abstract
| - As heavily anticipated as this match was - would Mario, having barely eked out a win with Zelda and Mudkip pulling him down, lose to Mega Man X with Luigi hampering him? Could he lose to Liquid? - the excitement was over within the first update or so. While it seems odd to think that Zelda hurts Mario more than Luigi does, her own natural strength (and the fact that there was a whole 'nother character that, joke or not, is Nintendo at heart) is something that Luigi just doesn't have on his own. Mario was definitely hurting, but this time he never really let X in the match and, once those first four hours were over, cruised on to an easy and decisive victory. Liquid did pretty well for himself considering the overwhelming competition (going from 24% on Seph to 22% on Mario, Luigi, and Mega Man X), but there becomes a point when other characters' natural strengths just become too much for a character that would have killed to just been called a respectable midcarder a year ago. The real point of interest I found here was Luigi's performance. I've always been of the opinion that Player Two would just get pulverized against the superior brother, and while he didn't exactly make any waves here, 16% ain't that. Not to mention that despite pulling that number down while being weaker than Zelda and more connected to Mario, Mario ended up winning EASIER than before. Luigi'd probably pull down the same or better percentage that Bowser did in 2004, and seeing as how hero-sidekick SFF should be much more brutal than hero-villain SFF, that's saying something. What, I'm not sure, but to me Luigi's most impressive match came here in his loss. The same thing would be true of Mario - this would easily be his most impressive match of this contest. Which means, of course, that very bad things awaited the plumber in the matches to come.
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