The Video Game Draft Version 3.0: The Triforce of Drafts (Winner: MarcusP2)

Btw, I'm leaning a certain way here, but I don't want to make any snap judgments here in the finals, so if you two are up for it...

 

Just finishing my pick in Anime, then I'll argue this. Hope you're leaning my way though.

EDIT: Alright, Samanosuke. Hoped I spelled it right because I ain't using it again. Sammy's definitely within reach of a prepared Strago, if not a prepared JC (which is why the bum's sitting on a bench). Strago can make the fight more advantageous on his side by Hasting and Big Guard-ing himself, and using Sour Mouth on Sammy. After that, repeated uses of Grand Train, Flare and Ultima will take Sammy down before he emerges into Onimusha mode..

 

So in 24 hours he's going to find all these monsters, woh live all over the world, to teach him all of these abilities? By himself? Without dying? As a 'boss' level enemy Sammy's going to be resistant to those status effects anyway. And Strago can't cast Flare or Ultima.

 

Eh? Now, I haven't played FF6 (getting it soon), but as I understood it, Ultima and Flare were spells you got from Espers, and I don't see why Strago couldn't get them. And I don't see why Strago at his peak shouldn't have most of his abilities already, and prep gets him the rest, not to mention optimum equipment setup. And I wonder if Sammy would be unaffected getting hit by Mute, Imp, Poison, Dark, Sleep and Muddle at all, but I'll let the judges decide that.

 

Ah, but you have to fight monsters for ages to learn any spells from them. And you can only get Ultima from one esper, and you need Locke to get him, and even then it's optional. In 24 hours of prep, he's certainly not going to track down said esper, fight dozens of battles to learn it, and then do the same for Flare, which requires you to track down and beat Bahamut, again an optional quest. Sammy needs no prep to unload his power at all. And the same goes for these Lores...some easy ones he's sure to have, but flying all over the world to get certain specific powerful ones? And things like Big Guard need Sketch, Control or Rage to get, and Strago doesn't have them.

How many powerful enemies does those status effects work on anyway? Barely any.

 

Oh wait, now I know why I haven't won this argument yet, it's a simple matter of

[image=http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a93/axlestarweilder/stragowned.jpg]








If at his peak and prepared, he can't have access to his best spells, then I want to know why.


EDIT: From Shurron's posts, concerning an argument with a Team Battle from the last draft:

They can easily achieve the same thing and then a whole lot more on top of that with spells like Meteor or Ultima and many, many, many, MANY others. They have the entire FF VI spell list to work with (which is quite large), Strago has an *additional* list of blue magic that's his and his alone (which is also large) on top of that...

...One of them can equip the economizer relic on themselves and then every single spell costs only 1MP. That Ultima spell that usually costs 99MP, for example? Now only 1MP...

...But he also has two of the biggest magical guns in the game with Terra and Strago. They, I think, would have access to the entire range of spells. And the hubbub with Ultima and Meteor and other powerful spells is that... they're extremely powerful spells. I mean, pure, hot, sexy damage. What more do you want?

 

Oh, right. Almost forgot.

Sammy wins. Strago can prep all he likes, he's just not in the same league. He's slow, and he's got no close combat skills. He can bump up his speed with prep, and it'd be smart if his first move were to cast Big Gaurd, but Sammy can close the gap far too quickly. Far too fast, too strong. And even protected from some amount of damage, Strago's just going to be healing himself way too often to ever really get any significant offense going. And Sammy's plenty durable enough to take a few shots even if he did.

Winner: Samanosuke Akechi

 

Hmm, I thought so, if Strago couldn't nuke Sammy quickly enough.

 

I'm going with Sammy as well. Strago has enough magic to make it very, very close. But, I think he probably needs a little bit of support to take out an opponent of Sammy's caliber. Again, the same problem plagues a lot of FF VI heroes. Very good, but not great, and against top-tier characters, they'll fall just short a good number of times.

 

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME.


Beat me and get banned (1) vs. Antagonizing Protagonists (0)

Won

Doc Citan Uzuki (Xenogears) (Prepared) vs. Lady (Devil May Cry) TRUMPED with Princess Zelda (Ocarina of Time) AND Adelbert Steiner (FF IX)

 

Wow that's a big gun trump.

 

You think your guy can bust it?

 

Well,any two, I'd be confident in. Steiner's just a tank, with no magic to help him out. A prepped Citan should be able to deal with that alright. I confess to being ignorant as to what Zelda actually does at all. And Lady is just a normal human with a big gun. Since they have no time to get to know each other or work out a plan, and Citan does, I can see him dropping Lady and Zelda right quick with some item/ether attack use and then going sword to sword with Steiner. So yeah, I think he can take this.

 

A tough one, but simply one too many foes to worry about for Citan. Steiner's certainly tough enough to hang with Citan for awhile, and if Citan gets hit by a Climhazzard or a Shock attack he'll be in trouble. Lady's not just a normal human, she's an insanely agile and speedy one with pistols, grenades, and the Kalina Ann rocket launcher, and a few more weapons after that. This one shows her arsenal, And this one's great for showing off her moves. Citan will be working hard not become swiss cheese or exploded. And then there's Zelda, who's healing and protective magics will be a great boon to her teammates. Not to mention the fact that she has the power to freeze an opponent in place.

So, going directly for Zelda may seem like a good idea, but it leaves him dreadfully open against a brutal counterattack by Lady and Steiner, and with Zelda's defensive magics, she can hold off long enough against Citan for Steiner to protect her. And if this match goes on long enough, Citan will have to face against a Tranced up version of Steiner, and his attacks will be devastating.

 

A Tranced Steiner just becomes good enough to hang with Citan in melee. His deathblows are just as good as any of Steiner's trance attacks. And Citan can heal himself with items and Ether; with Zelda dead (which she will be...Citan's power > anything I've seen from Zelda) the others can't (Steiner doesn't seem the kind to be carrying an arsenal of potions). He's agile enough to avoid rockets etc, and could use his Ether abilities to block damage from them in any case. He's as fast as Lady, as good at support as Zelda, and as good in melee as Steiner. He's also an excellent tactician and bona fide genius.

Take a Samson's Hair, upping his attack power. Get the drop on the team, stab Zelda in the face. If he needs time to heal up/prepare, take a Tragedienne, making enemies ignore him. Neither of the other two has the chops to take him down.

 

Actually, I would say that Lady should be, and probably would be Citan's likely target for any opening surprise attack. Not Zelda. Think about it. OoT Zelda's hardly a threat to him offensively, and her healing powers, such as they are (You know, I'm not actually recalling any specific healing from her. Care to elaborate?), aren't enough to raise the dead. And as far as holding him in place goes: she did that to a weakened Ganon, and Citan > Ganon when it comes to... pretty much everything.

And Steiner's not unskilled, but Citan's certainly got him beat. Perhaps not in strength, but definitely in skill and speed, which are both vastly more important. He's really pretty clunky, and not exactly that big of a threat to Citan, barring any severe slips ups on Doc's part.

Lady, on the other hand, is extremely nimble and skilled, and she presents a ranged threat to Citan in this battle. Someone who, if left unchecked, can drop back and just start going to town on Citan while he's busy trying to take out Steiner, making his job so much more difficult, if not impossible.

So it seems to me that what he'd be likely to do is to just unload on Lady from the outset, just throwing everything he has at her while the trump is still wondering who it is they're fighting with and against. The total lack of any significant cohesion for the trump is a factor. And once Lady's taken care of, it seems like it's totally Citan's battle to lose. I doubt he'd have much trouble seperating Steiner and Zelda, and then he's likely to go after Zelda, her being an easy target, thus eliminating any possible distractions while facing down Steiner (and the healing... however good it may or may not be). And then it's turned into a one-on-one rather quickly, where, let's face it, Steiner's completely outclassed.

That's the scenario that popped into my head almost the moment I saw that match. I've certainly considered others, but I keep coming back to that, because, from what I can see, it makes the most sense.

If someone can find a fatal flaw in what I laid out there, speak now or forever hold your beets. If not, I guess it's obvious which way I'm leaning here.

 

I was just saying Zelda since apparently she has healing powers. If she doesn't, Lady makes more sense. I haven't played OoT for more than 5 minutes.

 

I haven't played Zelda at all... stupid hearsay.

::

I don't see any offensive magic in Citan's repertoire, nor do I see any sort of offensive item, so to hurt Lady he'll need to attack with Deathblows. She'll be dodging like mad, returning fire if able, and while Citan's concentrating on Lady, Steiner will be attacking from behind. (What is this about trumps trying to figure out who they're supposed to be fighting? They've got to know otherwise ANY trump that isn't within the same universe will end up equally likely to be fighting each other than the opponent.) And then it's at least two on one, even if Zelda does nothing (does anyone know what exactly she has done? She went through one draft with no problems...). In short, I don't see Lady being taken out in the first minutes of battle on Citan's Deathblows alone, and then Steiner will be in the mix with his sword arts, and now Citan has to deal with two offensive fronts, with possibly a third from Zelda/Sheik..

 

Offensive magic? Nobody in this match has offensive magic. And a surprise attack from Citan = death to Lady. She's just a normal human, and a magic sword to the face accompanied by some fireballs would kill her. Then it's the apparently useless Zelda (I recall her being bagged several times in the last few drafts actually) and Steiner.

 

I don't see any offensive magic in Citan's repertoire, nor do I see any sort of offensive item, so to hurt Lady he'll need to attack with Deathblows.

Why only deathblows? Would a sword through her throat not get the job done? Is Citan so dumb as to attack head-on? Suddenly the "ZOMG SNIPER"-type argument doesn't apply? Lady's great at dodging, but she's shown no superhuman durability. And Citan's far more skilled than anyone she's been able to beat. She's soundly beaten in all of her confrontations with Dante and/or Vergil. She's only alive because they allowed it.

What is this about trumps trying to figure out who they're supposed to be fighting? They've got to know otherwise ANY trump that isn't within the same universe will end up equally likely to be fighting each other than the opponent.

No, they're not going to be wondering who's on whose side, or anything like that, but nobody in this match (aside from Citan) knows what anyone else can do. They know they're on the same side, but they don't know who or what they're facing, and it's going to take them at least a couple seconds to go through the whole "Okay, so you can do... and I can do... so you should probably... and she should... while I..." thing. Unless they all just charge out and start doing their own thing. That's always a sure path to sucess.

In short, I don't see Lady being taken out in the first minutes of battle on Citan's Deathblows alone

Minutes? Minutes? MINUTES???!!!

If Citan's smart (and he is), she'll be dead within seconds. No prep for either, one-on-one, that's quite a match. But that's not the case.

Eh, yeah, my vote goes to prepped Citan.

Winner: Citan Uzuki

 

Fine, fine...

::depressed because he needs to win all 3 of the remaining non-forfeit to get to teams::

 

I'm tellin' ya, if you lose, you've got nothing but your own trump-happiness to blame for it. That triple Suiko trump at least made sense cohesively. This one was just a jumbled mess. Bad draw as well, I guess, but... man, you guys just went off the deep end in this draft with all that trumping.

 

Actually if you only have 3 non-forfeits left you've already lost. Because even if you win this match, that would only get you to 4 wins.

 

No, because I factor in the fact that you (most likely) have two two-man trumps like you've been using for the past games, and didn't include those forfeits. I have another trump to go as well, so I have 3 Forfeits waiting, and you'll have two. Thus, there will only be 5 real matches and to get to Teams I need to win 3 of those. I've already lost two of them, so I have to win the remaining non-forfeit matches.

 

Ah, I see. I wasn't looking at it from the overall number of forfeits. And you're correct, I saw no reason to screw with my strategy at this point.

I vote Inty calls all the forfeits next so we can see where we stand.