Avengers League Final Four: Will.S v. Nightcrawler

[Jessica Drew]

Welcome to the Avengers League Final Four! Our final four contestants are: Will.S, Nightcrawler, Sean Whitmore, & Twilight/venuscameback. We'll have one match today, one match Thursday, and the championship match next Wednesday.

If you haven't been following the league, it is a large scale series of battles where posters draft teams and pit their teams against that of other posters, and you vote to decide who wins. When voting, please consider the strategies the players have written, rather than just the team's roster.

Each match is taking place on an empty battlefield, 100 yards away, and each character (with few exceptions) depicted is in his/her most frequent incarnation (therefore, no Iron Spidey or Extremis Iron Man), and the characters have to act in character (meaning that the heroes cannot kill if they aren't normally wont to do so).

If you have any questions about the strategies, please feel free to post these questions here, and the players will answer. The match will last twenty-four hours. After that time period, the player with the largest number of votes wins.

!!! - For your vote to count, you must have a post count of no lower than fifty.

Will.S's team: Quicksilver, Vision, Justice, Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Black Knight, Yellowjacket, She-Hulk

Nightcrawler's team: Graviton, Blackout, Purple Man, Whizzer, Living Lightning, American Eagle

[Jessica Drew]

Will.S's strategy:



Simultaneous actions....

Phase 1: Black Knight, Wonder Man and Yellowjacket run interference on Graviton and put his multi-tasking abilities to good use. As he's distracted, at the same time Vision turns intangible and flies behind and through Graviton's force field and disrupts his gravimetric energy by possesseing him. Vision slowly increases his density (which had previously shunted Graviton into another dimension before) but instead severely weakens him by keeping him out of flux with his powers. Black Knight uses the opportunity to stab through a non lethal portion of his body and soak up Graviton's energy. Yellowjacket grows to 50 feet and squashes him like a bug with his boots which knocks Graviton out cold.

Quicksilver races towards Whizzer and out speedblitzes him but remains on the field wary of both Blackout and Living Lighting but not to worry, Justice is taking care of this. Justice puts Blackout and Living Lightning into a TK bubble temporarily and manipulates the bubble's insides to create spikes that keep them both occupied enough to ready the next part of the plan. Hawkeye (keeping his distance from Purple Man) shoots Zebediah with a smoke arrow which obstructs his vision. Still keeping away, Hawkeye unleashes his best long range weaponry to keep Purple Man in check using the net arrow (which entangles him) and followed up with a blast arrow, and finally an electric arrow which seals the book on him and stuns him out of the game.

Meanwhile She-Hulk and pounds the ground in front of American Eagle therefore unstabilizing him and keeping him from shooting his special arrows. She picks him up and throws him into the sky which is followed up by a grab + spinebuster on the way to the ground which severely injures his back. AE has no chance as she greatly outclasses AE in strength so she then puts him into a chokehold, he lifts her up and she falls flat on her very cushioned ass but she gets right back up again. Still weakened, he throws a desperate punch at her but she catches it and plays a bout of mercy, her superior strength drives him into the ground, she headbutts him 3 times and crushes his hands. Battered and broken, she finishes the job with a kick to the nuts and a punch to the face and the chest for a knockout.

Phase 2: Justice, knowing Blackout is going to try to go into the darkforce dimension to get out of the TK bubble, gives Quicksilver the nod as both Vance using his own powers and Pietro using his super speed to propel Blackout in the bubble towards Hawkeye who uses a flare arrow to blind him. Having just been blinded, Justice slowly releases the TK bubble around him. As Blackout begins to regain vision, all he can see now is Wonder Man who is in mid flight and is going straight down towards him making a target of Blackout's head. Wonder Man connects with a flying punch to the face, lands, picks him up and follows up with a punch to the gut.

Blackout is out cold.

Living Lightning's (who's in full lightning form) is still trying to get out of Justice's bubble but doesn't get too far as Justice opens up the bubble enough for Black Knight (on cue) to blast him with the full force of Graviton's force blasts. This takes out LL for a few moments which gives Black Knight enough time to use the ebony sword to absorb all his electrical energies within the sword's mystical energy absorbing blade. Vision having come back from the fight with Graviton uses his solar beams at a low setting to weaken Miguel, leaving him open for a few quick finishing moves of 4 well placed punches at 4 times density which gives Vision the added kick of the super strength to finally put him down for the count.

Avengers triumphant!

[Jessica Drew]

Nightcrawler's strategy:



Phase 1 (Instantly and Simultaneously)

Graviton holds Will S.’s team down, increasing their gravitational pull 200x. Vision, Wonder Man, and She-Hulk might be able to move, but they will be seriously encumbered. Graviton then fires a large blast at the opposing team, killing anyone charging my team. She-Hulk won’t be making any leaps under these circumstances, and Wonder Man won’t be flying.
• Living Lightning goes into energy form and flies over to the other team. He fries Quicksilver with his electricity powers. Even if Quicksilver could move, he would be too slow to avoid Living Lightning. If Quicksilver is possibly able to avoid being pinned down by Graviton, Living Lightning attacks him anyway. Quicksilver is slower than him, and doesn’t have his firepower.
• Whizzer rushes over and tries to knock Justice out. Justice might have time to put a shield up, if that’s the case, then Whizzer knocks Hawkeye on the head, knocking him out. If Justice can’t get a shield up, then Whizzer knocks him out and then nails the paralyzed Hawkeye.
• American Eagle shoots explosive cross bolts at the paralyzed team or anyone charging my team.
• Blackout teleports himself and American Eagle to Justice’s side, inside any shield he might have up, and blasts him before he can react. Obviously, Graviton doesn’t hold them down.
• Purple Man takes control of anyone trying to attack my team.

Phase 2
• Quicksilver, Justice, and Hawkeye are out. Will S.’s team is paralyzed.
• Graviton focuses on paralyzing the other team, holding them in stasis.
• Living Lightning short-circuits Wonder Man’s jet pack, then goes into the air and blasts him.
• American Eagle knocks the paralyzed Black Knight out.
• Blackout teleports She Hulk to a point 50 yards above Wonder Man. Since her gravitational pull is being multiplied 200x, she is going to slam into Wonder Man incredibly hard. This should be enough to knock them both out. Wonder Man won’t be able to dodge because he can hardly walk, can’t fly, and won’t see She Hulk coming.
• Whizzer knocks out the paralyzed Yellow Jacket. If Yellow Jacket tries to grow, it’ll just make him heavier proportionally to how large he grows. If he shrinks, he still won’t be able to move, because he doesn’t have super strength, and Whizzer just steps on him.
• Now the only one left is Vision. If he is tangible, Living Lightning overloads his circuitry. If he is intangible, American Eagle acts as bait, shooting at him. Vision needs to be tangible to attack, so as soon as Living Lightning sees Vision attack, he fries him.

Phase 3
• Wonder Man and She Hulk might still be up. If that’s so, then Blackout repeatedly teleports them 200 yards into the air, and lets them slam into the ground at 100x faster then normal. If that won’t finish them, Graviton just blasts them.

[Nightcrawler]

Would Vision's possesion attack on Graviton work? Will said that it had previously shunted him to another dimension, so why would it have a different effect this time? Has Vision ever done something like that before? I don't think it would work. Also, Graviton's powers work against intangible people, so he would be able to defend himself against Vision.

With Graviton holding everyone down, Will's strategy is null.

[Will.S]

Would Vision's possesion attack on Graviton work? Will said that it had previously shunted him to another dimension, so why would it have a different effect this time? Has Vision ever done something like that before? I don't think it would work. Yeah Vision's done it before with the assist of Hank's pym particles but the way he did it in the comics had Nefaria collapse under his own gravity into another dimension when Vision increased his density but for the sake of the tournament that tactic isn't allowed so I went for a more incapacitating effect. Here's the original way it went down:

http://img139.imagevenue.com/aAfkjfp01fo1i-28136/loc71/66353_gravvi1.jpg

http://img44.imagevenue.com/aAfkjfp01fo1i-18996/loc12/66358_gravvi2.jpg

He did a similar possession effect to stun Nefaria at his peak:

http://img418.imageshack.us/img418/304/avengersthunderboltsvscountnef1.jpg

http://img418.imageshack.us/img418/821/avengersthunderboltsvscountnef2.jpg

Another time against Mags:

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/4553/avengers111191aw.jpg

JD ok'd it so it's not violating any tournament rules nor does it invalidate his power to do so.

Also, Graviton's powers work against intangible people, so he would be able to defend himself against Vision.Graviton is handling multiple people at once which still leaves an opening into his shields enough for even Vision to go through. Also by Vision's very nature of his phasing powers, he's as light as air and is essentially a ghost. The only other way to affect his phasing through force is either through magic or through a Magneto style EMP.

With Graviton holding everyone down, Will's strategy is null. Spider-Man in the recent Iron Man book resisted Graviton's hold when he was trying to protect cap, now imagine Vision at lowest density. He's more than capable enough to break through the hold enough for the rest of the team to take wail on him. Graviton's tough I'll give you that, but he ain't invincible.

[Nightcrawler]

The first two links aren't working, but I appreciate the others.

Graviton isn't distracted by your other team members, because he could easily hold them down before Vision could reach him. So it's just Vision charging him. Graviton can effect intangible people, so his large blast at the beginning might hurt him, but it should at least blow him back, and disperse and stun him.

[venuscameback]

The first two links aren't working, but I appreciate the others.

Graviton isn't distracted by your other team members, because he could easily hold them down before Vision could reach him. So it's just Vision charging him. Graviton can effect intangible people, so his large blast at the beginning might hurt him, but it should at least blow him back, and disperse and stun him.

Vision merging with Graviton to incapacitate him is dramatically affective as shown in the links you've provided, Will.

Nightcrawler, could you cite examples of Graviton affecting intangible characters, please?

[Sean Whitmore]

Nightcrawler, could you cite examples of Graviton affecting intangible characters, please?


I THINK he might have affected intangible Vision in his first appearance, but I can't be sure until I get home to check. I might be confusing him with Nefaria, who can also affect intangibles (and also looks exactly like Graviton, for that matter. Seriously, along with Kang and Immortus, every Avenger villain has a damn goatee).

If anyone knows offhand or can check, that's a key point.


SEAN

[Nightcrawler]

Congrats, Will. Good match.

[Jessica Drew]

Good strategies, both of you, and congratulations to Will.S, who'll be playing tomorrow's winner next Wednesday.

[Will.S]

Congrats, Will. Good match.
Thanks Nightcrawler, you put up a hell of a match yourself.

Good strategies, both of you, and congratulations to Will.S, who'll be playing tomorrow's winner next Wednesday.
Gracias JD, I'm still kinda surprised I got this far.