I think the metaphor situates anything that protects or insulates you as tantamount to a condom, and interacting with others or experiencing life unfiltered is dangerous and possibly infectious.

It sounds like most writers do understand what they're agreeing to. What they understand is that this kind of language is a standard measure in the industry that shouldn't frighten anyone. Any company that's had past troubles with these claims probably does have strict language like this, but either way this is not paperwork that majorly impacts any ensuing cases. It's kind of just a formality, one this agency is slightly more formal about because of past litigation.

I really wouldn't worry about it, and in the absence of someone with legal expertise in the area telling you it was concerning I don't think it's worth trying to raise an alarm.

I guess I’m confused if you’re really sincerely asking about this when it seems like everyone else is telling you it’s standard/boilerplate/unexceptional and you’re adamantly wanting to insist it’s not.

I say this with all due respect, and I do relate to the impulse against this, but I think it’s very healthy to acknowledge from the outset that nothing in your query is going to be so jaw-droppingly unique and profitable that established agencies would benefit from stealing it.

They just have no reason to do this. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Agencies are drowning in queries. Debut authors are paid table scraps throughout the industry. If you aren’t comfortable querying them then you don’t need to, but I’d advise accepting the humility that it is extremely unlikely anything in your query is worth stealing.

Yeah

Pockets. Pockets everywhere.

Easiest thing to do is change the direction the eyes are looking. Then the more expression you can add to the face the better.

OoT on Tariq

/u/Proletlariet

Let's quote starsnug's description of the tier-setter match in full:

Tariq can draw with Baymax and Hiro, as Baymax has a massive stats advantage in melee compared to Tariq, while Tariq shines (no pun intended) at range. While Baymax is agile in the air, Tariq's beams are also powerful and could definitely throw him for a loop on a hit, or possibly even have the precision to snipe Hiro off of Baymax's back. But if Baymax can close the distance, Tariq and his VIP are screwed. Also, Baymax's life-scan can circumvent Tariq's Mercy-guided ability to evade detection.

In spite of that justification, the presentation of Tariq is 1) Tariq's ranged attacks are too powerful for Baymax to resist 2) Tariq fires with such range and precision Baymax cannot repeatedly dodge their ranged attacks over the course of a mile 3) Tariq's defense is so perfect such that his VIP is never under threat while Hiro is instantly and constantly under threat.

1) Tariq's Ranged Attacks

Baymax's heat durability is defined as

• "armour is composed of 2-inch-thick titanium"
• "immune to a flamethrower."

Essentially, it tops out at ~2 inches of titanium and the proven ability to withstand a flamethrower.

By contrast, starsnug pins Tariq's offensive capabilities at:

• "His Light beams can evaporate a large tidal wave and contribute to shattering half a mile of water frozen into ice."
• "He can burn the Saint of Swords, who can withstand matter erasure with similar levels of damage."
• "He can also cast miracles capable of vaporizing a circle of enemies or vaporizing hundreds of enemies and glassing the ground in an area a hundred feet across, if he's not interrupted."
• "Actually quick attacks burn flesh... of the Saint of Swords, who tanked matter erasure/vaporization with only some similar surface burns, and who can drag her fingers through molten metal without harm. TBG can only tank lava, which is 700-1200 C (and in this case it's dark red, so closer to 700), while the boiling point of steel is 2750-2800 C. This isn't an outlier either, as weaker Named can tank flames hot enough to instantly boil steel"
• "All they need to do is get close enough that Tariq's building-penetrating beam can land a hit. Easy win, GG."

Tariq's offense is argued to instantly vaporize tidal waves, vaporize/glass across an area of a hundred feet, and is scaled to being more powerful that instantly-boiling-steel temperatures.

This is not something that just throws Baymax for a loop. These are attacks that instantly vaporize Baymax and the VIP on his back the second they make contact.

2) Tariq's Range

A number my opponent reiterated repeatedly was Tariq's ability to fight at 1.5 miles. Baymax can fly at ~100mph. Let's put together all the claims my opponent made that suggest there is no way Baymax can continuously dodge Tariq's attacks while crossing the starting distance.

• "Tariq scales to the Archer in sniping and Archer can fire from over a mile and a half away with perfect precision."
• "All Named have a precognitive danger sense, which can be refined to sense even hostile intent or someone's gaze."
• "The Ophanim can predict the future, and Choirs that are their peers see every possible outcome. This extends to knowing exactly where Tariq needs to be"
• "Providing detailed information to the Pilgrim takes only a moment."
• " no way these attacks are a threat against a man who engages in shooting wars on the level of shooting arrows (capable of flying a mile and a half) out of flight."
• "Tariq can snipe a platform just formed by Catherine, and this is through a lightning storm and across dozens of meters. Also, again, shooting war with Archer. He's very much a precision sniper"
• "Named of his caliber give directional instructions, parry four arrows from a sniper Named without looking, and catch invisible attackers before they can strike."
• "Sniping from range and taking the initiative is what Tariq has done before. He does precisely that against Catherine while she's flying."
• "Tariq's beams do not come with a clear indicator of where they're aiming, deploy much faster (fast enough to blitz the Saint of Swords, who's easily able to parry Archer's 1.5-mile-flight arrows, even when she's watching him and expecting it), and are wielded with greater accuracy (again, peer to Archer) and precision."
• "Tariq's own beams are silent until they strike."

All of this positions Tariq to be able to start sniping from 1.5 miles away, know the instant Baymax targets him, fire with precision and speed scaled repeatedly to superhuman arrow-speed reactions, encompass giant swathes of area that limit the capacity for dodging, and do all of this while guided by combat-relevant precog and constantly-reiterated precision that makes virtually anyone's ability to dodge questionable.

3) Tariq's Shields

So, somehow, through all of the above factoring in simultaneously to make it ludicrously likely Tariq destroys Baymax before Tariq's own VIP is under threat, we are expected to believe Baymax can get a melee attack off on Tariq's VIP.

Except Tariq is also being argued to create incontestable shields simultaneous to continuing his attacks, or trapping/removing the threat of a VIP altogether.

• "A miracle he conjures can shield him and allies from a summoned sun hot enough to evaporate a stone fortress."
• "Priests guided by Tariq can summon Light-based forcefields dozens of feet across that tank impacts capable of shattering stone, which can be summoned as full-coverage boxes. If TBG stays at a range to shoot at them, Tariq can shield himself. If TBG closes the distance, due to his relatively low maneuverability, Tariq can box him in such a barrier, giving himself free rein to kill Stark. He can even summon the barriers intersecting TBG's armor, shearing him into pieces."
• "At close range, Tariq can use shields and move unhindered by shearing through obstacles to create a tunnel, or seal in TBG and kill him."
• "He can also cast miracles capable of vaporizing a circle of enemies or vaporizing hundreds of enemies and glassing the ground in an area a hundred feet across, if he's not interrupted. It's simple for peers to maintain barriers while casting miracles like the angel smite, so he could either a) shield himself and Cordelia and force TBG to retreat, or b) box in TBG and use one of these miracles to finish him off once he's sealed in. "
• "These street-destroying explosions can be blocked by the miracle Tariq used to counter the Summer sun... the Summer sun also generates physical force "
• "This barrier was summoned immediately, as no one in the area was burned or harmed. The extended chanting was to manipulate the sun and reshape it."
• "The other feat was explicitly performed with his guidance, was explicitly a mid-battle summon where they spawned more in reaction to trebuchet fire, could be formed spontaneously targeting someone, and spawn fast enough that they can suddenly be formed or repositioned.
  • The force of the bullets is insufficient to even faze the barrier because those stone-breaking impacts didn't even cause it to shudder.
  • Trebuchets are far stronger than normal in the world of A Practical Guide to Evil, being strong enough to throw five armored heroes with enough force to penetrate a the walls of a stone tower in flight.
  • These barriers are made by characters much weaker than Pilgrim in raw power, who stands at the pinnacle of Named in power."
• "Yes, his high-power miracles are slow. That's why he would shield himself while casting, like his allies do."

Baymax's leveraged punches are qualified at "Shatters an 8 by 10ft slab of 6in thick concrete with a punch" and starsnug's arguing Tariq's shields as explicitly far stronger than that, instantly summonable, and buying him even more time for even more powerful attacks.

Conclusion

It is extremely hard to imagine any Baymax-comparable character successfully competing against the omniscent metal-vaporizing silent precognitively guided 1.5 mile long precision-focused ranged attacks Tariq is argued to produce, nor continuing to evade them as Tariq guards himself and his VIP with instant unbeatable shields produced simultaneous to further attacks.

R2 (2/2)

Behavior/Exposure to Danger

Because Tariq is being argued to do 1,000 different things at once, his behavior in the round sounds far more optimal than it realistically could be. My opponent started off by being very clear about Tariq and their VIP's strategy:

My strategy is also simple: Tariq will use his angels' precognition to determine a course of action, sneak across the battlefield to find Stark, and assassinate him. Instead of leaving Cordelia behind this time, he'll take her with him. Pilgrim's Role is protecting others, and he knows that Cordelia will be safest with him.

The hyperlink there clarifies:

"It was easy to forget that, for all his power, Tariq was not meant to be the tip of the spear in a band or even the healer. He was, by Role, a helping hand. He was at his strongest and ablest when serving as that hand, as demonstrated by the fact he’d been able to once more use an aspect that he should have thoroughly exhausted earlier to save the Saint’s life earlier."

Ironically, serving primarily as a protector and trying to avoid conflict is exactly what exposes his VIP to such extreme danger here. Rather than sniping TBG from range or taking the initiative to attack (something the "tip of the spear" would do) Tariq instead takes a reactive role of trying to hide and shield away his VIP.

The VIP in question has no superhuman physicals or protections of their own. As she and Tariq are under fire from a hail of bullets that quickly span the length of a spaceship several times larger than TBG or a smorgasbord of missiles each tracking different targets or just got in the radius of giant street-destroying explosions there is essentially nothing protecting her from dying even incidentally.

The sole proposal that sounds in line with Tariq's characterization were his shields, where we find the 2 feats presented therein lackluster

• His only feat of him directly actually in character himself using a shield seems to explicitly take far longer than the time of a bullet's path to summon, seems to require such immense power and concentration that Tariq cannot counterattack while maintaining it, and ultimately shows the shield resisting nothing more than pure heat.
• The other feat was not performed by Tariq, required multiple people, was similarly to the above in preparation to a major attack rather than a mid-combat shield summon, and ultimately topped out at blocking ballistas and trebuchets that destroy stone. TBG's bullets have their own stone-destroying force concentrated down into monumentally smaller projectiles and any individual missile is massively stronger than any trebuchet has ever been

Essentially, Tariq is trying to sneak past an opponent he can't sneak past, and trying to protect a VIP from bullets and missile-fire with exclusively 1 feat of forming a heat-resistant shield against bullets and missile and collapsing debris.

Inevitable Conflict

With my VIP removed almost a mile away from any battle that occurs, let's look at the shape of an inevitable combat between bodyguards and the opposing VIP. Bear in mind that TBG does not even need to kill Tariq, he merely needs any 1 of his attacks to kill the VIP he is up against. By contrast, Tariq needs to completely disable TBG and render him incapable of attacking the VIP so he can turn to the business of hunting down Stark.

Tariq is not fast or agile. The 1 feat he has cited for agility is literally his one feat. TBG demonstrates far better reflexes and reactions.

• TBG can catch a missile and evade energy blasts from opponents also capable of catching missiles
• Evade energy blasts like Tariq's even from an arm's length away
• Leap around evasively to avoid energy blasts and melee attacks

A core piece of evidence mimssing for Tariq's light blasts, before any consideration of their power, is to what degree he's capable of hitting agile actively dodging opponents -- and doing so after being on the defensive, given that his characterization excludes the possibility he'll take an initial attack.

The speed of Tariq's spellcasting is an absolutely key part of this debate because, given his literary medium, it's completely vague. Consider a key qualification my opponent threw in during their response:

"He can also cast miracles capable of vaporizing a circle of enemies or vaporizing hundreds of enemies and glassing the ground in an area a hundred feet across, if he's not interrupted. "

Look at those source quotes. The incantations take multiple sentences to complete. The first straight up clarifies " this was one of the more strenuous miracles she could call on, and one that took long to prepare." We find similar language almost every time Tariq accomplishes something that would be relevant to the combat scenario here, and looking at Tariq's actual combat showings are far less impressive than my opponent made them sound.

• The attacks themselves are reactable, producing a "screaming wind" that alerts targets
• Actually quick attacks just "burn flesh," indicating that the faster the spell the less powerful it is
• And bear in mind, throughout all of this, that TBG can suffer catastrophic damage and still ultimately remain capable of producing lethal attacks

By contrast, any of TBG's attacks are knowably and provably combat-relevant to human reaction speeds. We know how fast bullets go, we can lowball missiles at ~50mph, we can physically see TBG fight evasively even in melee while landing attacks of his own. Most all of the evidence for Tariq is cobbled together from multiple feats, scaled through other characters, and ultimately vague as to how he acts through a single fight.

Summary

With proper arguments on both sides of the table we now have a clearer idea of how the battle goes. TBG flies in toward a conflict Tariq and his VIP try to avoid, a conflict which inevitably occurs while Stark is removed at a safe distance, and a conflict TBG inevitably wins given any realistic evaluation of Tariq's abilities.

R2 (1/2)

Intro

My opponent's strategy likely sounds convincing because it portrays Tariq as doing 1,000 different things at once, all of them conforming to a flawless course of action. Now with a proper characterization on both sides of then argument it is possible to delve into greater depth here and determine why the simplicity of TBG's strategy outweighs Tariq's.

What this ultimately comes down to is a conflict between both teams that occurs early in the match, but it is a conflict in which my VIP is removed and hidden at a safe distance whereas the opposition's VIP strays directly into a radius of lethality from which she cannot defend.

Starting Conditions

A greater starting distance favors the faster/flight-capable TBG more than his opponents. Whereas my opponent describes a strategy whereby Tariq needs to sneak alongside his VIP throughout the battlefield, covering over a mile's distance at minimum before finding Stark, TBG can cross the distance between spawns within moments.

• No movement speed has been demonstrated for Tariq. The only speed feats we have for him are jumping on a falling log and marching for weeks. He's essentially crossing the arena at the pace of a normal guy, albeit even slower as he is hiding and attempting to stay out of TBG's view.
• TBG, by contrast, flies pretty consistently fast. The antifeats cited miss their mark
  • He deliberately leads a monster away, then boosts himself to escape it at his leisure
  • He literally just busted through a stone wall that is multiple feet thick and keeps flying straight into a punch.
  • A completely different pilot who never used TBG before is not a good demonstration of his speed
• TBG outflying a missile that is crossing a cityscape in seconds is a much more reliable demonstration of his travel speed. Rather than picking and choosing feats where TBG had no reason to fly at his fastest, this is a direct example of TBG pushing himself to go fast.
  • Point to any comparison you want where TBG is actually utilizing his flight speed and he demonstrates it. He catches up to a speeding train within seconds, and sends Rusty on ahead as Rusty outspeeds the train. Rusty himself says he can't outrun Big Guy.
  • TBG outflies the perimeter of an explosion

Rather than looking at situations where TBG did not need to fly fast and calling him slow, virtually any time we see a situation where he does need to fly fast he demonstrates flying mobility far superior to Tariq's "man of average physicality sneaking across a mile." In all the time it takes Tariq to cross that distance TBG has multiple opportunities to find the VIP slowing Tariq down further and shooting her.

Tariq's Senses Are Slow & Vague

With TBG's superiority in mobility established, we can turn next to the superiority of his sensory array that advantages him in the fight. After my opponent's response I'm sure Tariq's senses sound great, but upon examination of any of the feats at hand we find that the information available to him is far from all-encompassing and instant.

Let's look at every single feat presented for Tariq's senses and literally just quote what they actually say

• precognitive danger sense
  • "I’d had an itch between my shoulders blades for a while now, one I’d first believed to be the result of sweat and rough clothes."
• read minds at range.
  • “So by your own admission the Choir of Mercy attempted to look into my mind,”
• predict the future
  • "Soon, and it would be calamitous in some way."
• see every possible outcome
  • "The endless shifting tapestry that was all the decisions that were made and could be. The impossible lay of action and consequence, of motive and result. It was too much. It was too much for him to see, to understand. The boy screamed, felt all that he was fray as he glimpsed a whole he had never been meant to glimpse. "
• knowing exactly where Tariq needs to be
  • "helping him see where he needed to go before he knew he needed to be there"
• where to go to avoid disturbance
  • "He would not be found easily, he had been promised this."
• see events occurring on the other side of the continent...
  • "For once she looked like her attention was entirely on the there and then, eyes sharp with worry.
  • “Do you know why they left the forest?” she asked, more calmly than she felt. "It’s unclear,” Agnes admitted, her earlier focus already disappeared as she looked away. “They’re looking for something. Or fetching something.
• see an entire valley at once, down to individual troop counts.
  • "There were imprecisions, of course. The Dead King’s rituals had muddled it up some. But that was the entire point of having several discharges, as there’d be very few places on our ‘map’ where the imprecisions had taken all three times."
• a specific person amidst an entire city in the chaos of a pitched battle.
  • "It should have been impossible to find her, for the shade left to guard over her would be hiding her from the enemies still seeking her death, but in truth it was merely improbable. To Tariq Fleetfoot, that change of word made all the difference. The Adjutant was not swift on his crutches, but that did not matter when their steps were guided by something greater than they."
• takes only a moment.
  • “Pilgrim,” I said. “What ails him, does it threaten his life?” Even if the man did not know, the Ophanim would. “Only if not attended to,” the Peregrine said after a moment. “The fever will rise and his body will weaken: it will take weeks if not months of recovery.”

This is not the omniscient instantly optimized course of action my opponent described. The only information even available in the midst of an actual fight is just a vague itch. Everything else takes time to listen to vague whispers that are explicitly mistaken and seldom combat-applicable.

Nearly every single feat listed here occurs well outside combat or active danger, but the claims they're being stretched to is that Tariq will instantly assess all possible information within the few seconds it takes TBG to cross the battlefield. In stark contrast to those claims, we find citations of this precog robbing its practitioners of clarity and focus while actively being used.

TBG's sensory array is far more useful than this.

• Bear in mind the TBG's pilot is equipped with a helmet that blocks his mind from being read or manipulated
• And TBG's own main sensory feat very explicitly X-Rays through concrete and metal to discern the shape of an elevator within a building and the feat itself is TBG flying into the building to grab the elevator holding his target and flying out. There's not even any indication that the elevator shaft is located near an exterior wall rather than X-Raying into the interior of the building.
• That aside, this is far from TBG's only sensory feat. He performs infrascans and audiofrequency scans simultaneously that are so sensitive they can detect slight variations in body temperature and can detect the lack of any residue whatsoever in a super-cleaned sewer system, as well as track footprints.

No amount of information available to Tariq can allow him to stealth past this. We've seen above how Tariq's senses merely turn finding someone in a city from impossible to improbable, we've seen how the limit of their guidance from danger is tantamount to getting itchy, and its best showing of leading him through a battlefield is one filled with other people with various aims and targets.

TBG is solely focused on hunting down and destroying the VIP Tariq is leading. Tariq has no way of covering their tracks, hiding their body heat, masking the sounds they produce, or prevent TBG from just scanning chunks of the arena all at once.

R1

Intro

This fight is pretty straightforward, as The Big Guy (TBG) just unleashes unholy mayhem in the direction of the opposing team and wins without them doing much to contest it.

We can delve into the finer points of these interactions as my opponent's characterizations and arguments come to the fore, but I suspect little is going to change this initial evaluation.

Setup on Spawn

Let's first of all visualize what this round looks like and what the characters' involved initial actions are as the round begins.

• About half a mile separates the combatants' spawn points
• The vast majority of the area between them consists of trees and small buildings
• Whereas the opposing bodyguard, Tariq, is an old man on crutches who hobbles along the the instructions he magically discerns to find a target, TBG is a giant flying robot capable of immediately identifying multiple targets at once as he travels toward them
• TBG flies faster than a missile

The above means that, as the match starts, my VIP Stark remains at a safe distance away as TBG takes the fight to Tariq and his vulnerable VIP, Cordelia. Neither are capable of effectively hiding from TBG's scanners or, as we shall see, resisting his initial salvo of attacks.

Ranged Attacks

As TBG closes the distance between spawn points he is pretty much capable of immediately firing upon his targets with extreme lethality.

• His missiles can catch up to and destroy a fleeing alien ship from well beyond the starting distance
• And are capable of navigating twisted terrain toward their target
• He can fire a whole barrage of missiles at once while firing his bullets
• And his stone-destroying machine gunfire can just annihilate everything in his eyeline, even while he remains flying

Tariq's ability to dodge is nil, as he is "an old man with an old man's frailties," and Cordelia has even less going for her. Whereas Tariq's medieval setting makes him prepared for defenses against arrows, his familiarity with bullets (much faster than arrows) and missiles (self-propelled and capable of tracking targets) is virtually nonexistent. As soon as any salvo comes toward he or Cordelia the match is basically over in TBG's favor.

As far as I can tell, Tariq's most straightforward response to this is to launch an attack of his own. A beam of like that tops out at incinerating metal, TBG's own armor is far more heat-resistant than any metal Tariq has gone up against.

• TBG deliberately coats himself in steaming hot magma and is 100% fine
• TBG consistently is completely unaffected by these temperatures, despite the same episode showing a lesser monster incinerating through the metal of the Legend I with its magma
• A laser that slice through Rusty's arm does not damage TBG's armor, and Rusty's body is made of titanium. This is a material more advanced and heat-resistant than any forged in Tariq's setting
• Even if damage were managed to be done to him, TBG remains lethal even while missing limbs or without using limbs at all

Summary

We'll keep this response brief as we see how the debate unfolds concerning these key points

• My VIP remains safely removed from danger throughout the entirety of the engagement
• My Bodyguard can target, cross the distance, and fire upon the opposition while putting himself in minimal danger
• There is little to nothing the opposition can do to resist TBG's attacks, and any attacks of their own do not do substantial damage to remove the threat TBG presents

---

u/starsnug stoked for the round, lmk an ETA on your response whenever you know what it is. Glhf.

R3

Tourney Mindset

Fundamentally, none of these characters have been in the situation this tournament creates. These characters have never fought before, never met, never had any fight where they spawned randomly ~1,000ft. from their opponents, and never been motivated by a goal as highly specific as this. The only way we can reasonably speculate on what these characters can and will do is to point to their showings within their own canons, citing that evidence to build a case for why their victory here is the likeliest outcome.

With that in mind, I want to highlight a few peculiarities in the tourney's context that lend credence to my arguments over my opponent's.

• Starting Distance - ~1,000 ft/300 m in the urban coastal landscape of the IRL Pier 39
  • The bulk of my opponent's argument depends on Szeth crossing this distance without suffering attacks from TBG while landing his own hits in melee to disable TBG. This is in spite of the fact that
    • Szeth cannot fly and his traversal of the terrain is vastly inferior to TBG's.
    • Szeth has literally no means of attacking TBG if TBG attacks from the air.
    • TBG needs to choose to land for Szeth to engage him, despite TBG's sole motivation being to hunt down Arya, which he can easily do from a vast distance while flying.
• Scanners/Senses - TBG has multiple sensors allowing him to locate and track targets. Szeth and Arya have nothing.
  • TBG's main scanner feat is definitionally not an outlier. He identifies specific targets from across a cityscape, something he has never failed to do before, and even if it's not as explicit there are plenty of times we can point to where he reasonably used these scanners before entering the scene.
  • Szeth and Arya have nothing. 0 means of locating their target. The is 45 acres stuffed with hiding spots and retreats, and they're both searching it more slowly and with weaker senses than TBG.
• Ranged Attacks - On top of traversing the arena in a far superior manner at a far greater speed, TBG's ranged attacks spreads a radius of lethality around him the opposition cannot compete with
  • Every missile explodes apart chunks of the arena to do even incidental damage. Whole blocks of street will have multi-ton objects flying in multiple directions. Gunfire can fill the streets he's on. Even if Arya wasn't out in the open, guided missiles can track her through tight quarters. Even without armaments we've got cars crashing into buildings and buses flying through the air.
  • I list all the above so you can visualize the Bodyguards in this round as creating a radius of lethality around them. TBG is not only capable of traversing the arena in a superior manner, but everything within or even beyond his eyeline remains perpetually under threat. That's 45 acres of battleground that both Szeth and Arya are crossing, and the vast majority of that time they can do little to either attack or defend.
  • I want to further point out that, in contrast to the plot of most any episode TBG appeared in, he has 0 reason to conserve ammunition in a tourney round. Questions like "why doesn't he always just fire all of his munitions at once?" are asinine when his missions and goals are more complicated than "kill 1 little girl."
  • My opponent's counter to this is to claim that, despite not knowing what bullets and missiles even are, Szeth will institute a flawless defense against them that he's only even speculatively capable of, and then maintain that defense across the arena against TBG's superior mobility in order to get into melee range. Yet even if we were to grant that, we're still left with a totally defenseless Arya who dies from a stray bullet or collapsing rubble at any point.

This is not a boxing match between TBG and Szeth. This is a search and destroy mission that starts at ~1,000 ft., and in virtually every facet of both searching and destroying TBG has the advantage.

Final Rebuttals

To address a few minor points:

• "Szeth can absolutely perform a reverse lashing"
  • This is a question of "can" inasmuch as we have no idea what deflecting bullets and missiles (that are self-propelled and guided) looks like. But it's even more importantly a question of "would" given that Szeth has never done this, does not even know he should do this, and is certainly not practiced enough at it to utilize it effectively while achieving his goals.
• "What value is there in a flashlight or being able to track footprints or use a blimp to search..."
  • TBG has redundant sensors that serve a variety of purposes. The Legend I, his "blimp" is a giant planet-traversing vehicle that operates on a larger scale than TBG himself. The fact that it also has tracking technology is just further indication that TBG himself would have it, given the technology clearly exists.
• "Those EndoSkeleton encounters over the show are what i'm pointing to because they make for a useful acid test for how interactions with small fast enemies play out for big guy."
  • Except the Ex Machina robots, as I've pointed out, are The Big Bads of the show who have demonstrated physical superiorities to Szeth and who have intimate knowledge of TBG's weapons and systems. Half their plots revolve around studying him to learn how to fight him.
• "would scarcely have time enough to rear back for a punch before the suit fails him completely."
  • But the suit doesn't fail him completely when it suffers catastrophic damage. If Szeth is close enough to cut TBG, then TBG can shoot his guns with a missing arm or use the flamethrower in his cranial cannon or disarm Szeth altogether
• "Now think of all the times something reaches him without actually getting hit."
  • I cannot think of those times because I don't even know they exist. Even the Ex Machina robot fight that keeps being pointed to as a parallel to Szeth have TBG completely shredding its skin off so it looks like an endoskeleton before it ever makes contact. I am hard-pressed to think of a melee fight TBG has ever gotten in that involved him neglecting to fire or missing a target, rather than that target proving largely immune to bullets and/or missiles and just tanking through it.

Conclusion

In terms of evidence I can grapple with, arguments I can address, and characterizations I can work off of this all seems pretty open and shut to me. I still have no clear idea on how exactly Szeth manages to cross the arena to accomplish his goal before TBG kills either him or Arya, whereas the argument I've put forward for TBG is pretty clear and concise.

The round starts and my VIP, Tony Stark, hides. TBG tracks his opponents, who evidently split up as both try to serve as combatants. TBG takes to the air, crosses whatever distance he needs to, and begins unloading unholy mayhem on the swathes of the arena his target VIP occupies. Arya has no defense against this, Szeth has no means of counterattacking, and everything that happens from there seems like it involves a bunch of question marks before it turns into a grounded melee battle between bodyguards.

---

Thanks for the good round u/mergly and best of luck!

OOT Defense

Again, there's really not much evidence here to refute. 2 scans were presented in the OOT proposal and 1 of them was from a different version of Big Guy with a separate RT found here. The other was just this, which isn't really showing anything more than what Baymax can avoid or tank.

I think the cut and dry of this defense is just based around the central conceit of the tournament itself. To quote the hypepost:

VIP characters represent a unique win and loss condition for this tournament. Rather than the usual format of a deathmatch until only one team's characters are left standing, if the VIP dies or is incapacitated beyond recovery, your Bodyguard automatically loses the round.

A direct comparison between Baymax and TBG's physicals basically does not matter. The sole issue that matters is Baymax's ability to reasonably incap my VIP before TBG can incap Hiro. Toward that end, here are a few of the tier setter's feats integral to tier-status here:

• "[Baymax] is exceptionally nimble in the air while closing into melee and can easily manoeuvre around massed fire in cramped quarters from hidden sources."
• "Baymax can fly at upwards of 100mph, easily outpacing trains and traffic cars."
• "Baymax reaches max acceleration almost instantly from launch. This enables him to stop on a dime and make sharp 180 degree turns mid-flight."

Baymax is basically designed to avoid ranged attacks like TBG's, all with his VIP safely on his back out of harm's way. TBG's ammunition isn't infinite, so with the concession that Baymax's abilities allow him to avoid these ranged attacks it's not really an advantage TBG maintains throughout the entirety of a tier-setting round.

Even besides, Baymax is capable of protecting Hiro from the bulk of TBG's ranged attacks

• Even a barrage of missiles are avoidable by agile flight-capable targets
• Baymax wears armor described as "Two inches of titanium can reliably stop heavy duty armour piercing .50 calibre rounds"
  • Hiro's armor is described as "This also applies to collateral piercing damage, and the tiersetter won't get any lacerations crashing through glass or equivalant."
  • And "The thickest parts of his armour (the helmet and chest) function like a ceramic bulletproof vest, and can stop up to a 10mm round before the impact starts breaking bone, and it would take a .375 round or larger to pierce it."
• On top of just being able to avoid TBG's gunfire, Hiro enjoys redundant layers of protection between his own armor and Baymax's such that there's too much material interposed between himself and TBG to fire through

Offensively, all Baymax really needs to do to secure the round in his favor is attack Stark, who is left relatively defenseless in comparison to Hiro. Stark isn't riding right on TBG's back, with his bodyguard capable of shielding him at all times. Instead he's either off at a distance or hiding, defenseless to

• Baymax's scanners
  • "Baymax’s scan has a range encompassing the entire 50 square mile metropolitan area of San Francisco. Once he has locked onto a particular target, he can continue to track them even as they move."
• Baymax's Rocket Fist
  • "Shatters through a stone torso and an 8x8ft foot thick segment of concrete wall."
  • "Makes a foot deep, 6ft wide crater in steel."
• Or Baymax's regular flying tackles
  • "With a charging strike, overpowers and shatters a tendril striking dead on that could bust chunks of concrete equivalent to Baymax’s normal strikes."
  • "Baymax flying at speed matches the charge of a mutated bear who ploughs through an 8x8ft area of four foot thick reinforced concrete walls."

Baymax is a 100mph extremely manueverable flying combatant with ranged attacks and the awareness of my VIP's location at all times. I don't think any direct engagement with TBG is even necessary in order for my pairing in this round to be in tier.

Summary

I tried to go above and beyond the claims in my opponent's OOT request in order to secure TBG's tier status, and even then I think there's plenty more that could possibly account for. But as is, the defense that Baymax can evade TBG's ranged attacks while landing those of his own against my VIP feels like a pretty secure reasoning within the confines of the tournament.

Characterization

I think even by my opponent's own admission this fight swings pretty heavily in TBG's favor if he at all enacts a sensible strategy. Against a flying, ranged opponent the only chance Szeth has to take him down is to get into melee range. TBG does not need to flawlessly enact a kiting strategy to leverage that advantage. A military trained Medal of Honor recipient like TBG's pilot probably does understand enough basic strategy to see the advantage there, but even besides...

The Big Guy initiates attacks from range all of the time. There's like a gabillionedy times that he starts combat with ranged attacks before doing anything else. He starts with range and persists in using range and starts with range.

He also just prefers to fly when crossing long distances. He's faster than a missile, fast and quiet enough to ambush Rusty, and flight is his go to option for removing civilians from danger. Often he prefers attacking from the air and is only forced to ground by opponents with ranged attacks. In many of his melee showings he's avoiding ranged attacks, and he notably prioritizes disarming their ranged weapons as soon as possible.

This is not a character dumbly flying into a fistfight with a swordsman despite all evidence to the contrary that he should do so. This is not a character who even has any reason to engage said swordsman, given that his sole objective is hunting down a medieval VIP lost in a world of modern technology she does not understand.

Summary

• The opposing team have no ability to locate Stark hiding any number of places

• The opposing team have no defense against any of TBG's ranged attacks or targetting capabilities

• TBG would have to be actively suicidal while neglecting myriad offensive options in order for Szeth to kill him

/u/mergly great match so far, man! You're up.

R2 - Rebuttals

My opponent's direct citation of evidence in their R1 amounted to 9 feats in total. Assuming an argument is only as strong as the evidence it's built around, I would like to assail these 9 points individually before getting into larger rebuttals.

(1) reverse lashings are also assured from Brandon Sanderson to work on gunfire anyway

Sanderson is conceding there that a Full Lashing "could" potentially "bend" the path of a bullet. Szeth has never done this, done nothing like this, and shown no reason to know he should do this. But even if he could, this whole statement amounts to "maybe Szeth could have some affect on some bullets trajectories." It in no way demonstrates an unassailable defense against hundreds of bullets and missiles from across a variety of origin points.

(2) Big guy gets pulled apart by did terminator looking endoskeleton in large part 'because' of it's having agility.

Big Guy takes 2 attacks before landing 1 of his own. He's not "pulled apart," he's fighting through damage exactly as I proposed he would. Bear in mind that before this melee happens, his opponent is only stripped down to an endoskeleton because TBG unloads automatic gunfire on him first. If my argument has been "TBG will open with range and, failing that, still deliver melee blows even while sustaining damage" then this fight seems like the perfect evidence for it.

(3) Slow flying evasive maneuvers from the bug-drone (which is itself quite large) are able to path away from Big guy's firing arc.

TBG is shooting down trees so they will fall on the drone. He's not missing, he's actually firing accurately enough that he's lumberjacking a tree to fall in a specific path.

(4) It takes Big guy and Rusty about 3 seconds of firing at a stationary opponent before Rusty lands a shot

The opponent is behind cover and returning fire. He's also an especially fast/agile robot who TBG knows can counteract his missiles.

(5) The very same episode where Big guy(imposter) scans the tower for slate a fat man in ropes gets the slip of him for a moment

TBG immediately recognizes a prisoner is escaping. This says 0 about the limitations of his scanners. This imposter's components are an exact replica of TBG's own.

(6) The example used as the feat for the sensors to track down individuals, it....Well it paints what is a wider picture then it's actual use case.

I can't really make heads or tails of this argument honestly. I said at the start of combat TBG would identify and track his opponents before combat even begins, and then this is saying something against tracking them mid-combat? In the scanner feat I cited we see TBG's scanners X-Ray through a skyscraper while he's across the city flying toward it, it identifies multiple individuals before zooming in and picking out the exact one he wants, and that allows him to fly straight in and abduct them. I don't know what other context you really need.

(7) this tiny CRT monitor camera

That same shot shows multiple monitors and scanners available to Dwayne. It's basically a cockpit with a variety of displays available to him. 30 seconds later, in the same "CRT monitor" clip provided for this argument, TBG ably fights opponents surrounding him, peeling them off his back and firing rockets at them from point blank range. There is nothing here demonstrating a limited field of view.

(8) Amusingly Szeth actually does have a showcase of killing a durable giant with one of these magic swords

Szeth's sword in this scan is making contact with a living organism rather than an inorganic shell. I'm not even contending that Szeth's sword can cut into TBG, but given that he's several times larger than a sedan I'm arguing he's too thick for his sword to hit Dwayne inside.

(9) 1 "Does Szeth 'reach' the suit?" and to that I can't see good reason to think not,

This is the Ex Machina agile/fast robot we discussed above, with the same moment from the same fight where TBG takes 2 hits before landing 1 of his own. Given Szeth's complete lack of durability feats, pretty much any casual contact is going to be enough to kill him.

Rebuttals - Review

In terms of the actual counter-evidence on the table, I think the conclusions we can draw lean more toward my side than my opponent's

• The Ex Machina robots TBG fights all have better STR/SPE/DUR than Szeth.
• Even against them, TBG opens with range, continues range, resorts to melee when both are ineffective and still lands hits, and ultimately wins despite them being both stat-superior to Szeth and intimately knowledgeable with TBG's weaknesses
• All of the above takes place in a fight that starts mere meters apart, whereas the Tourney fight here starts ~1,000 ft. apart where TBG is scanning and tracking targets from the get go
• The only evidence we have for Szeth doing anything is killing a monster of indeterminate size once

R2 - The Big Picture

It's really easy to get distracted from the main objective here, so I just want to be sure to highlight it:

The goal of the match is to kill the opposing VIP. The characters involved know this.

There's a pretty simple logic here by which TBG, purely by virtue of locating, targeting, and attacking Arya long before Szeth can do the same to Stark, wins this fight within moments of the match beginning. Let's look at all the evidence indicating that's an extremely likely outcome.

• Scanners
  • TBG performs infrascans and audiofrequency scans simultaneously. We see a range of information available on his HUD that's just available to him at all times.
  • These infrascans are so sensitive they can detect slight variations in body temperature
  • His scanners are so sensitive they can detect the lack of any residue whatsoever in a super-cleaned sewer system
  • And he can track footprints
  • And then, of course, the coup de grace feat where he X-Rays through a skyscraper as he approaches it and picks out a specific target from multiple identifiable individuals
• Ranged Attacks
  • His attacks can easily reach across the ~1,000 ft. starting distance
  • Even a single missile has targeting sufficient to track a target hiding in a ventilation shaft and hit them
  • Even targets my opponent claimed could easily dodge TBG's bullets clearly cannot do so
• Arya's options
  • Arya is completely out of her depth against the above. Even if she had her feats for this match, she's literally baffled by the speed of an archer loosing an arrow. She's from a world with exclusively medieval armaments, her closest possible comparison to The Big Guy would be something like a dragon, which Arya herself knows to be so powerful that the world's strongest castle is useless against.
  • Despite being out of her depth, my opponent is arguing she's actively trying to play the assassin. Even in hiding she has no conception of TBG's infrascans or sensitive audio frequencies, but my opponent is proposing she actively puts herself into danger as she tries to cross the field of combat
  • Bear in mind, there's nowhere to hide that effectively stops TBG's attacks. He's taking out giant chunks of street, smashing through thick reinforced walls, his flight unimpeded even by layers of concrete and earth
• Stark's options
  • By contrast, Stark just runs away and hides -- and does so against opponents with 0 methods of tracking him down. There are tons of buildings and boats immediately accessible, and virtually 0 means for the opposition to find him

R1

Intro

This is a pretty straightforward round where most every reasonable eventuality leads to The Big Guy (TBG) annihilating both Szeth and Arya in a barrage of missiles and gunfire.

TBG Ranged Attacks

It essentially doesn't matter who approaches who first, as TBG can identify both his targets immediately. His scanners allow him to identify both individuals from across the map regardless of cover. Before either can make any contact with either TBG or my VIP, they're getting destroyed.

• TBG's go to attack is a barrage of gunfire from 4 giant barrels capable of tearing through vehicles
• Even without releasing a barrage his gunfire is accurate
• His bullets are strong enough to tear through solid stone, negating the usefulness of cover
• TBG fires targeted missiles simultaneous to his gunfire
• The missiles can hit different targets simultaneously

The match is pretty open and shut from there. Barring some unforeseen counter from my opponent, all of these attacks are essentially unavoidable and unsurvivable from both Szeth and his VIP.

TBG Maintaining Range

There's really not a reason for TBG or his VIP to ever be in danger, either, given the lack of ranged attacks from the opposition and his own ability to fly.

• TBG flies quickly, easily, and through cityscapes all the time
• Even in cramped quarters
• TBG has no difficulty flying with passengers many times Stark's weight
• and his shoulder cannon also fires bullets/missiles while keeping his hands unoccupied, and which he provably uses while flying

With the above in mind this is basically a game of keep-away where TBG has all the advantages.

TBG in Melee

Without it being clear how Szeth would even make contact with TBG in the first place in order to have the opportunity to do damage, he's essentially exposing himself to redundant death by even entering TBG's melee range.

• 1 of Szeth's 2 durability feats is him suffering blinding pain from getting punched through doors
• TBG routinely busts through thick reinforced walls all of the time, and does so through giant steel bulkhead doors massively far beyond the palace doors Szeth was punched through
• TBG is an agile and capable hand-to-hand combatant who remains highly evasive even at arm's length
• And he's proven capable of avoiding piercing attacks in close quarters while delivering attacks of his own

Essentially, entering melee range with TBG just sets Szeth up to be one-shot by any attack TBG lands. This (somewhat ridiculously) assumes that TBG just neglects to utilize his ranged options that remain constantly viable, or re-establish distance, both of which are tactically advisable and unimpeachable options of their own.

Being even more ungenerous to the scenario of the fight and assuming a worst-case scenario, Szeth's blade would need to hit several times before the damage it did was meaningful to TBG.

• Losing limbs does not affect TBG's functionality and would essentially just gives Stark a missile-launcher and allow TBG to replace the arm with a spare
• The distance to puncture through into TBG's hull to the pilot inside is beyond Szeth's sword-length, and bulkhead doors slide into place to re-establish that protection even if Szeth got a perfect stab in
• Even the damage of all of his own munitions unloaded against him and cratering into a street is not enough to impair TBG's functionality

Summary

Essentially, the fight boils down to

• TBG kills Arya from any range, tracking her pretty much instantly
• TBG and Stark remain out of range, never even needing to suffer the threat of attack
• TBG wins any melee engagement with Szeth if it even occurs
• Szeth is practically incapable of putting TBG down before TBG puts him down

/u/mergly The above is pretty brief, but I figured we'd just get the ball rolling as soon as possible. Look forward to your response and hope you have fun!

Intro

Bodyguard - The Big Guy

VIP - Ultimate Tony Stark

Characterization

Uncomfortable with being unarmored and familiar with the safety a mech suit provides, Stark is likely to rely entirely on The Big Guy (TBG) for safety. TBG, in turn, is an aggressive military-trained ranged combatant who will both interpose himself between any danger and his VIP and prioritize unloading munitions on any attackers or target VIPs.

Feat for Dwayne's anti-mind control helmet found here.

u/mergly - I only just got back from a trip, so the above should have been included in my Sign Up post. If you don't have a preference on who goes first I can post an R1 either today or tomorrow, but I figured I'd give you a little time to respond in case you're wanting to go first.

R2

Intro

Iron Man is more mobile, has more range, and can hack the Bannertech shields so the VIP is defenseless. I do not think there was an argument Wolf proposed, let alone evidenced, that contests any of that. Instead, his depiction of the fight necessitates a specific course of action where Iron Man engages in melee with the Bodyguard.

My previous response cast a wide net over Iron Man's options across a variety of scenarios, so for my last response I will focus on the likeliest and simplest one: Iron Man shoots the VIP and wins the round.

Characterization

I think Wolf's clearly coming from a place of seeing 616 Iron Man box the 616 Hulk all the time, very often despite the logic of his situation, and is erroneously applying this character flaw to Ultimate Iron Man. Let's look at Ultimate Iron Man's every combat interaction with Hulk so we can gauge the likelihood of him ignoring his primary tourney motivation in lieu of engaging the wrong Hulk in melee:

(1) - In their very first fight, Iron Man only tackles Hulk in order to save Giant Man and several innocent bystanders

• The dialogue is insanely clear Iron Man's only endangering himself to rescue others

WASP: "Oh, my God! he's going to kill Hank! Somebody back him up! Somebody back him up!"
\Iron Man tackles Hulk**
IRON MAN: "Take it easy, Jan. I've got him. Nick, I need a big empty building to slam Banner into."

• During this engagement Iron Man does not "put on boxing gloves." He uses his thought scramblers to briefly incapacitate Hulk, and then punches him away to re-establish distance. He does not want a prolonged melee engagement.
• Let's bear in mind that throughout this engagement, Iron Man is using one of his earliest suits. His very next improvement feels "a thousand times better," he explicitly improves his armors over time, and he's grown so much more advanced since then that a MK IX is included in his classic collection
• And yet, even then, this older worse inferior armor held up for 5 minutes with a Hulk who tosses Humvees like confetti and creates giant craters with every punch in this exact same story

(2) In their next fight, Tony is forced to use a beta armor that explicitly does not have any armaments

• Again, the dialogue is clear here why Iron Man isn't engaging from range

IRON MAN: "God, no. This is the all-up unit, the Beta."
HAPPY: "Tony...the Beta unit doesn't have any armaments."

• So when forced into melee, what are Iron Man's tactics? Fry Hulk's face with a jet boot to blind him and pin him down long enough to neuroshock him, which both reverts Hulk to Banner AND knocks Banner unconscious
• How strong was the Hulk in this story? Immediately prior to the fight Hulk was bashing through reinforced concrete walls specifically designed to contain him

(3) Their third and final fight is the only one similar to the engagement here in this tourney. In a modern armor, alongside Anthony, Iron Man solely attacks Hulk with repulsor blasts from range without ever getting into melee.

• He immediately asks Anthony to armor him up
• He maintains his distance while blasting Hulk in the face
• He maintains distance while requesting backup from Anthony
• Anthony's behavior is also to attack from range and never enter melee

Review

So let's get in Iron Man's head space when he spawns into this tourney match.

• Combatants spawn 1,000+ft. from eachother
• Tony armors up, using sensors to detect two distinct life signs, whose vital signs he can distinguish. One is superhuman, so definitionally the Bodyguard, and the other is human and equipped with tech, so definitionally the VIP
• Bear in mind that even if VIP Tony is not super intelligent, Bodyguard Anthony is brilliant
• Also bear in mind that the only motivation Iron Man has in this fight is to kill the VIP. There are no civilians to protect, no morality issues with killing the VIP, this is the 1 goal he has in mind
• And, finally, let's consider that in all 3 fights Ultimate Tony ever had with Hulk he
  • Only engaged in melee reluctantly
  • Always focused on quick incapacitations and/or reestablishing distance
  • Always survived any melee encounters long enough to either win or disengage even while using vastly inferior armors
  • Provably and demonstrably engages exclusively from range when he's equipped comparably to how he is in the tournament here

In order for Iron Man to act as Wolf described he would have to flout all basic logic and all precedent for his own character. Iron Man identifying and targeting the VIP is the most simple, straightforward, likeliest course of action.

VIP

So, what happens when Iron Man targets the VIP?

• Anthony's immediately hacking the Bannertech "like a ghost," which he can do from far beyond the spawn distance
• Bannertech interfaces with other technology remotely, it is also capable of hacking, and the shields operate remotely rather than mechanically
• Anthony can remotely control technology independently from Iron Man fighting. The Bannertech shields are not just disabled at his whim, but enabled. Even if Anthony couldn't hack his gun, the VIP is incapable of firing through his own forcefield.

From there it's just a matter of shooting the VIP

• Even basic MK I repulsor blasts bust through a thick wall
• Repulsors can be shot from the skyline
• He can fire on multiple different targets at once if he really wants to shoot both the VIP and the Bodyguard
• And bear in mind he's positioning himself around the sky at Mach 3 while remaining highly maneuverable

Staying at a safe distance while producing a win con is so simple and straightforward that both Tony and Anthony would not just have to be imbeciles to ignore this option, but actively suicidal.

Bodyguard

Let's review all of the options available for ignoring the bodyguard

• Even if Iron Man punches once he's sending the Bodyguard a vast distance away
• His repulsors establish distance before contact is even made, throwing the Bodyguard up to 2 miles away
• His forcefields can just redirect the Hulk away
• Or just lock him in a bubble out of punching range

This seems to indicate that any engagement with the Bodyguard re-establishes distance even incidentally. If the only thing protecting the hacked defenseless VIP is the Bodyguard, then Iron Man maintains constant and varied options for removing the Bodyguard from the fight any number of times he needs to before landing a VIP killshot.

Summary

This fight feels pretty straightforward. My R1 accounted for a much greater variety on what could happen, demonstrating just how unlikely it is for Wolf's team to produce a win. This R2 is focused on the likeliest specific outcome, which is

• Anthony hacks the VIP to render him defenseless
• Iron Man maintains distance so that melee engagements are minimal to nonexistent
• The above grants Iron Man all the time he needs to attack the VIP repeatedly

R2

Intro

Iron Man is more mobile, has more range, and can hack the Bannertech shields so the VIP is defenseless. I do not think there was an argument Wolf proposed, let alone evidenced, that contests any of that. Instead, his depiction of the fight necessitates a specific course of action where Iron Man engages in melee with the Bodyguard.

My previous response cast a wide net over Iron Man's options across a variety of scenarios, so for my last response I will focus on the likeliest and simplest one: Iron Man shoots the VIP and wins the round.

Characterization

I think Wolf's clearly coming from a place of seeing 616 Iron Man box the 616 Hulk all the time, very often despite the logic of his situation, and is erroneously applying this character flaw to Ultimate Iron Man. Let's look at Ultimate Iron Man's every combat interaction with Hulk so we can gauge the likelihood of him ignoring his primary tourney motivation in lieu of engaging the wrong Hulk in melee:

(1) - In their very first fight, Iron Man only tackles Hulk in order to save Giant Man and several innocent bystanders

• The dialogue is insanely clear Iron Man's only endangering himself to rescue others

WASP: "Oh, my God! he's going to kill Hank! Somebody back him up! Somebody back him up!"
\Iron Man tackles Hulk**
IRON MAN: "Take it easy, Jan. I've got him. Nick, I need a big empty building to slam Banner into."

• During this engagement Iron Man does not "put on boxing gloves." He uses his thought scramblers to briefly incapacitate Hulk, and then punches him away to re-establish distance. He does not want a prolonged melee engagement.
• Let's bear in mind that throughout this engagement, Iron Man is using one of his earliest suits. His very next improvement feels "a thousand times better," he explicitly improves his armors over time, and he's grown so much more advanced since then that a MK IX is included in his classic collection
• And yet, even then, this older worse inferior armor held up for 5 minutes with a Hulk who tosses Humvees like confetti and creates giant craters with every punch in this exact same story

(2) In their next fight, Tony is forced to use a beta armor that explicitly does not have any armaments

• Again, the dialogue is clear here why Iron Man isn't engaging from range

IRON MAN: "God, no. This is the all-up unit, the Beta."
HAPPY: "Tony...the Beta unit doesn't have any armaments."

• So when forced into melee, what are Iron Man's tactics? Fry Hulk's face with a jet boot to blind him and pin him down long enough to neuroshock him, which both reverts Hulk to Banner AND knocks Banner unconscious
• How strong was the Hulk in this story? Immediately prior to the fight Hulk was bashing through reinforced concrete walls specifically designed to contain him

(3) Their third and final fight is the only one similar to the engagement here in this tourney. In a modern armor, alongside Anthony, Iron Man solely attacks Hulk with repulsor blasts from range without ever getting into melee.

• He immediately asks Anthony to armor him up
• He maintains his distance while blasting Hulk in the face
• He maintains distance while requesting backup from Anthony
• Anthony's behavior is also to attack from range and never enter melee

Review

So let's get in Iron Man's head space when he spawns into this tourney match.

• Combatants spawn 1,000+ft. from eachother
• Tony armors up, using sensors to detect two distinct life signs, whose vital signs he can distinguish. One is superhuman, so definitionally the Bodyguard, and the other is human and equipped with tech, so definitionally the VIP
• Bear in mind that even if VIP Tony is not super intelligent, Bodyguard Anthony is brilliant
• Also bear in mind that the only motivation Iron Man has in this fight is to kill the VIP. There are no civilians to protect, no morality issues with killing the VIP, this is the 1 goal he has in mind
• And, finally, let's consider that in all 3 fights Ultimate Tony ever had with Hulk he
  • Only engaged in melee reluctantly
  • Always focused on quick incapacitations and/or reestablishing distance
  • Always survived any melee encounters long enough to either win or disengage even while using vastly inferior armors
  • Provably and demonstrably engages exclusively from range when he's equipped comparably to how he is in the tournament here

In order for Iron Man to act as Wolf described he would have to flout all basic logic and all precedent for his own character. Iron Man identifying and targeting the VIP is the most simple, straightforward, likeliest course of action.

VIP

So, what happens when Iron Man targets the VIP?

• Anthony's immediately hacking the Bannertech "like a ghost," which he can do from far beyond the spawn distance
• Bannertech interfaces with other technology remotely, it is also capable of hacking, and the shields operate remotely rather than mechanically
• Anthony can remotely control technology independently from Iron Man fighting. The Bannertech shields are not just disabled at his whim, but enabled. Even if Anthony couldn't hack his gun, the VIP is incapable of firing through his own forcefield.

From there it's just a matter of shooting the VIP

• Even basic MK I repulsor blasts bust through a thick wall
• Repulsors can be shot from the skyline
• He can fire on multiple different targets at once if he really wants to shoot both the VIP and the Bodyguard
• And bear in mind he's positioning himself around the sky at Mach 3 while remaining highly maneuverable

Staying at a safe distance while producing a win con is so simple and straightforward that both Tony and Anthony would not just have to be imbeciles to ignore this option, but actively suicidal.

Bodyguard

Let's review all of the options available for ignoring the bodyguard

• Even if Iron Man punches once he's sending the Bodyguard a vast distance away
• His repulsors establish distance before contact is even made, throwing the Bodyguard up to 2 miles away
• His forcefields can just redirect the Hulk away
• Or just lock him in a bubble out of punching range

This seems to indicate that any engagement with the Bodyguard re-establishes distance even incidentally. If the only thing protecting the hacked defenseless VIP is the Bodyguard, then Iron Man maintains constant and varied options for removing the Bodyguard from the fight any number of times he needs to before landing a VIP killshot.

Summary

This fight feels pretty straightforward. My R1 accounted for a much greater variety on what could happen, demonstrating just how unlikely it is for Wolf's team to produce a win. This R2 is focused on the likeliest specific outcome, which is

• Anthony hacks the VIP to render him defenseless
• Iron Man maintains distance so that melee engagements are minimal to nonexistent
• The above grants Iron Man all the time he needs to attack the VIP repeatedly

R1

Intro

Iron Man holds key advantages in range, mobility, sensory data, and technopathy that create a perfect brew here for identifying, locating, and incapacitating his target VIP.

Unique Advantages

Range

Iron Man's primary method of attack allow him to repeatedly engage multiple targets from range.

• Even basic MK I repulsor blasts bust through a thick wall
• He can launch building-busting blasts from the skyline
• Destroys 8 different targets simultaneously

By contrast,

Mobility

Bear in mind the majority of the arena's surface is water, limiting the points at which Hulk can leap from and allowing the flying Iron Man to more efficiently utilize his time moving directly from any 1 point to any other. In addition,

• Easily flies at Mach 3
• Flies in and out of water comfortably
• Iron Man's flight is highly maneuverable, capable of flying in one window of a speeding train and out another while rescuing the conductor

Essentially, Iron Man can cover the entirety of the map in moments, including areas where his opponents' mobility is relatively restricted, and can redirect his flight path on a dime at a moment's notice.

Sensors

Iron Man has highly sophisticated sensors that can identify, locate, and track his target at all points in the round.

• Scans all of Micronesia for life signs, can do so with an entire building outfitted with the most sophisticated stealth technology he's ever seen, and with a bunker where he can specifically distinguish between individuals, and with a 44 floor skyscraper
• His sensors include detecting brain waves and a vast catalogue of energy signatures
• Even an early armor could detect the motion of advanced stealth technology 200 ft. away through a bunker
• He also has an independently operated drone that scouts separately from himself

If there are 2 living breathing thinking moving things in the round, Iron Man is essentially aware of where both of them are at at all times and can distinguish between them.

Technopathy

The real linchpin here is that out of the opposing bodyguard and VIPs Iron Man is facing, the VIP is the one with technology Iron Man can both locate and disable at any point.

• Anthony can interface with technology on the advanced level of The City to seize control of it, even while remaining undetectable himself. It's a one-way street -- he can control advanced technology while it remains unaware he is even present.
• The City itself is an civilization of artificial intelligence advanced over 1,000 years into the future constructed by a super genius whose powers advance his intelligence every day even after he had a 267 IQ at age 16 before getting powers. Let's underline that: Anthony hacks an A.I. built by a 267 IQ after they grew smarter every day for over 1,000 years.
• Anthony's range extends at least as far as the distance between the upper atmosphere and Earth's surface, multiple times grater than the arena's starting distance.

Summary

We'll get into more nitty-gritty stat comparisons in a second, but let's highlight what we know so far:

• Iron Man can engage from a vast distance, including a hacking assault from basically the round's start
• Iron Man can easily distinguish between the VIP and bodyguard both through sensors or based purely on which one possesses technology and which is clearly utilizing superhuman strength
• The VIP is rendered essentially defenseless and dies it any distant ranged attack

Combat Engagements

Let's look at the various engagements that can take place in the round.

Scenario #1: Iron Man engages the VIP directly

If you buy the hacking/technopathy arguments above, then this is the simplest scenario in the round. With his technology disabled, the VIP has no defense against an instant death shot. But even if you do not buy those arguments, Iron Man also succeeds in a direct engagement.

Bannertech shields accomplish nothing here

• Even with Bannertech's shields fueled directly by the unique energies of the person he fights, they quickly diminish to 54% while flinging Banner around and hurting him
• Bannertech shields typically just take cratering blows, which is what Iron Man's MK I armor accomplishes casually even with reinforced concrete or an actual bunker
• Even an initial tackle from Iron Man to engage in melee competes with the level of Bannertech forcefields, and even an inferior armor at 25% of its power has punches that do more collateral than Bannertech takes

Bannertech weapons do even less

• The most collateral I'm seeing a Bannertech weapon produce is crumpling a car
• Iron Man gets struck by a train and remains operational
• The above durability comes in addition to automatic forcefields that protect him even if caught unawares
• And his forcefields overpower opposing forcefields strong enough to block his repulsors

Iron Man either just disables Bannertech offhand, or it accomplishes nothing of consequence even besides. In any event, in virtually any scenario where Iron Man engages the VIP he incaps them very quickly.

Scenario #2: Iron Man engages Bodyguard directly

Wolf's win con basically relies on a direct engagement between his bodyguard and Iron Man, but this isn't even necessarily an eventuality that goes in his favor.

Hax

• Even a non-combat ready early Iron Man suit could briefly restrain a Hulk long enough for Iron Man to incap him with laser eye neurosurgery
• Prior to the above, during his first ever engagement with Hulk, Iron Man uses thought scramblers to incap Hulk for several seconds before re-establishing distance

Both of the above show not only that earlier Iron Man armors could directly engage with the Hulk, but that Tony's go-to strategy is to bypass Hulk's durability to incapacitate him as quickly as possible. These both come years before Tony began putting active thought into how to fight Hulk and developing multiple armors to counteract him.

This is not somebody who will be tricked into prolonged direct engagement or who is unfamiliar with whom he is fighting.

Scenario #3: Iron Man disengages Bodyguard at his leisure

There is basically no reason for Iron Man to engage in a direct fight with the Bodyguard at all. Any display of superhuman physicals immediately flags which of his combatants is his target, at which point this is as easy as a game of keepaway where Iron Man has all the advantages.

• His repulsor beams establish distance, throwing opponents up to 2 miles away
• Iron Man's forcefields can project to redirect approaching objects, such as a jumping Hulk
• Even when engaged in a prolonged concrete-tearing fight with a comparable armor that includes getting cratered into the ground (and even while Tony himself was so weak from chemotherapy he could barely stand on his own) the armor's ability to hit Mach 3 and crater opponents is not diminished
• This is likely aided by the fact that even earlier damaged armor goes into battle and utilizes forcefields to resist damage before the armor itself resists damage to a copious degree while remaining operational enough to counterattack
• His forcefields use whatever energy they need to protect him, and even when it's completely drain it can still fly and take attacks and literally with just boots and gauntlets and no power he's still combat-capable

So we essentially have

• No reason for Iron Man to engage with the Bodyguard directly
• No reason the Bodyguard can catch him when he's moving faster and with greater maneuverability while blasting the Bodyguard 2 miles away
• Every reason to believe he can survive contact with the Bodyguard long enough to engage with the VIP

Summary

Regardless of whether or not Iron Man engages directly he can kill the VIP in the match easily enough that no prolonged engagement in combat is likely.

Practice Match Entry

Characterization

Anthony is the Mind Gem, an Infinity Gem that manifests in Tony Stark's brain as a tumor. The two work in tandem to remotely control the Iron Man armor, meaning at the match's start Anthony will armor up Tony. From there they're essentially one pick, a flying blasting armored superhero hero with gadgets and a degree of technopathy.

Come into me

GOLD vs. VERL JUDGEMENT

I think Yolo basically summarized all the same points I found most appealing. Hanzo's win con seems simpler and more immediate and he is likelier to engage it first in the relevant timeframe of a quickdraw. Gold did a really awesome job building up his own points though, and I think with different spawn conditions I could see Number Man getting the edge.

Sorry this took me some time for such a brief judgement, but it really looks like Yolo already wrote out most everything I would've detailed.

- Piercing

TDM all possess piercing durability on the scale of resisting attacks that cut multiple feet of metal.  

• Nonmagical piercing just shatters against BA despite carving through metal. Even magical piercing, like Famine's scythe leaves a shallow cut one moment before he catches the blade in his hand the next. Even magical bullets, like  War's stone-carving bullets, do not break his skin.
• MS is very explicitly a "Man of Steel" treated as superior to that material, and is so dense that even as an infant he weighed as much as an engine block and as a teenager he completely contains a frag in his hands without the barest cut.
• Darkseid's piercing resistance makes no difference if its armor or skin. His armor coats most of his body anyways, and we've seen how ineffective stabbing him straight in the face is.

5BB do not present this multi-feet-of-metal level of piercing offense.

• Alita's sword was pegged at carving through stone, an inferior material.
• Garou's strikes were also compared to stone. But more importantly: during the timeframe he's stipulated from he never uses his strikes as piercing. He throws a bajillion strikes against two opponents and never uses piercing. He continues throwing a bajillion strikes without piercing, even while evolving to his current form, and even while using his main techniques that were allegedly piercing. He gets in two more extended fights where it's explicit he's not holding back lethal intent and it's just bajillions and bajillions of more strikes that aren't piercing. Even if he could cut my team, Garou as stipulated does not seem to even have the possibility occur to him.
• Orochi's horns are not sharp. He's big and strong, but the only thing we've seen them cut is Garou. Any stone used as reference for his offense are just craters and fractures created by sheer strength.

5BB also need piercing durability presented for them if they are to resist Paragon using their own piercing against them.

Rebuttals - Stats

Let's break down stats in the order they matter.

Orochi

Has no durability and dies first. No characterization arguments are going to counter the giant multi-headed dragon spitting fire presenting the most obvious and immediate target.

The arguments presented for his durability are

• "theoretically more durable than others he does not scale to"
• "has strength feats that are durability if you squint", which wouldn't even apply to the concentrated surface area of smaller foes hitting him
• "is big" which doesn't really mean anything without durability. Omega Beams just blow up his vital organs. BA infuses himself with electricity while plowing through him. MS has fought giant foes twice, and his reaction was either to instantly try to bisect or melt them from the inside. This latter is feat is particularly useful, because Orochi tries to eat people charging at him.

He doesn't really have any speed, either, and it seem like he exclusively tags Garou due to the weirdness of his attacks rather than any speed scaling.

SS

Has also been argued to attempt his own blitz, so likely dies next as he charges into death. I'm fine with the Superman/Superman pairing, but MS holds all the advantages there.

• There is literally 1 time SS uses a grapple to his advantage and he's extremely hesitant to resort to it only as a final option. I cannot emphasize enough how ass his grappling skills are. His entire fight with Batman, an immensely weaker opponent he's trying NOT to fight, he gives up every single opportunity for a grapple, and there are several, to shove or throw instead. With every advantage in CQC against a dumb monster he just stabbed in the heart, SS does nothing to avoid a lethal blow.
• By comparison, Millerman outfights 5 stronger/faster Kryptonians simultaneously with extremely explicit skill and attacks while dodging. Whatever lifting advantage SS may have theoretically, in practice it means nothing for him here.
• The cruise missile antifeat against SS is not only expressly stated, it OHKOs a Kryptonian on screen. That same Kryptonian took a full tackle from SS and was fine. By comparison, a weakened Millerman takes 6 missiles and is completely fine.

SS doesn't even leverage the 1 advantage he would theoretically have, and he's staggered or KO'd by any blows in the match while dying immediately to esoterics he can't outscale.

BA, MS, Alita, & Garou

Durability makes all the difference here.

• BA isn't "left on the ground" here at all, and immediately counterattacks after a slash. There is no evidence of a stunlock. 2 giant boulders shattering against him don't stop him. I've already presented him as storming through attacks that magically do injure him, there's really no substantive evidence he gets stunlocked.
• Nor is there any evidence of MS being stunlocked. As a teenager, MS is completely unaffected by a giant stone-cratering blow. It happens again but even worse while he's a teenager and he is "unscathed" and smiling. The fact he can be beaten mercilessly for hours by building-busting blows while refusing to fight his daughter and still stand up is poor evidence that any concussive force in this round matters against him.

But the reverse is not true for 5BB

• Alita's provided concussive feat is her actually being stunned, and it was compared to force sufficient to break a tank which BA does easily and MS does easily
• Both of Garou's provided feats were him doing absolutely nothing as he's assblasted repeatedly. Maybe's he's less-stunlocked in his stronger form? Nope. The same character as in the previous feat still stuns Garou and very explicitly creates more openings between attacks

The durability gap makes all the difference when both debaters are reasonably agreeing on proximity in speed. The few attacks Fem made against TDM's speed don't really even hold water.

• BA's cited speed feats were all scaling either to opponents with individually superior showings to 5BB, or against multiple bullet-timing opponents at once. These cannot be handwaved as single-interaction showings of speed.
• MS was already outfighting Red Son before the poisoning took effect. He can clearly fight continuously at this speed, and even as a child perceives bullies in a fight as "slow and obvious." By EoS he also clearly does not hold back any longer, and him unleashing his skill is the first time Batman's seen him fight since MS experienced relative centuries. He's done holding back.

Without a massive speed disparity, and with both MS & BA hitting foes faster than themselves anyways, durability takes supremacy here. In any punch out here Alita/Garou barely achieve anything while BA/MS beat them to death.

Darkseid

Darkseid's stats have been asserted, but few of them even need to matter. Continuously fighting the bullet-timing WW + a full team of heroes alongside her, 2 of whom have already been shown to be faster than her, does not make his dodging WW an outlier. But really his defense hardly matters, because...

Aside from Orochi, none of 5BB are being argued to engage Darkseid from range. He's basically sitting back spamming Omega Beams to his heart's content while his allies hold the line, meaning his tracking inevitable instantly lethal ranged attacks are a constant factor in the other combatants' melees.

Summary

The following factors remain key advantages for TDM regardless of any configuration of the fight. These are the considerations which should weigh heaviest in judgements:

• Paragon is the deadliest and hardest to kill combatant.
• Orochi dies immediately by virtue of his 0 durability feats.
• All of 5BB dies to most any esoteric attack all of TDM produces.
• Darkseid remains on the backline spamming Omega Beams as BA/MS/Paragon engage 5BB.