Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | 5 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 17 |
| Match Date | Saturday, October 4th, 2008 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Tidus - 30.16% Donkey Kong - 27.36% Weighted Companion Cube - 23.75% Tails - 18.74% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Cube first place (2pts) - 18.67% Cube second place (1pt) - 19.37% Tidus second place (2pts) - 31.81% Tidus first place (1pt) - 24.52% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Cube - 38.04% (16,320) Tidus - 56.33% (24,167) |
Pre-contest, the big debate surrounding this match was Tidus vs Donkey Kong. Neither character had been lighting the world on fire in recent contests, and some of their collective performances were outright embarrassing even in wins. Here are some of the low lights:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/965-west-division-round-1-tidus-vs-claire-redfield
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1727-20xx-division-round-1-tidus-vs-shadow-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2104-dream-division-round-2-kirby-vs-tidus
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2516-patriot-division-round-1-squall-leonhart-vs-tidus
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2906-division-6-round-2-pikachu-tidus-leon-vivi
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/973-north-division-round-2-aya-brea-vs-donkey-kong
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1351-west-division-round-2-donkey-kong-vs-tommy-vercetti
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2106-flood-division-round-2-master-chief-vs-donkey-kong
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2907-division-7-round-2-kirby-l-block-kratos-donkey-kong
The 2007 performances were especially egregious, but if you were a fan of the LOL X-Stats method, Tidus was always ahead of Donkey Kong in the stats. Conventional wisdom held that this would remain the case in 2008, and Tidus > Donkey Kong was the pretty overwhelming consensus pick. Oddly enough, these two would eventually have a 1v1 match in 2018, and all of the same logic that made Tidus the overwhelming favorite in 2008 was used there as well.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7244-division-1-round-1-tidus-vs-donkey-kong
LOL, X-STATS.
Ahem.
As for the 2008 match, this was a case where people didn't exactly care about their brackets. This was all about rooting for the Weighted Companion Cube, and I'll say it again. If this was a 1v1 games contest, Portal would have won. It had the type of love that year that you saw from Undertale in 2015, and more importantly when it relates to this match, there was no anti-bandwagon with the Cube. Everyone loved the thing, and they were rooting for it to advance in this match. No one thought it would be L-Block or anything, but hey, maybe if it squeezed by this match, round 2 would be Mega Man, Tidus, the Cube, and some fodder, and from there who really knows?
Yeah, the Cube did a lot more than merely "advance". When this poll started, it was clear the Cube had bandwagon joke love right from the jump, Tidus also left Donkey Kong in the dust once early bracket votes were exhausted, which paved the way for a fairly mundane Cube > Tidus result.
Or so we thought. The Cube built up a 1000 vote lead pretty quickly, and the lead peaked at 1500 overnight. What happened from there was a pretty fun comeback attempt by Tidus, but again, I can't bring myself to care about these first place duels. If this was a 1v1 match, and Tidus not only chopped a 1500 vote lead down below 1000, but started winning the morning vote, Board 8 would have lost their minds. As-is, it was a meaningless comeback because both characters were advancing either way. This format robs us of so much.
I will say though that Tidus coming back in the face of a bandwagoned joke character, despite not being particularly well-liked himself, was super impressive. He took it on the chin early, but eventually got that 1500 vote lead all the way down to 400. Had he won the ASV he might have made a push for first, but the Cube won it to put things away for good. He got the lead up to 800 before falling off a bit at night.
As one might expect, people lost their minds over this one. The Cube didn't get a lucky draw and win second place like L-Block did in 2007. He straight up won his first match, and if he beat Tidus here then round 2 seemed like a bye. All he had to do there was beat Tidus again. And from there, all he needed to do was catch more bandwagon love. A lot of people felt like the contest was over after this match, and frankly the Cube deserved to win this contest. We know what eventually happened, but the crazy run Cube went on all started right here. This was a triumph.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI
By the way, that video has almost 40 million views. Those are Megalovania numbers. I'm telling you, Portal would have won. As-is, the Cube came dangerously close.
Stats and Analysis[]
- Weighted Companion Cube advancing was the #4 most surprising result of Round 1
- Weighted Companion Cube overperformed by +8.46%, the #4 most impressive performance of 2008
- Donkey Kong underperformed by -6.11%, the #7 most disappointing performance of 2008
- Tails underperformed by -3.93%, the #24 most disappointing performance of 2008
Funny how Tidus' most impressive match since Tidus/Ganondorf 2k3 is him losing to a Cube, huh?
But seriously, look at that Oracle prediction. After Mudkip, L-Block, and especially GlaDOS I feel justified in saying the board looked like a fool in denial for this match. Cube was placing, it was the favorite to get first, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
The "real" match was supposed to be Tidus/DK. After Tidus got exposed, people have talked him and DK as being a good match for awhile, especially considering the Ninty Boost and another probable Brawl boost on the way. Well, things didn't quite turn out that way, but Tidus had been looking nothing but disappointing since then as well. Thus, we got this match - Nintendo and Square's biggest chokers gunning for all the marbles.
And what a fizzle it turned out to be - Donkey Kong, shocked that anyone would vie for his title after Vercetti, Duck Hunt, Vivi, Master Chief, and who knows what else, gave perhaps the biggest bomb of his contest career here. He must still be ashamed of winning over Aya Brea, what can I say? Tidus obliterated him 60-40 style, leaving DK much closer to Tails than he. Meanwhile, Tails was finding new ways of making Sonic Team look pathetic even after we knew they were hopeless. What a trooper.
Tidus also managed to keep it razor close to Cube the whole day, and even though it was obviously a lost cause - jokes don't let characters complete close comebacks on them - he came out looking like he actually BELONGED in these contests. And really, for him, that's probably just as good as a victory.
Meanwhile, the jokes were 3 for 3 and looked like they could all easily make it to the next round as well. "Augh" indeed.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
And now we return to... joke character territory, uh oh! Now as I explained in that post-Block writeup I DO think that jokes add something to the 4-way table. In the first round, that is. L-Block and WCC and Hogger and Sandbag, all of these are legitimately enjoyable matches to discuss and debate beforehand, because the element of the unknown means these jokes could either be true threats or absolute busts. The trouble is that from R2 and on, we're able to pin their strength down pretty easily, and their static fanbases work to actually makes results from then on LESS interesting.
But okay, I'm starting to get carried away, got to break that line of thought and jump right into where these fellows finished up last time around:
Last Known Values
- Tidus - 22.69% (2007)
- Donkey Kong - 21.53% (2007)
- Tails - 18.26% (2007)
- WCC - new (however if you count the bonus match and base it off L-Block, it's... really high)
The Cube is undoubtedly the one to watch out of this whole delightful mess. In my opinion it has a pretty tremendous range: I could see it pulling anywhere from 20.00% (which is what GlaDOS managed against Vincent and is probably a pretty good indication of what pure Portal appeal is worth) and 31.81% (what L-Block managed against Ryu; we know Block could have gone higher if not for The Dog, but I can't see WCC having that kind of broad appeal right off the bat, so 32 seems about right). The trouble of course is that if its more to the low end, all Cube can hope for is to hold off Tails for third place... but if it performs toward the high end, it could not only win this four pack but do it convincingly. I hope that I'm just being too knee-jerkingly reactionary, but sorry, the way Block performed at mid-season '07 levels while having enough "funny" jokes left over for The Dog to look like at least somewhat decent fodder has me suffering from a pretty severe case of JOKEFEAR right now. I see the Cube finishing closer to the high end of my given range, which adds a whole new layer of excitement to this match- only one other option can survive here. Who will it be?!
Let's eliminate Tails from the running right off the bat. Even if WCC was Tanner-level fodder no one would be giving this guy a shot at advancement, and with good reason; you don't go from losing to The Boss to knocking out decent midcarders, especially not when your Sonic Team pals have been bombing left and right ever since this new format came into play. OK, so how about Tidus? I think the FFX lead has been given a great opportunity here. He gets to act as a lightning rod for all things FF/Square/RPG and really stands out from this crowd of fuzzy animals and weird boxes. The underperformance from Vincent aside (which I still don't understand BTW), that's been a recipe for success so far this season, and I'm not seeing any reason for it to stop now. The only negative I see for Tidus is his match picture, but eh, he always looks kind of embarrassingly feminine in his pics, and that's never stop- Alright, so maybe it HAS stopped him before. But still, bad pics should just be a natural part of his (lack of?) strength by this point, so I don't see him flopping TOO far below expectations.
That leaves us with only Donkey Kong. The poor guy... I see him losing here, finishing out of the running in third and having to put up with wave after wave of "better loosen that tie DK, you're choking again!" topics in the next 24 hours, but he really won't deserve it. The King of the Kongs has just been placed in a really unfavorable position here: we've already seen that there's a pretty serious connection between Nintendo and Sonic these days with the way Mario and Link caused Knuckles and Shadow to underperform, and so even though Tails shouldn't be pulling in a very large percentage of these votes, the few voters he does win over will be coming at DK's expense IMO. On top of that I just get the unexplainable impression that WCC, much like L-Block before it, is going to take the biggest bite out of old school Nintendo characters, and since we've already seen how bad DK looked when dealing with pressure from Blocky and Kirby, that feels like another strike against him. Maybe that sounds weird, but yeah, I can't shake the idea that Tidus supporters are going to be more loyal and less willing to toss their vote to the Cube for the sake of a laugh.
In summation, if DK is able to overcome all these obstacles and advance tomorrow, I'll be hugely impressed. If Tidus blows all of his advantages and fails tomorrow, he will earn the title of the undisputed biggest choker in GameFAQs history. If JOKEFEAR fails me tomorrow and the Cube flops hard, I will be very surprised (but also overjoyed). Let's numberize those thoughts, stir them in the pot for a few minutes, and come out with:
- Weighted Companion Cube - 27.66%
- Tidus - 27.55%
- Donkey Kong - 26.23%
- Miles 'Tails' Prower - 18.56%
And with that we reach the sad end of an era, as I've been forced to pick against my bracket (Tidus > DK) for the first time this year. *wipes away a single tear*
Ngamer Says: WCC > Tidus
Next Day Review[]
Hey hey, perfect picks two days in a row now! If only my bracket could say the same... But yeah, today is a perfect example of why I don't mind joke characters in the first round. Even accounting for Tails hurting him and Tidus probably have the advantage of a stronger fanbase less likely to be joke-leached, DK still majorly disappointed in this one, and I have no problem with punishing him by not allowing him into another match. The trouble is that the presence of a strong, legit character in MM will only make it easier for the Cube to again outlast Tidus next round, and suddenly the joke has outworn its welcome.