Board 8 > King of Fighters 2020 (NOT MERCS) R1D3: Mewtwo vs Rand al'Thor (High)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to the King of Fighters 2020 (NOT MERCS) Simulated Character Battle Tournament!

The game is simple. The two* listed characters are placed in an (imaginary) location with a variety of (imaginary) environments, kind of like a picture in a child's schoolbook that describes different types of geological features. Within a ten mile radius, there is an (imaginary) urban downtown, exurbs, plains, snow-clad mountains at the edge, dry plains, etc. Fighters start wherever is most appropriate for them, but feel increasingly compelled to seek out their opponent and fight. Strong-willed fighters can try to hold out in their chosen environment for longer... eventually, all will succumb and actively search for the other to battle.

To participate, just vote in bold for whichever character you believe will win. Giving reasoning is optional, but please be polite and read what others have said and carefully make your decision. I'll ping the nominators (they can opt out) to give arguments if they wish.

TODAY'S PARTICIPANTS:
Mewtwo (Pokemon)

Possibly the perfect Pokemon and possesses powerful psychic potential

vs

Rand al'Thor (The Wheel of Time)

Canonically the strongest mage in his world, Rand has a variety of magic abilities such as teleportation and elemental powers. He has his statue angreal, but does not have access to the Choedan Kal, any other -'angreal, or (as of right now) balefire.

@MetalmindStats

FIGHT

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Mewtwo is nasty but he's outmatched here. Rand has an advantage in raw magical power, and he's been through enough shit that he's not gonna be prey to any psychic manipulation

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tag for arguments since I never finished WoT but yeah I'm thinking Mewtwo's outmatched here
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How is Rand in terms of speed, durability, and awareness? Given the battle set up I think Mewtwo would be able to get the ambush bonus here at least and he is capable of using his psychic might to crush his opponents. Also are mega evolutions in play here? From the pokedex apparently

Mega Evolution X:Psychic power has augmented its muscles. It has a grip strength of one ton and can sprint a hundred meters in two seconds flat!
Mega Evolution Y: Despite its diminished size, its mental power has grown phenomenally. With a mere thought, it can smash a skyscraper to smithereens.

There might also be stuff from one of those new movies I am unaware of.

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What kind of experience does Rand have dealing with mental manipulation and the like? I'm not immediately convinced that he'd be immune to say, a mindwipe

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Shonen_Bat posted...

What kind of experience does Rand have dealing with mental manipulation and the like? I'm not immediately convinced that he'd be immune to say, a mindwipe

He has several hundred years of experience with half of that being during war with an enemy that had straight-up mind control as a favored weapon. He definitely has been specifically trained to repel and resist psychic attacks

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gotcha

leaning Rand right now, though knowing more about his durability/defenses would be helpful if possible, since I can see Mewtwo getting at least one solid attack in before Rand is aware of him and his attacks are pretty large scale

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Pirateking2000 posted...

Also are mega evolutions in play here?

From my vague memory of Pokemon Y's plot, mega evolutions are based on the strength of the bond between trainer and pokemon. No trainer, no megas.
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Shonen_Bat posted...

What kind of experience does Rand have dealing with mental manipulation and the like? I'm not immediately convinced that he'd be immune to say, a mindwipe

the villains once tried to fit Rand with a mind control device that was specifically designed for him

it did not go well

Rand al'Thor

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Mewtwo in the movie(movies? I'm just going by Google here, I didn't watch them) is able to mega evolve on his own for... reasons

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Oh, I nominated Mewtwo? Huh.

In the discussion topic, I said Mewtwo belonged in Mid more than High, and I stand by that based on my existing knowledge, which admittedly doesn't include the movies. I'm leaning Rand al'Thor here, but I'll wait for arguments from someone who's less lazy than I am.

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Shonen_Bat posted...

leaning Rand right now, though knowing more about his durability/defenses would be helpful if possible, since I can see Mewtwo getting at least one solid attack in before Rand is aware of him and his attacks are pretty large scale

Rand is pretty experienced with ambushes; he doesn't have a ton of durability but he'd be able to throw up a pretty good defense if he sensed anything coming. I don't see why Mewtwo would have a better shot of getting in a sneak attack than Rand would. There are plenty of eavesdropping and invisibility weaves used in the series, and Rand can teleport or go to the dream realm to hide and scout.

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NFUN posted...

Rand is pretty experienced with ambushes; he doesn't have a ton of durability but he'd be able to throw up a pretty good defense if he sensed anything coming. I don't see why Mewtwo would have a better shot of getting in a sneak attack than Rand would. There are plenty of eavesdropping and invisibility weaves used in the series, and Rand can teleport or go to the dream realm to hide and scout.

I think it is just a matter of if Mewtwo could get at him first and outright blitz him. The dex main summary of Mewtwo is that he has a savage heart so it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume that Mewtwo would go straight for the win (unless we are using movie Mewtwo I guess). Like can Rand survive just having a building smashed on his head with incredible psychic force if he got caught off guard? Mewtwo is also capable of teleportation with the added bonus of psychic range to detect his target wherever they may be on the battlefield unless they have a means of avoiding detection.

Also watched this so not sure just how accurate they are being with the pokemon in question based on their pokedex info and extra material. They make Mewtwo's power out to be pretty fucking strong that he could potentially just shut down Rand if he gets a single hit in which is why I was curious just how durable he is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlPXypsss60

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Pirateking2000 posted...

Like can Rand survive just having a building smashed on his head with incredible psychic force if he got caught off guard?

he literally did lmao

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Just one more, then. Can Rand resist being teleported too? Mewtwo's teleporting doesn't have much of a limit other than 'has to know the place exists'

I hear the sun is a nice place this time of year.

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It seems like Rand has a counter to everything Mewtwo can do, with the possible exception of teleporting. Voting Rand for now.

Shonen_Bat posted...

Just one more, then. Can Rand resist being teleported too? Mewtwo's teleporting doesn't have much of a limit other than 'has to know the place exists'

Depends on the teleportation. If Mewtwo's teleportation is instantaneous and undetectable, nobody really has a counter for that. If Rand saw it coming at all, he'd be able to make a shield (he survived the aforementioned building being torn down on him by using a weave that IIRC forms a complete barrier around himself). I think in general the logic for fights like this should be that alike magic is generally "transferable" across franchises. For example, if one character is immune to magic, they won't be entirely immune to the magic from a character with a completely different magic system, but they would have resistance to the spells that are similar between the works. In Wheel of Time, you can only teleport if you are familiar with the location you are in... however, if you get teleported there, you become instantly familiar, and are immediately ready to teleport. I'd argue that Mewtwo's teleportation would fulfill this.

I think Rand would naturally form a shield upon being teleported, a fairly large one so that he'd have plenty of air. I don't remember if it's transparent or not (I don't think it is), but it would also seem like the obvious play to find a way to scout outside without leaving his cocoon... which would reveal he's literally in the Sun. He knows teleportation allows teleportation, so he'd try that first. If it failed, he'd try to become familiar enough with the area to Skim, which only requires about half an hour of examination. I don't recall if there's a weave to regenerate fresh air. There probably is, as Air is one of the fundamental powers channelers can directly manipulate, and I think he'd have a big enough bubble to last for an hour of too if there isn't, seeing as Rand is as powerful as possible and has learned his lesson on this before and has no reason to skimp on his shield.

Moral of the story is that Rand would at least have time to think and plan, and having 400 years of experience across two lives, would probably find a way to escape. I don't think Mewtwo's teleport would be fast enough to avoid this, otherwise he'd just be broken and his matches wouldn't be interesting at all

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Rand

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Whenever Mewtwo's teleporting is shown it's generally instant, but with how ruthless he is I'd see him trying to crush Rand under a building or scramble his mind or something first, so he'd already have a shield up if Mewtwo did end up trying it

and if his shield is actually effective enough to let him survive the sun then I don't think there's much left to talk about lol

Rand al'Thor

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Draw

I was going to vote Rand here, but unless his shield is much faster than Mewtwo's overall speed (not even teleport speed), this is a match of "who can gotcha the other the best.

That said, Rand is more likely to win without Balefire (per prompt), because there's no guarantee Mewtwo can't deflect it and fuck him over.

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Ytterbicide posted...

Draw

I was going to vote Rand here, but unless his shield is much faster than Mewtwo's overall speed (not even teleport speed), this is a match of "who can gotcha the other the best.

That said, Rand is more likely to win without Balefire (per prompt), because there's no guarantee Mewtwo can't deflect it and fuck him over.

The match already ended and Rand balefiring himself wouldn't kill him

I voted Rand btw but forgot to post oops

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