Board 8 > King of Fighters 2020 (NOT MERCS) R1D44: The Blob vs Harry Dresden (Mid)

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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.

Results/Discussion: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78797189

TODAY'S PARTICIPANTS:
The Blob (The Blob)

A voracious creature of ravenous instinct, the Blob grows with every being it consumes, and was only defeated by freezing and severe cold

vs

Harry Dresden (The Dresden Files)

A young but experienced wizard, Harry Dresden is capable of utilizing powerful magic in bursts, most notably fire attacks and protective shields

@ZeeksFire @Johnbobb

FIGHT

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can Dresden use ice magic

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PrinceKaro posted...

can Dresden use ice magic

also, can he figure out to use ice magic before The Blob touches him?

also also is there anything else in the terrain for the Blob to consume?

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PrinceKaro posted...

can Dresden use ice magic

ahahaha funny question, because there is a VERY IMPORTANT plot point I completely forgot about somehow while making that writeup

MAJOR DRESDEN SPOILERS BELOW

so dresden is what is known as the Winter Knight, so he has really really powerful ice magic at his disposal. However, this gift comes with... penalties to his humanity, let's say, so he generally tries avoiding using it unless he's really in trouble. Fights where he's cornered and desperate or pushed up against a wall or clearly magically outgunned. His first instinct is fire, or pure force to knock enemies away. I think you can argue that if the Blob no-sells his fire, he would think that magic in general isn't very effective, since that's a common attribute in his universe, and may resort to other means to get the job done, and could get ganked without feeling the kind of pressure that tends to make him ice up the place. On the other hand, it doesn't necessarily take that much to get him to iceblast, so if he knows the Blob is right upon him he might summon an icestorm. And if he weren't genre-savvy he'd have died 14 books ago, so I would say that it's pretty likely he'd try a variety of shit against the Blob to see if something would work, or maybe even just look at its gelatiny and suppose ice might do the trick.

Which brings me to another point: Dresden has Star Wars posters and loves corny movies. If "The Blob" exists in his world, he's definitely seen it... probably multiple times.

Johnbobb posted...

also also is there anything else in the terrain for the Blob to consume?

sure there's animals and stuff in the forest and food in stores if it can eat those

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so moral of the story I'm strongly leaning Dresden but I don't find this argument against him necessarily invalid. Real poor matchup for Blobby though

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Harry Dresden

Early on in Harry's life, it would have been the blob, but the current Harry Dresden would easily be able to deal with this, and I'd say the blob would hard recoil from Harry, being said Winter Knight. Also, it is easily agreeable that he's probably watched the movie, since his entertainment exists of books and drive in movies.

Mind you the winter mantle would be having all the torturous fun with the blob when it realized that it was the biggest weakest prey that exists to it, because Winter is like that.

OK, so lore bomb time. I know BOTH of these characters like the back of my hand. Did you know The Blob has actually shown up more than once in Simpsons canon? There's a comic book story where Sideshow Bob becomes one, and it shows off exactly how dangerous the thing is. When he goes after Bart and Lisa, nothing they come up with fazes him, at all. The only way they find to kill him is with brainfreeze shake coolant, and even then it takes distracting him by goading Bob into an entire music hall singing routine for the coolant to actually do its thing and slow him down long enough to set up a killshot. Why does this matter, you ask?

Because Dresden's spellcasting stamina is trash.

No, seriously. As late as the latest book, which came out like a month ago if that, he gets winded after five or six spells. He has a lot of power, but absolutely not a lot of short term ability to leverage it, because he tends to hold nothing back. I don't doubt he could find out the Blob's weakness before he ran out of juice, certainly. I also absolutely do not give him credit to do so without getting too gassed to win, though. Winter magic is not his go-to.

The Blob

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That is not exactly true kanzaris, and you know it. That was five or six spells, casting it through a conduit over moving water through a projection he was also having to hold together at the same time, while his physical body was continuously moving further away from said projection, and having to keep it stable to trick his opponent to fight said projection and not detonate the boat he was on (while also having a minor magical cold with conjuritis.) Also more often than not, his normal magic has been ice rather than fire ever since since Cold Days, since he has a natural advantage on ice, that his magic won't let him slip on said ice. Not that he dislikes his fire, but given a reason, he'd rather use ice now... which i think might be part of a sublimininal force from the mantle of Winter.

yeah that is an argument I do not buy

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I was willing to give the blob the benefit of their argument, but Kanz's argument actually convinced me Harry will win. He basically gave the parameters for Harry to win that match Harry's current situation.

Harry Dresden
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For the record this is movie Blob, not simpsons parody blob

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Dresden

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IIRC the blob in the movie is defeated by air dropping it into the arctic circle, and it's implied that as soon as it thaws it'll rampage again

does dresden have the magic capacity to keep something the size of a building permanently frozen?

i'm leaning dresden here just because it seems like any wizard protagonist would 'find a way', but i'm trying to imagine how it would play out

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if he incapacitates it he wins

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interesting- how long would you say it should be incapacitated for? 20 minutes?

i don't know anything about the dresden magic system- if it's vancian, wizards can cast a handful of spells and then are done for the day, and most other systems can cast until they get tuckered out. if it's like harry potter, they can just cast infinitely

so vancian == blob wins
stamina == blob wins or dresden wins depending on how much magic stamina the wizard has
harry potter == dresden wins


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Himself forever, no, but the resources to call in to remove it if it is unable to battle due to frozen, (which i consider the defeat clause for said blob already been completed) yes. Dump into arctis tor, get transported and put into null crystal on demonreach, request support from someone with Mordite available(oddly, probably the most convenient of all the choices), there's multiple answers available to be used after the fight is over to make sure it won't thaw again.

if it is incapacitated for two minutes dresden wins by the rules of the contest

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bananor, magic in dresden files is more on the stamina side of things than anything from reading it,

NFUN posted...

if it is incapacitated for two minutes dresden wins by the rules of the contest

2 minutes of being frozen should be easy. Exhaustion wouldn't come into play.

Dresden sounds like he takes it.

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ZeeksFire posted...

That is not exactly true kanzaris, and you know it. That was five or six spells, casting it through a conduit over moving water through a projection he was also having to hold together at the same time, while his physical body was continuously moving further away from said projection, and having to keep it stable to trick his opponent to fight said projection and not detonate the boat he was on (while also having a minor magical cold with conjuritis.) Also more often than not, his normal magic has been ice rather than fire ever since since Cold Days, since he has a natural advantage on ice, that his magic won't let him slip on said ice. Not that he dislikes his fire, but given a reason, he'd rather use ice now... which i think might be part of a sublimininal force from the mantle of Winter.

I was talking about his fight with the hounds, actually. There's a direct quote about it in the text, even. It's why I'm so unimpressed by his spellcasting endurance.

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Blob

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KanzarisKelshen posted...

I was talking about his fight with the hounds, actually. There's a direct quote about it in the text, even. It's why I'm so unimpressed by his spellcasting endurance.

He recovered quickly and he was trying to protect somebody by knocking it away. If he blasted the Blob with fire and it did nothing like we've been assuming, then he'd stop and thing instead of randomly, pointless blasting more magic into it

And for the record, that section makes a "The Blob" reference, so he has canonically seen the movie

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NFUN posted...

And for the record, that section makes a "The Blob" reference, so he has canonically seen the movie

haha okay sold

Dresden
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NFUN posted...

He recovered quickly and he was trying to protect somebody by knocking it away. If he blasted the Blob with fire and it did nothing like we've been assuming, then he'd stop and thing instead of randomly, pointless blasting more magic into it

And for the record, that section makes a "The Blob" reference, so he has canonically seen the movie

Quick recovery is irrelevant if you don't get time to rest, and I've said that I expect him to notice his spells aren't working but mix it up too late. When you have like six spells you can cast in a short timespan and four elements to cycle through (five, really, if we count Soulfire), your margin of error is kinda low.

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