Lurker > rwlh

Nobody else?

I don't know Toshiro at all, but here's how I think George/Battler goes down.

--If Battler explains the rules, then opens with a mystery scenario, George probably won't do so hot. He's pretty dim, and he's also easily vexed by other people's lies, like when the grifter tricked him into coming with her to a hotel to rob him. He's easily manipulated with appeals to his ego and sense of self-importance.

On the other hand, George is the perfect counter to the Umineko scenario. Battler would try to get George to admit that a series of murders are unable to be explained as anything other than the work of the supernatural. But George is so cynical that he'll always assume other humans committed the murders. The question is, does he have the deductive reasoning to solve the murders? He's the type to throw his hands in the air and scream "Useless, it's all useless!" at the first sign of stress.

Winner: Battler.

--If, however, Battler allows George to be the one to come up with a mystery scenario of his own for Battler to solve, things get a bit more interesting. George can lie and trick like the best witches and sorcerers. He'd be in his element. However...he gets caught. Like, a lot. He can BS his way through life sometimes, but there are so many examples of things backfiring in his face.

The likeliest outcome here is a logic error, where George is caught in a contradiction of his scenario and forced to replay it over and over, for all eternity. George can lie and bluff and cheat, but Battler is highly intelligent and skilled at solving mysteries. If normal people in the Seinfeld universe can see through George's lies, what hope does George have against Battler?

Winner: Battler.

--A third outcome, which is less interesting, is Battler engages George in an actual fight, which...well, we all know how that would go.

So Battler takes it in three different possible scenarios. George would give his all, but he's ultimately not up to the task. It would be very entertaining to watch though.

changmas posted...

George takes this much like he beat the Bubble boy ("i'm sorry, the card says Moops"), through some arbitrary and ridiculous ruling simply because it would be more funny if he did win

It's arguable that George even "won" against the Bubble Boy. He might have won at Trivial Pursuit (which is debatable by itself), but then he accidentally deflates the bubble, and he's chased out of town. That's not much of a victory

I feel like George only wins if he does the opposite, which he only thinks to do in one episode, so it's not a strategy he's likely to turn to immediately.

Nobody voted in this, huh?

I think Mr. Bean is likeliest of the three to take it. Either way, studio audiences everywhere would be amused.

Sheldon and George find each other and argue over something trivial that attracts Mr. Bean's attention, who accidentally causes a tree to crush both of them.

Alternately, George decides to use Sheldon as a distraction by pretending to be his friend. Or he uses Mr. Bean, whoever he meets first. They're both dim enough to believe George actually wants to help them. George's plan is to have both of them bump each other off, leaving a tired opponent easy for him to finish off. However, George can never win at anything, and he likely falls into a manhole in the city after Sheldon and Mr. Bean fight, because fate has decided to punish him ironically.

Another alternate idea that involves George actually standing a chance: it's been proven that George can win if he does the opposite of his normal instinct. So instead of running away and hiding, he would do the opposite and directly fight them. And because he's doing the opposite, he has a good chance of actually succeeding.

I don't really know Sheldon enough to be able to comment on his contribution, just that he's dense enough to be easily tricked.

He-Man either way.

Is there anything stopping He-Man from just lifting up the city and throwing it out of bounds? He's done it with Castle Greyskull before, but an entire city is much larger than a castle. He'd also need to understand that it's the city itself that's attacking him and not a bunch of unseen enemies tossing skyscrapers at him or something. But if he figures that part out, can't he just lift up the city and punt the whole thing away?

Jack

Like I said in the discussion topic, I don't think Maxwell has the offense - or the tactical ability - to deal with the living city. By the time he figures out what's going on, assuming he ever does, it'll be too late. And even if he were to go into the match with perfect foresight, what can he do? Drop a nuke? That would kill him too.

I love Don't Cry, Jennifer. Like you said in your writeup, the stings are the big selling point in the song, but what also really resonates with me is that rolling percussion around the halfway point, like Scissorman is rumbling around in your head, the fear driving you slowly to madness. Very good stuff.

I'm really glad you liked the music nominations. Your writeups are very detailed and engaging.

No opinion, but here's a bump.

Glad you liked/like those songs! Schizophrenia is such a brutal song to listen to. I wonder how they would've done without an emphasis on the Importance scale, where they lost a ton of points.

Hmm, that's fair about the skyscraper. So maybe the Beast sends him flying but it doesn't do any lasting damage, and Mario comes back with something like the Metal Cap, which probably breaks the Beast's hand if he tries punching it.

I also agree that if Mario can get in a good punch, the Beast goes down - I just have a hard time getting past the Beast's reaction time. He's able to catch a bullet, and Mario's much slower than that. I could see the Beast wearing Mario down eventually - but Mario has the Metal Cap, and that could be the deciding factor.

Mario, but not feeling super confident.

In terms of reflexes, the Beast is superior, and I'm honestly leaning toward the Beast for that reason. Mario is more maneuverable and versatile, but does the Beast hit harder than Bowser? Maybe. I could see the Beast getting in a good hit and sending Mario flying clear across the arena, and I don't know if he could handle that. In Super Mario Odyssey he survives a fall from the clouds with no visible damage, but he was still knocked unconscious.

The Beast doesn't have a chance. He's not wearing a hat!

>_>

He-Man then.

Bane strikes me as the type to not fool around. From Wookieepedia:

After Bane acquired his lightsaber-impervious orbalisk armor, he favored a furious, all-offensive style of Djem So, and capitalized on his tremendous physical strength to overwhelm opponents. His battle prowess was realized when he held his own against three battle meditation-invigorated Jedi in combat on Tython; a group which included Raskta Lsu, who was considered to be the greatest contemporary duelist in the Order. It should be noted, however, that the Jedi Weapon Master managed to score numerous would-be lethal hits on Bane during this duel, and as such his impenetrable armor was of paramount importance to his victory. Additionally, his victory came only after the Jedi's battle meditation ceased, and Raskta Lsu was killed by a sneak attack from Zannah. During this duel, Zannah noted that Bane's lightsaber technique was somewhat unrefined. However, this lack of refinement was intentional, as Bane believed that eschewing technical sophistication for fury-driven, strength-oriented swordplay increased his effectiveness as a duelist. During combat, Darth Bane was likened by his enemies to a force of nature.[5]

He favors an all-offense approach, which indicates to me that he's not going to be messing around with mind games.

Of note: there's a Darth Bane in EU/Legends (which is where that paragraph comes from), and one in current canon. I don't think there are any major contradictions between them though - the Legends bio just goes into more detail.

Also in terms of personality, IIRC Maxwell is given backstory in one of the games: he used to be very selfish and used his notebook for self-centered reasons. Then his sister got kidnapped or something, and now he tries to use it to help people. There aren't really a lot of fights in the actual games in the traditional sense, so I could see Maxwell doing the above strategy and loading up on buffs and offensive weapons because he's a kid and it's like playing to him.

I think Jack Hawthorne can beat Maxwell. I don't think Maxwell can take on an entire city at once. He could theoretically use a nuke or a black hole, but he'd kill himself at the same time, and I don't think that counts as a win. Granted, there might be something in Maxwell's arsenal that can handle Jack that I don't know if. I don't think Maxwell is super tactical - Scribblenauts relies on exploration and creativity over raw strategy. But we'll see about that next round.

Also Quirrell is a hard counter to Maxwell. IIRC Quirrell can see past invisibility, so if Maxwell tries the same strategy that I pegged him using against Armstrong, Quirrell can see him, notice his magic artifact, and Accio notebook. That's game. Maxwell without the notebook is just some kid in a weird hat. I'd also take Darth Bane over Maxwell for the same reasons (can read Maxwell's thoughts and can telekinetically summon the notebook).

Maxwell can make himself incredibly fast, invisible, and invincible. He can give himself fire breath, wings, and a sword that can kill anything in one hit. He can create summons to fight and distract Armstrong while he writes new things in his notebook. He could do lots of things to Armstrong directly, including - I don't think this argument has been made yet - making Armstrong Friendly, meaning he'd be unwilling to even fight at all.

There's a lot of versatility Maxwell has, despite being seemingly in a position of vulnerability.

Maxwell

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Armstrong brute forces through Maxwell. He's not going to have time to do the fancy shit.

Based on what I've seen of Armstrong, he doesn't strike me as the type to take a little kid in a weird hat seriously. He's unlikely to open with his strongest attacks. That would give Maxwell an opening and a chance to do any number of things.

Maxwell wouldn't know to try dealing with nanomachines anyway since Armstrong looks just like a regular dude. He has a number of other strategies he could try though. As was said in the last topic, Maxwell could make himself Invisible and Winged and scope out his opponent before doing anything. Armstrong doesn't seem like the type to use stealth, so he'd likely be out in the open, just smoking a cigar. If you don't think Maxwell would be stealthy either, it could be argued that Armstrong won't take him seriously upon seeing him, allowing Maxwell to get the first strike.

From there, Maxwell could:
- summon a monster like Cthulhu or someone like Superman (albeit a Scribblenauts version of Superman) to do the fighting for him
- make Armstrong Frozen, immobilizing him until a better plan is established
- give himself the Ultimate Weapon, a giant sword that kills in one hit
- simply make Armstrong Dead (though whether this would work with nanomachines is up in the air)
- make himself Sonic and go at the speed of sound
- make himself Immortal
- drop something super heavy on Armstrong
- spawn a Teleporter and make Armstrong Curious, which would make him walk into the Teleporter and create a clone, at the cost of the original's existence (this would surely count as a win for Maxwell)

Just for starters. There are definitely lots of other things he could do too.

Flash, though I feel like he's the type to get careless and maybe take a hit or two? Not sure what I'm basing that on though.

Huh, I did not expect Playrooms to be the lowest ranked of my song nominations, though I understand your reasons for doing so. To me it's the scariest song I nominated, but I'm not really into horror at all outside of spooky game music. I appreciate the writeups for that and Mother Brain, very neat to see your thought process there.

Not sure about this one yet, would like to see some more arguments play out.

I could see Sam going for a chokehold and the Beast getting amused and, like, flicking him away lightly. He's a killer assassin, but he likes to toy with his opponents unless he knows he's outgunned. Sam would take that opportunity to disappear into the shadows, which means the Beast would probably just start destroying the cityscape. Sam would then bust out the heavy artillery, like the little robot with machine guns. The Beast is good but I can see him dropping the ball on this one.

I could see Sam trying to move in for a chokehold and the Beast easily resisting, though at that point I think Sam can get away and regroup before the Beast gets in a good hit. After that point, Sam could pick him off with various weaponry.

Am I weird for thinking this is a close match? I might be. But I'm giving it to Sam anyway.

Vs Battles Wiki gives this as Sam's equipment:
Five-SeveN pistol, SC-20K M.A.W.S, SC knife, Multi-vision googles (allowing Sam three different modes of vision: Night-vision, Thermal vision and EM vision, plus the ability to switch between them instantly) Karambit "Panther's Claw" combat knife, Medikit, Ballistic shield, Binoculars, Alpha Ops suit, Tear gas, Sleeping gas, Sticky Shocker, Sticky EMP, Sticky cameras, noisemakers, Tactical audio kit, Stun gun, Taser, Crossbow, Incendiary grenades, EMP grenades, Smoke grenades, Phosphorous grenades, Proximity mines, Proximity shocker, Frag grenade, Breaching charges, Tri-Rotor retcon drone, Shotguns, Assault rifles, Sniper rifles, SMGs and the Spider-bot.

The Beast can likely handle anything Sam throws at him including grenades and proximity mines...at least at first. Those weapons would at least slow him down - you can see in the Lion's Roar video posted above that the Beast still lives after the attack (and IIRC he gets up and defeats them anyway) but he's weakened by it. I could see Sam tossing out some smoke grenades to confuse the Beast and follow it up with the Spider-Bot's machine gun fire. The Beast can catch one bullet, but can he catch or dodge rapidly fired bullets?

I doubt Sam opens with his strongest weapon. He doesn't strike me as the type to underestimate foes. He'd hide in the shadows and observe. The Beast looks like a frail old man, but Sam won't take any chances.

This is such an interesting match. If the Beast catches Sam, Sam is dead. But Sam might be able to pick away at the Beast's health with his weaponry. I wouldn't discount Sam here - he can use the terrain to his advantage far better than almost anyone in this contest.

Also, as a point against Bugs, IIRC he was incapable of defeating the Monstarrs in Space Jam, to the point where he needed freaking Michael Jordan to swoop in and save the day. That's a bad showing even when it "would be funny" for him to win.

I don't really like the attitude of "this character has toonforce, therefore they can do anything" that's filled Bugs's matches. Fortunately, there are loads of other reasons to vote Bugs!

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Bugs_Bunny_(Composite)

Seriously look at this. High control of hypnosis, master of disguise, lots of transmutation, meta-awareness, "Once dodged a gunshot from Elmer despite having his back turned." Stuff like this. Some of it is pretty specious at best, but there's plenty to beat Gambit, who probably shouldn't even be in Broken Tier.

That's what I thought.

Amara.

Does Bugs have a defense against getting his soul sucked out?

I think the more interesting matchup here would be Wesker vs. the toaster creature from round 1.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Gambit for now, though I'm open to being convinced otherwise. Can we get a couple video showings of BH's best feats in here?

From the round 1 topic:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78977305/944659380

I personally don't find most of feats impressive (or even feats at all!), but here you go.

As I pointed out last Black Hat topic, it seems like most of Black Hat's "feats" are things his organization did, which aren't applicable in a 1v1 fight. Some of them are barely even feats at all.

Gambit's a disaster of making up powers on the fly but he'll do here.

Gambit.

This seems to come down to personality. As has been said, HIM has a good shot if he goes for the kill. But that's not what he does - he loves to mess with opponents' heads, particularly heroes'. This seems like the kind of fight He-Man was built for.

He-Man.

I'm surprised nobody's said Angry Birds yet.

Apparently He-Man fought somewhat evenly against Pre-Crisis Superman.

Huh.

Some things of note:

- HIM has strong mental manipulation, conjuring, teleportation, and shapeshifting.
- He prefers to fight from a distance and psychologically mess with his opponents rather than engage them directly.
- He is able to withstand physical beatdowns from the Powerpuff Girls often (and they're no slouches), though he can still be overwhelmed with sufficient force.
- He has a bunch of abilities that don't seem to be used too often, like stretchy limbs, eye beams, mouth lasers, etc.

He-Man is a powerful force for good, so HIM would take special care to mess with his head, maybe by creating visions of He-Man's loved ones turning on him, or trying to convince him to leave behind his good ways. HIM gets creative.

Here's a HIM respect thread, if anyone feels like trawling through that:
https://www.deviantart.com/unserious-sam/art/HIM-s-Evil-Spreads-into-DEATH-BATTLE-820067323

Amara, I guess.

Xeybozn posted...

Dragons/trolls/etc are magical creatures, though. Armstrong isn't, so there's no reason to think he has any special magical resistance.

I don't mean in terms of having magical resistance - I just mean that they have tough hides that spells can't get past. Hagrid, a half-giant, also has this durability. Though sure, magical resistance is probably a part of it too. I was approaching from the perspective of Armstrong being durable physically like some of those creatures.

We never see how technology interacts with some of these spells too, which is why I wasn't sure about the particulars. What would Stupefy do to a robot? Probably knock it backwards at least, but how badly would it be damaged in addition to that? Potter magic is weird and inconsistent.

Some additional thoughts as I come up with them:

Armstrong probably laughs off everything Harry can do. Armstrong is also very cocky and is likely to underestimate Harry. His nanomachines don't kick in right away, so he's vulnerable to rapid attacks until they harden and protect him.

I'm not sure if Armstrong's body would be affected by Harry's spells at all. Even if Armstrong is biological, tough creatures are resistant to spells (dragons, trolls, etc.), and Armstrong clearly would qualify for that category. Harry would keep trying magic,and Armstrong would keep laughing him off until Harry actually makes him mad, and then Armstrong takes him down with a wrestling move or something.

Armstrong for now.

Chuck_Tingle posted...

Has their been any time a HP character tried stunning like a gargoyle or other animated stone? Armstrong's nanomachines would probably help him no-sell spells intended to work on biological creatures

The closest thing I can think of is that the spell has a hard time working on some magical creatures, like dragons or trolls. I can't think of a time when someone tried to stun an inanimate object. The Killing Curse, on the other hand, has instances of destroying stone, though Harry wouldn't use that spell if his life depended on it.

EDIT: The spell can be cast multiple times in a row, however, which amplifies its effect. Not sure if Harry would have the opportunity to do this once Armstrong laughs off the first spell.

Does Harry get anything new from Cursed Child? It's canon, after all.

Harry is a crafty fighter - he got the highest marks possible in his Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL, and he seems to excel in situations where he needs to be resourceful. Expelliarmus is likely his first go-to, as has been said, though when that doesn't work, he could resort to other things like Petrificus Totalus and Stupefy. He might not be able to Accio his broom (though he'd certainly try), but he could Accio other objects in the terrain to aid him if need be. He certainly would not use the Killing Curse, or the other two Unforgivables.

The question is, would any of it matter? Armstrong is probably more durable than any other wizard Harry's faced. Harry also never really uses teleportation offensively (though again, if something changes in Cursed Child, it would be good to know), though he does rely on the Invisibility Cloak all the time. Wizards are more durable than humans, so I don't think Armstrong necessarily takes him out with one punch, but Harry's certainly the underdog here.

I don't buy that Maxwell automatically makes himself fearless if he has no idea what his opponent is capable of. That said, I still think he takes it pretty handily, even without the comic feats (he turns the sun red! The whole sun!).

Maxwell.