Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Division 2 Semi Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 35 |
| Match Date | Sunday, October 7th, 2007 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Cloud - 50.86% Marcus Fenix - 19.24% Revolver Ocelot - 17.01% Kefka - 12.87% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Cloud first place (4pts) - 44.53% Cloud second place (2pts) - 47.09% Marcus second place (4pts) - 7.38% Marcus first place (2pts) - 16.15% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Cloud - 91.62% (33,647) Marcus - 23.53% (8,641) |
This match was a lot like that crazy Duke > Gordon match, only there was a killer first place character rather than a useless last place character in Guybrush. Seriously, stop nominating that idiot.
Cloud getting first was no huge surprise here, but the fight for second place was pretty awesome. Once the board vote wore off, we tentatively had Kefka and Ocelot fighting for second with Fenix lagging behind a bit. Within an hour, Ocelot's lead on Kefka was more than 100 votes and the lead on Fenix was 150. But with the trends these characters all have, everyone knew that wasn't going to last.
Kefka started cutting into Ocelot's lead a little bit overnight, but was ultimately swamped and out of the second place running entirely. And with Kefka's day vote being just about the worst thing ever, it was clear he was out of the match.
But even still, Kefka's lead on Fenix for "third place"? It was something like 500 votes come the morning vote, and when paired with Ocelot's 500 vote lead on Kefka that was 1000 votes of buffer Ocelot had to work with.
"Not so fast, my friend!"
Come the morning, Kefka of course collapsed because that's what he does every morning/day vote. Ocelot's lead on him started going way up, but at the same time we had Fenix making a comeback on Kefka as well. So while Ocelot was able to push his lead on Kefka fairly easily, he wasn't able to make much headway against Fenix. As Ocelot's lead on Kefka breached 1000, Fenix was also busy going nuts.
When Fenix finally overtook Kefka for good, Ocelot's lead on him was only 1100 votes. I say "only" because Metal Gear Solid's routinely awful day vote paired with Fenix being Master Chief Junior this contest meant for a lot of bad things. That 1100 votes fell all the way down to 400 before the ASV even showed up, and the rest was just academic from there. Ocelot put up a decent fight to prevent himself from losing, but Fenix's ASV this contest was no joke. He stormed back, fought through all of Ocelot's stalling and ultimately won this match fairly easily. His lead peaked at 800, and he won by 776. 1 on 1 it's fair to say Ocelot probably beats Fenix even in 2007, but with Cloud sucking up all the PSX fan votes it was impossible for Ocelot to really do much here.
Stats and Analysis[]
- Marcus advancing was the #11 most surprising result of 2007
Pre-contest, the consensus was that whoever won the Jill/Ocelot match would take second here. Kefka had Cloud to deal with and Fenix was just too unpredictable to pick with any confidence. It seemed like Jill or Ocelot would be able to survive, though everyone had reservations given that they were both PS1 characters and FF7 absolutely dominates anything from the PS1 era.
After Fenix's insane day vote against Kefka, though? Fenix became the sexy pick, and for good reasons. For one, he was the most unique of the three. We'd seen MGS choke to FF7 several times before, and Kefka really had no realistic chance here. Fenix is as casual as it gets, something the others can't even pretend to claim.
The opening of the match screwed with people pretty hard, though. At first, it was a virtual tie between the three, and Kefka surprisingly took the lead for a little while. The early vote has always loved Kefka. Nobody was getting more than a single-digit lead, though, and the consensus was that if Ocelot couldn't get any distance from Fenix during the nighttime, it was completely over. they were absolutely right. Fortunately for Ocelot, Fenix fell off pretty hard after the first 20-30 minutes.
From there, it was the Kefka's show. It was like 2005 all over again with huge spikes and then dropoffs. Kefka surge, Kefka drop, Kefka surge, Kefka drop, etc. It went on for so long that we started to predict it, and it was kinda frightening. Kefka was hanging in there despite Cloud, and it was pretty impressive, cheating or not. The whole time, Fenix was falling further and further behind while Ocelot kept a 60 or so vote barrier up that Kefka could not break. when the deep night hit, Kefka fell off and Ocelot took command - by 6am, he had a 1000 vote lead on Fenix and a 500 vote lead on Kefka. he looked in good shape, but MGS is not good in the day while Fenix is great. the argument here was that Cloud would hurt Fenix's comeback, and when daylight hit, it looked correct.
Usually on weekends, the day vote character does well in the morning, but then kinda falls off come afternoon, but when it comes to Xbox characters this isn't the case. Fenix was coming back on Kefka, but Ocelot was maintaining his 1000 vote lead on Fenix throughout the morning. Most people were calling it for Ocelot, but they were too quick. At 10am, Ocelot's lead hit 1200.
And just like that, it was gone. by noon it was under 1000. by 1 it was under 800, by 4 it was under 400, and by 5:30 the comeback was finished. Fenix was steady and Ocelot just faded as the day went on.
The comeback wasn't particularly interesting, but the match featured three unique trends - Kefka early, Ocelot overnight and Fenix in the day, and ended up being pretty fun to watch because of that.
Oh, and one last note - Cloud. Cloud utterly dominated this match, and at this point, the Cloud > Link people started getting loud. Cloud hadn't had a chance to face non-Link competition since 2004, and people had forgotten just how strong he was. This match reminded them.
Match Trends[]
