Tomorrow's match looks to be up in the air to the point where a small factor could swing it, so to clear my head before making my pick here's some pic analysis!

Alucard gets that cruddy shield pic I've never been too fond of, and the voters seem to agree with me. He used the same thing in his match against Auron last year, except there is was larger and less blurry, and got smoked to the tune of 64%, resulting in a pretty poor value of under 25 for the season. To be fair, he didn't completely collapse with this same picture back in 2004, when he held Ganon to only 57%, but with Link taking Ganon apart in the following match who knows what that result was really worth.

It's clear that Alucard performs his best with his closeup face profile, the one he used to score 61% on Duke, beat Kirby with 52%, and take care of Kratos with well over 55%. Give him that and I might agree with the consensus who are calling him the favorite tomorrow, but with this shield picture instead... I just don't see it.

Liquid Snake, ugh. For a guy with a reputation for being cool, Lake's had a truly awful match pic history. His only worthwhile result came when he was probably MOST out-pic'd, back in 2004 when he was just a random blob in a trench coat squaring off against an awesome, sword-wielding Frog sprite. So even with as bad as I think tomorrow's picture is, and even though his Twin Snakes look has got to be his least recognizable, I'd got to give him a pic advantage over every other time we've seen him. He could very well perform over the 21 he earned in 2005 - good for him!

Zidane had it rough using this same pic back in 2005 - not only dealing with Square PSX RPG SFF, but having to face off against full-on DBZ Crono on top of it. Given all that his value of just under 19 isn't bad at all. This pic should serve him well enough; certainly think a second place finish is still a real possibility.

Ness is in classic form. Not only does he stand out from the pack, but he gets that SSB-era look that everyone loved him for. Well, maybe not the look, but they certainly loved playing as him. This is a closeup of the same picture Ness used to pull his first surprising upset, that 55% no-doubter against Jak. Finally we'll get a chance to judge Ness off something other than a Nintendo SFF beatdown, and with the best picture of the bunch (not that it's great; the competition is just that much worse), I expect big things from the Boy Wonder.

Goooo Ness!

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The 2007 Guru Rankings! thengamer.com/guru
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