • Extrapolated Strength --- 3rd Place [45.06%]

Fun with numbers: Sephiroth has more contest wins than Cloud and exactly as many as Link. Now granted five of those wins were essentially free, but that's not the point <_<

Sephiroth is one of three characters that has proven to be too strong for average competition, and as such he was removed from the main bracket. Some have argued that CJayC created the Spring 2005 contest solely for this purpose, and can you blame him?

But while Sephiroth's main purpose was to beat the hell out of whoever won the main bracket in Summer 2005, one must remember that Advent Children likely made a difference and gave Sephy/Cloud a boost in the Tournament of Champions. Mario went SSJ for seemingly no reason at all in 2005, yet Sephiroth beat the hell out of him in a match that many felt that Mario (or Samus) had a reasonable chance at winning. Whether or not this proves the untouchable nature of Clinkeroth or that Advent Children's release was perfectly timed remains to be seen, but the fact remains that Mario got his face kicked in after spending two months whipping the main bracket all over the place.

More fun with numbers: Three years after Sephiroth lost to Link, the rematch saw Sephy do 2% better against a Link that has been the beneficiary of multiple GBA games, Twilight Princess hype and an inexplicable, widespread Nintendo increase. If anything, Sephy was the moral victor in that match. Sure it was Advent Children's fault, but Sephy only has so long to impress before the FF7 spinoffs, movies and remakes wear thin and the game starts to weaken as a whole.


Summer 2006 Contest - Battle Royal

  • Battle Royale Day 1 --- Outlasted Samus, 26178 [16.43%] - 12335 [7.74%]
  • Battle Royale Day 2 --- Outlasted Mario, 21116 [14.87%] - 15878 [11.18%]
  • Battle Royale Day 3 --- Lost to Solid Snake, 22754 [16.79%] - 22810 [16.83%]
  • Extrapolated Strength --- N/A

Mario and Samus may have collapsed in the Battle Royale, but they had a legitimate out --- Link is inhuman on GameFAQs these days. But Sephiroth started out in last place in all three of his appearances in the Battle Royale, and playing catchup cost him on the third day. After falling well behind, a big day push helped Sephiroth take a small lead over Snake that he was unable to hold in the final hour, as yet another fishy late update allowed Metal Gear Solid to pull out a close one. Something similar happened in the FFT/MGS match in 2004, yet somehow no one touts MGS fans as the slick ones. Everyone always points to Starcraft, Mario or Crono.

Regardless, Sephiroth is in a bind after this. He's clearly still one of the big three and will never lose a contest match to anyone other than Cloud or Link, but he's far enough behind Cloud or Link to never be able to catch them. This Battle Royale proved once and for all that Sephiroth draws more of his strength from Cloud than people realize, and that the 2003 final between the two characters being so close was entirely the fault of Link backlash. Sephiroth clearly had no right being that close to Cloud. Ever.

Even when he loses, Link proves to be the best in these things. The spectre of that 2003 match came to a head three full years later.


Summer 2007 Contest - Division 3 - First Group

There are three things I can take from Sephiroth's 2007 contest:

1. He's still the third strongest character in these contests 2. He's still Mario's Kryptonite 3. His performance against Cloud in 2003 was a fluke

People are saying they still want to see Snake or Samus take on Sephiroth, but even though they both beat him in four way battles with Cloud in the match, I can't see anything other than a decisive Sephiroth victory. Maybe we'll get a chance to see for ourselves soon enough.


Summer 2008 Contest - Division 8 - Third Group

Sephiroth's path through the 2008 contest provides a concise thesis for why the four-way format must be scrapped. There was SFF in almost every one of Sephiroth's matches. Tifa was able to advance out of Round 1 despite Sephiroth's presence due to the other two characters being fodder, but was stopped in Round 2 by Kratos. In Round 3, Sonic easily got second place ahead of Auron, who was much closer to Kratos, despite Auron having beaten Sonic the previous round. Then there's that semifinal. Sephiroth goes from beating Kirby by over 20000 votes to coming in last by OVER 9000!!!!!!! thanks to Cloud's presence, while Seph's presence drops Cloud from a comfortable five-digit win to a narrow defeat at the hands of Solid Snake (although Snake would later legitimize his win). Kirby, despite being a veteran of every contest to date, had never even managed to get far enough to face a Noble Niner until this year, and he managed to beat two of them. Let's get back to the 1v1 format so we can end this insanity.


Winter 2010 Contest - Jenova Division - 1 Seed

  • Jenova Round 1 --- Defeated (16) Marth, 39295 [71.80%] - 15435 [28.20%]
  • Jenova Round 2 --- Defeated (8) Vincent Valentine, 30682 [62.66%] - 18286 [37.34%]
  • Jenova Semifinal --- Defeated (13) Missingno., 35286 [52.88%] - 31445 [47.12%]
  • Jenova Final --- Defeated (10) Tifa Lockheart, 45168 [56.16%] - 35253 [43.84%]
  • Contest Quarterfinal --- Lost to (1) Solid Snake, 40822 [47.04%] - 45954 [52.96%]
  • Extrapolated Strength --- 5th Place [41.88%]

Well, the 1v1 format returned, but insanity still ran rampant in Sephiroth's division, which had been filled to the brim with strong characters, including fellow Noble Niner Crono, top-rated midcarders Vincent and Tifa, medium midcarder Yoshi, and the surprisingly revitalized lovable loser Gordon Freeman, fresh off a championship in a Gamespot character battle. On top of that, the division was stacked so that Sephiroth would have to run through nearly all of them--Gordon was the only thing even resembling a threat to Tifa making the division finals, while Vincent had been given an 8-seed and would be facing Sephiroth in the second round. Then things really took a turn for the unexpected. Suddenly, instead of seeing two Noble Niners going at it in Round 3, we would instead be seeing Sephiroth try to defend the honor of the Noble Nine by stopping the neo-L-Block that had upset Crono and tarnished the Nine's perfect record. Missingno. jumped out to a solid early lead, but Sephiroth turned it around within a few hours and rode the wave of anti-joke sentiment to a solid win. Speaking of "solid"...

By defeating Missingno. and setting the contest right again, the long-awaited 1v1 match between Solid Snake and Sephiroth would be taking place as scheduled. Snake's convincing second-place finish in the 2008 finals had many people thinking that he really could beat the FF7 duo head-to-head, but Sephiroth remained the favorite due to his more prestigious history. The match ended up being one sided and once Snake got off to his early lead is was already over. Sephiroth didn't even win a single update until late into the match.


Summer 2013 Contest - Division 3 - 1 Seed

  • Division 3 Round 1 --- 1st place, 16179 [57.37%] - (18) Midna, 6922 [24.55%] - (27) Little Mac, 5098 [18.08%]
  • Division 3 Round 2 --- 1st place, 14566 [52.04%] - (6) Morrigan Aensland, 7361 [26.30%] - (9) Spyro the Dragon, 6062 [21.66%]
  • Division 3 Final --- 1st place, 20144 [37.93%] - (4) Kirby, 17875 [33.65%] - (5) Big Boss, 15096 [28.42%]
  • Contest Semifinals --- 3rd place, 22387 [23.06%] - (3) Draven, 43752 [45.07%] - (11) Mewtwo, 30946 [31.88%]

The ninth contest was the one where Final Fantasy VII really showed its decay, with Sephiroth being the only character to have a good performance. After two beatdowns against low-tier characters, came an opportunity for Sephy to become the third Noble Niner to fall in a row, as Big Boss was now effectively the focus of Metal Gear, and Clinkeroth backlash\joke appeal\Sore Thumb Factor all favored Kirby. While the pink puffball lead with the board vote, Sephiroth soon came back and got his pass to the semifinals. Then in that match, Sephiroth was a mere third wheel in a symbolic battle between Reddit and GameFAQs - Draven, a meme in the League of Legends community that got there due to a r/LOL rally that managed him a controversial defeat against Link himself; and Mewtwo, that amidst Pokémon's boost caused by X/Y hype was considered a fair candidate to take down the hated adversary and soon emassed a huge bandwagon of anti-Draven voters. Sephiroth never even attempted to contend (and his share got even worse once the LoL rally kicked in), and despite having outlasted Link, Cloud and two other 1-seeds\N9ers, entering a match that wasn't his in any way lead the upper half of the bracket to be the only without a Noble Nine winner.

Fall 2018 Contest - Division 8 - 1 Seed

  • Division 8 Round 1 --- Defeated (16) Albert Wesker, 20400 [70.28% ] - 8625 [29.72%]
  • Division 8 Round 2 --- Defeated (9) Captain Falcon, 18597 [64.93%] - 10046 [35.07%]
  • Division 8 Semifinals --- Defeated (5) Amaterasu, 19901[61.37%] -12525 [38.63%]
  • Division 8 Finals --- Defeated (3) Ryu, 18769 [60.26%] - 12376 [39.74%]
  • Legends Round 1 --- Lost to (7) Mario, 17437 [40.75%] - 11993 [59.25%]
  • Loser Bracket Round 1 -- Lost to Tifa Lockhart, 12340 [47.67%] - 13545 [52.33%]

The only Noble Niner relegated to the regular bracket instead of the Legends division was Sephiroth, as Cloud being pushed to later phases was enough FFVII favoring. And as expected, he mowed through his adversaries with numbers comparable to the last 1-on-1 contest. But then came undeniable proof that Sephiroth was far from the untouchable beast of the first contests, as the Nintendo mascot he handily beat twice before was now the one wrecking Seph with a 60% percentage, and the loser bracket had him beaten not by Cloud, but his girlfriend who Seph had no trouble in defeating back in 2007 and 2010. Perhaps the FFVII remake can bring back some of his old strength. Otherwise Sephiroth is not guaranteed to win every match like in the old days.

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