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| - "What the f*** have you done?" Look at those total votes again. 195360. We are probably never again getting anywhere close to this number. This match was a perfect storm of hype, rallying, and a whole lot of other things that basically amount to "lightning in a bottle". As an actual match, it honestly wasn't anything special. L-Block led Link by more than 1300 votes after 10 minutes, showed no signs of slowing down at all until the morning vote and even when Link made his paltry comeback attempt the entire internet was ready to backhand him into place. L-Block getting in first place was never in doubt at all, nor was the rest of the order once the dust settled. Of course we'd see Link > Cloud with Snake distantly behind them. What the match meant however was a different matter entirely, much like Cloud upsetting Link in 2003. Every bracketed contest, with winners: Summer 2002 - Link defeats Mario Summer 2003 - Cloud defeats Sephiroth Spring 2004 - Final Fantasy 7 defeats Chrono Trigger Summer 2004 - Link defeats Cloud Spring 2005 - Sephiroth defeats Ganondorf Summer 2005 - Link defeats Sephiroth Spring 2006 - The Legend of Zelda defeats Final Fantasy Summer 2006 - Link defeats Cloud Summer 2007 - L-Block > Link > Cloud > Snake Summer 2008 - Link > Snake > Cloud > Crono Spring 2009 - Ocarina of Time > Final Fantasy 7 > Link to the Past > Final Fantasy X Winter 2010 - Link defeats Cloud Fall 2010 - Majora's Mask defeats Brawl In 13 contests, the Zelda series has been represented in the final 11 times and has won 9 times. Square has been in the final 12 times, but only has 3 wins. The two matches where Zelda actually lost a finals type of match (Cloud > Link was the semis, but it might as well have been the final that year, and Ganondorf losing to Sephiroth doesn't count) are regarded as the two best matches the site has ever had, and it can be postulated we would not still have contests without Zelda suffering those losses. And just think, this never happens if L-Block is on the top half of the bracket since he likely meets the higher end of the Noble Nine a round earlier. Snake and Sonic couldn't beat him, but L-Block probably wouldn't have survived, say, the Link > Sephiroth > Mario > Vincent match if you replace Vincent with L-Block. The whole run was perfectly lined up for the block in every single way. Majora's Mask beating Brawl (also known as the best result in contest history) has ultimately saved Link from the ZELDA ALWAYS WINS rant for a damn long time, since ZELDA ALWAYS WINS came through when it mattered most. Brawl is the absolute most disappointing game ever made and had no business whatsoever being named our Game of the Decade. So as bad as it was watching Link win almost every single damn contest, holy hell did he come through when we needed him the most. Enjoy the reprieve from our hate, Link, for you have earned it. Never again will we question your methods. That said, the L-Block run was lightning in a bottle wrapped in a miracle with a hand-written note from God himself on the package. We may never see anything like this ever again, and Zelda has only gotten stronger since the big L-Block upset. I won't complain about Zelda always winning ever again (because f*** Brawl, seriously, what the f*** have they done and what the f*** were they thinking?), but he does need to be retired. He will never lose a normal match ever again. To put in a different perspective, this fanbase is actually hyped for Skyward Sword: Adult Toon Link's Misadventure. Enjoy the memory of this L-Block run, because it's probably the last Link loss we'll ever see barring extreme SFF shenanigans. Couple random last points. As important as this match was, I remember how bad this board was during the final. Worse yet were the people trying to tell me of nearly 1000 PCA articles how I was wrong in my explanation of why L-Block won. I mean really now. L-Block won because it was fun. What other reason do you need? Also, thanks to the scoring system being crap the people that suicided with a Cloud > Link final outscored the people who picked Link > Cloud. Needs to be a 3:1 ratio up top, or better yet make a 4:3:2:1 ratio and make people pick the entire match. That way all those awful battles for third place become instantly interesting. Not that this idea should ever actually be implemented or anything, mind. Fourways should never never never ever ever ever never ever EVER happen again. Never ever. Never. Forever. Until the end of time.
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