Batdude's Match #6: JaketheBank/Smurph vs. Id/King Kandy

JakeTheBank

Team Original Smurph/JaketheBank
Post #1

Like my debating partner so eloquently put it, this is a battle between three cosmic level beings vs. three women who are the epitome of each area they are masters in. In Cassandra Nova, you have a woman whose psychic powers are literally off the chart. In Zatanna, you have a woman whose knowledge and mastery of the arcane arts places her in a seat of power that only a few people can match within the power limit of this tournament. And in Wonder Woman, you have the greatest warrior and hand to hand combatant in the tournament to date. And what happens when you take Diana and equip her with the Sandals of Hermes, the Gauntlet of Atlas, the Sword of Hephaestus, and her ceremonial golden armor forged from Pallas?

You get a close combat beast that is basically a spite machine.

Allow me to elaborate.

The Rebuttal

A fine idea, if only their concentration wasn't going to be already tested to the extreme by Cassandra Nova. They've erected mental shields across their team, sure, but can they hope to withstand someone on Nova's caliber? I'll let Smurph further elaborate on this, but the energy detonation will not be operating at full capacity due to Nova's mental assault. In addition, since we're cloaked by magic (something their team can not accurately defend against, especially from Zatanna), they'll have to hope they manage to hit us. In addition, we're mentally cloaked as well. Keeping in mind that Zee's magic will render us completely undetectable, the team's going to nigh impossible to locate.

Which brings us to the energy blast itself. I don't say this lightly when I say that practically any energy blast they muster against us is going to useless considering the phased status of both Zatanna and Nova.

What about Diana, you ask?

Glad you did.

Diana's Aegis bracelets can tank practically any blast sent her direction.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Omnidirectiondefense.jpg
Here we see Diana dealing with an omnidirectional blast from the Shattered God.

For context, this was a being who threatened the entire Greek Pantheon.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/ShatteredGod.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/ShatteredGod1.jpg

And Diana, through combination of her sheer speed and bracers, was able to defend against the area of attack blast. But let's say, for argument's sake, the blast breaks through her nearly inpregnable defenses. Diana's durability is already the stuff of legends, capable of feats such as these:

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/6679/26963060al7.jpg
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/3334/77272381yo3.jpg

Here, Diana, who is holding back in fear of killing Kal, takes a punch from a maddened Superman (in close proximity to the sun, mind you) and is sent back to the atmosphere. Hard. And aside from a bloody nose and lip, is able to still function.

Not impressed?

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsAres1.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsAres4.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsAres5.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsAres6.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsAres8.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsAres9.jpg

Here a very early Post Crisis WW is enduring the increasingly lethal blasts from one of the most powerful skyfathers in DC. Taking into account she was poisoned by Deimos before this encounter, she was obviously not at 100%, either. And yet's she's able to endure through his blasts and hellfire before making him succumb to the power of her lasso. And if he someone such as Ares can't resist it, no one on the the opposing team can.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/CirceBlast1.jpg

The above blast from Circe, which somehow even eclipsed that of an angry Ares, only rendered - a helpless and very early - Diana unconscious.

That's all normal durability, and all which showcase a very early and relatively inexperienced Diana's ability to take punishment when rendered helpless, surprised, or already injured.

Diana's durability as well as her strength is now multiplied by 10. Taking into account her ceremonial armor as well, and she's going to tank any attack sent her way. And this is to say nothing of the shielding Zatanna has already reinforced the team with while phased with Nova. The point is, even if this blast goes off with a hitch and isn't prematurely detonated, Diana will be able to block the force of the discharge from the small area of defense her Aegis shield makes. If for some reason, she's unable to properly defend herself, Zatanna's shield will pick up the rest of the slack. And if even that will somehow not be enough to convince you, Diana's massive durability coupled with her armor will prevent her from being injured. AND keep in mind Zatanna's "reverse damage" spell will make sure the originator of the attack, Surfer, will suffer the physical trauma his energy detonation would have normally caused us, provided we somehow don't defend against it completely.

It's only a simple matter for Zatanna and Nova to deal with the black hole it leaves an an after effect. Considering what Zatanna has done on her own spellwise, a simple "Elohkcalb Esolc!" should do the trick. And if she does need some help, Nova (who can now cast spells of her own) can assist in that regard. In any case, it's not going to last for long. If closing the black hole seems like too much of a stretch for Zee (which it shouldn't considering the things she has pulled off under her own power, to say nothing of the magical assistance she'll get from Nova), keep in mind that Zatanna is able to fly, teleport, and phase through walls, most of the times without even saying a word. Also keep in mind she's capable of altering the atmosphere to suit her needs.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8614/changeairxy1.png

If she's able to perform that much with little difficulty, then it's no stretch to assume she can't cast a spell to counter the effects of gravity made by the black hole in the first place.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Blackhole.jpg
And on the bizarre chance the black hole is still around, Diana can deal with it.

The Attack

This is where things turn south.

Diana, being the peerless warrior she is, is going to have a field day here against these cosmic dudes. First off, Photon. Diana will toss her tiara, which has been enchanted by Zatanna to home in on Photon's location, at Photon. Because the spell takes into account where his location is and doesn't require "sight" or "sense" to do so, it's going to hit him. Assuming he's durable enough to withstand a magical weapon thrown at x10 normal force (normal for Diana, that is), he's going to be in some pain as the tiara's properties will rend through any defenses he can muster up.

Diana will then, using her speed and reflexes (enough to tag Wally and Zoom) now augmented by the Sandals of Hermes, to attack the Surfer, also now struggling to ward off Nova's assault, provided he's not floored already. It will be easy enough to find him. Why? Glad you asked.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/IllusionDispel.jpg

Here Cheetah, who didn't know how the lasso worked, was able to stumble upon the hidden fortress of the Bana-Mighdall Amazons, shielded by high level mystic means as well as modern technology. Assuming their cloaking will even be working at all, much less full power, so long as Diana has the lasso in her possession, she can see the "truth". And this isn't even taking into account Diana is capable of fighting at optimal levels without her sense of sight, proven when she was rendered blind later in her career.

Summary
-Their initial attack plan will be rendered ineffective due to Nova's mental assault, which is at least powerful enough to jar their concentration.
-Their energy discharge will not effect phased Nova or Zatanna, and Diana's bracers will prevent her from the brunt of the attack, if not all of it completely.
-Diana's amped durability (x10) will be able to take the attack on the chance she's unable to defend against it with next to no harm done.
-Zatanna's spell will reflect any physical trauma normally suffered from the attack back to its source.
-Zatanna and Nova combined can deal with the black hole via spell incantation. If you want to foolishly believe she can't simply "wish" it away based on what she has done in terms of power and scope, then she can easily negate its effects.
-Diana is capable of operating within close proximity to a black hole on the slim chance we're unable to close it.
-Once the fight begins, Diana will begin wrecking people, with Nova and Zee cleaning up.

King Kandy

2/10: Finding out if they read

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Like my debating partner so eloquently put it, this is a battle between three cosmic level beings vs. three women who are the epitome of each area they are masters in. In Cassandra Nova, you have a woman whose psychic powers are literally off the chart. In Zatanna, you have a woman whose knowledge and mastery of the arcane arts places her in a seat of power that only a few people can match within the power limit of this tournament. And in Wonder Woman, you have the greatest warrior and hand to hand combatant in the tournament to date. And what happens when you take Diana and equip her with the Sandals of Hermes, the Gauntlet of Atlas, the Sword of Hephaestus, and her ceremonial golden armor forged from Pallas?

You get a close combat beast that is basically a spite machine.
What they aren't saying here in this absurd analogy, i'll bring up now. We had three cosmic level beings, each the epitome of each area they master. But, while they have been content in letting themselves stay masters in their fields, we have crossed our characters. Our characters are all the epitome in not only their own field, but everyone else's as well:

Onslaught: psychic powers that are off the chart in a way Cassandra can't compare... and energy manipulation better than anyone on their team.

SS: Unrivaled energy manipulation, durability, speed, and precog. Genis's powers let him know where you are, regardless of whatever meager cloaking you can provide.

Genis: Same as SS, he is a master in many field while they are mediocre in single ones.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
A fine idea, if only their concentration wasn't going to be already tested to the extreme by Cassandra Nova. They've erected mental shields across their team, sure, but can they hope to withstand someone on Nova's caliber? I'll let Smurph further elaborate on this, but the energy detonation will not be operating at full capacity due to Nova's mental assault. In addition, since we're cloaked by magic (something their team can not accurately defend against, especially from Zatanna), they'll have to hope they manage to hit us. In addition, we're mentally cloaked as well. Keeping in mind that Zee's magic will render us completely undetectable, the team's going to nigh impossible to locate.
Here i'm thinking he didn't really read what our prep said. The energy bomb is being formed during prep, so whether we can form it or not isn't even part of the question. After that, we just need to detonate it and the black hole takes care of the rest. Likewise, all the stuff about us being unable to detect them is irrelevant in every way. We aren't trying to throw the bomb at them, we're detonating it and the black hole is the actual threat. We never said we were ever targeting them.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Which brings us to the energy blast itself. I don't say this lightly when I say that practically any energy blast they muster against us is going to useless considering the phased status of both Zatanna and Nova.
Again, we aren't trying to HIT you with the bomb, the bomb itself will create a black hole to suck you in.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
What about Diana, you ask?

Glad you did.

*snip tons of feats*
Yadda yadda yadda she's a pretty tough brick... I can't help but wonder how Thor's belt of strength was banned for doubling strength, but the gauntlets that give 10x strength are perfectly fine... Aside from that, the only thing notable about this is repeating the "they won't hurt us with the energy explosion" line that wasn't even the point to begin with.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
It's only a simple matter for Zatanna and Nova to deal with the black hole it leaves an an after effect. Considering what Zatanna has done on her own spellwise, a simple "Elohkcalb Esolc!" should do the trick. And if she does need some help, Nova (who can now cast spells of her own) can assist in that regard. In any case, it's not going to last for long. If closing the black hole seems like too much of a stretch for Zee (which it shouldn't considering the things she has pulled off under her own power, to say nothing of the magical assistance she'll get from Nova), keep in mind that Zatanna is able to fly, teleport, and phase through walls, most of the times without even saying a word.
Walking through walls and flying somehow indicates she can close a black hole? I am really not seeing the logic here, when you have no scans whatsoever of her doing anything similar.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Also keep in mind she's capable of altering the atmosphere to suit her needs.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8614/changeairxy1.png

If she's able to perform that much with little difficulty, then it's no stretch to assume she can't cast a spell to counter the effects of gravity made by the black hole in the first place.
Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? I love how he adds "it's no stretch", as if to apply some logical connection between creating pressure bubbles and stopping black holes... the feats are not even remotely of the same caliber, or even similar kinds of feats. Controlling atmospheric phenomena, color me unimpressed.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Blackhole.jpg
And on the bizarre chance the black hole is still around, Diana can deal with it.
Nice feat; for Diana. However since even MM couldn't escape the pull, how will the rest of your team cope? As well, the scan doesn't even mention if it's a black hole he summoned or just some space vortex...

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Diana, being the peerless warrior she is, is going to have a field day here against these cosmic dudes. First off, Photon. Diana will toss her tiara, which has been enchanted by Zatanna to home in on Photon's location, at Photon. Because the spell takes into account where his location is and doesn't require "sight" or "sense" to do so, it's going to hit him. Assuming he's durable enough to withstand a magical weapon thrown at x10 normal force (normal for Diana, that is), he's going to be in some pain as the tiara's properties will rend through any defenses he can muster up.
Well no, given the forcefields he has I think not.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Diana will then, using her speed and reflexes (enough to tag Wally and Zoom) now augmented by the Sandals of Hermes, to attack the Surfer, also now struggling to ward off Nova's assault, provided he's not floored already. It will be easy enough to find him. Why? Glad you asked.

*snip*
Yes, "stumbled upon it" was right, that is exactly what she did... She never even saw the passage way. She just stumbled into it, and tada, there she is... that is not close to what you would need to do in this case.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
-Their initial attack plan will be rendered ineffective due to Nova's mental assault, which is at least powerful enough to jar their concentration.
Nope, it will be just rosy because we are capable of both completely defending ourselves from it, and even slight distraction won't prevent a plan as incredibly capable as *gasp* detonating an energy sphere.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
-Their energy discharge will not effect phased Nova or Zatanna, and Diana's bracers will prevent her from the brunt of the attack, if not all of it completely.
Cool, but that's really missing the point of the bomb in the first place.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
-Zatanna and Nova combined can deal with the black hole via spell incantation. If you want to foolishly believe she can't simply "wish" it away based on what she has done in terms of power and scope, then she can easily negate its effects.

Sorry, but tangentially related scans of Zatanna performing much weaker feats do not provide evidence for anything of the sort.

Original Smurph

Here we go. This looks like a pretty straight-forward match. They went all offense and no defense, where as we managed to defend against exactly what they would use to attack us, and are attacking with exactly what they're have little defense to.

H'okay, so:

Id/Kandy's Prep:

Power Sharing

I understand, and don't really dispute that Genis can split up his powers. Whatevs, cool. Does he grant access to unlimited power when he does so though?

In the scans you showed, the man that Genis granted his powers to, in order to draw more power, drew it through Genis. You're already splitting up Surfer's power three ways somehow (more on that later), but then your master plan is to restore Surfer's lost power by drawing upon limitless power... that your scan indicates you wouldn't have access to.

Just reading the evidence boys. I would appreciate some proof that just because Genis donates power to them, they suddenly have the limitless access that you claim Genis does. Otherwise, you have no option to restore Surfer, since apparently your only power access is the original Genis himself, which involves draining his power first.

Secondly, how are you going to split up Surfer's powers three ways? The scan says that he MUST donate 50% of his power to the other dude. There's three of you... let me do the math... 50/50/...0? I suppose you could donate more once you've recharged the original Surfer. Let's see what that would involve:

So, you claim these individuals to have such limitless powers, but in order to pull of your plan, you need to donate Genis' powers to Surfer, recharge Genis, donate Surfer's powers to Genis, recharge Surfer's PC (thus draining Genis), recharge Genis, charge up Genis' half of Surfer's powers, charge up Surfer's Photon powers (thus draining Genis), recharge Genis, give Surfer's powers to Onslaught, recharge Surfer (thus draining Genis), recharge Genis, charge up Onslaught, charge up Onslaught's PC powers (thus draining Genis), recharge Genis....

Considering Surfer required meditation to do a single power transfer, and considering Surfer's sizable energy reserves, it would take all your prep time to simply cover his end of things (if it's even possible to split his power three ways... I think I'm being fairly generous in considering this to be remotely doable)

However, you also need to refill Genis' energy reserves over 5 times, and then Onslaught's as well.....

Having not even indicated the time it requires to recharge Genis once, recharge Surfer once, give Genis' powers away, considering you're supposed to have them performing all these power transfers and energy manipulation without having gathered each others experience yet, and taking into account that Surfer (the best energy manipulator on your team) demonstrated the need to meditate in order to give his powers away...

How in holy hell do you expect to accomplish this in any amount of time even approaching that which we're alloted for prep?

I mean really, this is retarded. I'm frankly tired of teams attempting to shove the impossible into one action of their prep, and still have five more things to check off on their prep list just like it.

You're attempting to refill the powers of people with enough output to create stars, and you're attempting to do this many, many times.

You know they reckon that the power output of the sun for one second is roughly equivalent to what mankind has output up to this point in our history?

But you're going to refill the power supply of the Silver Surfer over and over again, in addition to that of Photon... how many times? 5? 6?

And then, of course, at any other point in the prep or in the battle, if Surfer uses Photon's powers, the only way to recharge is to drain it from your teammate... awesome.

Yay team?

Memories and Experience Sharing

I was actually intending to leave this alone, but since Id insists on attacking Cassandra Nova's mental skill, shall we take a look at his own?

Onslaught's only provided feat of this involves mentally gouging a victim's brain, then slowly drawing out vague recollections and visions from the man's past...

On the other hand, you also back it up with Xavier's feats- because we all know Onslaught and Xavier were, like, totally the same right?

We all know that Onslaught never showed a single telepathic feat of any precision in his entire run as a character. All he did was provide brute force shields and brutally mentally attack people, and never with any particular show of force either, just vague lines that Id likes to quote to hope that hyperbole will cover up for a lack of actual feats. Onslaught is not exactly a telepathic surgeon. He couldn't even silence Jean Grey mentally, he had to physically cut her out.

Unless you've got more feats to provide that you decided not to show just because you love to look incompetent, then all that you've proven is that Onslaught is going to be gouging out his teammates brains, and then using all that tons of prep time that you have left (hahaha....) to... get some vague recollections of their past.

Cool. A self defeating team. I love it.

I suggest in the future the idiom about those who live in glass houses...

Amping

Not a lot to mention here, since most of this is useless against our team...

Strength-

First off, two of our characters are phased, and the other one is Wonder Woman with a strength multiplier of 10. So, please, try some hand to hand combat with us.

Secondly, the scans don't really follow up what you claim they do.

One shows Onslaught claiming he can do something, and then immediately revealing it's an illusion.

One shows Photon claiming that he can do something, then mentioning that if he doesn't expend the strength soon, he'll go nova.

One shows Surfer claiming that the Thing's strength is almost beyond his comprehension, then taking some time (that you don't really have) to match it. That's fine. Diana in her current state could outstrength Thing with a sneeze.

Nice to know that everyone who increased their strength through Photon will either have to try punching Diana or go nova. Sweet. With our spells and shields set up, if anything even remotely hurts us, it gets reflected on you. I like this system where you defeat yourself, and we watch.

Mental shields-

All you have scans of is masking presence from telepaths, and blocking out telepathic probing for info. We plan to do neither of those things.

We're simply, off the get go, mentally destroying anything that thinks. Nothing you've shown would be able to block out an all-encompassing mental override by Cassandra Nova.

Cloaking wouldn't matter for such an attack, but, incidentally, we'll know where you are anyways thanks to Zee and Di.

Energy Discharge

Only thing really worth mentioning here is that they note that it will require a mental trigger from Surfer to work. From the get go of the match, Surfer won't have the mental capacity to drool. All he has up are his and Photon's meager mind shields. Cassandra easily plowed through the entirety of mental blocking from Xavier, Jean Grey and the Shi'Ar empire with ease. All Photon did was evade detection from a telepath, and Surfer has been mentally trumped by Dr. Strange...

Magic

El Oh El- are you claiming that Genis would be more adept at manipulating magic than Zatanna?

Genis only countered an energy blast in the one solitary scan that you have that supports this. Nothing we've done is remotely in the context of what you've claimed to be able to counter, so the point is moot, unless you have scans of Genis performing fine manipulation of magic.

Furthermore, the entire notion that you'd be able to outperform Zee is pretty lawlz.

A quick jaunt to the respect thread...

Originally posted by Galan007
Zatanna freezes an entire room full of magic users

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/866/zatannastop1.th.jpg http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6222/zatannastop2.th.jpg
"one of the most powerful magicians in ANY dimension."

Originally posted by jrodslam
Due to the loss of magic in the DCU, many casters and magical beings have to combine efforts to gather high amounts of energy. Of everyone there, Zatanna appears to be the only one with the ability to summon the Spectre.

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/6549/09go1.th.jpghttp://img80.imageshack.us/img80/111/10ud2.th.jpg

Originally posted by jrodslam
http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/2449/jla10216fcmt6.th.jpghttp://img158.imageshack.us/img158/8114/jla10217fcuo3.th.jpg
That literally took me two minutes to find a multitude of magical energy mastery feats that completely outclass yours.

Circe is too powerful a sorceress to be allowed in the tourney...

So... conclusion would be that Zatanna remains to be one of the most adept magical energy manipulators in the entirety of the DCU. While you have two Photons (somehow... ), we have two of her, which is far more impressive than somebody who once endured a single magical bolt of energy.

Once again, Id and Kandy prove their capacity to take one hyperbolic sentence, and put their tourney hopes and dreams on it.

JakeTheBank

Official Post: #3/10

Let's start off with a refresher course, shall we?

Originally posted by TheKahn
Power Limit
- High herald level

Special restrictions:
Meshing Limit: Power amping is allowed as long as it does not put a character above the Herald limit and can be accomplished once the fight starts or in prep time.

If you look at rules, you'll find that this is the High Herald Holiday Tournament. Now, I want to draw attention to this little thing called the "meshing limit". Once more, we're having people go above and beyond what's allowed here. The first round, people weren't sure what qualified as going over the limit, which in turn, led to some disputes for matches. Seeing as how this is the second round, all teams are expected to be able to work within the limit, not going above what has been established.

Our team, by default, is made up of three women who are in the low to mid Herald range. With full gear, Diana might just qualify to be in the High Herald class. Zatanna is at best Mid Herald, while Nova has been listed as being in the Low Herald class. And Nova gaining Zee's genetics through our prep plan, safely keeps her around Mid-High Level.

Our opposition is already at the High Herald class with their team, all purportedly having access to an "infinite source of energy" for their powersets. And then they want to mesh the Power Cosmic with Photon and Onslaught, share Photon's powerset with Surfer, and somehow rechage all parties to 100% with all this newfound power?

Let's break this down, first and foremost.

1.) Prep Time Limit. They have five minutes to "share the load" amongst themselves. None of the scans they have shown prove that they can do all of this (in addition to their amping, memory transfer, shielding, cloaking, energy discharge bomb crap, etc.) within five minutes. I don't know why people can't grasp what can and can't be done within five minutes, but it's getting completely over the top and ridiculous.

2.) Power Cap. Assuming they can get all this done in five minutes, they still have to deal with the rules stated clearly in the tournament about power meshing. Someone like Surfer already lies at the top of the High Herald bracket, with feats under his belt that show him taking it to Skyfather and beyond beings. And you want to give him another open ended and immense powerset in addition to what he has? If that's not above High Herald, I don't know what is. The same applies to Onslaught and Photon. Even if I'm willing to buy that they can achieve this, it still doesn't change the effect that by overstepping the power cap, they've effectively broken one of the rules set in place by the tourny hosts.

Without even touching the rest of their prep plan, the judges can plainly see that even if their team can properly redistribute their massive powersets equally around and then "recharge" to full, no one in their right mind would consider a single member of their team a "High Herald".

And if that's not enough to prove that our opponents are "blantantly" going stir crazy with meshing, check out this:

Okay, assuming you have time to shatter the power cap, you're now proposing to boost their overall power, add mental shielding, cloaking, and force fields all across the board? And you're probably going to insist that you're still below High Herald?

Wow. I either detect an extreme lack of confidence in their overall team to warrant such a over-the-top power meshing, or a blatant disregard for rules. The really tragic thing is that even if the judges decided to let the power cap busting slide, and even if they humored their outlandish and unrealistic prep, our team - and here's the kicker - would still kick their cosmic asses.

If that's not messed up, I don't know what is.

...wait.

Yes, I do:

I wonder what a black hole is? Well, I think it's an enviromental-large scale example of matter manipulation. By the narration of the scan you posted, it's "a collapsed star which has become so dense...it's gravitational field so powerful...the light itself is trapped and bent around it. Any object or entity within its radius will inevitably be drawn in and crushed to nothingness."

Tough luck, but according to the rules, this tactic wouldn't be allowed. Since we're fighting on Apokolips, it's painfully obvious that the blackhole would cause large scale enviromental damage as well as count as a method to BFR/teleport us away, which have also been banned.

So, I guess it's our bad for even bothering to refute it, because, according to the rules, it shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

So, what have we learned today, class?

1.) The can't achieve what they said they want to within five minutes.
2.) Assuming we give them the benefit of the doubt and agree they could do this within five minutes, the extent of which they are combining their powersets clearly breaches the High Herald limit.
3.) Further amping their characters during the time they don't have, will further push them beyond the High Herald limit.
4.) Their intial attack is in a direct violation of several rules already clearly defined within the first round of the tournament.

Summary: The opposition either really don't care about the rules or thinks we're all naive enough to let them get away with it.

Original Smurph

Unofficial post-

As I pointed out to Batdude, it was specifically forbade by Kahn anyways.

Originally posted by TheKahn
Just don't use destroying the environment as part of your strategy.

Id himself said that this was for a strategic advantage for their team. Which isn't allowed. Goober only got away with it last match because our battlefield was indestructible- this one isn't.

Anyways, we can let Batdude deal with that.

"Id"

Unofficial Post.
Wut?

You guys are aware, this is a Top Tier tournament. There is a big list of characters, each capable of tossing planet wrecking blasts. We cant be hold responsible for the battlefield being wrecked. The Silver Surfers ambient energies alone, are enough to shatter planets.

To be on the record, we depended on letting lose one Surfers biggest displays raw power. The Black Hole is a natural progression per consequence.

Original Smurph

Originally posted by "Id"

How this match is going down.
Nothing is going to stop that energy discharge... violent gravitational forces that could effortlessly consume a planet ... Energy Sphere will detonate, the discharge will shatter the planet ... and the battlefield has drastically changed to our advantage. The Black Hole will seemingly pull you guys in, due to the vacuumed it creates.

Which is exactly what Kahn outlawed. Purposefully destroying the battlefield as strategy was ruled illegal. Simple as.

Original Smurph

Originally posted by "Id"
Unofficial Post.

You would have a valid case to proceed with your argument, if our intention was to shatter the planet. "and the battlefield has drastically changed to our advantage."

"Just don't use destroying the environment as part of your strategy."

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

"Id"

The battlefield is not our target.

You guys are.

Simple.

Original Smurph

Originally posted by "Id"
The battlefield is not our target.

You guys are.

Simple. Originally posted by King Kandy
Again, we aren't trying to HIT you with the bomb, the bomb itself will create a black hole to suck you in.

You're actually attempting to mass-alter the battlefield by turning it into a black hole, in order to suck us in.

I realize that your end game is to kill us (no sh*t), it still violates what Kahn said, which was the destruction of the battlefield as part of strategy.

"Id"

Unofficial Post.

Kandy is correct, in the sense that we are not tossing the bomb at you guys. FFS its a bomb, so there is no need toss it at you guys.

What do you expect? that is an all encompassing energy bomb. Capable of sundering a planet, creating a black hole along the processes. We cant help that fact that battlefield will get wrecked, because that is the nature of our attack.

If you have a problem, take it up with the tournament host.

batdude123

Originally posted by "Id"
Unofficial Post.
Wut?

You guys are aware, this is a Top Tier tournament. There is a big list of characters, each capable of tossing planet wrecking blasts. We cant be hold responsible for the battlefield being wrecked. The Silver Surfers ambient energies alone, are enough to shatter planets.

To be on the record, we depended on letting lose one Surfers biggest displays raw power. The Black Hole is a natural progression per consequence.

Id, I'm sure we can all appreciate the fact that this is a "top tier" tournament, and obviously we're dealing with a tremendous amount of power. However, that doesn't mean that it's a tournament devoid of rules. Kahn laid it out in simple terms:

Originally posted by TheKahn
Just don't use destroying the environment as part of your strategy.

It seems your original point had you relying on the destruction of the planet, but now, you've recanted that point. There's a difference between the side effects of a match that happens to destroy the battlefield and trying to directly destroy it as a part of your strategy.

That said, under these circumstances, the blackhole tactic is banned.

King Kandy

I would have appreciated it if you'd told us this was illegal before the strategy got posted, bats. You did it for the negative zone one but this one, guess not...

King Kandy

4/10

Now, I know what the judges are probably thinking right about this point in the fight... "how does losing the black hole hurt kandy's team?" Well, the answer is, not at all. Because while that particular line of attack was banned, everything in the prep still works, and we will still be meshed to a level they can't compare to. And while that attack, probably the most efficient way of taking them out, is no longer available... we have other ways of attacking that are just as effective, which I will elaborate on. But first, i'm going to address some of the claims made against our prep:

Silver Surfer can only lend exactly 50%, so he can't split his power three ways:

This one should be easy enough to realize is wrong just by reading the scan. Surfer never says he can only share 50% of his power, he says needs to share 50% in order to establish a "cosmic link" that will enable the guy to enact his plans. But anyway, I can prove he can share less than 50% with scans as well...

Gives tiny fragment of power to Shalla Bal (so between this and 50%, he can do):

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/7133/silversurfervol200146grqs2.jpg
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/8745/silversurfervol200148grun5.jpg

This one probably didn't even need to be addressed, but whatever.

How will Genis empower them, when they don't have his limitless energy supply?

This one was just silly. They are linked to Genis. Genis has his own unlimited energy supply. As he powers up, the power is passed on to them as well. He was able to keep recharging while being actively drained by magus, so passing along power enough to recharge the SS power is no problem at all.

It will take too long!

No, not really. We already showed SS empowering a human pretty much instantly, let alone characters who themselves have energy absorbing power. We also showed Genis instantaneously recharging while being drained, so that certainly won't be the slow part of the prep... Since we CAN split it in degrees besides 50%, we won't have trouble figuring out how to recharge and re-divide, so that won't take time. So no, really, our prep takes little to no time.

Genis will go Nova!

No... Genis SPECULATED he might go Nova if he increased his own strength... something that clearly did not occur, as the whole experience left him perfectly fine.

It's over the meshing limit!

No, that might have been some kind of an argument, but not with the current rules. Basically, Jake made a big deal of "they'll all have 2x high herald powersets!" What was considered the limits for acceptable meshing? Oh yeah, 2x herald powersets. Which is what we did. We did the acceptable meshing that is allowed.

I COULD have used a method to grant Onslaught's powers to the rest of our team, giving them all 3x herald powersets, but because I knew what the meshing limits were, I did not. I chose 2x, the limit for acceptable meshing.

Meanwhile, creating forcefields, mental shields etc are merely applications of the power we meshed, and do not increase our power at all. saying making a forcefield puts us over the cap is like saying that shooting an energy blast makes us over the cap... it's not even in the argument.

Well, at least they were right about the black holes, which is why we'll do as follows:

Id already covered how we can hit intangible foes. But, we have an even better tactic available to us. While you have to try and recover from your own mental attacks being reflected, our SS-powered characters will create surfboards from their energy, fly them over to you at lightspeed...

and do this:

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/8547/silversurfer199612217bh0.jpg

Thanks for the match.

Original Smurph

Their opening attack is a bust, but ours are ready to go. They'll be leaving the gate with no plan or initial attack. We'll be raring to unleash hell. They'll immediately be on the defense.

Character by character:

Photon

Recap:

We used telepathy. They said "don't worry, here's a scan of Photon protecting himself against telepathy!"
We used magic. They said "don't worry, here's a scan of Photon manipulating magic!"
We used cloaking. They said "don't worry, Photon will detect where you are!"
We threw a tiara that can cut through anything with 10x the strength of Wonder Woman.
They said "don't worry, Photon can shield!"

Additionally, they're also having Photon switch locations at light speed and he's getting drained every single time that Surfer uses the Photon powers that were given to him.

Breaking this down:

Both the scans of Photon evading telepathy and the scans of Photon manipulating magic show that such tasks require his full concentration. Keeping in mind that he's simultaneously supposed to be protecting against an amped version of the tiara that will tear through his shields, detecting us through our magical cloaking and psi-cloaking (somehow...) and managing the many power relations that he's set up, it's fairly ludicrous to assume he could either protect against Cassandra Nova's mental assault OR Zatanna's spells, much less both.

They'll say "but Surfer has Photon's powers too!"

Surfer, however, is a millisecond away from being eviscerated by Diana, who he has no way of seeing or otherwise detecting. He's also being attacked mentally and magically.

Besides, you have yet to provide anything in the way of proof to show that the power and experience transfers won't just gouge out your own brains.

So, anyways, Genis gets magically and mentally raped, then vivisected by the tiara.

Next:

Surfer

Same thing.

Surfer's feats of fending off psychic warfare are even weaker than Genis', and he has none of Genis' experience using the Photon powers to help as they can't prove more than capable of hurting themselves with their own telepathy.

He really has no feats in the magic department worth mentioning. Not on Zee's level.

Even with all his concentration, he couldn't block out Cassie, counter Zee or detect Diana.

The fact that they're claiming he can do all three at once is pretty hilarious.

Onslaught

Ok, here comes the fun part:

Cassandra Nova >>> Onslaught.

Pretty much simple as.

Both in feats of power and skill, she destroys him.

Id has posted a few feats in his defense, but they are almost entirely composed of either non-Psi's giving a great deal of hyperbole, or they are just comments on Onslaught having access to great amounts of energy.

But where are ze feats!?

Id has shown nothing that would put Onslaught above Xavier.

Xavier's been shown to be capable of simultaneously channeling the thoughts of the Skrull race. Before Magneto messed with the earth's poles, thus rendering long-range TP on Earth nearly impossible, Xavier was using his telepathy to star-scan. Xavier's fought Phoenix successfully, destroyed Selene, etc. The astral plane feat that you posted isn't much more impressive than some of the astral plane feats that Shadow King has accomplished, and he's actually afraid of Xavier. Probably because astral plane accomplishments don't at all correlate with telepathic might. Xavier's mentally tapped into Ego and Galactus.

Onslaught, on the other hand, resisted Doom's machine...

Onslaught has absolutely no feats to show that he is more skilled than Xavier. None. He has hyperbolic claims to have access to a larger power source, but never actually demonstrates superior output to Xavier's feats.

Let's look at this numerically-

Xavier is a 5, let's say.

At best, Onslaught is a 6 or a 7. This is being generous, as he's never shown the power output or skill level to be considered superior, but, for our sake, it doesn't really matter.

Cassandra Nova beat Xavier using Cerebra. She was across the world, in Ecuador, he had (see scan), telepathic ability that was magnified to the 10th power.

Cassandra took a couple seconds to put Xavier in a coma. With ease.

So, continuing on with our numbers...

Xavier = 5
Onslaught = 6 or 7
Cassandra > 5 ^ 10 = 9, 765, 625

"But Onslaught is so superior!!1!!!11!"

Show me a feat that tops Cassie. Please.

For reference, here's the Xavier in Cerebra scans again-

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4083/newxmen114page5.jpg
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/8384/newxmen114page15.jpg
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/8449/newxmen114page16.jpg
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/615/newxmen114page17.jpg

Id loves quotes...

"Your thoughts are bleeding... torn..."
-Jean

"Pure appalling hatred, unstoppable"
"Warn them, Jean... Warn everyone"
-Xavier

Which is an actual telepathic feat, which you have failed to show.
Which is on a scope so ridiculously above what you have shown that this conversation should probably end now.

Those are also comments from the most powerful telepaths on the planet. Not Dr. Doom, or Dr. Strange.

Here's some more that actually reference her pure psychic power-

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/1169/newxmen12519.jpg

"You don't know what she can do... a psychic immensity of pure elemental force... a living storm of hate... "

And note the very first thing that Gladiator said?

"Mind armor on."

Let's see how that worked out for them...

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/3665/newxmen12522.jpg

So she's actively shutting out Charles Xavier, while running through their mind armor like the Juggernaut through paper walls.

Then she continues on to finish them and make Gladiator wet himself...

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/1576/newxmen12604.jpg
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/4889/newxmen12605.jpg

Gladiator on his own has ridiculous will power, and feats of shutting out telepaths. On top of that, he has Shi-Ar uber tech to shield his mind, which he was confident would allow him to beat Cassandra Nova.

Cassandra came, saw, and made him piss his uniform.

In the few pages following, she decimates what's left of the X-Men. Then, with Xavier, Jean, Emma, the Stepford Cuckoos and all the superhumans that came to battle, they're still forced into tricking Cassandra into possessing a plot device body ("Stuff" of the Shi'Ar), or else face annihilation.

Onslaught... once shut out Jean Grey. Clearly he holds the skill and power edge here.

Onslaught's feats dealing with actual telepaths involve simply blocking out Xman's telepathic probes and an astral plane feat. Oh, and he physically shut up Jean Grey, who was actually bothering him mentally when all she was doing was trying to non-aggressively communicate with Xavier. Presumably the more efficient method, simply mentally shielding her out, was too difficult.

The jean grey thing-
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/6172/52851279.jpg

So he had to silence her because she was causing mental strife for him.

Let's see how Jean stands up to Cassandra Nova, shall we?

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e156/marvelkris/Scans/NewX-Men-116-EisforExtinction03-12.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e156/marvelkris/Scans/NewX-Men-116-EisforExtinction03-13.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e156/marvelkris/Scans/NewX-Men-116-EisforExtinction03-14.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e156/marvelkris/Scans/NewX-Men-116-EisforExtinction03-15.jpg

In your case, you had to resort to a sort of physical force to shut out a Jean Grey who was merely trying to contact Xavier- your apparently awesome shields couldn't shut out Jean's passive telepathy. Clearly you're superior to Cassandra, who turned Jean to a blithering wreck by simply being in the same room as her.

You asked for proof of Cassie's skill and power?

With Prof X actively attacking her mind, while she's dodging around lightspeed blasts, outfighting Wolverine and messing with the minds of all the X-Men, she's outskilling Jean Grey, and she's doing all this with utter ease.

You couldn't shut out passive Jean Grey.

She can wreck Jean Grey with an afterthought, without even attacking her, while Xavier is actively trying is hardest to shut her down. And she doesn't even strain herself.

So a massive LOL at the notion that Onslaught even approaches Cassandra's skill or power.

Xavier = 5
Onslaught = 6 or 7
Cassandra > 9, 765, 625

True power.

About mindshields:

Xavier had mental shields that shut out the entirety of the Shi'Ar.

Jean was right behind him.

The entirety of the Shi'Ar Imperial Guard both had mind shields and had previous experience with powerful telepaths.

Same for the X-Men.

Cassandra absolutely destroyed any mind shield she ever came up against. They had to resort to trickery every time they beat her, because there was nobody who approached her in telepathic might. Xavier was deathly scared of her.

What was it that you said about Xavier being = to Onslaught?

Oh yeah.

Originally posted by "Id"
Hey lets play a game, I will post a scan, and make a direct quote to back up my claim. You can tl,dr yourself into stupidity.

The being who attacked us? It calls itself Onslaught. His is professor Charles Xavier - Scott Summers
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/4820/theuncannyxmen33517.jpg

Whatever "tl,dr" is, the point is established.

Reflecting psychic power?

Jean, Emma and Xavier all have similar feats.

They all got destroyed in panels by Cassie.

"Why didn't they just reflect it!?"

JakeTheBank

Official Post: #5/10

It's come to our attention that our own prep is being dissected and attacked by the opposition. It's a reasonable course of action, but sadly for our opponents, Zatanna's versatility and sheer magical prowess makes all of this possible. I'm sure the judges will agree with us when I say we're not even trying to exploit Zatanna's magic to it's fullest. While our opponent's prep is convoluted, unreasonable in the time allowed and downright illegal in areas (see black hole creation, busting the power cap, trying to get around offensive matter manipulation/possession by trapping us in their surfboards), our prep is effective against our specific enemies, all perfectly legal, within the power cap limits, and simple yet effective enough for the judges to wrap their heads around without much (if any) blind faith.

1.) DNA copying: I figured this would be the one area of our prep our opposition would attack. But if we honestly didn't think it was possible, we wouldn't have gone with it. As Smurph stated, it took Nova ten hours to read the DNA sequence of Trask and copy it, not normally a valid option in five minutes. Well, Zatanna has the solution to that. She'll be working her magic to speed up Nova's natural metabolism. A phrase such as "Evig Ardnassac ym AND ecneuqes!" or "Deeps pu AND gniypoc ssecorp!" should do the trick. Our opponent's want to cast doubt on this, claiming to want an exact scan of what we're proposing. The thing is, Zatanna's powerset is off the charts in terms of versatility.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/CuresRedSolarRadiation1.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/CuresRedSolarRadiation2.jpg
In a relatively short time (presumably minutes), Zatanna purges Superman's body of a dehabiliting amount of red solar radiation. Consider how long it would take for the effects of that (courtesy from an Amazo who copied Firestorm's powerset) to wear off on its own, sundipping not being an option. And Zatanna just wished it away, basically.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/016-1.jpg
Here Zatanna, with a simple word, reverses a amphibian beast back to his human form with a sentence. Neither of the above mentioned feats mention that Zee knows jack about molecular manipulation and/or the way DNA works because, frankly, she doesn't have to. She says something backwards, it happens.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/SoulTransmution.jpg
And here, Zatanna is shown being able to actual transfer souls. This is more than enough evidence to suggest that she can assist Nova in copying her DNA strain and speed up the process. I'm confident the judges will agree.
2.) Spellcasting: I don't see how this area would be disputed by our opponents, considering that Zee's magic is incredibly open ended. Asking for scans of her doing the exact specific things we want her to do within her spells is, quite frankly, like us asking for scans to prove that Surfer can change piss into wine. He has plenty of transmutation feats as well as feats of just making stuff appear, that if someone wanted to argue that point, I wouldn't waste my time trying to shed doubt on it.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8614/changeairxy1.png
Here Zatanna literally makes pure air appear where once there was nothing but ash filled air. And with a backwards sentence, she just changes it. So, explain to me, just how is it a stretch for Zatanna to make the team protected against electromagnetic manipulation? She can literally make damage reflect off of her and return to its source and can cast spells which prevent her from being harmed by magic in the general sense.
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/5527/zatanna3.jpg
Here, Zee is able to just make water appear, in and out of this creature. Again, she says it, it happens. If someone can explain to me how "Tcetorp su dna ruo tnempiuqe morf citengamortcele noitalupinam" doesn't work, please enlighten me. Based on the protection spells and spells she has cast in general, there's nothing to suggest she can't achieve this effect. The rules of your petty "science" and "logic" don't simply apply to Zatanna.
3.) Mentally cloaking and shields. Well, again, big surprise, our oppenent's don't buy us being able to do what's common knowledge or a reasonable application of our open powerset.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/BootsJonnOut.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/bootsJonnOut1.jpg
Zatanna on her own is able to defend herself from psionic intrusion from J'onn, and that's without conscious effort. Her dozens of instances of mindwiping also show her proficiency with dealing with matters of the mind. And she's backing up by Cassandra Nova, who now can wield magic at least on a basic degree.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/Invisible.jpg
Here Zatanna renders herself and the rest of the present JLA members invisible. She's not refracting light or manipulating the enviroment with technology. She's magically making them disappear from prying eyes.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/010.jpg
Here, Zatanna effectively hides the location of Shadowcrest from Mary Marvel forever. Considering Mary has a natural affinity and is attuned to magic, this is an impressive feat considering Shadowcrest exudes an immense level of magic power. And Zatanna is able to prevent Mary from finding it. Us claiming that she can cast a spell to hide herself and two other beings, shielding us from even the almighty cosmic and psionic senses the opposing team possess is a stretch how exactly? The end result may be the same as someone using stealth based technology or manipulating energy to cloak themselves, but the process in which she did it makes all the difference. Unless our opponents can show they can sense magic users on the level of Zatanna actively cloaking themselves, there's no reason to think that their "Cosmic Awareness" can pierce through our veil, especially considering no one on their team possesses even the rudimentary level of magic manipulation to counter Zatanna.
4.) Homing device. Really? Explain to me how this would be beyond Zatanna given her scope of power? Just to give a rough example of what a possessed Zatanna can do without her conscious effort, take a look at this:
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/ChangesMoon.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Zatanna%20Feats/ChangesMoon1.jpg
Zatanna altered the entire moon and the Watchtower while being possessed. And this all her power being used, as confirmed later in the issue in question by Faust. Her magic is that powerful and to claim that while Zatanna's magic is capable of the above, can forcibly summon Spectre, cause harm to an entity such as Starbreaker, drastically alter someone's personality, BUT she can't enchant Diana's tiara to home in on a specific target is insane. Tell me how "S'anaiD arait, orez ni no Notohp!" is beyond Zatanna? Hell, even without being enchanted so, how will Photon survive being hit by a magical weapon which can cut through virtually anything, let alone under the strength of x10 of what Diana is capable of normally?
5.) The actual battle. Zatanna has the ability to one-shot the opposition and that's a fact. Nova's mental and magical powers will effect the opposition in detrimental ways, either shattering their minds completely or requiring them to consciously fight back, leaving them open. Diana? Considering how she's protected from EM manipulation, cloaked via Zee's magic, cast with a spell that will send damage back to its source, armed to the teeth, and x10 as strong and durable than normal, no one on their team can put her down. Telekinetic manipulation? How? Between fending off Zee and Nova, how will TK affect WW when she's already cloaked, moving at insane speeds with unparralled physical might to go behind it?

Summary:
-Everything outlined in our prep is: legal, possible during the time given to us, well within Zatanna's power as evidenced in the scans given, within the power cap/meshing limits, and simple and effective enough for the judges to get aboard on. The same can't be said about our opponent's.
-They have no reasonable way to get around the spells cast by Zatanna.
-They have no chance in hell of taking down WW, let alone trying to use her gear against her when we wisely suspected they'd go that route and defended against it. TK? Maybe if, y'know, WW and her gear weren't already invisible and moving at speeds and physical force to easily shatter planets, to say nothing of the the degree of concentration it will take coupled with defending themselves.

Original Smurph

Post #6

Firstly: Our Opponents

I'm getting sick and tired of the tone of this battle.

I'm making fun of their arguments, sure, but I'm being treated to genuine personal insults and overall dickery.

That being said, I'd like to take a moment to focus on exactly the style of debating that our opponents are engaging in. Not that I think that the judges can't figure it out for themselves, but consider it a venting process:

It was disclosed to me that prior to our battle, Id submitted a write-up to Batdude, and had it subsequently revoked.

The reason?

Id attempted to use a tactic against us that had been banned in a previous round, hoping (for some reason) that it would suddenly be rendered legal.

It was apparently quite a minor portion of the post, but they then insisted on using the excuse of this ALREADY BANNED TACTIC to utilize a whole day (after having had loads of time to write up a prep post, pretty much a week since the previous matches ended) to mull this over and re-write their entire strategy.

Immediately upon entering the battle, their primary attack was also proven illegal as they attempted to do something specifically forbade by Kahn.

Batdude banned it. Their response?

They claim that they can do it regardless, because they created the thing anyways. Now they're not intending to use it to create a black hole, but since they have it, they can use it, right?

No. For f*cks sakes. That's like banning Tony Stark from using the nuke that he retrieved during prep to blow up the mountains that he's fighting in for strategy, then having Tony say "well, I no longer have a plan to blow up the mountains, but I guess I'll set off this nuke anyways. it'll still blow up the mountains, but it's not my intention anymore..."

Just another attempt at loophole exploitation. I'm getting so god damn tired of it.

Additionally, once the black hole tactic was banned, they responded with yet ANOTHER illegal tactic: Surfer's board.

They now intend to capture us in Surfer's surfboard, for an insta-win.

They presumably would have mentioned this earlier, but they didn't want to push the envelope too far (too late for that I guess).

We're not allowed to matter manipulate peoples bodies, teleport their bodies, control or freeze their bodies in place. We're not allowed to mind control people, we're not allowed to possess them, we're not allowed to take control of their motor functions.

Why on earth would you be allowed to capture somebody's body in Surfer's board?

We brought this to Batdude, and he said that we should just approach the judges with it since he was tired of stalling matches with rule violations- which is true, he had previously briefly considered restarting the match due to the sh*tstorm, delays and havoc that the rule breaking from Id's team had already caused.

He told us that we should leave the judgement in (sensibly) the judges hands.

Hence this post.

Let me also recap on what my partner pointed out previously- they've also gone beyond the meshing limit.

They gave each of their teammates two high herald power sets.

Then they ADDITIONALLY gave all of them Onslaught's mental shields, Photon's physical shields, above-base strength amping, sensor cloaking, and a conduit for unlimited energy.

Note that all those are simply claims by the opposition- we will continue to provide proof that this is out of their realm of capability, but simply consider what they claim to be doing- it's the definition of character amping, and this is on top of what's been stated to be the amping cap (two high herald power sets)!

You'll also note that Id's debating style has swiftly dropped from attempting to mock what we say, and is now simply consistently referring to us with derogatory wording, names and similar desperate attempts to undermine our validity with insults.

Anyways, judges, all that I'm asking is this:

Don't be misled or fooled by what amounts to mass slander, hyperbole and rule breaking. We'll still argue every point and back up all that we say, but I just needed to get out in the open the frustration with the route that this match has taken. I want the judgements to be decided on debating skill alone, and nothing else.

Cool. Thanks for the time.

Moving on...

Id and Kandy's "Counters" for our tactics

Psychic shielding

I'm sorry, where in that scan does it say that Onslaught's shield was reflected?

She was in the middle of saying the phrase "smoke and mirrors", as you quoted, and was KO'd on the word "mirrors".

That DOESN'T indicate a reflective shield- where in the entire Onslaught debacle did he show a reflective shield?

Why didn't he use these reflective shields against Nate Grey's probing, Jean Grey's probing, or at any other instance than against a telepath whose power is like a wax candle compared to Cassandra Nova's telepathic inferno?

If the only evidence for it being reflective is her being KO'd on the phrase "mirrors" (that she was CLEARLY already about to say), then the whole claim is ludicrous.

If there is -anything- else to give the claim credit, then why was it only used against a relatively pathetic telepath?

Please. It's like seeing Captain America trip someone running, thus using their momentum against them, and then claming that he can do it to the Flash.

Just doesn't work that way, son. Get some real feats plz, or concede that Cassandra will wreck your mental shields like she has at every other instance in her entire career- she has NEVER spent more than a panel on a mental shield (I can't even think of a moment where she's paused for one), even up against the best telepaths on Marvel Earth (even when those telepaths are ridiculously amped), or the very best technology in the entire Shi'Ar empire.

Considering the vastness of both the diversity and power that the Shi'Ar wield in terms of tech and telepaths, seeing Cassandra bring their empire to its knees with telepathy alone is again far more impressive than anything that Onslaught has done telepathically.

TK on Diana

I can't argue for her, she's not my character.

I can ask for proof though- where has Onslaught demonstrated the telekinetic power to stop a woman who's fast enough to enter the speed force under her own power, and contribute a third of the strength required to move the earth?

That's base Diana by the way. Before she's given the sandals of Hermes, a gauntlet that multiplies her strength by 10, and made entirely undetectable.

I'm not arguing for her, just pointing out that she's currently powerful enough to run through planets. I'm sure Id has proof that Onslaught's TK is powerful enough to stop that kind of force though... especially when he's simultaneously being attacked mentally by a mind far more powerful than his own, and being assaulted magically by Zatanna Zatarra.

Cloaking vs. Cosmic Awareness

Since Id is such a huge fan of asking for scans-

Where, oh where, is the proof that cosmic awareness can pierce through veils like those provided by Cassandra Nova's telepathy or Zatanna's magic?

I've ranted quite a bit about how they both represent the creme de la creme of their individual categories among all the heralds, so, grouped together, their cloaking would be absolutely ridiculous.

We're constantly attacked by Id, claiming that we don't have proof, and then his only response is that they'll "just know".

It's the grouping of more powerful magic and telepathy than Surfer's ever faced down in tandem. Show me the proof.

If you don't...

You'll never find Zatanna or Cassandra.

Wonder Woman will wreck your team on her lonesome, since she'll be absolutely undetectable and can solo each of you...

But I'm sure you have proof, right? Because otherwise, you can kiss any hopes of victory goodbye...

Zatanna's Versatility

The fact that I even have to type this up is laughable.

We're talking about a woman who's able to create air, metal, weapons and armor from absolutely nothing. She's had magic strong enough to mess with the Martian Manhunter's mind, she's able to teleport around the world without saying a thing, she was able to flay the flesh from Lobo's extremely durable body, and cause him to bleed everywhere with the word "Dleeb!". She knocked an evolved Star Eater on its ass, and she spread out Aquaman's soul across the entire ocean.

She can't demagnetize some metal equipment?

I'm pretty confident that I can leave that one up to the judges...

Experience transfer

Same thing goes, really. Cassandra has forced Xavier's entire, intact psyche out of his body between panels. She's turned her mind into a psychic black hole, and she's lived for years and years on mental power and stamina alone, with her only body being attached to a sewer wall.

She's driven Shi'Ar insane with a few words, and she's mentally forced Emma to attack and wreck her entire team with a tiny portion of her mind (the smallest amount that she embedded in Emma's psyche once she found out Emma tricked her), all the while convincing Emma that Emma was leading the Hellfire Club again.

She doesn't have the skill to transfer some knowledge from the mind of a willing Zatanna though...

It actually doesn't matter, as Zatanna herself can do experience transfers-
http://img256.imageshack.us/i/file0799nd5.jpg/

Gives herself Black Canary's martial arts experience.

So, anyways, that's out of the way, but I just wanted to really illuminate the ridiculous claims that Id is making in his counter arguments (that Cassandra isn't skilled enough to perform something that's essentially elementary for telepaths, that Zatanna can't demagnetize metal...).

King Kandy

6/10

Some parts of quotes were clipped (mainly scans) to get this within the character limit.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
It's come to our attention that our own prep is being dissected and attacked by the opposition... hile our opponent's prep is convoluted, unreasonable in the time allowed and downright illegal in areas
Taking sarcastic, substanceless shots at your opponent usually doesn't really end up benefiting you in the match much. I know because i've tried it before. So, i'd appreciate it if you just stuck to the match because i'm trying to be more civil in the wake of complaints about the general attitude in matches here.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
As Smurph stated, it took Nova ten hours to read the DNA sequence of Trask and copy it, not normally a valid option in five minutes. Well, Zatanna has the solution to that. She'll be working her magic to speed up Nova's natural metabolism. A phrase such as "Evig Ardnassac ym AND ecneuqes!" or "Deeps pu AND gniypoc ssecorp!" should do the trick.

*snip tons of scans that DON'T show Zatanna doing anything similar to DNA tranfer.*
It's nice to hear them admit that not only do they not have evidence of Zatanna doing any such thing, but that they know full well their plan won't work without it. And no, posting tons (and I mean TONS) of scans will do you know good, if none of them actually relate to the feat you are attempting to do.

You might as well just have her say "eid" with the argument you're presenting, but no. That would make her over the caps. However anything that doesn't put her over the caps, somehow you then feel entitled to use the "she can do anything" routine.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
I don't see how this area would be disputed by our opponents, considering that Zee's magic is incredibly open ended. Asking for scans of her doing the exact specific things we want her to do within her spells is, quite frankly, like us asking for scans to prove that Surfer can change piss into wine.
Man, I never knew Zatanna was such a god. What can't she do, according to this line of thinking? Well, saying she can't do something she's never been shown to do, might be a valid way of checking. We go evidence here, not vaguely related scans of Zatanna doing other things. Did I say "vaguely"? No, I meant "not at all".

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Again, she says it, it happens. If someone can explain to me how "Tcetorp su dna ruo tnempiuqe morf citengamortcele noitalupinam" doesn't work, please enlighten me. Based on the protection spells and spells she has cast in general, there's nothing to suggest she can't achieve this effect.
Well, the fact that you seem unable to find her doing anything remotely related to that, might be a something that suggests she can't do it. Last time, judges didn't go for Onslaught using Magneto's feats, even though he's theoretically capable of it. I'd like to see the reaction to Zatanna's "never done it at all" feats. Because at least with Onslaught, we know he could do that if he knew how.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
The rules of your petty "science" and "logic" don't simply apply to Zatanna.
"I'm going to continue claiming she can do whatever we want, caps and evidence be damned!"

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
*Miscellaneous Zatanna will cloak us because she is magic stuff*
Jake questions the ability of cosmic awareness to see through illusions, but offers little in support of this except "they're magic". Cosmic awareness CAN see through illusions, and it can also ascertain the identity of beings even if they are completely different. Here, he finds the true identity of two space phantoms. For people who don't know space phantoms, they have the power to become complete physical doubles of anyone, down to the last atom.

http://i.imagehost.org/0944/AvengersForever05p19.jpg

Here, he just plain sees through illusions/cloaking, and can detect when they are being used.

http://h.imagehost.org/0901/AvengersForever10p02and03.jpg
http://a.imagehost.org/0390/AvengersForever10p04.jpg

I believe these scans were actually known to Jake, but beyond repeating that the illusions were magic he really brought nothing that would change the reality that illusions won't work.

ZOriginally posted by JakeTheBank
atanna altered the entire moon and the Watchtower while being possessed. And this all her power being used, as confirmed later in the issue in question by Faust. Her magic is that powerful (feats) BUT she can't enchant Diana's tiara to home in on a specific target is insane. Tell me how "S'anaiD arait, orez ni no Notohp!" is beyond Zatanna?
The fact that none of those feats actually show her doing anything similar to that... I can post tons of posts of Genis having infinite energy, but i'm sure you would see the fallacy in using that to claim he is capable of anything I could come up with. However, he has cosmic awareness and would know how to do those things, so no. It's even worse in Zatanna's case.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Hell, even without being enchanted so, how will Photon survive being hit by a magical weapon which can cut through virtually anything, let alone under the strength of x10 of what Diana is capable of normally?
Force fields, for one.

And i'd just like to bring this up one more time (ignored the first), but once again how on Earth is it that Thor's belt of strength (2x strength) was ruled to be over the caps, but Diana's gauntlet (10x strength) is just fine? I don't think either is over the caps personally, but the whole thing stinks of inconsistency, and I don't see how one is banned and not the other.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Zatanna has the ability to one-shot the opposition and that's a fact. Nova's mental and magical powers will effect the opposition in detrimental ways, either shattering their minds completely or requiring them to consciously fight back, leaving them open. Diana? Considering how she's protected from EM manipulation, cloaked via Zee's magic, cast with a spell that will send damage back to its source, armed to the teeth, and x10 as strong and durable than normal, no one on their team can put her down.
I feel like i'm in the world of "Being John Malkovich" now. I mean, just look at the arguments here, compared to arguments in other posts:

Photon (and surfer with photon's powers) can't shield themselves, attack, and amp during prep under their own power, but Zatanna can cast as many spells (most of which she has never used in her life) as she wants, without any limit. It's even more strange when you consider the infinite energy photon has access to.

Our amping is over the caps, yet simultaneously we are too weak to either hurt or guard ourselves in any way from Diana, who is not over the caps. I think you can see that one of these is probably going to have to go at some point.

Clearly, these posts could not have been coming from the same set of debaters. Obviously they must be being possessed half the time, by a force with a 180 perspective on the battle.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
-They have no reasonable way to get around the spells cast by Zatanna.
Yeah, especially since there's no reason to think she can actually cast them.

Directed towards Smurph's post

I sense there's some stress going on with you here, because I have to say i've never seen a tourney argument (which took almost a whole post) based around someones out of match behavior. I don't really see why it's necessary to try and argue based on tactics already ruled out and therefore not used. And this was not the first one-day extension in the tourney, but somehow you feel justified with outrage towards this particular one.

How is any of this supposed to relate to the match? Illegal tactics (which have been ruled out and therefore are not being used), the tone of the battle (I didn't think it was that bad, especially compared to our matches in the past), id using derogatory terms (i've been trying to avoid doing that sort of thing)... how is any of this supposed to relate to the match at hands? Just stick to arguing the points, not etiquette (that's what the tourney discussion forum is for...)

And yeah, he did post some points, mostly having to do with TP. Thanks for that much. I'm going to leave those for Id since i'm running low on space here.

Summary:

-Their strategy is not supported by feats Zatanna have actually done, but rather general statements that since she has done unrelated but powerful things in the past, she can do whatever they want her to here (how is that all that different from "eid" wink

?

-They seem to have backed off our prep except for "over the cap" arguments, while paradoxically claiming our characters are weak wusses post amp compared to theirs.

-They post scanblitzes of unrelated material, while it should only take one or two scans actually showing the attempted feat to prove it. Clearly, proof they don't have. It's a smokescreen.

Original Smurph

Post #7

Last minute deets

Zatanna

This whole bit makes me laugh, and reassures me.

I think asking for Zee's every specific feat is pretty much the surest sign of desperation that I've seen in a tourney match.

Zatanna makes weapons and armor from air:
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/1271/zatannaspecial125px7.th.jpghttp://img123.imageshack.us/img123/5694/zatannaspecial126vp8.th.jpg

Zatanna summons a year's worth of solar energy in a second

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/815/jlav124411in4.th.jpghttp://img240.imageshack.us/img240/9513/jlav124412yq7.th.jpghttp://img525.imageshack.us/img525/925/23tu8.jpg

Changes the audience into vampire bats
http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/9763/24dq7.jpg

And then back again, without speaking, while making them forget everything
http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/8889/28ua5.jpg

Zatanna's used her powers to travel through time, to alter the moon, to hide her mansion from the entire earth...

She can't demagnetize metal though?

They claim that because the judges disproved of Onslaught using magnetism to do things above the skill level and scope of power that he showed with electromagnetic manipulation, then Zatanna needs a feat for every spell, despite what we're claiming to be easily, EASILY within her demonstrated skill level and scope of power.

On a side note, isn't it funny how they admit that they can't use Magneto feats for Onslaught, yet they persist in using Xavier's feats for Onslaught, since they have no other scans to prove that Onslaught can transfer experience?

Heh...

This really isn't worth further addressing. I'll leave it to the judges to decide whether they think that immunizing herself to magnetism is within Zatanna's vast scope of power.

Oh, and as for the "reflect physical trauma" spell-

Are you kidding?

Where in there does it say Zee needs a target?

She is the one suffering the physical trauma, it gets reflected upon the person inflicting it. She doesn't say Lobo's name in the spell, and clearly it's not Lobo's trauma that's getting reflected...

Once again, the smell of desperation from our opponents.

Directed towards the bit of Kandy's post that was directed towards mine... heh

I realize that my post was irregular, but it wasn't uncalled for. My primary concern in these battles is that the judges are being convinced as best as possible that we're superior to our opponents. If it appears that judgement may be clouded by petty insults, blatant repeated rule-breaking and mass hyperbole, then I'll address the issue head on.

We're as much a part of this battle as our characters are.

Anyways, I checked with Batdude, who said he was cool with it, and that it saved him having to PM the judges that they're to judge whether or not what we've listed counts as rule violating, so I really don't need to continue this reply anymore than I have.

Cassandra... again

Here we go again:

His sole hope of claiming that Onslaught even compares to Cassie is through ABC logic, with the B being X-Man and the C being Xavier.

X-Man is powerful, nobody's denying that, but the only feats you've posted for him are feats showing that he has raw power, and none with any skill.

Along that line of reasoning, you might as well claim that Onslaught > Franklin Richards, since he got absorbed too.

Yes, X-Man has access to raw power, but at that stage he didn't even compare to Cassie's skill. And she's plenty powerful herself.

Nothing that you've shown for either X-Man or Onslaught compares to beating Xavier^10 like a red-headed step child, so re-evaluate, search your scans for some more hyperbole to quote at me and we can hash this out again.

As for her having poor range, she still accomplished the Xavier w/ Cerebra feat while he was in the X-Mansion and she was in Ecuador. Furthermore, as you well know, global telepathy on earth has been almost impossible since Magneto messed with the Earth's poles, to hinder long range telepathy- before he did, Xavier was star-scanning with telepathy. Afterwards, he needed Cerebra to accomplish global feats. It doesn't indicate poor range on our current battlefield, so it's not really at all relevant.

Finally, let's keep in mind that even if the judges for some reason regarded X-Man to be > Cassie, that proves nothing about Onslaught. It's not as if Onslaught telepathically beat X-Man: he just disturbed his astral presence.

Being a nuisance to X-Man is something Cassandra is clearly capable of.

Keep in mind, gents, that so far their ONLY presented defense to Wonder Woman is the claim that Onslaught can manipulate her with TK (something that has not been shown whatsoever- the woman can move at lightspeed and help move planets without all her upgrades). Somehow, Onslaught is supposed to do that while Cassandra is mauling his mind.

Xavier, with all his defenses and shields and his power magnified to the 10th power, fully concentrated didn't last more then a few panels.

Onslaught is gonna repel that force with ease while he stops a woman who could move something 3x the size of the earth, with Diana's speed and sandals?

Lawl lawl lawl.

Once again, I'll address the "reflective shields" bit-

At best, your evidence for those shields being reflective is circumstantial. I like how you've attempted to cobble bits of sentences together to try to pain a convenient image. Regardless though, the bottom line is that their is still zero evidence that they'd hold up to Cassandra.

Captain America trips somebody who can move as fast as a car. Therefore, using that defensive technique, he should have no problem tripping the Flash.

No Limits Fallacy.

Moving on...

Cosmic Awareness

Originally posted by "Id"

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/5821/newthunderbolts1506.jpg

They claim that because of this, they'll be able to determine our location- and yet, Zatanna's magic has repelled all sorts of telepaths. The Martian Manhunter's telepathy got pwned when it tried to peer in on what Zatanna didn't want it to.

How is this supposed to be any different? Because it has the word "cosmic"?

Please...

And again, they're against Zee's magic and Cassandra Nova, who has FAR more showings of telepathic skill than Onslaught, and certainly it doesn't need to be mentioned that Photon would get telepathically wrecked by her.

They will have no idea where Cassandra, Zatanna or Diana are. Wonder Woman alone will absolutely destroy them, and they'll be able to put up zero defense thanks to Cassie and Zee- especially considering that both Cassandra and Zatanna now have access to spells that could KO any one of them.

JakeTheBank

Official Post: #8/10

This next post will be mainly focused on Wonder Woman and what she alone brings to the table as far as this match goes. I want to touch on a few specific points Diana brings to the table. I'd also like to remind the judges and the opposition that Diana and her equipment is also further fortified by the following spells:

-Electromagnetic manipulation immunity
-Cloaked by Zee's magic.
-Will have damage reflected back upon its source.
-Tiara enchanted to zero in on the location of Photon when thrown.

Note that these spells are quite tame in comparison to what Zatanna's upper limit enables her to do and have been cast during our prep time. Since they haven't shown the ability to "absorb" or otherwise nullify spells which have already been cast, there's no reason to assume these spells won't be in effect for us.

Tiara: Diana's tiara is a magically embued weapon that can be thrown much like a boomerang. It's properties enable it to cut through virtually anything, including Superman. With her strength now augmented by x10, that's bad for Photon.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Cutsthroughmagicbarrier.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Cutsthroughmagicbarrier2.jpg

Here Diana's tiara is able to cut through a barrier erected by the White Magician, a being whose magic was in fact at its strongest in his personal library. If Diana could gently cut through the force field with little effort, then it's safe to say that using her full strength x10, she could break through any force field Photon could hope to throw up.

Lasso:
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/CannotBeUntied.jpg

As many of you know, Diana's lasso is unbreakable and probably one of the most underrated weapons in the DCU. At the very least, it immobilizes the target, restricting them. While bound, the target is forced to tell and see the truth in its entirety. Doesn't sound so bad, right? Well, to quote Kevin Spacey's performance as Lex Luthor..

"WRONG!"

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/LassoBurnsDemon.jpg
Here the flames of Hestia literally burn a demon to death due to Diana leaving the lasso around the creature for too long.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsAres9.jpg
Not even Ares can resist the Lasso's power.
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Soulrape.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Soulrape1.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Soulrape2.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Soulrape3.jpg
And here, the lasso is shown ravaging the soul of John Stewart, a GL of tremendous willpower and courage. And Genocide reveals what the lasso can really do, psychically napalming the souls of everyone in the vicinity. Since Diana knows the true power of the lasso, she can easily achieve the same effect as Genocide - who is based off of her own genetic material. Can you imagine what her lasso can do when used in tandem with Nova's telepathy? No one on their team can survive that kind of attack. And keep in mind that WW has tagged Zoom with the lasso, judges. If she can get him, then everyone on the opposing team is fair game.

Bracers: Diana's bracers give her an unrivaled level of defense. Combined with her speed, reflexes, and warrior training, any projectile based attacks the opposition throws at us will be defended against.
http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr138/fangirl102/supermanbatman01319bv.jpg
http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr138/fangirl102/supermanbatman01328jq.jpg
Bracers are tough enough to block the Omega Effect, one of the most powerful attacks in the DCU.
http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr138/fangirl102/WW194-2.jpg
Here, WW can block the omni-directional and FTL attack of the Shattered God. I'd like to think that her defenses are well known by the participants involved in this match as well as judges; I'd rather not go through hundreds of scans of Diana blocking various attacks. In addition to their defensive capabilities, they can also do this:
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wondyhasnewpower-1.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/WonderAegis.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/WonderAegis2.jpg
While not something we'll have Diana explicitly use in the battle, the option for discharging a magical lightning blast is still open to us.

Gauntlet of Atlas: We've already touched on the advantage they give us earlier in the match, something that our opponent's have not accurately been able to defend against. Electromagnetism? One step of ahead of them; thanks to Zee's magic, the party is unaffected by EM manipulation. Telekinesis? TK requires a level of conscious effort to maintain, effort that is also going to be used defending themselves against Nova, Diana, and Zatanna as well as maintaining their own amps/shields? Diana is x10 as strong and durable as normal, something they simply can't hope to defend against. Her physical blows are going to be enough to shatter planets, able to one shot the opposition, and that's without factoring in her sword. And because her durability is also x10, they aren't going to be able to deal enough damage to put her down. And that's assuming that Diana won't be able defend against their attacks via bracers, assuming that they will be able to hit her since she's cloaked by magic, and completely ignoring the fact any damage they do in the conventional sense will be reflected back at their source.

I'd also like to note that our opponent's will also attempt to enter the battle cloaked. Well...

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Seesthroughillusions.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Seesthroughillusions1.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Seesthroughillusions2.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Seesthroughillusions3.jpg
Here Diana is able to see right through Doctor Psycho's mental illusions. She's also able to use the lasso to dispel these illusions.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom1.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom2.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom3.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom4.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom5.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom6.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom7.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/vsZoom8.jpg
And here, Diana, while blind, is able to confront Zoom and is even able to best him. These are also intense durability feats as Zoom's strikes are compared to Superman's own. And for this fight, Diana is x10 as durable, meaning that these level of strikes will be little more than annoyances for her. Even if we're unable to dispel their cloaking (which every member of our team is capable of: Zatanna with magic, Nova with telepathy and/or magic, and Diana with the lasso), Diana is more than capable of dealing with a foe which she can't see.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss225/OdinBorson/Wonder%20Woman%20Feats/Telepathyresistance.jpg
And on the off chance the opposition tries to go the mental attack route, Diana is more than resistant to telepathy. On the slim chance they can muster more telepathy than what she can handle on her own, Diana's lasso will provide a defense against psychic intrusion that they simply cannot get around.

Our opponents have yet to explain how they'll be able to take down Wonder Woman with her gear. Use it against her? Not with electromagnetic manipulation. TK? Unless their team can show reasonable evidence of using TK under adverse circumstances against a cloaked object while the TK itself is being resisted, there's no reason to believe that they can. The fact of the matter is, we're far too heavily defended, WW especially.

Summary:
-The opposition hasn't shown anything that would enable them to counter the support spells Z has cast on the party.
-They have no defense against Diana's equipment or her unmatched physical might.
-They can't muster enough firepower to put down Diana, provided they get around the damage reflection spell, are able to hit her while cloaked, somehow penetrate her Aegis defenses, and all this without the use of EM manip. Also keep in mind that Diana is further fortified by the Armor of Pallas, the same armor she used while facing down Imperiex. Good luck trying to make any damage, whether it be physical, energy, or mental, stick to WW.
-We've shut down their strategy of using Diana's equipment against her.
-WW alone can get around their cloaking, to say nothing of the party as a whole.
-WW is capable of resisting telepathy on her own or to an even greater degree with the lasso.

King Kandy

#8/10: On double standards

Very little will be covered in my usual quote-and-retort manner in this post. Id will be making a post soon, that will make most of that irrelevant, and finally end all question on whether we have effective methods of offense and defense. No, i'm just going to be taking a look on some of the claims they have made, and how they relate to the standards they've been attempting to set for whether prep works.

Regarding the Caps:

From the beginning, Smurph and Jake have led continual attacks on our team, for claiming that we are over the caps of meshing. The caps of meshing, for those who don't know, are that no character may possess more than two herald-level powersets. That is, we were allowed to mesh Photon and Surfer, or Surfer and Onslaught, but despite plans to do so we would not be allowed to mesh Onslaught, Surfer, and Genis together (Note: This isn't the 'illegal plan' Smurph talks about, that was something else altogether).

Following that, lets look at what we've done. We've amped up our our characters by assigning every character either Photon or Surfer's powers in addition to their own. There is little question we can do this, and even the opposing team has stopped arguing the plausibility of this in favor a sketchy 'over the caps' arguments. Anyway, every character now has exactly two herald level powersets; the meshing limit, exactly speaking. So, how is there any debate about the caps?

Smurph and Jake have started to try and enforce a notion that adding shields, turning invisible, protecting ourselves mentally etc, is somehow putting us over the caps. This is pure nonsense. The above are merely applications of the powers we've acquired. On this front, there is no real difference between creating a forcefield, or firing an energy bolt. Neither changes the factual power of the character, and neither puts them over the caps.

But, let's roll with that concept for a moment. In their prep, they have Cassandra Nova taking on the DNA and knowledge of Zatanna; nonsense, but that will be covered later. So, that is the "2x herald powerset" specified as the limit. They then proceed to... guess what... Cloak themselves, add shields, add mental protection... at this point, if our prep were over the caps, there's would be as well. But, just to add more on, they also demagnetize their team, add homing devices to WW's equipment, and cast spells to reflect damage. So, if we accept the precedent that exercising power already acquired can put one over the cap, and accept their unsupported prep as working, they would without doubt be above those limits.

That's right; if we accept every argument made by Smurph and Jake, they will lose by default. Their best case scenario, is self defeating. Undoubtedly, they will try and rationalize why this isn't true. Anything they post to that effect, I guarantee, will be a subtle watering down of the gung-ho "It's illegal!" battlecries they flung about earlier. So, somewhere in this self contradictory mess, something has to give.

Back to the basics: their prep, as seen in opening post:

One thing you will not notice in the showings posted here, is a scan of Zatanna granting the speed increase mentioned. If you look throughout the rest of the thread, you will find no such scan, nor any showing showing her performing similar feats. What you WILL find, per the course, is plenty of scans of her performing unrelated feats, coupled with assurances that since Zatanna is "beyond logic", she doesn't actually need to have evidence of doing something to do it.

When Zatanna was drafted the first time around, everyone was assured that she could not do anything she wanted simply by saying it backwards, as if she could, she would blatantly be above caps. Knowing such a no-limit fallacy would be preposterous, I along with everyone else accepted that. But, with the long and entirely fabricated backwards phrases Jake has taken to posting, coupled zero evidence of her using them, this fallacy is being perpetuated. If Zatanna can do what they claim, then the original claim that she could be above caps, is true without a doubt.

That's right. Once again, if we accept all their arguments at face value, they defeat themselves.

Next, they demonstrate the next bit of flawed logic perpetuated endlessly in their posts. Cassandra has no showings of experience sharing. None. But by defense of "it's a basic power of telepathy", they hope to do so anyway. This might be just fine; except, they now claim that while that claim is just fine, we need specific showings of Onslaught doing experience transfer. We have posted several, while showings of Cassandra are still totally absent. But, Smurph will continue to claim Cassandra can do so, while Onslaught can not. Just another bit of self-contradiction.

Regarding Cassandra:

Smurph has a scan of X saying cerebra amps him to the tenth power. And boy, is he milking that for all he can.

First of all, a big question regarding his equation is: If Onslaught, a high herald, is only "6 or 7" times X, while Cassandra is "9, 765, 625" times X... how in Gods name could Cassandra ever be considered under the caps for herald? Someone who is supposedly over 100,000 times greater than Onslaught shouldn't even be in the question.

Of course, the answer is very clear: that statement is hyperbole. That fact is intrinsic in the very fact that Smurph drafted her. If we take it literally, she could not be drafted. So, any notion that that statement is literal, is already squashed without debate, and the implications on the battle are also gone.

But here's the funny part: If we DID take the notion that Cerebra gives ^10 powers... It STILL would mean nothing.

Earlier in the thread, we posted scans of Cable overwhelming a Cerebra-using Emma (that's Emma^10, for those of the smurph school of thought). X-Man (Cable's equal), who is helpless against Onslaught. So no, Cassandra would not be 100,000 times greater than Onslaught. Not even in Smurph's bizzaro world.

Surfer, BY HIMSELF, defeated "God Cable"! But, Surfer has his power shared with Onslaught! Cassandra vs. Onslaught, is a total joke of a matchup, X^10 or not.

The only way this could possibly make sense for Smurph, is if we literally believe X is 100,000 times greater than Emma or more, in exact figures. And that notion, I hope everyone can see, is beneath any debate.

Regarding Diana:

Jake and Smurph tirelessly portray WW as a solid team buster, capable of overwhelming not only a team of heralds, but a team of heralds multiplied 2x. Her tiara, can one shot photon and his shields. Meanwhile King Thor doing the same thing barely hurt him... is Diana a skyfather now? And this Photon has SSs power cosmic as well! No, there will be no oneshotting any time soon.

But, as we did with Cassandra, let's roll with that notion. I've already stated several times that it is a huge contradiction that Thor with his belt is banned, but WW with her gauntlets is legal. But with minimal amps (she's the least-amped character on their team), they expect her to mow through our whole team of highly amped heralds, surrounded in shields all of them.

And they are saying OUR characters, are over the caps. Is this a joke? Am I in a parallel universe? Where does ANY of this, have the slightest bit of internal consistency?

Early in the match, Smurph said we had a self-defeating argument. I hope anyone watching, can clearly see the unintended irony of that statement.

Original Smurph

The Homestretch!

Always the most exciting part.

1. Id's last desperate attempt to fend off Cassie

I think it's hilarious that Id started this match with a short, bravado-filled paragraph claiming that Cassie wasn't more powerful than him, and has since spent the entire battle putting together weaker and weaker arguments to support that claim.

Set up your paragraphs Id, I'm still having fun knocking them down.

Cassie vs. EMP:
Mummundrai are naturally creatures born on the astral plain, created of pure psychic might. In this form (according to Cable), they may be weak to EMP's.

As Id very well knows though, Cassandra is no longer pure mummundrai.

Since facing Xavier in the womb, she gained the ability to copy DNA, and, using Xavier's full genome, can manipulate molecules and makes her own bodies. She's no longer pure energy.

Besides, she's phased, so this is useless anyways... and, again thanks to her copied DNA, she heals like crazy.

Phases through Scott's energy blast:
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/922/newxmen116page13.jpg

Manipulates molecules to make some armor just to mess with Wolverine for fun:

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4104/newxmen116page14.jpg
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/1543/newxmen116page15.jpg

Her normal energy body that would be disrupted by an EMP, if she didn't have her regular humanoid body to inhabit (she got shunted out of it through a plot device):
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/331/newxmen12626.jpg

As I said, Id knows all that anyways, but I appreciate the half-assed attempt to save your team's mental hide.

What Id has done, however, is provided proof that Mummundrai are immensely powerful on their own.

This mummundrai, in particular, after being born as an incredible sentient force of pure psychic power, copied Xavier's DNA and made a body out of it- so no, Id, she is naturally Xavier + Cassandra. That's her form in comics that the X-Men have battled at every single occasion- she's copied Xavier's DNA. When she talks about how powerful her mutant brain is, you're not appreciating that she has that exact same brain, on top of her regular psychic force (as you were kind enough to point out with your scans).

The Cerebro/Cerebra thing:

Lol, Id posts scans of a couple instances where people using Cerebro or Cerebra get a shock from a powerful mutant force (in Emma's case, she evidently got electrocuted... lol), and none of which actually use telepathy.

So, in other words...

Id posts scans of instances where telepaths get damaged by forces other than telepathy (he even references that telepathy wasn't involved in the Nate Grey thing), and then claims that this means that telepathic shields are affected by Cerebra.

Lawl lawl lawl.

Cassandra took down an Xavier, whose mental power was magnified ^10, with telepathy.

If you had a scan with any actual relevance to this feat, you would have posted it by now. All you've posted is absolute drivel that doesn't even involve telepathy.

Xavier took Cassandra on in a direct telepathic battle. She was holding a conversation with him... all your counter-scans are one-panel instances of powerful forces attacking telepaths without using telepathy.

This isn't up for debate. The match is over, and this point is essentially conceded. It's a pity that you didn't spend your last post arguing something where you could make a case that wasn't laughable.

moving on...

The Cassandra/Cable Comparison

This might be my favorite tourney moment ever:

In one corner, we have Id arguing furiously that if Cable lost to Surfer, then so should Cassie.

In the other corner? We have Id arguing that Cable was weakened and too busy to give Surfer a proper fight.

Originally posted by "Id"

My thoughts on this. He burnt himself out. He was already weakening by multitasking before Silver Surfer arrived.
What more could you ask from Cable?
Keeping Province up in the air
Keeping Provenance safe from - the government - Six Pack - X-Men
World Level Telepathy
Vaporizing and Rebuilding everything back instantly (at an atomic level)
Fighting across the Pacific Ocean (or is it Atlantic Ocean?)
And attempting to match a serious Silver Surfers.

To me when mentions he is out of time, was just that.
He had no more to give (for nnow). Which is why he did not continue his attack, or even put up a defense to Silver Surfer’s eye blast.

Hilarity.

Regardless though, the matches aren't at all the same- Cassie is focussed solely on telepathy (whereas Cable was using mostly TK to fight), Cassie is phased, Cassie is magically shielded, cloaked and otherwise protected, Cassie's got more showings of mental skill than Cable does...

Can you imagine how much Cable would have stomped Surfer if he has been magically protected to reflect all the damage that he took on to his attacker?

Yay prep.

I think the Cassandra Nova situation is pretty well summed up.

Judges, keep in mind, all we need Cassie to do is keep the opposing team occupied. Really, she should mentally destroy them (after reviewing her power feats, there appears to be absolutely no reason why her initial full powered mental blast wouldn't fry their brains), but all she needs to do is keep them busy.

If she does that? Then Zee throws in a spell that they're too occupied to defend against, and Diana hacks them to pieces.

Nobody in this entire match can face up to Di's raw power, or even detect her, so it becomes rapidly apparent how poor their chances are when their entire time is spent trying to fend off mental and magical rape.

If you believe that Cassie's mental power (absolutely destroying all the X-Men and Shi'Ar could muster for mental shields without breaking a sweat or wasting more space than that little black line in between panels to destroy said shields) is probably more powerful than what Id's shields have been shown to hold up against, then realize that they're still getting mentally overloaded as soon as the match starts, and Nova will stay on the offensive. That's all we need.

2. Examining their defenses

Defense to the tiara:

Their only defense that they've raised to the tiara is that their shields might be able to hold up against it.

We showed a shield that could actually protect against magical weapons get cut with ease.

We showed how at normal power, the thing cut through Superman's bio aura like a knife through butter.

This thing has 10x that power behind it.

Defense to Zatanna:

Their only defense that they've raised to Zatanna is that they might be able to absorb the energy.

Let's do some comparisons (Id loves those).

Meet Starbreaker:

Capable of absorbing a universe of energy
http://s673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/galanphotos/?action=view&current=star_power6.jpg

Originally posted by Galan007
II.) Energy Absorption..

That said, Starbreaker can *obviously * absorb/steal massive amounts of energy..

Absorbs the energy of Bloodwynd:

http://i673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/galanphotos/th_star_energysteal3.jpg

---

Absorbs the energy of Fire and Booster Gold:

http://i673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/galanphotos/th_star_energysteal4.jpg

---

Absorbs the energy of Superman:

http://i673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/galanphotos/th_star_energysteal5.jpg

---

Absorbs the energy of Doctor Light:

http://i673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/galanphotos/th_star_energysteal12.jpg http://i673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/galanphotos/th_star_energysteal13.jpg

A Sun-Eater is the larval form of his species. smile

Note the Bloodwynd feat of actually absorbing magical energy- he also absorbed Vixen's energy at one point.

What happened when he went up against Zatanna?

http://i673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/galanphotos/th_star_trueform4.jpg

Her attack didn't erase him like it should have, but it did seriously harm him, and he had no hope of absorbing it.

Realize that you're playing in the big league, guys. This is Zatanna Zatarra you're up against, and she has more feats of control over magical energy than nearly any other herald.

If Zatanna or Cassandra pull of a spell even an eighth of that magnitude, they'll easily make this a three-on-two match.

Our opponents are supposed to be able to pull off what Starbreaker couldn't, while mentally attacked, trying to locate Diana frantically before she gets to them, and attempting to put up some sort of offense (which will only get reflected back on to them)

Defense against cloaked enemies:

If they had a scan of Power Cosmic ever bypassing magical cloaking, they would have posted it.

They've only posted one scan in its favor, with no relevance to magic.

They constantly berate us for scans, and their only response when asked for such a scan is "the universe whispers to us".

Lol. Please.

You can't detect Diana- she'll chop you into pieces. You can't detect Zatanna or Cassandra- they'll just destroy you.

Game, set, match.

King Kandy

Id/Kandy post 10/10: In summary

I'm going to talk about the match as a whole here, but first there's one thing that needs to be taken care of:

Originally posted by Original Smurph
If they had a scan of Power Cosmic ever bypassing magical cloaking, they would have posted it.

As a matter of fact we DO have such a scan:

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/83/sreign815.jpg

So, I guess that whole argument we can't detect them is invalid in more ways than one.

Also, the claim Mummudrai in a body won't be effected by EM.
Very poor observation, and it really does not matter.

If you look at the scan, you will notice the Mummudrai is in a human body, when Cable mentions its intention to use EMP Grenades.
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/7773/xmen197019.jpg
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/715/xmen197020.jpg

Anyway, there are several issues that need to be taken into consideration here. First up...

Our Prep vs. Theirs: Plausibility

Team Smurph has pretty much given up on attacking our prep's plausibility, for the last page. I can see why, as they didn't have anything on us whatsoever. Their argument that we are above the caps has not only been dismissed, but shown that even if it were believed applies no less to us than to them.

Meanwhile, in their prep, they have continually attempted to do many things that they know full well they have no evidence for, and have been changing their prep continuously to make up for it. They haven't posted any scans showing Zatanna can cast any of the spells they're asking her to cast, and their only excuse is that since she has done unrelated feats, clearly she is capable of doing these ones. Jake has implied that as long as he can think of a backwards phrase for Zatanna to say, actual proof is unnecessary.

With our prep working, and theirs not, the match should be ours right off the bat. If somehow that is not accepted, here are all the things that you must believe, in order for team Smurph to carry a win here:

The claim that Cerebra amps telepaths^10, will have to be taken literally. That is, you must believe that Cerebra literally makes it's wearer's nearly a million times greater in every aspect of telepathy. We've already shown reasons to both believe this isn't true, and show that telepaths lesser than Onslaught can do the same thing she did. Onslaught eats them for breakfast.

You have to accept that Zatanna can literally do any possible feat. Jake admitted his justification for their prep was essentially "logic doesn't apply to Zatanna", and as long as a feat they conceive requires less raw power than another feat she's done, she will automatically have the knowledge and power to do that feat. We explained how this is a fallacy several times.

You have to accept WW can solo an entire team of heralds, by herself. Their entire plan of attack was based mainly on the concept that WW would be able to speedblitz a team with ftl reflexes, one shot them despite their incredible durability and force fields, and tank any shot we could possibly muster despite the 2x herald amps we've used. I'm ashamed this joke got carried as far as it did, but we've shown that even King Thor can't put down Genis in a single shot... and that's regular Genis! This is Genis with the full powers of SS in addition, well known for his durability.

Cassandra Nova will be as proficient in magic as Zatanna. Their DNA copying plan simply does not work. This has been proven continually, but they continue their sad attempt at throwing out so many irrelevant scans as to try and smokescreen judges into thinking any of it relates to the situation. Then comes the experience transfer. Facing the fact that Cassandra can't actually do it, they decided to have Zatanna do the deed. However, their prep can't be changed late in the game. They'll have to do it in the middle of the fight. And on top of that... their only support for Zatanna was a PRE-CRISIS feat that is not canon to her true powers.

You have to look both ways at once, and simultaneously believe that while their characters are far above heralds, they are below the herald level cap. Their plan is a joke, and none of their meshes will be possible since there are no showings that prove anything they've done. But, even if you believed all three of the above claims, you will have to believe... a being who is supposedly around 100,000x Onslaught, is draftable in a herald level tournament. Diana can solo whole teams of 2x heralds, but she is mid-herald at best.

They are cloaked to all of our means of detection. We've already shown how we can detect them numerous ways, magical cloaking or no magical cloaking. We've shown how we can even drain the magic that cloaks them right out of them. In this very post, I've shown SS can dispel magical cloaks.

They can resist our numerous counters. I really see no reason to believe this, especially given the recent proof that we can simply drain them thanks to Genis's ability to control all forms of energy. Hell, even SS alone can absorb the power of herald levels extremely quickly:

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3113/silversurfer07p47absorbdr2.jpg
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/9910/silversurfer198901921ts2.jpg
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2937/theincrediblehulkv22503oj5.jpg

And if you question whether that works on magic, remember, he has Genis's powers in addition to his own here. So yes, it will.

If you believe those claims, then their plan will work. They won't win, but at least they'll be able to get off the ground floor. Of course... those claims have already been refuted. Everything they've claimed, is just a mountain of failure.

How the battle will go:

We emerge onto the battle field at the same time. Since their amp will not function, they'll be left with Zatanna, Cassandra, and WW, all with only their own powers. Cassandra will attempt a mind rape, only to find herself being hurt by the reflective psychic force of our shield. Then, she will be destroyed by a depowering EMP.

Zatanna will hurl a few spells, most of which she has never cast in her life, only to be depowered by SS empowered with Photon's powers absorbing the magical energy of the area and Zatanna herself.

Diana, as stated in their battle plan, will rush forwards to photon and hurl her tiara... only to have it bounce off of our shield, as she curses herself for attempting to penetrate something that can resist galaxy-busting bombs and foolishly thinking she could replicate the feats of Skyfather-level King Thor.

With her support missing, Diana will continue the hopeless attack, only to be immobilized by telekinetic and electromagnetic manipulation of her equipment. All three of our team, still fresh as roses, will easily defeat her.

Thus, fell the team of women who foolishly attempted to empower themselves with unproven and unworkable methods, attack in a ludicrously overconfident blitz, and rely on one member to fend off three.

Thus, fell team Smurph and JakeTheBank.

Their prep doesn't work, their strategy is underpowered and incapable of resisting our own, and they rely almost entirely on conjecture regarding what their characters are capable of. And that's all I have to say about that.

JakeTheBank

Concluding Post

I'm going to take this post to address some issues with our characters and prep time strategy as well as focus on the numerous advantages our team brings to the table. I've noticed both Id and Kandy are having issues with Diana w/gear and whether, so I'll go ahead and address them now.

Wonder Woman Full Gear: You'd think that if the tourny hosts are allowing WW to be drafted under these circumstances, this really wouldn't be open to dispute. And yet, our opponents are demanding to know why WW w/gear is allowed but Thor w/Belt of Strength is not? Well, I think Batdude already explained his reasoning earlier, so it seems like a moot point to address. Everyone else in the tourny - save our opponents (which is a big shock) - already voiced their opinions and gave their blessing for the pick to be allowed. In a nut shell, everyone is fine with this...except Id and Kandy. In the same breath, they also compare WW under these circumstances to Beta Ray Bill? Considering that Diana's base strength and durability is among the highest on DC Earth (as it's consistantly compared to beings such as Superman, J'onn, and CM), I'd say her durability alone can tank Surfer level blasts, considering she can take blasts from Skyfathers like Zeus, Ares, Nekron, etc. And if her durability and strength alike are multiplied by 10, said blasts won't do much damage, if any to her. Not to mention, when it comes to high speed reflexes defending energy blasts, BRB <<<< WW. And let's not forget to factor in her armor as well. AND the damage reflection spell. In a nutshell Diana:

-Possesses strength and durability x10 of normal Diana.
-Durability further augmented by her armor.
-Cloaked by Zee's magic
-Has all physical trauma (which energy blasts cause) reflected back upon its source.
-Protected against electromagnetic manipulation.
-Still has the best reflexes in the match when it comes to defense and offense.
-Armed with her bracers which can defend against virtually any attack the opposing team can send her way.
-Resistant to telepathy under her own divine power.
-Can function w/o relying on sight.

None of these advantages have been accurately refuted. EM manip? Repeatedly countered (and ignored). TK? Highly unlikely considering you're trying to locate a hidden target and attempt to defend yourselves all at once. Any source of damage they could attempt to do to her won't put her down. They seem to forget that they're not dealing with normal WW and her base level of strength and durability. We just prepped too good for them to do any damage that could seriously harm her. And whereas it would take an insane level of firepower to put down WW (provided her defenses are breached), all WW has to do is get the lasso around someone and proceed to wreck havoc with their mind, body, and soul. Why should she punch the holy hell out of you (which she can do), when she can literally take you out of the fight with a single hogtie of the lasso, which hasn't even been countered? The fact of the matter is Diana will do a helluva lot more damage to the team before they can hope to deal enough to her.

Cassandra Nova: Smurph knows what's doing, so I'm leaving this one to him.

Zatanna: Let me just get this out of the way right now. According to out opponent's, Surfer and Genis are capable of absorbing "ambient magical energy", thereby cutting off Zatanna's from her source of power? That is absurd. There's no other way to put it. I'd like to think I'm a reasonable kind of guy. I know when it comes to energy, few people can outdo Surfer/Genis when it comes to absorbing it. But in no way in hell do they show anything remotely close to what they're suggesting. Can they absorb direct magical energy focused at them? Sure, but we're not throwing magic beams of energy at them. We're using spells and incantations, which is QUITE different. If, for example, we had Diana dischage her Aegis bracer's lightning, I'd more than be willing to believe Genis could absorb it (though we're not relying on that tactic in the match). If Zee threw a fireball/random projectile composed of magical energy at someone, yeah, I'd believe they could absorb it. But absorbing the "ambient magical energy"? That's bullcrap. And their whole "lulz magic is energy and we absorb energy" is the worse case of ABC logic I've ever seen. If they posted scans of Surfer or Genis undoing magic spells by absorbing the ambient energy or even undoing a magic spell with their apparently omnipotent Power Cosmic + 2, I'd be willing to see where they're coming from. As such, they've not. And even if they could do this, what's to stop Zatanna from casting a spell to prevent this once she figures out it's happening? End of the day, Zatanna's control and manipulation of magic GREATLY DWARFS your non-sensical ability to control and manipulate magic. Feel free to believe otherwise.

Another I want to point out is how our preptime stacks up with theirs.

Legality: First and foremost, our prep is well within the parameters and rules set by the tourny hosts. We don't break the power cap limit, rely on illegal tactics or try to circumvent said illegal tactics. Conversely? We have Id and Kandy trying to create a black hole, which clearly violates the "no widescale matter manipulation on a enviromental scale" and "no BFR" rule. They then claim that the black hole is just a "side effect" of their energy discharge, which we would tank in the first place. And then this little gem is mentioned.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/8547/silversurfer199612217bh0.jpg

Hmmm. Seems like matter manipulating our bodies, possession, and a form of BFR all at once. All of which are illegal.

And these:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1521/annihilationsilversurfet.jpg
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8469/annihilationsilversurfe.jpg

More instances of BRFing, manipulating our bodies to meld with the board, all of which, are illegal. They know they can't deal damage to us due to the way we cast spells and our default durability, so these banned tactics are the only way to get to us. Zatanna has access to spells which can make people bleed out of their pores or cause the skin to flay from their bodies. Both of those tactics are illegal (offensive matter manipulation of the opponent's body), so we didn't once think about using them. Shouldn't be hard for our opponent's to do the same.

And then you have the merging of two open ended power sets obviously at High Herald level so that each member of the team now has the Power Cosmic, and Surfer has Photon's power set. I'll let the judges rule if they find that to breach the power cap set in place, but keep in mind while a character can have a total of 2 High Herald power sets, the power sets themselves still need to keep them at said limit. By contrast, nothing we do during prep or the battle itself breaches the power cap, much less raise the question if we might be straddling too close to said limit.

Summary:
-Our team have far too many advantages that our opponent's can't seem to accurately defend/debate against.
-Our team can take anything they throw at us.
-Our prep/power meshing is both feasible and legal. The same can't be said about our opponents.
-Our battle tactics are all legal. The same can't be said about our opponents.

King Kandy

K, all posts are in. Match is over.

Bentley

Read this once already but I don't currently have the time to make a decent evaluation post for it. Probably I'll have it by tomorrow, good match you all.

Bentley

I would just like to add (to my already lengthy explanation), that my observation about Cassandra copying Zatanna's ADN and potentially weakening her psych was just that: An observation.

This wasn't pointed by ID and Kandy and as such, I didn't count it against Jake and Smurph. I'm sure the other judges would think the same but I thought it best to clarify. Thanks!

King Kandy

Thanks. iirc, we did point that out once, but i'm not going to look through all the posts to check.

Badabing

I've read the back and forth a few times and now my head is spinning...and not from beers either.

Basically Team ID/KK had their offensive strategy ruled illegal in the prep part of their plan. So that left them with power sharing, memory/experience transfer, cloaks, shields, etc Team Smurph/JTB have their opening strategy with meshing, sharing, amping, shields, cloaks, phasing, etc. plus their offensive attack

Seems like a stalemate to be except the team Smurph/JTB have opened with an offensive assault while Team ID/KK had their offense declared illegal. I think both teams left certain feats and scans open for interpretation. I think both sides covered themselves reasonably enough. So I believed what both teams had to say.

Both teams claimed that their team had the more powerful whatever and defended that opinion tooth and nail. But there was still that ruling which put team ID/KK on their heels from the get go.

Originality
ID/KK - 3/5
Smurph/JTB - 2/5

Neither team did anything that hasn't been seen. Team ID/KK had the more elaborate plan.

Effectiveness
ID/KK - 1/5
Smurph/JTB - 3/5

The ruling against the black hole bomb reflects my rating.

Debating Skill

ID/KK - 8/10
Smurph/JTB - 8/10

Good job everyone. Could have done w/o some of the smack talk but, all in all, a well fought match. Explanations were well thought, scans were backing claims (for the most part), points and counterpoints were well made and defended.

I am picking team Smurph/JTB as the winner by a technical KO.

illadelph12

Delph's vote:

Interesting chain of events occurred in this thread from a legality standpoint. Some obvious, some in the details. Took a few times to read this through but I've come to a decision. Here are a couple of the key points that helped me come to my decision:

-I believe Zatanna was a bit overused to the detriment of Smurph and Jake's overall plan. The issue I find is not with whether or not I believe Zatanna is capable of the tasks they stated for her because she likely is, the issue is that there wasn't any direct proof of her being able to do it, just a general "well, she's capable of this non-related feat, and she's magic, so she can do that as well". This works two ways. If she is capable of doing practically anything she wants because she's magic, she should likely be illegal. All she'd have to say is "nrut ffo rieht srewop" and "pots rieht straeh" and it's game/set/match. But of course, Bats and Khan allowerd her, so that couldn't be the case. The alternative, if we're going to hold Onslaught or Beta Ray Bill to the breadth of their personal feats regardless of their powers/progenitors, I see no reason I'd just accept Zatanna's simply being able to do, well, pretty much anything she wants, based on the precedent established thus far in this tourney. There is still a burden of proof required even if I know a character should be capable of something. Same way Onslaught can't do everything Magneto or Charles can do with the same powers but without related proof, I can't simply believe Zatanna can do anything she wants without some related proof, even though I may believe (well, do believe) her capable of doing it. I really don't see how Zatanna was allowed in this tournament (or magic outright).

-With that established, a lot of Smurph and Jake's plans stray into a gray area. Particularly the speeding up of Cassandra Nova's copying of Zatanna's DNA/Powers (which, unless I'm mistaken, may actually be illegal via the "No power copying" rule since the powers aren't granted to Cassandra but are actually copied), the homing spell for Wonder Woman's tiara, and probably most painful, the EM shielding. Not because Zatanna is encapable, just because she wasn't shown capable. I either believe this match was over before it started because Zatanna can do anything she wants, or I look to burden of proof. I chose the latter in the interest of fairness.

-I wasn't convinced that Cassandra Nova was more powerful than Onslaught and would handle him with ease in any manner, though the effort was very impressive. Being able to mind rape the Imperial Guard and psyche out Gladiator into a whimpering pile of piss is very impressive, but Onslaught completely and utterly wrecked Juggernaut through his much vaunted magically bestowed invulnerability and imprisoned him in the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak through brute force and power, and he's not even a magical being (as stated by Dr. Strange in the scan id provided). I found the line of reasoning left me with too many doubts or Cassandra's superiority or raw power, but it was admirable for it's tenacity. I also found it hard to see a member of your team, even a fully equipped Wonder Woman, having no trouble dealing with Onslaught, who has on panel in the scans provided simply overpowered magical protection and psionic defenses through brute force, and that's primarily what you guys (Smurph/Jake) are relying in for defense due to not having any energy manipulators on your team. You didn't cover all of your bases.

-There's a rule against physical invulnerability:

which I believe the "reverse all damage back to our opponents" spell would technically break, which I found especially odd in a match where so much rule breaking was being called out.

There was a lot more I took into consideration beyond just this, but I don't want to be too long winded.

The long/short, however, is that I have to give the battle to Team id/Kandy. I felt they brought too much power to the table for Smurph/Jake's team given so much of the plan hinged on Zatanna's deus ex machina, the assertion that Cassandra, or the whole team for that matter, was more powerful than Onslaught and would make short work of him and the others, and that Silver Surfer was a non-factor somehow that would be taken out at the beginning of the battle like cannon fodder. It almost seemed like my rational mind was being bullied in this thread. It was interesting to say the least.

Anyway, the point allotments:

Originality:
Smurph/Jake 2/5
id/Kandy 1/5

Nothing in this tourney thus far has wow'd me.

Effectiveness:

Smurph/Jake 3/5
id/Kandy 4/5

Things almost got ugly, and there were some below the belt tactics in my opinion, but both teams held their own. Id and Kandy, however, didn't over-extend as far as the Smurph/Jake did.

Debating Skill: 0-10

Smurph/Jake 3/5
id/Kandy 4/5

Save a couple oversights, this was a hard fought and pretty even debate, but I was frankly never convinced, all things considered, that Smurph and Jake had an advantage despite trying their absolute best to convince me that they had Id and Kandy completely and utterly outgunned.

Good match.

-Delph Digler