Grading the "Top 10 Contenders"

Before the contest we picked out our top 10 competitors to watch out for... now it's time to see how they did! The purpose of this feature is to see how good our predictions were rather than focus on the achievements of the competitors... a somewhat subtle distinction, but I don't want anyone on here to think I'm picking on them.

Honorable Mention - Heroic Viktor
Finish: 52nd Place - 42.94 average (31 matches)

Coming into this contest, Heroic Viktor was coming off a 4th place finish in SC2k5, where he spent a significant amount of time in first place. His high-variance, aggressive style seemed like it had a chance to pay off in a short contest, but as it turned out, he got the downside of that variance this time around. He had two top five predictions, but his contest didn't live up to expectations.

Prediction Grade: Miss

#10 - Ngamer64
Finish: 49th Place - 44.40 average (30 matches)

All the competitors on our top 10 list have one thing on common that immediately sets them above a random Oracle Competitor - all of them except Ngamer, that is. The trait I'm referring to, of course, is predicting all the matches. Ngamer's curse this contest, as usual, was that he missed a match in the middle of the contest. His average would have been good enough for 15th place if he'd maintained it for the missing match, but as it was he finished in 49th place. He did have a third place team finish, as a bright spot to his contest.

Prediction Grade: Miss

#9 - Dilated Chemist
Finish: 43rd Place - 43.36 average (31 matches)

Dilated was coming off an extremely strong 2005, where he had a higher average than Player of the Year creativename predicting 96 out 97 matches. However, he wasn't able to maintain his momentum into this contest. He started off slow, and was able to improve his ranking some in the second round, but wasn't able to match the lofty heights of his 2005 finishes.

Prediction Grade: Miss

#8 - ps2rulezzz
Finish: 9th Place - 44.62 average (31 matches)

Next we get to our first success story of the contest, ps2rulezzz! King Morgoth and I flagged ps2 as the 8th most dangerous competitor coming into the contest, and he finished 9th - not bad, I must say. He also managed to win the team contest with his partner basmeyer. Ps2rulezzz has been one of the most consistent performers around - he's now finished in the top 10 three times in four contests. In this contest he spent a lot of time hovering just outside the top 10, before moving up into the top 10 in the final week. Thanks for making us look good!

Prediction Grade: Hit

#7 - Haste2
Finish: 46th Place - 43.23 average (31 matches)

Haste2 has one of the most impressive contest records of any Oracle competitor, and it earned him the #7 spot on this list. But he was also predicting by email for the first time this contest without following the board, and that definitely made things harder for him. I'll be hoping to see him return to the board at some time in the future to see what he can do.

Prediction Grade: Miss

#6 - Master Moltar
Finish: 32nd Place - 43.80 average (31 matches)

Master Moltar seemed like a pretty safe pick for this list - he'd predicted every match ever, and had finished no lower than 18th in any of the Oracle Challenges. This time around, he was solid but not spectacular, finishing 32nd in the expanded field we saw this contest. The highlight of his contest came on day 6, when he scored 49.95 points and tied for the best prediction with two other members of his analysis crew, yoblazer and therealmnm.

Prediction Grade: Miss
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Z1mZum is the latest guru to destroy me in the Guru Contest. Congrats!
Nominate Aeris for SC2k6