This post is aimed at you, RNG gods of Dwarf Fortress. You owe me.
Story time.
Last year I submitted a very meta character, you know the usual (obvious if you look at previous winners) small humanoid with high dodging + weapon skill.
Last year my meta character also died to a minotaur with very low skills, can't remember the details but the matchup was something like
My char with professional weapon skills, adept shield, professional dodger, proficient armor-user, competent observer and discipline with full steel armor, steel weapon and shield.
vs. a shield minotaur with like level 2 levels of offense like kicking, biting, misc. object user etc.
and still my char got kicked in the head almost lethally which eventually resulted in the loss.
So this year I thought, I'll try that funny build too, big character with a shield, somehow tank through all the damage and get that ridiculously lucky lethal hit with barely no skills involved.
However, now that I've ran hundreds of simulated fights with different builds against my next opponent with the aforementioned meta build, there's p much no chance for a win, just like it shoulda been last year as well. It's literally 20-to-1 or worse. In fact, I changed my build around a bit and the best I could do was a 15-25% win rate against an optimized build on the character Melon Tusk will face next. I'm gonna bet most of my money on the opponent's character, cos that's what should win and I fully expect to beat my character, unless the RNG gods interfere yet again.