L-Block from Tetris Wins Most Popular Character Contest

A while back I linked to a contest in which classic video game characters battled it out in a series of ‘who would win a fight between…’ hypotheticals. Each year GameFAQs does a similar exercise, but it’s for fun and prizes.

In years past, the contest would consist of a single-elimination tournament where two ‘combatants’ would go up for voting and whichever one got the most votes would ‘win’ and move on to the next round. I’ve participated in filling out the brackets and trying to predict who would win the thing in years past, but never actually won anything. This year, though, I decided to pass on the competition. It was changed slightly to feature four characters per day with the two highest performing characters going on to the next round.

Too many variables for me.

Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks later when the voting rolls around to the finals and I see that this venerable icon has made it to the Big Dance:

I checked the poll results and see that not only was it winning, but it was winning by a significant margin. I chuckled, threw another vote on the pile, and went on my way. Today, it’s official. The tetrimino has overcome the odds and beat out heavyweights like Mario and spiky-headed melancholy guy Cloud.

I’m equal parts amazed, saddened, and amused. It’s a bizarre emotion to be sure.