Nerf League: Finals

[SnowFire]

The Ryus gathered together in the moment of crisis.  They couldn't actually speak, but they could vaguely nod in acceptance, and pass notes around.

Ryu4's note was passed around first.  "Lord Yuna is conquering the Nerf League, sending innocent souls to be sacrificed with fiends in an effort to create an artificial Aeon!  They may have run off for now, but we still need to move fast to save the princess!"

Ryu2 hurriedly scribbled a reply.  "How come they didn't let me in, anyway?  I'll help fight this Yuna character!"

Ryu3's note was stark.  "You can attempt this by joining me in the Nerf League loser's bracket, but I warn you.  There will be a price."

--

Bunch of close matches.  Blue > Yuna by 4-3,  Hiro > Rune by 4-3, BW = Qristo by 2-2 (dice roller tiebroke for BW).

For the 3-duelist finals, if everyone ties @ 1-1, then preponderance of votes tiebreaks.  (If somebody goes 2-0 they obviously just win, then.)

Godlike

Holy Warrior Reicher (MK2) vs. Pre-Rogue Blue (Saga Frontier)

Heavy

Vincible Elc (AtL2) vs. Knightless Lulu (FFX)
Vincible Elc (AtL2) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT)
Knightless Lulu (FFX) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT)

Middle

Lazy Blue (Saga Frontier) vs. Agni'd Myria (BoF)
Lazy Blue (Saga Frontier) vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2)
Agni'd Myria (BoF)  vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2)

Light

Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Magicless Marle (CT)
Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7)
Magicless Marle (CT) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7)

Puny

Ted (Suiko1) vs. SuperBlackAielWizard (FF1DoS)

Bonus

Dragonless Ryu2, Ryu3, Ryu4 (BoF) vs. Healer Yuna (FFX) & Magical Elena (G2)

* No Dragon summons for Ryu2, No Bonebreak or Accession for Ryu3, no Meditation / Dragon releases for Ryu4.  No Aeons or Holy for Yuna.  0 starting SP for El(e/i)na.

[SnowFire]

Limitation list.

Godlike

Holy Warrior Reicher (MK2) - No non-holy moves.
Pre-Rogue Blue (Saga Frontier) - Pre-Rogue duel, no Rune.

Heavy

Vincible Elc (AtL2) - No Invincible.
Knightless Lulu (FFX) - No Onion Knight Celestial.
Pauper Orlandu (FFT) - No Excalibur.

Middle

Lazy Blue (Saga Frontier) - No OverDrive.
Agni'd Myria (BoF) - Scaled against Agni.  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOttN32IMWI .
Single Sword Hiro (L2) - No Triple Sword.

Light

Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) - No claws, no non-attack spells.
Magicless Marle (CT) - No starred / Spekkio spells.
Busted Cloud (FF7) - Locked to Buster Sword.

Puny

SuperBlackAielWizard (FF1DoS) - No attack magic / enemy status

[Random Consonant]

Godlike

Holy Warrior Reicher (MK2) vs. Pre-Rogue Blue (Saga Frontier) - Reicher durability a bit too excellent for OD to bust through, doubt Tower would be much better considering this Blue is down 90 JP from normal.

Heavy

Vincible Elc (AtL2) vs. Knightless Lulu (FFX)
Vincible Elc (AtL2) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT) - the breaking of everything
Knightless Lulu (FFX) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT)

Middle

Lazy Blue (Saga Frontier) vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2) - e: duh, Tower.

Light

Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Magicless Marle (CT)
Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7)
Magicless Marle (CT) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7)

Puny

Ted (Suiko1) vs. SuperBlackAielWizard (FF1DoS) - Yep.

[Dhyerwolf]

Heavy

Vincible Elc (AtL2) vs. Knightless Lulu (FFX)- ID
Vincible Elc (AtL2) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT)- MP Busting
Knightless Lulu (FFX) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT)- MP Busting+Blocks ID

Middle

Agni'd Myria (BoF)  vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2)- I guess I should have nommed Myria in Heavy

Puny

Ted (Suiko1) vs. SuperBlackAielWizard (FF1DoS)

Bonus

Dragonless Ryu2, Ryu3, Ryu4 (BoF) vs. Healer Yuna (FFX) & Magical Elena (G2)- Does Dragonless include Ryu 4's Dragon Summons?

[SnowFire]

Agni'd Myria (BoF)  vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2)- I guess I should have nommed Myria in Heavy

You did, but I believe I stuck her in Middle.  I still think that's roughly the right place for her: she definitely dodged some obvious losses.  Any sort of healing at all is trouble, so Cecilia, Kyra, Yuna, Blue, Ness should all own her.   And Sumia may straight-up outslug (she has super Res vs. horrible magic damage, so Myria is forced to use physicals which trigger counterattacks).  So yeah, more inclined to think she just got a tad lucky.

Dragonless Ryu2, Ryu3, Ryu4 (BoF) vs. Healer Yuna (FFX) & Magical Elena (G2)- Does Dragonless include Ryu 4's Dragon Summons?

By default, yes, he's spamming his sword.  (But it's a Bonus Match, so hey, vote how you like.  Maybe that counts as just asking for aid.)

[Pyro]

Holy Warrior Reicher (MK2) vs. Pre-Rogue Blue (Saga Frontier): So Rouge would want to blow up Reicher with ShadowServant-> Vermillion Sand Overdrive?

Or would he prefer just, well, Tower? Tower probably works better, and Blue probably isn't killed before he gets a turn...

Heavy

Vincible Elc (AtL2) vs. Knightless Lulu (FFX): Instant Death.
Vincible Elc (AtL2) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT): Elc would want the Bravery Wings and Magic Canceller... Orlandu would want to Break stuff. So sure.
Knightless Lulu (FFX) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT)

Middle

Lazy Blue (Saga Frontier) vs. Agni'd Myria (BoF): Healing.
Lazy Blue (Saga Frontier) vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2): Isn't OHKOd or IDd...
Agni'd Myria (BoF)  vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2)

Light

Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Magicless Marle (CT)
Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7)
Magicless Marle (CT) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7)

Puny

Ted (Suiko1) vs. SuperBlackAielWizard (FF1DoS)

Bonus

Dragonless Ryu2, Ryu3, Ryu4 (BoF) vs. Healer Yuna (FFX) & Magical Elena (G2): Elena will start casting Runner on Yuna. That gets high enough and, well, that's the end of that. The Ryus can try to off Yuna but she can cast Protect on herself, if she even has to given her evasion. So.... Yuna opens with Protect on herself, and then the Ryus try to pile on Elena... and probably can kill her given how damaging Ryu2 is. Yuna's Life is 1/4 MHP, so that's worthless here. So if Yuna doesn't have to worry she can Protect Elena, and then rely on her own evasion to survive the Ryu's attacks, then Elena heals her and she Protects herself. At that point the Ryus would have to try and dogpile Elena to prevent her from winning. But under Protect and with Yuna's healing she is perfectly safe and can spam Runner. Ryu3's buffs are worthless because Yuna can dispel them. At some early point the girls have perfect evasion.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Godlike

Holy Warrior Reicher (MK2) vs. Pre-Rogue Blue (Saga Frontier): HideRune would be a good way around timed spheres except Reicher does have one MT move buried in there... so not really. Blue only barely survives Flying Lightsword and is way slower so I can't see any strategy that works beyond getting one turn and doing as much damage as possible. It does depend somewhat what set you see Blue with... Arcane/Shadow leads to the highest peak damage, but gives up the healing and buffing which are so good in many other fights. But he hasn't actually needed a specific setup to get this far, so your milage may vary? Eh, going with Reicher for now. On top of everything else he is super-close to a OHKO so Blue pretty much needs everything to line up in his favour.

Heavy

Knightless Lulu (FFX) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT): Immunes ID, breaks her weapon to control her damage then finishes the 2HKO. If Lulu goes for healing then he drains her, and gets a 4-3 for the kill next turn anyway I would think.

Middle

Lazy Blue (Saga Frontier) vs. Agni'd Myria (BoF): Wasn't so lazy as to eschew healing.
Lazy Blue (Saga Frontier) vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2): Survives a turn, uses Tower.
Agni'd Myria (BoF) vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2): Cross Boomerang is not taking down a BoF1 boss. Man if only Hiro had Alex's regen.

Light

Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Magicless Marle (CT): Stop hype is go, as usual, but honestly Aura can wait out Edge's Fuma supply and she'll win the slugfest from there.
Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7): Faster? I'm going with faster. EDIT: Wait, somehow I forgot about Cloud's limits for this fight even though I remembered them for Marle, go me.
Magicless Marle (CT) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7): I was about to vote Cloud here then remembered that Stop is one of the only statuses he can't block. Wow. This Marle quite possibly loses to a pure average dueller (since average physicals 2HKO her) but she only faced people with bad offence.

Puny

Ted (Suiko1) vs. SuperBlackAielWizard (FF1DoS): I'm comfortable enough with DoS for this.

[SnowFire]

Knightless Lulu (FFX) vs. Pauper Orlandu (FFT)
Turns out Orlandu is still pretty badass, although it takes a very specific set of spoiling here with the ITE & death blocking & all.

Middle

Agni'd Myria (BoF) vs. Single Sword Hiro (Lunar 2)
Would RONFAR win here?!  If his regen isn't complete trash, probably, even if it would take eons.

Light

Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Magicless Marle (CT)
So Edge snuck past Tiamat thanks to the usually irrelevant fact in-game that his throw ignores defense.  Any argument he has gets blow'd up here as now he can't take advantage of Marle's sub-par defense.  Provoke/Aura/go for Stop attempt / repeat hijinx are go.
Prince (of the) Light Edge (FF4) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7)
I don't think Edge is evading Cross-Slash here.
Magicless Marle (CT) vs. Busted Cloud (FF7)
No Stop blocking, and can't even 2HKO Marle!  (for all that Marle can WIN ANYWAY if she's 2HKOd with proper timing of when to break Provoke...)

Puny

Ted (Suiko1) vs. SuperBlackAielWizard (FF1DoS)
Sounds right.

Bonus

Dragonless Ryu2, Ryu3, Ryu4 (BoF) vs. Healer Yuna (FFX) & Magical Elena (G2)

Is Elena durability really good enough to survive the Ryu assault when Protected...?  Dang, she's not as frail as I thought.  Okay that makes this a lot easier than I expected, as I was kneejerking that Yuna would have to figure out some way to basically solo.

As a side note I suspect Ryu4's 1-shot Dragon summons/releases would be way better for me if I was ever non-lazy and figured out what the numbers would look like at a lower level using only storebought & chest gear, as they end up kind of underwhelming in the stat topic vs. what I'd think, but so it goes.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, Ronfar would probably win. Myria has an argument to slowly punch past the regen but only with high respect for her TB speed (she needs to get at least 40-45% more turns than Ronfar's regen, and needs to outpace his occasional uses of healing too).

On another note, since as per chat discussion I'm pretty sure Laggy was intending to change his vote... had Yuna won instead of Blue, I think we'd have a three-way tie in Middle (Yuna > Myria > Hiro > Yuna) with the winner being whichever managed to get most votes in their losing effort. Not sure who that would be.

Other hypotheticals given last week's close matches:
-Had Rune defeated Hiro, then he'd also have defeated Blue (Blue has no way to block Silence) or Yuna, but lost to Myria (his lack of shields costs him what little chance he had), again creating a three-way tie.
-Had Kiryl won he'd have lost to Ted.

[SnowFire]

Results!  Pretty fun.

Godlike

Reicher  > Blue

Heavy

Orlandu > Lulu > Elc

Middle

Blue > Myria > Hiro

Light

Marle > Cloud > Edge

Puny

Ted > Super

Bonus

Yuna > Ryus.

I think the rankings mostly ended up on point, for whatever it's worth!  Lazy Blue & Ted were a little good, but whatevers, they weren't extremely far off.

[Laggy]

I had indeed intended to change my vote on Blue vs Yuna and work ate me up. Sorry about that!

It was a pretty fun set of matches to analyze in general.