4,000 F4F Rewards Points up for grabs! HYPE! Drama! Excitement! F4F King of the Ring II is almost about to begin! With stakes like 4K Rewards Points, everyone in the OCC should be in for this! And yet, there’s barely four dozen people who have entered thus far out of 55,000 OCC members! Want to know my picks before making your own? Check them out, and then make your own predictions that are even better (or, you know… just copy my picks and enter those)!

Disclaimer: I didn’t enter the first First 4 Figures King of the Ring tournament earlier this year. I didn’t really understand the rules, and I just wasn’t into it. But—!! With a crazy reward like 4,000 Points for anyone who picks the full rankings for the 16-Statue tournament, how could I resist?!

And so, I set out today to make my own KOTR II Predictions before the deadline could pass me by…

The way that First4Figures King of the Ring works, you’re not just filling out a tournament bracket like March Madness or whatever—you’re using the winners and losers of each match of the tournament to fill out a ranked list of how statues finished in the tournament from last to first.

And so, the 8 losers of the 8 matches in Round 1 would get ranks #9-#16, with whichever one of the losers earning the most votes being #9 and the loser with the least votes finishing #16. Most of the 8 first-round matches seem pretty straight-forward to me, though there’s at least one very intriguing bout…

[Brackets and Match-Up Images Courtesy of the F4F Blog]

Match 1 — Viewtiful Joe vs. Judge Dredd versus Death: Now here’s an interesting matchup kicking off the brackets! Judge Dredd isn’t a video game character, so he’s at a genre disadvantage among gaming members in the OCC. Even so, Viewtiful Joe is more a cult character—I can see this match being closer than expected, but also having the lowest vote count of probably any matchup in the entire tournament.

Match 2 — Sif vs. Sonic 25th Anniversary: Yowza! The first truly hot Round 1 matchup! The most popular Sonic Statue is quite a while against the second resin released in the immensely popular Dark Souls line! I genuinely don’t know who’ll win this matchup, but I feel confident the loser will get plenty of votes and claim the #9 spot in the rankings.

Match 3 — Ganondorf vs. Optimus Prime versus Megatron: While I love me some Transformers, Legend is Zelda is the First4Figures flagship line and Transformers aren’t the usual fare of OCC members. Ganondorf crushes Optimus Prime and Megatron easily.

Match 4 — BOTW Link PVC vs. Zero Suit Samus: Zelda vs. Metroid! While these are two of Nintendo’s biggest franchises, I don’t think this will be close at all. BOTW Link is most likely the most-purchased F4F Statue of all-time, while Alex has said on many occasions Zero Suit Samus is the piece he’d most like to have a do-over on. Link should win this in a landslide.

Match 5 — Spyro vs. Tanooki Mario: Spyro is among the most popular F4F statues ever, and is easily going to wipe the floor with F4F’s first Mario.

Match 6 — 20th Anniversary Sonic vs. Amaterasu: Okami fandom rocked the collecting world with the massive demand for Amaterasu, while few people own 20th Sonic or talk about it as one of the pieces they want the most. Ammy thrashes Sonic for a quick Round 1 win.

Match 7 — Sword Kirby vs. Jin Kazama: The Kirby line tends to underperform, but Tekken is one of the lowest-selling F4F franchises ever. Kirby should make short work of Jin, as there don’t appear to be many Tekken fans in the OCC.

Match 8 — Simon Belmont vs Nightmare: A battle between franchises that both got infusions of fresh life last week! Simon is perhaps the most underrated First 4 Figures statue, while Nightmare turned out to be a dark horse hit. I could legit see this go either way, but I’ll give the win to Nightmare.

David’s Post-Round 1 Rankings Prediction (from least votes to most votes):

16. Judge Dredd vs. Death
15. Optimus Prime vs. Megatron
14. Jin Kazama
13. Sonic 20th Anniversary
12. Zero Suit Samus
11. Tanooki Mario
10. Simon Belmont
9. Sonic 25th Anniversary

Let’s look ahead to my projected Round 2 predictions…

Match 9 — Viewtiful Joe vs. Sif: MISMATCH! Sif devours Viewtiful Joe alive, absolutely decimating  the poor Capcom All-Star.

Match 10 — Ganondorf vs. BOTW Link PVC: Link’s greatest foe in resin vs. Link himself in PVC form! With an order of magnitude more collectors owning Link than Ganondorf–and heroes typically being more popular than villains–this looks like a victory for the Hero of the Wild.

Match 11 — Spyro vs. Amaterasu: Perhaps the most epic throwdown in the whole tournament! A battle of two main characters who are leading their franchises to glory in the resin statue world! This could go either way, but I think the beauty of this Ammy statue will carry her to a majestic victory in this match–and later, the tournament as a whole.

Match 12 — Sword Kirby vs Nightmare: Sorry, Kirby! Even in your Link cosplay costume, you’re no match for Soul Edge! Sword Kirby will have a respectable showing, but I think Nightmare will still advance to the semi-finals.

Dabid’s Post-Round 2 Rankings Predictions (Least Votes to Most Votes):

8. Viewtiful Joe

7. Sword Kirby

6. Ganondorf

5. Spyro

Dabid’s Projected Semi-Finals:

Match 13 — Sif vs. BOTW Link: Nearly impossible to predict, it’s the beloved Dark Souls wolf resin vs. the best-selling PVC! This might be my riskiest pick of the entire tournament, but I think Artorias’ loyal companion can somehow pull off the monumental upset.

Match 14 — Amaterasu vs Nightmare: Whoever survived the Amaterasu vs. Spyro battle (I picked Ammy) will obliterate poor Nightmare.

BRONZE BATTLE FOR #3: BOTW Link vs. Nightmare:  Not even a challenge, Link will crush Nightmare outright with never a doubt of the outcome.

KOTR II Finals —Sif vs Amaterasu: WOLF BATTLE! This is such a perfect finals matchup that it’s almost poetic! Look out, Dark Souls, because I see another upset brewing! While Sif will get solid support, the Sun Goddess should have this wrapped up thanks to Okami fandom, in my opinion.

Dabid’s Final KOTR II Rankings:

8. Viewtiful Joe

7. Sword Kirby

6. Ganondorf

5. Spyro

4. Nightmare

3. BOTW Link

2. Sif

1. Amaterasu

KOTR II WINNER: AMATERASU

…And there you have it! My official predictions for First 4 Figures King of the Ring II! What do you think #F4Fans? Are my picks on-target or totally off-base? And regardless, don’t forget to submit your own official predictions in the KOTR II Predictions post on Facebook while you still can!