Introducing... the DarkUFO Character Cup

In the words of the creep-tastic Ethan Rom, 'Hello there.' Many of you have seen my comments here on Dark's site before, but for those who don't know me, I am your friendly neighborhood G-Man. For the next two months (give or take), I will be running the highly anticipated DarkUFO Character Cup.

Before we get started, there are a few differences between the Character Cup and the Episode Cup that you need to be aware of, so I will take this opportunity to tell you all how this is going to work:

I was inspired by Dark's phenomenal Episode Cup and began compiling a list of all the best characters from Lost. I tried keeping the list to only 32, but with some hugely important supporting characters in danger of being left out, I had to expand my list to 64. This saw me dipping into flashback characters, some of which would also get turned away, so I came up with a field of 64 and over 30 alternates. I sent this list to Dark and he suggested that 1) I run the Character Cup since I worked hard to compile my list, and 2) play with the format a little bit, so as to include as many characters as possible.

So here is what we came up with- The field of 64 was trimmed to a field of 60, leaving 4 vacancies. In the first 2 weeks of this tournament, your votes will determine which minor characters will fill those vacancies. This will leave us with 64 competitors and we will begin the main tourney.

My rationale for including characters in the main group of 60 were that they appeared in more than one episode and played a significant part in a plot thread or somehow elevated the quality or mystery of the show. One character in the main 60 only appeared in one episode but I felt they were important enough to be given an automatic spot in the main tourney. All the characters in the Preliminary tournament were in at least one episode and (as many are flashback characters) played some role of importance during the episode(s) they were in.

The main Character Cup tournament will be run exactly the same as Dark's Episode Cup- 2 randomly selected, single-elimination matchups per day through the first few rounds. Voting will likely be extended to 2 days during the later rounds, as the voting is all but guaranteed to get closer the farther along we get. In the end, there can be only one winner. Please keep in mind that this competition is by no means definitive and the winner is not necessarily the all-time favorite character of Lost fans world-wide. It will simply be the most favored amongst us readers of Dark's site.

As with the Episode Cup, you will be encouraged to vote for your favorites each day and leave any comments you may have about the characters that have been paired up that day.

How will I be selecting these random matchups? Dark used a sleek 'virtual hat' that randomly selected matchups for him. I however am not as technically savvy, so on the left you can see my Non-Virtual Hat. I have the names printed on pieces of paper (all are equally sized), I throw them in the Hat, mix them up, and select a name. Then I mix the names in the hat again and pull another name. Whatever matchups come out of the hat are final. If two major characters get paired up early on, so be it. It will only add to the drama and make the debate more interesting. It may not be impressive, but it's the best way that I can stay impartial through all of this.

Also, I live in America (central Pennsylvania to be exact), so the matchups will not be posted at the same time they were for the Episode Cup. Look for new matchups to appear between 10 and 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I'll do my best to make sure that each matchup is up for an even amount of time, as that is only fair.

I believe that's all there is to be told, but if you have any questions for me, leave them in the comment section and I'll get back to you when I can.

Sorry for writing so much, and I hope you enjoy the Character Cup!

The action begins Wednesday night (EST).