Yoshi's Contest History

Who is Yoshi?

To the contest, Yoshi is much like Alucard. Hr can always hang with the characters on or below his level, but he has little chance to beat the characters above him. To Nintendo, Yoshi is the loveable dinosaur that has grown from Mario's ride in Super Mario World to a character able to boast a fanbase all his own.

One of the biggest selling points of Super Mario World was Yoshi himself, and when people finally played the game, they were treated to one of the cuter characters of recent memory. But within Yoshi's loveability lied a dino with some damned powerful skills. Yoshi could eat nearly everything in the game and use it as a weapon; this ability made fans fall for him right off the bat, and Yoshi's success convinced Nintendo to give Yoshi a game of his own.

Yoshi's Island was not simply a game that starred Yoshi, but it was one of the single best games ever conceived by human hands. The idea behind the game was that the Baby Mario Brothers were being delivered to their parents via stork, but in the middle of the stork's fight, he was attacked. Luigi was sent flying to an unknown destination, while Mario landed on Yoshi's Island itself. The Yoshi clan decides to transport Baby Mario back to his twin brother, and one of the most addictive gaming experiences ever was soon underway. Yoshi's Island is divided into six different worlds that are nine levels each (if you include the bonus levels). Each world has a different theme to it, and it is up to the Yoshis to transport Mario through a relay system to his missing brother Luigi. The fun in Yoshi's Island comes from its built-in replayability system in which each level gives you a grade depending on whether or not you find all of the Stars, Flowers, and Red Coins in the level. You can get a 100 in each level, and half the fun in the game is seeing whether or not you can get a 100 in every level in the game. The game itself is fun regardless of this, but with this system, the game becomes one of the more addictive titles out there. And in the limelight of all of this is Yoshi himself. His fanbase began in the SNES era, and most characters can tell you that starting your career in said era yields nothing but positive things.

Half the mystery of why Yoshi does so well is the fact that he can done next to nothing since Yoshi's Island. Sure he has had Yoshi's Story and a ton of appearances in side rolls such as the Mario Kart series or Super Smash Brothers, but the fact that Yoshi retains his fanbase despite not being the leading role in any good games since Yoshi's Island only proves that once Nintendo fans fall in live with a character, they will stay loyal to that character forever.

"There is no greater embarrassment than being crapped off the edge by Yoshi in Smash Brothers, especially when you know it's coming." - SSB Player

Yoshi's Contest History

Win-Loss Record: 12-8

Summer 2003 Contest - East Division - 4 Seed

• Eastern Round 1 --- Defeated (13) Conker, 61421 [66.46%] - 30997 [33.54%]
• Eastern Quarterfinal --- Lost to (5) Bowser, 43021 [43.66%] - 55510 [56.34%]
• Extrapolated Strength --- 23rd Place [26.17%]

Summer 2004 Contest - Hyrule Division - 5 Seed

• Hyrule Round 1 --- Defeated (12) Ryo Hazuki, 60057 [76.40%] - 18551 [23.60%]
• Hyrule Quarterfinal --- Defeated (4) Luigi, 41151 [54.48%] - 34382 [45.52%]
• Hyrule Semifinal --- Lost to (1) Link, 17082 [18.26%] - 76476 [81.74%]
• Extrapolated Strength --- 26th Place [25.22%]

Yoshi may not have participated in 2002, and he may not be the type of character that can cause any real damage in the contest, but he is a character of decent strength who belongs in the field. In 2003, Yoshi was actually overestimated by many people, as he was expected to cruise through the first two rounds en route to a loss to Cloud. Unfortunately for Yoshi, this dream was cut short a round early as he faced Bowser, a fellow Nintendo character, in the second round. Yoshi was never in the match, and he helped continue the tradition of 4 seeds always struggling against 5 seeds.

In 2004, however, Yoshi would get a small measure of redemption for his slip-up in 2003. After killing the worthless Ryo Hazuki, Yoshi found himself in yet another all Nintendo second round matchup, only Yoshi himself was the 5 seed this time around. In a match that went exactly as expected (mathematically speaking, at least), Yoshi managed to score nearly 55% on Luigi en route to getting killed by Link in the Hyrule Semifinals. But this was not a disappointing contest for Yoshi. He made it farther than ever before, he went down to the future champion of the field, and he managed to win a highly debated match. Nothing wrong with going down with some respect.

Yoshi's strength is somewhat stagnant in these contests in that even though Yoshi's strength will likely never go down, it will likely never go up either. He is a decent character capable of doing decent things, but with there being little to no demand for new Yoshi games, Yoshi will likely be stuck in the middle of the pack for the duration of his contest career. But there is nothing wrong with this, especially considering the fact that Yoshi is a character with a fanbase large enough to not only get him into the contest, but large enough to prevent him from being fodder. Yoshi deserves to be here, and even though he isn't Link by any means, he is still a character capable of winning matches.

Summer 2005 Contest - 20XX Division - 3 Seed

• 20XX Round 1 --- Defeated (6) Laharl, 72563 [73.66%] - 25949 [26.34%]
• 20XX Semifinal --- Defeated (7) Pac-Man, 61377 [72.83%] - 22893 [27.17%]
• 20XX Final --- Lost to (1) Mega Man, 29719 [31.92%] - 63395 [68.08%]
• Extrapolated Strength --- 27th Place [26.59%]

Good ol' Yoshi. It's a pity that he had the most predictable path of the entire contest, though.

He was a lock to win his fourpack, and was a lock to get SFFd to hell by Mega Man. The only real things that were unexpected from Yoshi were him beating Pac-Man in the second round rather than Ocelot and suffering more SFF against Mega Man than Link.

Yoshi really needs to get away from these SFF divisions and easy-to-call matches, because every year there's barely anything to say about the poor guy.

Summer 2006 Contest - Patriot Division - 6 Seed

• Patriot Round 1 --- Defeated (3) Riku, 69394 [55.20%] - 56325 [44.80%]
• Patriot Semifinal --- Defeated (2) Dante, 65497 [50.55%] - 64072 [49.45%]
• Patriot Final --- Lost to (1) Solid Snake, 51781 [42.84%] - 69085 [57.16%]
• Extrapolated Strength --- 9th Place [40.18%]

Yoshi being seeded way too low created a bit of excitement in both of his wins. First he bled percentage like it was nothing in the Riku match and made it look like he had no chance against Dante; said match against Dante comes, and it's a dogfight consisting of Yoshi taking an early lead, then bitch-slapping Dante down to earth whenever he'd come back and tie the match. It was funny to watch until the afternoon brat votes put Yoshi ahead for good. Yoshi would go on to lose to Solid Snake in fairly unimpressive fashion; many expected Snake to tank in the sprite round as per previous contests, but not so in 2006.

Summer 2007 Contest - Division 1 - First Group

• Division 1 Round 1 --- 1st place, 55989 [35.48%] - Knuckles the Echidna, 43939 [27.84%] - Rikku, 42830 [27.14%] - Vaan, 15064 [9.54%]
• Division 1 Round 2 --- 2nd place, 35438 [28.24%] - Mega Man, 47353 [37.73%] - Knuckles the Echidna, 25442 [20.27%] - KOS-MOS, 17261 [13.75%]
• Division 1 Final --- 3rd place, 28823 [19.13%] - Samus Aran, 49872 [33.10%] - Mega Man, 45857 [30.43%] - Scorpion, 26126 [17.34%]

When the bracket was first released, there were several who thought Yoshi would be knocked off by Knuckles, myself included. Right away, he put all of those thoughts to rest. He owned Knux both times, and he did pretty well against Mega Man and Samus. I guess he wins those Favorite Mario Character polls for a reason.

Summer 2008 Contest - Division 6 - Second Group

• Division 6 Round 1 --- 2nd place, 41736 [32.82%] - Squall Leonhart, 57296 [45.06%] - CATS, 19397 [15.25%] - Nathan Drake, 8730 [6.87%]
• Division 6 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 28625 [22.44%] - Squall Leonhart, 38857 [30.47%] - Sora, 36108 [28.31%] - Fox McCloud, 23944 [18.77%]

This was probably Yoshi's worst contest appearance since his very first in 2003, which was also the only other time he failed to reach the third round. He had made the third round for the last four contests, but not this year. Yoshi got destroyed by Squall in round 1, but it was thought that perhaps he could take enough advantage the fact that Sora would be on the weaker end of LFF with Squall and he would be on the stronger end of LFF with Fox. However, that didn't happen. In fact, Yoshi didn't even come close. He was closer to Fox than he was to Sora by the time it was all said and done, leaving us with a lot of doubts about how strong he is anymore.

Winter 2010 Contest - Jenova Division - 5 Seed

• Jenova Round 1 --- Defeated (12) Jak, 37163 [76.62%] - 11338 [23.38%]
• Jenova Round 2 --- Lost to (13) Missingno., 37674 [48.49%] - 40022 [51.51%]
• Extrapolated Strength --- 9th Place [38.28%]

Yoshi was expected to go out in round two to Crono but Missingno ruined that. It was a very close match and some thought fan favorite Yoshi could do it. The fact that it was so close helped Yoshi in the x-stats but it still hurts to see a round two exit. I would love to see a Yoshi vs. Mario match-up one day.

Summer 2013 Contest - Division 1 - 9 Seed

• Division 1 Round 1 --- 1st place, 18306 [60.05%] - (10) Solaire of Astora, 7620 [24.99%] - (19) Demi-Fiend, 4561 [14.96%]
• Division 1 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 4953 [17.86%] - (1) Link, 16652 [60.05%] - (6) Raiden, 6127 [22.09%]

Yoshi had an easy win in the first round and was one of the few characters to break 60%. Sadly in the next round he was thrown up against Link which meant he was going to get SFF. He tried keeping up with Raiden, but once the board vote settled down he was unable to keep close and ended up losing by a decent margin. Yoshi was also beaten worse than Luigi in 2010 which could mean he is lower in the Mario hierarchy, but with SFF matches you'll never know.

Fall 2018 Contest - Division 2 - 3 Seed

• Division 2 Round 1 --- Defeated (12) Shantae, 21617[74.27%] - 7490[25.73%]
• Division 2 Round 2 --- Defeated (6) Velvet Crowe, 21148 [70.63%] - 8796 [29.37%]
• Division 2 Semifinals --- Lost to (7) Pikachu - 13405 [45.2%] - 16249 [54.8%]

Yoshi returned to the third round! And true to tradition, he easily trounced unremarkable opponents before SFF got on his path - for the second time against Pokémon, albeit this time the franchise mascot instead of a glitch propelled by joke votes.