2016-middleearthmadness-bracket-rd2Middle-earth March Madness Round 2 is here! With 1000+ votes for each match-up, some of our first round match-ups came down to just 5 votes!

In the Beauty Bracket, and with the biggest upset of the tournament so far, (1) Goldberry was beaten by the (16) Feanor! In the Brains Bracket, (6) Gwaihir managed to hold off (11) Turgon. In the Brawn Bracket, the battle of the dwarves was won by (11) Gimli when he took down (7) Dwalin. And in the Baddies Bracket, (3) Smaug decimated (14) Lurtz.

Round 2 has its share of interesting match-ups – what are your favorites?

Voting in Round 2 will remain open until March 26th at 10pm ET. At that point, we’ll calculate the winners and post the next round on March 27th. Follow after the break for a complete bracket image (download it), and to vote on all of our Round 2 match-ups! [Round 2 Bracket] [Round 1 Bracket]

 


Beauties – Round 1
March 22nd – March 26th 2016

 


Brains – Round 1
March 22nd – March 26th 2016

 


Brawn – Round 1
March 22nd – March 26th 2016

 


Baddies – Round 1
March 22nd – March 26th 2016

 



A note on how the bracket combatants were determined. TheOneRing.net created a document containing all combatants, sub divided into divisions. We asked staff to cast sixteen votes per division, with the votes having a weight of 1-4. Each staffer cast four 4 votes, four 3 votes, four 2 votes and four 1 votes in each division. We then totaled all the votes from each division to determine their rank, and ultimately placed those into our bracket for seeding.