It's a new month, so that means it's time to update our Best Bionicle Toa bracket. The Second Round is now live, as the winners from the First Round progress. (There's also a bonus question to pick your favorite Tahu!) The second round will last the month of February, so get your votes in! Additionally, read on for some of the insights from Round 1. Let us know in the Talkback Topic who you're rooting for.

We had an impressive turnout, with 133 people voting in 27 sections consisting of 81 Toa. There were a lot of winners, a handful of upsets, and a few surprises. Read on for a more detailed analysis into some of the interesting bit I was able to pick out from the data.

Most Votes

It was very clear early on that a lot of the options were dominated by a single choice. However, Toa Iruini Hagah collected the largest percentage of votes for a single Toa. It did help that he was against a lackluster Tahu Mistika and a forgettable Perditus side character. Still, Iruini's complete domination was impressive. He's up against some powerful contenders in Round 2 with Lewa Mata and Vakama Metru, so we'll see if his winning streak continues.

Least Votes

Impressively, every single Toa candidate got at least some votes in the first round. But some did worse than others. At the very bottom of the list of Gresh Stars, who managed only a meager 5 votes. He was up against some strong contenders with Onua and Takanuva, but poor Gresh hardly got any love.

Close Races

By the middle of the month, it was easy to call most of the options, since a clear winner often had a strong lead. But there were a couple of rounds that remained fairly close until the end.

Onewa Metru and Kopaka Master of Ice were neck and neck for most of the month. But Kopaka ended up with 60 votes to Onewa's 52, and so Kopaka progressed as the only Gen 2 set in Round 2. He's set up to compete with Hahli Mahri and Krakua next, so it remains to be seen if he can get another lucky win. Onewa, unfortunately, remains the only Metru not to progress. (Of course, Tahu Uniter never stood a chance.)

Mata Nui went up against Lesovikk in a nailbiter, but the Great Spirit turned Glatorian ended up claiming victory, with 65 votes to Lesovikk's 54. I had originally thought the contest would be more between Mata Nui and Ackar, but the fire Glatorian did not have staying power. Mata Nui next finds himself up against Matoro Mahri and Takanuva 2008, which will make for an interesting round.

This selection was the closest we got to a three way tie between Matau Hordika, Onua Uniter of Earth, and Tahu Stars. But by the middle of the month, Matau and Onua had each pulled away from Tahu. Either of those two winning would've been the only representative from their year (Hordika or Uniters) but only one could progress. Matau got 50 votes and Onua only got 45, so the victor was clear. Matau will still face some challenging opponents in Round 2 as he goes against Lewa Nuva and Hewkii Inika, so it remains to be seen if the Hordika remains in the race next month.

Tiered Placement

The Toa were all ranked by Brickset set ownership, which generally indicated popularity for each character, but it also showed a declining trend, as more people owned the sets the older they got. Still, nostalgia tended to win out, because in 27 of the races, the top tiered Toa won 18 times, or two thirds of the time. The middle tier snuck in a win 4 times, and the lower tier had an upset 5 times. (Although a few of those upsets were from Toa in more expensive sets, which had less ownership than the cheaper canister sets and thus perhaps skewed the rankings a bit.)

By Toa Team

Obviously, some of the waves of Toa were more popular than others, so I decided to crunch the numbers by team to see just how many progressed.

• Toa Mata: Tahu, Lewa, Kopaka, and Pohatu are all moving forward. This is not particularly surprising, because the original Toa have a lot of nostalgia power. Unfortunately, Gali and Onua weren't able to make the cut.
• Toa Nuva: Gali and Lewa Nuva are moving forward. Nostalgia had less power with the Nuva, from the looks of it. Takanuva 2003 also makes the cut, which was expected given the movie that focused on him.
• Toa Metru: Nearly all the Toa Metru are moving forward, including Whenua, Vakama, Matau, Nokama, and Nuju. This Toa style is very popular, especially when you consider Norik, Iruini, and Lhikan also progressed in the polls. Only Onewa didn't make the cut. (Although he was in a close race so he was a contender.)
• Toa Hordika: Only Matau Hordika will be moving forward. None of the Hordika were very popular. (Vakama and Onewa were even together in one section, but they lost to Krakue.)
• Toa Inika: Jaller, Nuparu, and Hewkii Inika are moving forward. Half making the cut is impressive.
• Toa Mahri: Hahli, Jaller, and Matoro Mahri are all moving forward. Once again, half progress. It is interesting to see that the Inika / Mahri generation does have some staying power.
• Phantoka / Mistika: None of the canister Toa sets are moving forward, which isn't too much of a surprise given their unpopularity. However, Toa Ignika and Takanuva 2008 are moving forward, so there are still some highlights from that year.
• Glatorian: Only Mata Nui is moving forward. Although not actually Toa, I added many Glatorian to the brackets to even out the numbers, but they did not generate the votes to move forward.
• Toa Stars: Nope, none of them made the cut.
• Toa Masters: Only Kopaka is moving forward. While I thought the Toa Masters were great as sets, they could just not compare when set against sets from the earlier years.
• Toa Uniters: None of the Toa Uniters are moving forward. Onua was closest but ultimately lost out to Matau Hordika.
• Other: I included a couple of combiner models / official MOCs to even out the numbers for the bracket, but I didn't consider any of them strong contenders. But I was surprised when Krakua won and moved forward.

Same Character, Different Set

Obviously, may character appeared in different sets. Just look at Tahu in the Round 2 bonus question, as there are now 8 depictions of him. And yet surprisingly, Tahu only moved forward once officially in the first round. But some other characters did have multiple variations make the cut. This includes Jaller (Inika and Mahri), Kopaka (Mata and Master), Lewa (Mata and Nuva), Matau (Metru and Hordika), and Takanuva (2003 and 2008). None of them are currently competing against each other, and would only meet in the final round. (Except for Jaller, who's variants count be matched up in Round 3.) It'll be interesting to see who has staying power as the Bracket goes on.

That's all for now. Make sure to vote in Round 2, let us know your predictions in the talkback topic, and check back in early March for Round 3!

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