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Blair vs Existere

So, I typed this up before and my internet closed. It was awesome (just kidding..!) So here goes round two. Sidenote: my prof is currently lecturing on fascism, and I'm curious to see if it affects my style and semantics... ha.

Anyways:

Judges, Blair is fielding a team that is remarkably poorly equipped to deal with my own, and that's what I'm going to show and detail to you in this post. He's constructed a team which derives almost all of it's power from a set of metal devices- Persuader's atomic axe, Box's suit and Nero's ship- against Magneto.

He has an overall grand plan, but his achilles' heel is giant, his team is slow, and so even if his plans could work (an unlikelihood that we'll sort through later), it doesn't really matter as they'd never come to fruition.

We can see two clear defenses that Blair hopes to raise to such an obvious threat as Magneto, so I'll spend this post deconstructing those defenses, making it clear that they don't really hold up.

First Defense: Madison will attempt to become Guardian

So, we know that this is ridiculous.

Yes, Guardian has an power set capable of manipulating energy, but there are two huge issues:

1) Blair doesn't have the suit, nor any proven ability to recreate it
2) Madison is no Guardian, who in turn is no Magneto

The argument is that because Madison at one point helped construct a suit capable of emulating Guardian's powers, that he can manipulate energy through technology with enough skill to repel the energy manipulating attempts of Magneto.

Why does this make no sense?

Here's the scan in question:
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l107/A_Flight11/AlphaFlight30-12.jpg

Jeffries had the aid of Roger Bochs (his predecessor) to make the suit, and it took the two of them quite some time to construct a prototype that Heather would test.

Madison's never (to my knowledge) constructed one from thin air since then, nor demonstrated the capacity to do so, ever.

Furthermore, if he was capable of simply waving his hand and gaining the power set of another low herald, not only would his place in this tourney be suspect (as well as Guardian's place on Alpha Flight...), so would this scan:

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l107/A_Flight11/AlphaFlight89-19.jpg

In which he needs to phase Forge in to have master control of his suit because, upon entering an area which Guardian is passively defending, he knows that he would be hooped due to the nature of his powers and his inability to defend himself against Guardian's.

This scan is from 59 issues later than the scan in which he's making the suit, so, according to Blair, Box should have had little issue simply recreating Guardian's powers and using them against him.

Maybe the issue was that he would simply be no good with Guardian's powers, or, at least, lack the capacity to adequately match Guardian's prowess?

Well, that still holds here, only now the notion is even more ridiculous, as Magneto is inarguably more adept with his powers than Guardian, and Madison has never demonstrated any ability with such a power set whatsoever. Maybe his teammates will help? Nero's never dealt with super powers, and Persuader swings an axe around. Sounds like a whole pool of EM-manipulating expertise to me.

We probably don't need proof that Magneto surpasses all other manipulators of electromagnetic energy, but we have it, it looks pretty, etc, so here goes that:


http://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus1.jpghttp://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus2.jpghttp://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus3.jpghttp://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus4.jpghttp://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus5.jpg

http://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus6.jpghttp://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus7.jpghttp://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus8.jpghttp://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt19/Max_Eisenhardt/th_MagnetovsProteus9.jpg

Note that Magneto is dying and vastly depowered here, and he still manages to actually change the energy matrix of a very powerful reality manipulator (Proteus), and defeat him with relative ease.

In conclusion:

Blair's attempt to replicate Guardian's powers was a wonderful waste of time.

Defense Two: Persuader's axe

Persuader's axe can cut through energy. Fair enough.

There are three reasons why that means dick all in this context though:

1) It's only ever cut direct lines of force affecting an external object
2) Its runs off of nuclear emissions,
3) There's no evidence that Madison can actually "imbue" himself or the ship with the axe's "nuclear emissions"

For the first point:

Let's take a look at the two instances that being used to back up the notion that it can be used to counter Magneto's abilities:

http://img24.imageshack.us/i/persuader01cut.jpg/
http://img573.imageshack.us/i/persuader03cut.jpg/

One consists of him cutting the planet's gravitational pull on a policeman, and the other is him cutting the magnetic force repelling a piece of metal.

Tell me, are either of these suitable analogies for Magneto manipulating someone's energy matrix? What about Magneto affecting the magnetic poles of the earth?

Is there any evidence that we couldn't simply magnetically effect the axe itself (or Blair's 'shark scales', if he were actually capable of making them)? No scans show any reason that the axe couldn't be affected with energy- telekinetically lifted, magnetically bent, that sort of thing. After all, if we affect it with energy, it can't be swung (or, rotated), can't cut our energy.

What if energy transmuted it? What if we effected the axe wielder or began to explore the thousands of esoteric ways that energy manipulation is used throughout comics beyond simply magnetically throwing some shrapnel?

The point is that the axe's use that we've seen is so startlingly limited that to assert that it would have any role in repelling Magneto, one of the most robust energy manipulator's this side of high herald is a completely hollow argument.

But even if it could affect our powers? We'd just shut it down, that's point two:

http://img24.imageshack.us/i/persuader01cut.jpg/

The Persuader's axe works via nuclear emissions.

HA.

Is there any doubt that Magneto could simply rework the power source to do nothing?

Just re-read the scans where he modifies Proteus' energy matrix with a flick of his wrist.

"Energy, Proteus. Just electrons dancing."

Finally, even if either of those points didn't make the absolute sense that they do, is Blair even actually capable of putting the axe to any use?

Blair asserts that he'll absorb the ship and axe into Madison's being and seize their technology, imbuing himself with it.

To support this, he provides these scans:

0. http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i48/A_Flight8/AlphaFlight55-06.jpg
1. http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e54/A_Flight6/AlphaFlight55-18.jpg
2. http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e54/A_Flight6/AlphaFlight55-19.jpg
3. http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e54/A_Flight6/AlphaFlight55-20.jpg
4. http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e54/A_Flight6/AlphaFlight55-21.jpg
5. http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e54/A_Flight6/AlphaFlight55-22.jpg
6. http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e54/A_Flight6/AlphaFlight55-23.jpg

Nice scans, but they don't prove anything- if anything, they provide a case that this is ridiculous.

Madison in those scans absorbs a whole base into his suit. But he just takes the metal, plastic, etc. He doesn't keep the technology, just breaks it down and digests it to give himself a new, bigger suit.

He's not 'merging' himself with the base so much as he's assimilating it.

In this case, that results in a total loss of the only things make Nero and Persuader remotely useful.

Alternatively, if he didn't absorb the axe, he'll have to try to use it against Magneto which (beyond the reasons already mentioned) is silly as we're completely undetectable and much faster.

Any argument that he can replicate the technology to cover the entirety of Nero's ship would need proof that he (Madison) can actually recreate the tech... that would be nice to see, but none of the scans provided for Box so far show us this.

For that matter, though I'll get into this later, we would need similar proof if he's to make any use of Nero's ship, including its weapons systems.

So, to recap:

Madison becoming Guardian makes no sense. He's never recreated the suit quickly or on his own, he's needed outside help to deal with Magneto's power set being used against him in the past, and he has no capability to actually utilize Guardian's power set with any prowess.

Persuader's axe is useless- it's never dealt with energy manipulation like Magneto is capable of in terms of scope of power nor manner of manipulation, it's power source is wide open for Magneto to take advantage of, and it's not a plan that Blair has even proven capable of implementing.

Blair's defense is extremely weak. There's absolutely nothing stopping us from doing exactly what I detailed in my battle part of my writeup:

Find them. Crush them. Win. If faster, we can simply toss them into their own black hole, into our sun, or as various atoms across the Himalayas. No matter, we win either way.

In my next post, I'll detail why his offense is similarly lacking.

So, recap:

Blair doesn't have the black hole stuff- in fact he probably accidently ignited it and killed himself in his half-hazarded attempt to absorb it into his armor. He doesn't have the nano-technology that he claims will support each of his nonsensical arguments, and he doesn't have the shields or cloaking that laughed at the Klingon's.

Even if he did though?

His arguments still fall. Magneto isn't a bunch of Klingon's, and the manner in which Magneto detects and affects metal does not work in any way like the manner in which Klingon scanners detect ships- unless Nero's super-duper ship can repurpose itself to be something that Magneto can't affect (so... something that contains no energy whatsoever... when it kill itself in the black hole incident, that should work nicely) then any attempts to cloak won't hide Team Blair from Magnus and are simply another wasted effort.

Same goes for shields- we're not firing missiles, we're creating a sun. Not only will we know instantly where you are, we'll also create a sun on top of you (exactly what my much more concise prep stated) and if you'd like to argue that you don't get fried instantly, then we can having an actual debate here.

As for the axe, Blair's arguments rest on the idea that:

Magneto can't affect nuclear emissions
Magneto uses 'magnetic tendrils'

Neither of which are remotely true, and I'll get to that when I start talking about Blair's defenses.

Finally, Blair's teleportation and black hole idea don't make any sense. He wants to teleport us into the black hole, without any idea of how to find us (we're cloaked, and he lacks a power set capable of finding us, much less winning this match), or any capacity to actually teleport us- supposedly the ship could do it, but the ship only ever teleports things on to it, or off of it- and it takes far longer to set up than the few seconds that this match will take.

Regardless, none of his offensive efforts could actually work. Even if he were capable of creating a black hole, he's decided to sit right next to it, making it mighty simple for us to toss him in it, separate his atoms or to still create a sun on top of him- which Lightray could do while fighting the black hole, from far away, and far before Blair could hope to do anything.

This match will be over in seconds, and we can kill him before the black hole can kill us. Pretty straight forward, really.

geez, how do you guys get all those cute little bullets into your posts....?

and then just a , within the text, when you want a new bullet.

without the spaces, obviously.

there are other varieties- i got numbers instead of bullets by going

text

bbcode is fun times.

Originally posted by leonidas
geez, how do you guys get all those cute little bullets into your posts....?


But if you really want to learn just quote the posts you like, that's how I learned all the stuff I do in my respect threads.

(Nice match guys, keep it up!)

just for perfect clarity, are the two competitors done yet so we the judges can weigh in?

both guys are fond of summarizing and re-capping so i'm personally unsure of the situation

They're done.

Ok, here is Bentley jumping in to judge this match. Somewhat short, but at least all the arguments were sent, right?

Now, I'm not sure Blairwind's last post should be counted for the final decision, but most of the things he addressed are more or less clear in my mind. I think he actually can make Narada + Madison work. I'm not sold into the Persuader's Axe multi-saw strategy though, first of all I'm not sure how much energy that kind of huge mutation would take -the Axe running on nuclear emisions, as stated before-, but also de design of the shell, which moves, shifts and defends using the Axe's abilities. I find it far fetched to be honest. There was a short mention of Madison building anti-Magneto tech... Did that go anywhere?

Smurph did a good work throwing dirt at Blair's preparations and I think it worked more than once, I don't think teleporting would actually work, making the black hole would be quite useless. Also, Magneto's cloaking would work and Blair never focused on it. Whether the ship's cloaking would work against Magneto's abilities is also a fair question which was well raised by Smurph, Magneto is an energy manipulator of a high level and doesn't depend on the same abilities than the ships.

I'm kind of dissapointed about the result since this devolved into Magneto vs Narada pretty quickly, it's arguable whether Magneto could triumph the ship by himself, and there could've been a defense simpler than the Persuader's multi-saw defense... My point is that the ship became too many eggs in a single basket, if I somehow didn't believe in the ship working, there was no second plan. The Axe could cut the inminent solar energies Lightray is trying to pull, but in my take of this battle it's sitting there doing nothing.

Could Smurph get past the Persuader shielded ship? It's not entirely sure, at least at first, but Blairwind's attack wasn't all that convincing either. I'm really torn about some parts of the battle which weren't further developped.

I give it to Smurph, he kept his prep simple and focused in the debating, not a bad strategy. Well played Blair, I loved the way you played around the rules to get the ship

Eh. How does a black hole have no effect?

Anyway, one vote down. Two more to go.

Sorry for being late. I'll have my vote by Thursday.

Okay, I'm promised Thursday and it's Saturday. Dorry for the extended delay. Work and fun got in the way.

I always look these tourny matches with a willing suspension of disbelief. It's the only way for me to be fair and not get into the micro-nitpicking we see in the vs threads.

That said, I believe both Blair and Smurph may have exaggerated a few things. But unless I read something that's totally outlandish, I'm content to leave well enough alone.

Blair's plan was multi-faceted. I wasn't 100% convinced that Madison could do all the things Blair set out to do. Persuader's ax kept giving me pause.

Smurph's plan was very straight forward and I felt was most plausible. Though I believe he's overreaching with Magneto's ability to "multi-task".

I own the Star Trek comic Blair references. I do believe the ship can be prepped against Smurph's attack with or without the ax enhancement, at least in the short run. And it's a truly massive ship. Though given time, Smurph's team would be able to do damage.

That leaves one last point for me, the red matter. The Narada was already shown to survive a black hole and can adapt on the fly. The red matter was the winning point for me.

Good job guys.

Blair gets my vote.

So, if Psycho Gundam voted on this match, could this tournament come back to life?

lol

Originally posted by Blair Wind
So, if Psycho Gundam voted on this match, could this tournament come back to life? good question. kandy's not around anymore, but someone else could take the helm surely

Originally posted by psycho gundam
good question. kandy's not around anymore, but someone else could take the helm surely



This was just one of those tournaments that had potential and then just fell through at the end .

for what it's worth, i'll take over as the host since i wasn't a participant, that way i get out of voting on that difficult match lol. read it 5 times and still don't know the winner.....

we can still revive this

It would be tough to completely revive the tournament. I'd love for this match to be voted on though.

It really comes down to if you believe that a super massive black hole (I used the entire damn red matter, not just a drop - which has taken down suns and planets) would effectively defeat his team and his sun or if his sun would defeat my black hole.

Those are the two most important factors since they happen at the start of the match. After that it's debating Magneto vs Narada + Persuader. That's a lot more subjective, I think, but unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Wait, this tourney has been locked in a tie for over 2 years? Who are the other judges?

I was but kandy kinda disappeared before that and then publically quit the forum. Delph pm'd me saying he would judge it allowing me to take kandy's place, but I guess he was stumped also lol.

Sorry, blair hahahah

ha, this was the low herald tournament I got Starhawk and Giselle Villard into iirc

I'd be glad to get it going again

Do it.

It would probably be really difficult... I think myself and Blair are the only contestants who post regularly any more, though smurph does show up from time to time.

If they want, I could do a judgement of this match?

well, you're participating so to be fair to him you shouldn't

digi?

cool

i imagine the next match would be me and Blair then? I remember his team being somewhat terrifying

whatever you guys decide.

i guess i will take over kandy's role

Whatever.

I totally won.

Originally posted by psycho gundam
digi?

Wait, I was supposed to judge this match? I can take care of that in about 10 minutes.

Why was I mentioned a couple times? Was I judging this match as well?

I really have no idea what's going on. I vaguely remember Blair's Nero Black Hole thing, but none of the details surrounding this tourney.

Ok. after reading this match back a couple times in the last half hour (thought it would be a quicker decision), I actually have to give the win, grudgingly, and with a caveat, to B-Dub.

Smurph made some good points and tried to re-direct focus on some elements of B-Dub's plans feasibility to good effect, but I don't believe he has the resources at hand to cope with the singularity of the magnitude destroying all of the Red Matter would create, and that issue was never really addressed. Smurph made a statement that Kandy had already ruled that B-Dub couldn't draft Nero with the Narada and B-Dub, as usual, found a way to tap dance around a rule without completely crossing the line. Kandy posted in the thread and didn't rebuff B-Dub and Psycho Gundam took over coordinator duties, so assuming Kandy and Gundam approved the legality of that tactic, B-Dub is the winner. If not Smurph would be the winner by default, so this vote hinges on whether Kandy or Gundam clarify the legality of merging with the prep area.

Just to note, I did run that strategy by Kandy pre-draft stage and he approved the tactic of merging with the Narada when I presented it to him. I wouldn't have drafted Nero otherwise.

If kandy said it's fine it's fine.

2 votes to Blair vs 1 for Smurph.

Digi, add this tournament.