The Nomination Rally Tournament was an idea created by Leonhart4 prior to the SC2K5 contest. It was to find the top 5 "snubs" from the Summer contests, in order to create a more exciting braket.
2005 Nomination Rally Tournament[]
The winners of the first tournament were Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia, Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII, Revolver Ocelot from the Metal Gear Solid series, Leon Kennedy, from Resident Evil 2 + 4, and Sarah Kerrigan, from Starcraft. All of these character received such support that none of them got below a 5 seed in the contest - Revolver Ocelot went as high as a 2. However, the most successful characters were Tifa, who reached the divisional finals before bowing out to Sonic, and Leon Kennedy, who carried on the legend of GFNW by beating Gordon Freeman, then getting a respectable 35% on Mega Man. The big disappoinment would be either Kerrigan, who was tripled by Vincent Valentine, or Ocelot who, as a 2 seed, was upset by Pac-Man.
2006 Nomination Rally Tournament[]
The Rally Tournament run prior to SC2K6 by Slowflake fell into controversy in the latter stages when Slow closed a match involving The Prince of Persia and Sub-Zero 20 minutes early, ensuring that Sub-Zero won by a single vote. However, Slowflake argued that he had never advocated an "exactly 24-hour rule", and said that he had to go out when the match was over. This was argued against by vocal Prince supporters including Explicit Content and My Immortal saying that he should have kept it for 24 hours and not made the new topic until later. Slow left shortly thereafter and has not been seen on the board since, though his login times indicate he is still lurking. The tournament was then taken over by previous runner Leonhart for the final 4 days.
In the end, it mattered little. The Prince of Persia topped the Round-Robin table, winning him the tournament and a 90% chance of getting through to the contest. The other three top-four finishers in the Round-Robin were Nightmare from SoulCalibur, Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat, and Captain Falcon from the F-Zero series (all except for Nightmare entered the SC2K6 contest). The winner of a special "returner" tournament, a tournament for characters who had not seen the contest since 2003 or before, or the Spring 2005 Contest, was won by Raiden, from Metal Gear Solid 2. He was seen to have more strength than met the eye, as his only contest appearance had been an SFF drubbing against Solid Snake. He defeated Fox McCloud in a Tiebreaker in the returner finals, and defeated Aeris Gainsborough in an upset in the Semis. Though Raiden and Nightmare did not make the final field of 64, this is generally blamed on CJay's surprise twist of awarding 32 positions to female characters, rather than a lack of support the Rally characters.
As for the three who did make it into the contest, they enjoyed limited success due to poor bracket draws. The Prince of Persia had an unwinnable match against Kirby in the first round, scoring 38% in defeat, but he displayed great day vote power. Captain Falcon got an 8 seed and was stuck against Crono in the first round. He only managed to get 25% there, but he also showed great day vote power (along with CT's historically bad day vote). Sub-Zero had the most success of the three. He was stuck in a tough match against Master Chief in round one as a 7 seed, but he pulled off one of the biggest first round upsets in contest history. Only 20% of brackets had Sub-Zero beating Master Chief. He would lose to Auron in round two, but he got a respectable 40% of the vote in that match.
2007 Nomination Rally Tournament[]
Main Article: 2007 Nomination Rally Tournament
In the 2007 version of the NRT, Mewtwo from the Pokemon series won in a landslide, never losing a match (or even coming close, for that matter). The other three winners were Nightmare from SoulCalibur, Diddy Kong from Donkey Kong Country, and Seifer Almasy from Final Fantasy VIII. The Returners Tournament was brought back as well, with Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 defeating Fox McCloud by a single vote in an epic finals rematch.
Three out of the five 2007 Rally Tournament winners actually entered the contest. Somehow, despite the expansion to 128 characters, Seifer Almasy and Diddy Kong failed to make the field. The other three saw limited success. Mewtwo impressed despite being placed into a no-win situation with Bowser and Ryu. He still scored nearly 25% of the vote and chipped off a nice chunk of votes from Bowser's lead over him. Nightmare was placed into a much easier fourpack with Snake, Vyse, and Rayman. He got 22.47% to advance to the second round, where he was squashed by the combo of Snake, Riku, and Ryu Hayabusa. Raiden also managed to advance to the second round with Crono, despite having to hold on for dear life against Sam Fisher. He did respectably in the second round against Crono and Zero in defeat.
2008 Game Nomination Rally Tournament[]
Main Article: 2008 Nomination Rally Tournament
With Leonhart nowhere to be found, HaRRicH stepped up to run a Game Rally in early 2008, in advance of an upcoming Game Contest that Stats was hoping to see. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow won the tournament in dominant fashion, without ever being seriously challenged. The second place finisher was Star Fox 64, with Donkey Kong Country 2 taking the final rally position.
All three games made the field, although DKC2 had to use Bacon's special rule to add it to the field in place of another game. Star Fox 64 and Donkey Kong Country 2 both suffered first round defeats due to near hopeless bracket draws, but Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow was one of the biggest stars of the contest. It scored over 50% in its round one match with Majora's Mask in the match. It scored a respectable second place against MGS in round two despite Gold/Silver and Majora's Mask LFFing it. In round three, it scored an impressive second place finish, beating Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VIII even though Ocarina of Time was in the poll. However, it could not place in round four, failing to place behind Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy X, though it still performed respectably in defeat.
2009 Nomination Rally Tournament[]
Main Article: 2009 Nomination Rally Tournament
The 2009 Nomination Rally Tournament featured some wacky results, including Seifer Almasy being upset in round 2 by Gray Fox, but for the most part, it went as expected. Charizard was the big winner, making it three NRTs in a row that Pokemon or one of its characters was the overall winner. Cid Highwind from Final Fantasy VII and Darth Revan from Knights of the Old Republic were two of the others who won NRT support in this contest. The final day of the Round Robin had a crazy finish, with Red XIII, Red from Pokemon, and Yoshimitsu all vying for the final spot. In the end, Yoshimitsu ended up getting the final spot, thanks to Laguna Loire beating Red for his first and only win in the entire Round Robin. The Returners Tournament went basically according to plan, with Ken Masters from Street Fighter running through the entire tournament practically uncontested to earn the Returners slot.
For the most part, the NRT winners managed to do well for themselves. Overall winner Charizard made one of the biggest impacts of the contest, winning the Heart Division, beating Kratos, L-Block, and Bowser along the way, and then getting 46.41% on Mario in the quarterfinals. Cid Highwind had to rely on the vote-ins to make the contest and received an unfortunate draw as a 14 seed against Mega Man, getting 36.96% in defeat. Darth Revan was considered to be a heavy favorite to beat Terra Branford in round 1, but Dissidia helped propel her past him for the upset. Unfortunately, Yoshimitsu was trounced in a vote-in poll and failed to make the contest. Ken Masters was involved in perhaps the most exciting first round match against Albert Wesker, which he won, and went on to lose to Ganondorf in round two.
2010 Nomination Rally Tournament[]
Main Article: 2010 Nomination Rally Tournament
The 2010 Nomination Rally Tournament was hosted by Leonhart4. The contest had a lot of controversy behind it thanks to suspicions of cheating and rallying people to vote for specific characters (mainly Dark Link and Epona). In the end, Epona barely missed out as one of the NRT winners because of losing the head-to-head matchup to Otacon. Otacon was one of the four winners along with Seifer, Squirtle and Barret (Whose loss against Seifer on the final day of the Round Robin caused Otacon to make it). As for the Returners slot, Morrigan Aensland won the tournament after defeating M. Bison in the final.
Board 8 wound up having to wait another three years for the next character battle. Nonetheless, all five NRT winners made the field anyways, thanks in part to it having a whopping 243 characters in total. In fact, three of them won their Round 1 matches, with the exceptions being Seifer, who lost to Celes even as Knuckles socked both of them at once, and Otacon, who allowed Magus to not choke for the first time since 2004. Barret and Morrigan had very comparable paths, cleaning up against fodder in the first round, then narrowly avoiding getting doubled by Sonic and Sephiroth, respectively. However, Squirtle was undoubtedly the star of the NRT bunch, just as Pokemon entrants had been the last three contests. It started by more than doubling Ramza, before not just beating Dante, but putting him closer to third-wheel Zidane than to Squirtle itself. At that point, there was nothing stopping it from surpassing the once-mighty Cloud in the contest of maximum Pokefear and minimum FF7 results. Unfortunately for Squirtle, 2013 was such a successful contest for the Pokemon series that it was then cannibalized by another Pokemon in Pikachu, allowing Snake to beat them both without a struggle.
2018 Nomination Rally Tournament[]
The Fall 2018 Contest's early soft announcement left Swirldude with plenty of time to host a Nomination Rally Tournament for it. Due to the sheer amount of possible returners in comparison to newcomers, swirl expanded the Returners section to two slots, for both finalists. 2B, Estelle Bright, Godot, and Guile wound up securing the four Newcomer slots, while King Dedede and Master Hand managed the Returners honors.
All six NRT winners made a field Board 8 influenced more than any previous contest. 2B coasted all the way to a 1-seed, a first for a NRT winner, and capitalized on it to beat Ness before breaking 40% on Bowser in the third round. Estelle and Godot lost in predictable Round 1 blowouts, but each one making the field with room to spare was a victory for fans of both characters. Guile continued Street Fighter characters' tradition of struggling in the nomination phase, squeaking by with a 15-seed and getting fed to Kirby in the first round. King Dedede just barely lost to Revolver Ocelot, while Master Hand shocked much of the board by beating overhyped Final Fantasy XV protagonist Noctis harder than he had beaten Kuja way back in 2005 before losing to Wario.