Mutant League 01/30/2007 PM L3:L4: Zombienorthstar & Mitsaso vs. Nightcrawler & Jessi

[mattbib]

Welcome to our second match of the day. The loser of this match will unfortunately be eliminated from this year's tournament.

In the first corner we have Zombienorthstar & Mitsaso's H*O*M*O*S (Dead Girl, Hellion, Kiden Nixon, Stacy X, Dust, Meltdown, Mammomax)

vs.

In the other corner is Nightcrawler & Jessica Drew's Kinky Kinkos (Mimic (Exiles), Multiple Man, Stepford Cuckoos, Random, Surge, Shinobi Shaw, Vanguard)

Both participants have submitted strategies:

[mattbib]

If any of our team is at any point taken down, Dead Girl will amptly kill them and then revive them as compliant zombies. Even Mammomax.

First second:
We're at a distinct disadvantage to the telepathy of Cuckoos, however we think that the Cuckoos will need a moment to try and take out any of our members, particularly Hellion who has natural psychic defences. The only time the Cuckoos have been able to influence a large group of people has been when they were boosted by Kick or Cerebro. The only time we have seen them directly taking down anyone was Blob, and it took all three of them. So we can assume that the Cuckoos aren't going to be able to take down more than one of our characters instantly. Therefore we will attack them on three fronts.

1. Dust, who is invulnerable to telepathy in her sand form, will zoom towards their head, tearing at their skin and killing them or at least ripping big chunks of creepy children of the corn flesh off. (how will her uptight ethos let her do that? Stacy X will have taken care of that, as you'll see below).

2. Hellion will rip the earth beneath them up and launch it into the air. Just as he did with the ground beneath the paper clip in a recent New X-Men issue. This move will disrupt the Cuckoos' initial move and at least delay them, as they need to be in proximity to be able to mind-link, and Hellion's move will tear them apart.

3. Meltdown will fire time bombs which will both blind them from making a psychic assault and grievously wound them.

Any member of the team that might be disabled by the Cuckoos will be killed by Dead Girl and revived as a zombie. In case it's Dead Girl who's supposed to take the hit, she will be prepared. Dead Girl will amptly remove her own brain from her skull (bash her skull in, or plunge her green brain out of it) and therefore make ANY psychic probing against her useless (until the Cuckoos are out). Keep in mind that corpses don't sleep... so it's pretty doubtful that telepathic attacks and disabling will be any use against her.

Stacy X engages Kiden Nixon in a passionate kiss, putting Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar to shame, if that wasn't enough to floor the opposing team, as Stacy and Kiden are breaking away Stacy switches Kiden's adrenal gland into overdrive. Kiden's body panics, making it easy to instantaneously engage her powers. (See below for the Kiden show) Also, keep in mind that as the battle begins Stacy is standing right between Dust and Kiden, so she instantly touches Dust's hand and boosts her adrenaline while kissing and boosting Kiden, in the one seconds' time before Dust goes in sandstorm mode.

Dead Girl goes intangible and darts for Mimic, she's gonna try and take him down before he can copy too many powers. Mimic made an oath never to kill another human being after murdering Sunfire, luckily Dead Girl has taken no such oath. She conjures the ghost of the female Sunfire he killed to throw him off guard. She also conjures forth the ghost of Jean Grey from the Cuckoos or Surge's mind (or even Mimic's mind). Calvin was in love with his reality's version of Jean and this should also throw him off. Dead Girl transforms her hands into claws and attempts to gut Mimic, if she is outmaneuvered she will hold him off. Remember she can walk on air and go intangible so there's nowhere he can go that she can't. However Mimic will need some time to adopt the powers and adjust to them, especially if he's taking on five totally new abilities so I'm confident she'd be able to finish him herself being indestructible.

*Kiden's Show.*
Kiden walks across the field. We're gonna assume that Madrox made multiple dupes instantly and if Kiden has had to kiss Stacy we can assume she goes into her own time frame mere seconds into the battle. So there should be numerous dupes now. Kiden takes off her shoe and starts hitting Madrox's dupes with it on the Adam's Apple. (A little reminder of Kiden's powers, she once broke a mans arm just by simply touching him in her stopped version of time) She doesn't touch them, so she remains in "super speed time", but Madrox's dupes will still get devastated by the hits and die. Remember that Kiden is adrenaline-boosted and doesn't care much if her opponents die, also she should try to kill them for a reason we'll get to later.

Kiden also removes Surge's gloves. There's a chance that the Cuckoos will be protected by a shield of Vanguard, so she moves and turns Surge, aligning her soon-to-be-bursting with uncontrollable electricity hands towards the Cuckoos while only touching the gauntlets so not to remove her from the time stop.

Then she goes over to Vanguard. Vanguard has probably spent these first seconds of the battle attempting to put up shields in front or around some of his teammates. His priorities would most possibly go this way: first he'd shield the Cuckoos because their telepathic meddling is very much needed. Then Mimic and Madrox (who need some time to copy powers and produce dupes) However, Mimic and Madrox can only be protected by a single shield and not a teke bubble that would completely encase them, because then they wouldn't be able to produce dupes without 10+ dupes of themselves suffocating inside of the teke bubble. Which is why Kiden had no trouble walking around the shield and killing Madrox's dupes. Chances are that Vanguard would leave himself for last when it came to throwing a force field, so he probably didn't find the time to do it for himself when Kiden stopped time.

So Kiden picks up his hammer and sickle and kicks him in the nuts!!! (even if a teke bubble is up around him, kicking the teke bubble is still enough to shoot him up, up to the sky!) She then walks up to Mimic and touches his eyeball.

The skin to skin contact starts time back to normal and, oh no, kills Mimic. (if he's not already dead, his eyeball will propel backwards and plunge into his brain.Messy!)

Vanguard is propelled towards the sky feeling extreme pain, not only taken out, but his hopes of ever having a family utterly destroyed. Since he's out, his shields in front of the Cuckoos (and everybody else) fade. If he had a teke shield up, he's still shaken enough to lose control over the other shields and let the others open to our attacks)Surge's powers go out of control and she accidentally fries the Cuckoos. Stepford barbecue!

Any field protecting Mimic goes out and he gets flayed by Dust (if he wasn't already killed by Dead Girl or Kiden.)

Mammomax takes on Random, while we know that Mammomax himself isn't enough to take down Random, he's gonna keep him busy.

20 seconds in:
A little round up, The Cuckoos have been either killed by Meltdowns time bombs, Dust's flaying or Surge's electricity. They're down for the count.

Mimic has either been gutted by a psychopathic girl from beyond the grave or
Vanguard has either been split in half or sent rocketing into the sky.

And every dupe Madrox created is now dead. This is where Dead Girl comes in, she creates Madrox zombies from all the corpses. We can assume Dead Girl has control over them, Madrox's dupes aren't always compliant with him, and he can't reabsorb them, they're dead. Also, like in all voodoo movies, zombies are always compliant to their creator. She also creates zombies out of Mimic's corpse (or corpses, if he created any dupes.The Zombies attack Shinobi Shaw, he can't pull his heart attack trick on the zombies they're unkillable, being already dead. If there is any resistance on Shaw's part to try and fend off the zombies our girl Stacy X will 'persuade' him with a little orgasm. Giving the zombies time to, oh I don't know, eat his brain?

Hellion will hold the original Madrox by his hands and feet…therefore he
can't create a kinetic force to start a dupe. Dust will pummel into Jamie. Killing him before he makes any dupes, if he does so, she will kill them as well, it shouldn't be too hard, He's just a regular guy when he's not duping. Plus he'd be fairly shaken up by the deaths of so many dupes.

Surge is freaking out with her powers, so it's probably best not to approach her. We'll just have the young Mr Keller place her in a TK bubble with Random after giving Mammomax a signal to get out of the way. Now we have one of two possibilities now, either Surge will kill Random with her electricity, or Random will be forced to kill her first.

In either case, there is only one left:
Surge: She'll still be unloading all this power, so Hellion will keep her within the TK bubble and launch it into the air, killing her, when and if she lands. Dead Girl can also lash at her while intangible and go tangible just for a fraction of a second and slash her neck with her claw-like fingers, while Kiden can off her in a second "superspeed time" (she's still boosted, so she's bound to find time to use her powers again and clean the place up).

Random: Stacy X amps up Dead Girl to the max, full of hormones and giving her the needed boost to do what's required. Dead Girl resurrects the zombies of The Cuckoos and using their telepathy amps up what she's about to show Random…which is basically the ghost of all those killed in Neverland. If this doesn't drive the guy insane, Meltdown, Mammomax, Hellion along with the Madrox zombies will all launch a coordinated attack on the guy, literally ripping him to pieces. Or the zombie Cuckoos can just put him to sleep, if our thirst for blood has been saturated by then.

*If Vanguard is still around, Dead Girl can summon Darkstar's ghost to torment him a little (she was his twin sister) before Hellion, Meltdown or the Zombie Cuckoos take care of him.

*If any of our members get offed, it's a matter of seconds before Dead Girl brings them back from the dead to help us as zombies. Any ally or opponent who dies will become zombified and give us a hand to help us towards victory. If one of the opponents goes against the zombies, they risk getting killed, or bitten and ALSO turned into zombies.

[mattbib]

In this match, Mimic initially has the powers of Madrox, the Stepford Cuckoos, Surge, Shinobi Shaw, and Random.

Stage One – Simultaneous actions


Shinobi Shaw turns intangible and darts straight across the field, heading straight for Hellion, hoping to “touch” him and take him out. If Hellion isn’t on the ground, then he goes for Mammomax, Stacy X, Kiden, and Boom-Boom (in that order)
Random tangentially darts across the field, lobbing volleys of plas-mah at Hellion and Dead Girl. If Hellion has his shield up, then Random will continue to attack till he finds a way through it. If the other team is in the air, Random will fire there, too. If Mammomax is launched, Random will be ready to fire.
Surge darts across the field, flanking Shaw on the side opposite to Random. She’s hoping to tag Kiden, Dead Girl, or both (or anyone else, for that matter). If the other team is up in the air, she’ll dodge attacks…or maybe turn a pirouette, shouting, “Electric bougaloo!”
Madrox dupes up to his max potential.
Vanguard puts up a shield in front of Madrox, Mimic, and the Cuckoos.
Mimic dupes up to his max potential and immediately mentally assaults Kiden Nixon. (He should be able to do both, by just shutting his eyes, focusing on the TP assault, and tapping his foot twenty times).
The Stepford Cuckoos telepathically assault and down Dust.--Dust is down. Kiden Nixon is at least temporarily distracted.

Stage Two – Simultaneous actions, seconds later.

Shinobi Shaw continues to attack the enemy (if they’re on the ground), with Dead Girl targeted after Hellion. If they’re still up in the air, then he either runs back to help protect the Cuckoos, or…if he’s not needed…he becomes inspired by Surge’s proclamation, and Shaw starts to breakdance.
Random continues attacking the force field (if there is one), whether it be on ground (considering he can adapt to counter any mutant power, he should be able to punch through it) or in the air (still firing the plas-mah).
Surge runs fast and punches someone…preferably the enemy. If there’s no one there, she’ll provide an electric light show for Shaw’s dancing.
Twenty of Madrox’s dupes scatter, run toward the enemy, and start to pummel.
Madrox and twenty other of his dupes surround the Cuckoos, Vanguard, and six of the Mimics.
Vanguard holds his shield around the Cuckoos and twelve of the Mimics.
The Stepford Cuckoos now telepathically assault and down Hellion.
Mimic will mentally telepathically assault Hellion.
Six of the multiple Mimics stand behind Vanguard’s shield and around the Cuckoos. All six of them (which should equal to the power of the three Cuckoos) will mentally assault Kiden Nixon.
Six more of the multiple Mimics stand behind Vanguard’s shield and telepathically assault and down Dead Girl.
The other eight multiple will help Random, Shaw, Surge, and the multiple Madroxes attack the rest of the team (well, four of the multiple Mimics will have to take aim and shoot her down if she’s in the air…same goes with Hellion),--Hellion, Kidon Nixon, and Dead Girl should be down by now.

Stage Three – all actions simultaneous; some moments later than before


Vanguard holds his shield as before.
The Stepford Cuckoos telepathically assault and down Stacy X.
Six of the multiple Mimics will telepathically assault and down Mammomax.
Six of the multiple Mimics will telepathically assault and down Boom-Boom.
Mimic, the other eight multiple Mimics, and Random will all fire upon the enemy.
Madrox and his forty dupes will surrond Shinobi Shaw and Surge. Shaw will resume his dancing, Surge will resume her electric light show, and the multiple men will shout, “Go shNObi, Go shNObi!”

[mattbib]

ZNS & Mitsaso, your strategy was well over 10K characters. I edited out varoius parts that I deemed would not affect your overall strategy. However, next time anyone's is over the 10K limit I will just cut off the end of the strategy until I get it under the limit.

[Mitsaso]

ZNS & Mitsaso, your strategy was well over 10K characters. I edited out varoius parts that I deemed would not affect your overall strategy. However, next time anyone's is over the 10K limit I will just cut off the end of the strategy until I get it under the limit.

I realised that when I saw that our humorous epilogue ("With the battle won, the gang goes to hang out at Go-Go Cafe, and they also bring the zombies along and treat them to brain sundaes and marrow shakes.") was edited out!:eek:

I'm sorry, I didn't count the words because the final draft seemed smaller than the last battle's draft to me. :o

[The Fury]

I'm sorry, I didn't count the words because the final draft seemed smaller than the last battle's draft to me. :o

Characters, not words.

Linkage: http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/charcount.shtml

[Zombienorthstar]

I think Nightcrawler and Jess woefully underestimate the usefullness of Kiden Nixon, and with Stacy amping her up she's stopped time long before they deal with us. Plus he's created the maximum ammount of madroxes making kidens zombie army plan all the more pheasible.

The Stepford's attack of Dust is flawed as by this time,she's clearly in her sand form and therefore invulnerable to psychic attack. I must say it was a real weakness to attack the one person in our team who's most immune to telepathy.

[The Fury]

First, ZN and Mitsy....well, long that it is, it reads well, evidence to back up your claims. Hellion does alot that I believe he cannot though, the ripping the ground up was not controlled.

But man do you over work Dead Girl. and one thing concerns me. You have a team of people incharacter. Some of the people you used to kill other would not kill because it is not their way and they are not old/emotional enough to understand what they are doing and the aftermath of such actions.

I perosnally do not believe that Dust for one would ever kill. As a religious girl that she is, killing is strictly against her beliefs.


Nighty and JD, keeping shorter and simpler. The power of Mimic shown again...sadly...

[Zombienorthstar]

Some additional comments by Mitsaso:

the enemy doesn't get to off Dead Girl, Vanguard only puts shields IN FRONT of Mimic, Madrox and Cuckoos instead of surrounding them in fields, making them completely vulnerable to Kiden's Horror Picture Show and the subsequent Dawn of the Undead, courtesy of Dead Girl.

Even if the Cukoos do get Dust (still highly unlikely) then Dust will get zombified by DG and do her thang, only later than planned. Even without Dust altogether, our plan still works.

[Mitsaso]

I think Nightcrawler and Jess woefully underestimate the usefullness of Kiden Nixon, and with Stacy amping her up she's stopped time long before they deal with us. Plus he's created the maximum ammount of madroxes making kidens zombie army plan all the more pheasible.

The Stepford's attack of Dust is flawed as by this time,she's clearly in her sand form and therefore invulnerable to psychic attack. I must say it was a real weakness to attack the one person in our team who's most immune to telepathy.

Yeah, the Cuckoos will need their time to mind-link, and Hellion might disrupt their mind-linking before they even attempt an attack on Dust. However, even if Dust goes out, Kiden comes in the very next second and gets rid of Vanguard, the Madroxes, the Mimics and the Cuckoos. (all of them are protected by mere shields, so Kiden just walks around them. they're not protected by force fields taht could surround them). Then Dead Girl comes in and turns them into zombies (the same can be done with Dust as well).

After that, it's HOMOS and the Army of Zombies vs. Random, Shinobi and an out-of-control Surge.

The only thing I'm regreting in this strategy is that Stacy X didn't get to have sex with anybody. :(

[Zombienorthstar]

I perosnally do not believe that Dust for one would ever kill. As a religious girl that she is, killing is strictly against her beliefs.


I'd like to contest this, in Stryker's attack on the mansion Dust slaughtered countless soldiers because they threatened the lives of her and her teammates.

Also, to ensure she's panicked and scared enough to act in such a manner we noted the following 'Stacy X instantly touches Dust's hand and boosts her adrenaline while kissing and boosting Kiden, in the one seconds' time before Dust goes in sandstorm mode.'

This was deliberatley to panic and scare Dust, put her survival instincts on high alert.

I didn't personally think we needed this, Dust has been more than willing to kill when her teammates are threatened.

[Mitsaso]

But man do you over work Dead Girl. and one thing concerns me. You have a team of people in character. Some of the people you used to kill other would not kill because it is not their way and they are not old/emotional enough to understand what they are doing and the aftermath of such actions.

I personally do not believe that Dust for one would ever kill. As a religious girl that she is, killing is strictly against her beliefs.


Dead Girl doesn't mind killing people, whoever they might be. She was a member of X-Statix, a team of celebrities who gutted and decapitated minor thug threats in television for fun. Add that she has a very special relationship with death and voila!
Dust and Kiden normally wouldn't go around killing people, but Stacy's adrenaline rush took care of that. Especially if Dust gets offed and zombified, she won't have an ethical problem to bring other people to her own state.:D

[The Fury]

I didn't personally think we needed this, Dust has been more than willing to kill when her teammates are threatened.

I did not liek that she has ever killed. No child should kill or even comprehend killing another person. EVEN if she already has, her faith does not allow it and it is a immortal sin. I did not like her killing in the DEATH BOOK. I do not like her killing at all and think it out of character.

These are not the same team mates as the ones she 'saved'.

[Zombienorthstar]

I did not liek that she has ever killed. No child should kill or even comprehend killing another person. EVEN if she already has, I do not think her faith allows it. I did not like her killing in the DEATH BOOK. I do not like her killing at all and think it out of character.

These are not the same team mates as the ones she 'saved'.

I don't 'like' that she killed. But we can only use textual evidence here dude...and she has. Whether you like it is kinda irrelevant.

Plus if we start saying her NXM teammates mean less to her than her teammates within our imagined world we get into a real arguement about whether the teams would even work together. We have to assume their loyal to eacother.

[The Fury]

Plus if we start saying her NXM teammates mean less to her than her teammates within our imagined world we get into a real arguement about whether the teams would even work together. We have to assume their loyal to eacother.

Good point on this.:)


But that aside, I do not believe that the killing is something I can support. You have a bunch of heroes kill and in my view that is out of character. Sorry.

[Zombienorthstar]

Good point on this.:)


But that aside, I do not believe that the killing is something I can support. You have a bunch of heroes kill and in my view that is out of character. Sorry.


I agree with you in essence, dude. I was INCENSED when Yost and Kyle didn't make a bigger deal of X-23 and Dust taking human lives, i mean they were barely even repentant

HOWEVER, we can only use the comics as our motive....heroic or not Dust has killed....me and Mits had this very discussion of whether it was pheasible. I was convinced it was due to the MANY times she has. As a compromise we went to the extra length of Stacy messing with her body chemistry which ultimatley can make people act uncharacteristically.

[The Fury]

HOWEVER, we can only use the comics as our motive....heroic or not Dust has killed....me and Mits had this very discussion of whether it was pheasible. I was convinced it was due to the MANY times she has. As a compromise we went to the extra length of Stacy messing with her body chemistry which ultimatley can make people act uncharacteristically.

Usually comic evidence and reference is power feats, not whether a character will kill people.

And I accept X-23 as she is a bred murderer and knows little else, Dust on the other hand is not.

This is not a desperation scenario like the story, this is jsut a fight.

BTW, I'm not just picking at this because I think your's is the worse strategy, I think it's better but the killing is too much.

Last year, a team had a a thing with drugs involved, and while I thought it was the better strategy I could never vote for it as it had that use of something I thought wrong. When people thought it was a good move made me think worse.

I'm picky like this. I do not believe that Dust will kill and while favour your strategy out of the 2, cannot vote for that reason.

[sephirothskiller]

I won't vote yet, but I do believe that Dead Girl is the hinge upon which HOMOS door revolves, and the hinge isn't properly oiled. First, how would dead girl quickly kill anybody else killed when she's busy doing a billion other things? Second, how would she do a billion other things at once? She's overworked. I don't see the use of Kiden Nixon since Mimic's dupes are taking care of that problem.

If that could be cleared up though...

[Zombienorthstar]

Double post

[Zombienorthstar]

In case it's Dead Girl who's supposed to take the hit, she will be prepared. Dead Girl will amptly remove her own brain from her skull (bash her skull in, or plunge her green brain out of it) and therefore make ANY psychic probing against her useless (until the Cuckoos are out). Keep in mind that corpses don't sleep... so it's pretty doubtful that telepathic attacks and disabling will be any use against her.
.

Dead Girl goes intangible and darts for Mimic, she's gonna try and take him down before he can copy too many powers. Mimic made an oath never to kill another human being after murdering Sunfire, luckily Dead Girl has taken no such oath. She conjures the ghost of the female Sunfire he killed to throw him off guard. She also conjures forth the ghost of Jean Grey from the Cuckoos or Surge's mind (or even Mimic's mind). Calvin was in love with his reality's version of Jean and this should also throw him off. Dead Girl transforms her hands into claws and attempts to gut Mimic, if she is outmaneuvered she will hold him off. Remember she can walk on air and go intangible so there's nowhere he can go that she can't. However Mimic will need some time to adopt the powers and adjust to them, especially if he's taking on five totally new abilities so I'm confident she'd be able to finish him herself being indestructible.

20 seconds in:

And every dupe Madrox created is now dead. This is where Dead Girl comes in, she creates Madrox zombies from all the corpses. We can assume Dead Girl has control over them, Madrox's dupes aren't always compliant with him, and he can't reabsorb them, they're dead. Also, like in all voodoo movies, zombies are always compliant to their creator. She also creates zombies out of Mimic's corpse (or corpses, if he created any dupes.The Zombies attack Shinobi Shaw, he can't pull his heart attack trick on the zombies they're unkillable, being already dead. If there is any resistance on Shaw's part to try and fend off the zombies our girl Stacy X will 'persuade' him with a little orgasm. Giving the zombies time to, oh I don't know, eat his brain?

In either case, there is only one left:
Surge: She'll still be unloading all this power, so Hellion will keep her within the TK bubble and launch it into the air, killing her, when and if she lands. Dead Girl can also lash at her while intangible and go tangible just for a fraction of a second and slash her neck with her claw-like fingers, while Kiden can off her in a second "superspeed time" (she's still boosted, so she's bound to find time to use her powers again and clean the place up).

Random: Stacy X amps up Dead Girl to the max, full of hormones and giving her the needed boost to do what's required. Dead Girl resurrects the zombies of The Cuckoos and using their telepathy amps up what she's about to show Random…which is basically the ghost of all those killed in Neverland. If this doesn't drive the guy insane, Meltdown, Mammomax, Hellion along with the Madrox zombies will all launch a coordinated attack on the guy, literally ripping him to pieces. Or the zombie Cuckoos can just put him to sleep, if our thirst for blood has been saturated by then.

*If Vanguard is still around, Dead Girl can summon Darkstar's ghost to torment him a little (she was his twin sister) before Hellion, Meltdown or the Zombie Cuckoos take care of him.

*If any of our members get offed, it's a matter of seconds before Dead Girl brings them back from the dead to help us as zombies. Any ally or opponent who dies will become zombified and give us a hand to help us towards victory. If one of the opponents goes against the zombies, they risk getting killed, or bitten and ALSO turned into zombies.

First many Dead Girl performs one action at a time...the only other times she'd mentioned is in anticipation of a move the opposing team might make so for example 'IF the Cuckoos attack her etc'

I fail to see wheres doing more than one thing at a time. She:

-holds off Mimic till Kiden attacks.
-Once Kiden attacks, Dead Girl no longer needs to focus on him so switches her attention to making Madrox zombies.
- The rest are only conditional endings, most of them won't happen, only one or two in fact they were just incorportaed as possible scenearios.

Chronologically Dead Girl does one thing at a time.

[AceOfSpades]

Dust and Kiden normally wouldn't go around killing people, but Stacy's adrenaline rush took care of that. Especially if Dust gets offed and zombified, she won't have an ethical problem to bring other people to her own state.:D
Both strategies are really well done. I think the multi-pronged attack against the Cuckoos probably takes them out one way or another. Although I am wondering if Kiden Nixon could accomplish everything you have her doing.

I know I argued in out battle that Dust wouldn't kill... so I'll stand that by herself she isn't motivated or angry enough to kill.... HOWEVER, you did give her the Stacy-X boost, which may just be enough to make her go berserk. Kudos on that.

I need to mull this one over. Debate is good

[Jessica Drew]

Whooh...where to start....

First, let me say that I hate not being able to argue into several hours after the match has begun. I'm not complaining about how this tournament is structured, just about how my schedule has been off-kilter this month.

This is quite a bit to digest, so let me make a few quick points, and I'll try to come back in an hour or so, once the work is done and the baby's asleep.

1. "Kiden's Show." Very aptly titled, but let me suggest a sub-title: "Kiden's Show, co-starring Dead Girl." For someone with so few appearances and zero battle experience, Kiden sure is doing an awful lot of work here. Hell, I need to hire her to clean my house. Dead Girl's no slouch here, either.

2. The Stepford Cuckoos have taken down Oracle very quickly, and one Cuckoo by herself--on the run from flying George Perez-like debris, even--was able to mentally deceive uber-powered Exodus. So, the three of them working together should be able to quickly make quick work of Dust (who has no psi-defenses) before she turns to, uh, dust. Dust does not start off as her namesake, so I think the Cuckoos would be able to take her down before she's off on a killing spree (one murder does not a murderer make, know what I mean?).

3. Mimic instantly attacks Kiden Nixon. He's only got half the Cuckoos' strength, but it should be enough to distract Nixon while Random, Surge, and Shaw are attacking her team. Seconds later (in my second stage), six Mimics attack her telepathically, so I don't think she even begins her show, Stacy-X or not.

4. I'll think of something else in a minute. Baby's crying.

[Mineralogy]

I'm picky like this. I do not believe that Dust will kill and while favour your strategy out of the 2, cannot vote for that reason.Wouldn't it be more fair, if you feel so strongly about this, to simply reevaluate their strategy from the assumption that Dust does everything as told, but doesn't kill anyone? I just think that would be better than them losing by default in your eyes based on a particular moral objection. If you think Dust wouldn't kill, treat it the same way as someone with Magneto on their team having him shapeshift into a birthday cake: assume it didn't happen and evaluate the match accordingly.

It doesn't really alter things too badly; Dust is immune to telepathy so she could just sit there suffocating the Cuckoos into unconsciousness by clogging their breathing passages, or pelting them at high speeds in a concentrated area so as to knock them out rather than flay them. Let's pretend that happened each time Dust was listed as murdering someone.

Or am I smoking chocolate bunnies, and this idea would completely change things?

[Jessica Drew]

Wouldn't it be more fair, if you feel so strongly about this, to simply reevaluate their strategy from the assumption that Dust does everything as told, but doesn't kill anyone? I just think that would be better than them losing by default in your eyes based on a particular moral objection. If you think Dust wouldn't kill, treat it the same way as someone with Magneto on their team having him shapeshift into a birthday cake: assume it didn't happen and evaluate the match accordingly.

It doesn't really alter things too badly; Dust is immune to telepathy so she could just sit there suffocating the Cuckoos into unconsciousness by clogging their breathing passages, or pelting them at high speeds in a concentrated area so as to knock them out rather than flay them. Let's pretend that happened each time Dust was listed as murdering someone.

Or am I smoking chocolate bunnies, and this idea would completely change things?

Hypothetically, Dust could easily do as you suggested and still defeat here enemies without having to kill them, yes. But we can't pretend she does that here, because she's written here as killing them. We can't ignore what parts of the strategy we don't like and pretend something else was written instead.

I see what you mean, though. Still, Dust is immune to telepathy only in her dust form. She's not in her dust form at the beginning of the match, and the Cuckoos are surrounded by a force field throughout the course of the entire match.

[loopdodgers]

Hypothetically, Dust could easily do as you suggested and still defeat here enemies without having to kill them, yes. But we can't pretend she does that here, because she's written here as killing them. We can't ignore what parts of the strategy we don't like and pretend something else was written instead.

I see what you mean, though. Still, Dust is immune to telepathy only in her dust form. She's not in her dust form at the beginning of the match, and the Cuckoos are surrounded by a force field throughout the course of the entire match.

I agree. The strategies are to be interpreted as written.

[Mineralogy]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating putting words in contestants' mouths. It's just, according to zombienorthstar and Mitsaso, Dust has taken lives under duress before. So it's really not fair to invalidate their entire strategy as "out of character" due to personal objections to the character being used that way. That's why I suggested just quietly removing the "Dust brutally murders Tom Bombadil by scalping him with sandpaper"-type lines if they rub you the wrong way (oh, pun!), and assuming she achieves the same action nonlethally.

It's only because this doesn't actually alter the fight at all. Dust is still occupied the same amount of time and taking the same actions, and thus can be counteracted the exact same way as before. To me this isn't the same as retroactively modifying their actual strategy. And I only brought it up because Fury was apparently denying them the entire vote based on this one discrepancy — which is completely valid if Fury so chooses, don't get me wrong; I'm just offering an alternative that keeps the vote based on actual strategies.

I dunno. I think I worry too much. :p

[Jessica Drew]

"....don't get me wrong; I'm just offering an alternative that keeps the vote based on actual strategies.

I understand your point, but don't get me wrong, either; I'm just offering an alternative that keeps the vote away from my opponent. :p

[Zombienorthstar]

First Dust hasnt just killed one person...


In her first appearance i count five soldiers on panel who's she's killed.

In Strykers attack on the X-Men, she killed numerous pacifiers. Numerous.

I agree one murder does not a murderer make. Nine or ten? Hmmm....maybe you should reconsider.

[Zombienorthstar]

1. "Kiden's Show." Very aptly titled, but let me suggest a sub-title: "Kiden's Show, co-starring Dead Girl." For someone with so few appearances and zero battle experience, Kiden sure is doing an awful lot of work here. Hell, I need to hire her to clean my house. Dead Girl's no slouch here, either.

I agree, Kiden hasn't had any battle experience...but im fairly sure hitting someone with a shoe doesn't count as a martial art. I'm fairly sure i can do it. I'm fairly sure my nine year brother could do it. We don't make Kiden do anything a normal person isn't capable of.


2. The Stepford Cuckoos have taken down Oracle very quickly, and one Cuckoo by herself--on the run from flying George Perez-like debris, even--was able to mentally deceive uber-powered Exodus. So, the three of them working together should be able to quickly make quick work of Dust (who has no psi-defenses) before she turns to, uh, dust. Dust does not start off as her namesake, so I think the Cuckoos would be able to take her down before she's off on a killing spree (one murder does not a murderer make, know what I mean?).


I suppose that's why we gave contingencies of other people attacking the Cuckoos...even without Dust our strategy plays. However i suppose what you've got to ask is will our three coordinated attacks disorientate them enough for the second it would take for Dust to turn to sandform.

. I'll think of something else in a minute. Baby's crying.

Selfish child! Doesn't she realise how important this is! Kidding ;)

[Brian "Vash" Ashby]

Alrighty, as always this is based only on opening strategies provided, and as always i dont know who will win yet. Just have to work through it


Phase 1

* Dust goes sandy and heads for the Cuckoos before the Cuckoos can coirdinate and get a grasp on her mind. However vanguard puts the shield up before Dust can get to them. A bit of a dead end for everyone right? No, and here is why. Hellion. At first glance i thought the fact that because 3 characters were focused on the Cuckoos that would be a liability, and in a way it is. But because of the way Hellion attacked, ripping the ground up from under them an launching it. See, the forcefield actually did the Cuckoos in. They are instantly crushed between the force field and the earth Hellion shot into the air. If Vanguard is smart he wouldnt lower the shield, since even then the Cuckoos would be sandpapered to death by Dust and expose the rest of the team3. A nasty nast fate for the girls, and earth debris and Cuckoo chunks are now all over Madrox and Mimic, surely a distraction.

* As Hellion didnt take flight however Shinobi Shaw reaches him with little trouble and takes him out.

* Random fires at the now unconcious Hellion and intangible Dead girl, perhaps he should have taken off the sunglasses before going into battle? :D

* Madrox starts duping himself, but thats going to take a few moments. Even though its of no use as i can recall, his original body will be easy to spot as he has intestines all over himself.

* Since i see no reason why an intangible Dead Girl couldnt penetrate the shield around Mimic she starts to attack him. With all the distractions. When he closes his eyes for the mental assault of Kiden though he leaves himself open to attack. I can accept the fact that he can mentally assault Kiden before being murdered brutally, but i dont think any Mimic duping will be happening with all the distractions and spleens and such.

* Kiden gets take out by Mimic, and Stacy X begins to make out with an invalid.

* Surge is all over the homos, but she has to acquire a target as her first two are no longer hitable for her vantage.


Here is the current standings.

Homos: Dust, Dead girl, Stacy X, Mammomax, Meltdown

Kinky: Multiple Man(s), Random, Surge, Shinobi Shaw, Vanguard

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Phase 2

* Shinobi Shaw seems most logically to head for Stacy X next. I see no way for her to stop him, so she is out.

* Surge plows into Mammomax, but im not sure that would do much. He's one massive son of a B. Let's say it knocks him bat a bit.

* Multiple Man dupes are now fighting dead girl and any Zombie dupes she can muster up. And mimic. They cant leave the force field however as Dust will jack them up. She stays in place and contains the fight.

* meltdown attacks Random. I suspect she will be able to take him. He can counteract stuff, but as her powers are likey to simply knock him out due to pressure and the like, sort of like a stun or concussion grenade. Not sure one can counteract something like that.

Standings

Homos: Dust, Dead Girl, Mammomax, Meltdown, Zombies

Kinky: Multiple Man(s), Surge, Shinboi Shaw, Vanguard

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phase 3

Im basically going to have to simply eyeball the rest as both strategies are moot at this point

*Shinboi Shaw and/or Surge takes down Meltdown

*Mammomax could then probably take out surge with his corrosive stomach acid. Perhaps taking out her gloves, but i think that might take him out as well


Standings

Homos: Dust, Dead Girl, Zombies

Kinky: Multiple Man(s), Shinobi Shaw, Vanguard.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'

Well ill be damned

Its a freaking draw. Multiple Man and the Zombies will be fighting on indefinitely. Vanguard cant do anything aggressive to anyone and can only keep the shield up to keep Dust at bay. Dust can't hurt anyone as it stands. Dead Girl will probably be flanked at every move by Shaw, she cant make a move against Vanguard without him taking her down as well. Mimic Zombie since he didnt immediately go for Vanguard, would be rendered useless by Madrox Dupes before he can.

You have essentially a fight that will last forever contained in a bubble surrounded by Dust. No one could make a move against the other. I cant vote. It's a draw.

[The Grand Dutchess]

that's an intresting analysis, but i think that mimic wouldn't attack kiden nixon in time... mimic needs to copy the powers he will use first, and then use one of them, and kiden will stop time before that. on the other hand i think that dust would go down immediately, but that doesnt affect the rest of the plans for team homos.
so i vote for the homos (why are they called that anyway? nobody in the team is gay.):)

[Zombienorthstar]

Well ill be damned

Its a freaking draw. Multiple Man and the Zombies will be fighting on indefinitely. Vanguard cant do anything aggressive to anyone and can only keep the shield up to keep Dust at bay. Dust can't hurt anyone as it stands. Dead Girl will probably be flanked at every move by Shaw, she cant make a move against Vanguard without him taking her down as well. Mimic Zombie since he didnt immediately go for Vanguard, would be rendered useless by Madrox Dupes before he can.

You have essentially a fight that will last forever contained in a bubble surrounded by Dust. No one could make a move against the other. I cant vote. It's a draw.

Ah yes, but as we said, anyone taken out will be resurrected by Dead Girl, therefore people like Kiden etc. are back in the game arguably.

[Brian "Vash" Ashby]

When i say taken out i dont mean killed necessarily. The only people killed in this fight, as i recall, would be the cuckoos when they are crushed by Hellion and Vanguard. And they are crushed beyond usefulness.

[LeoHyuuga]

When i say taken out i dont mean killed necessarily. The only people killed in this fight, as i recall, would be the cuckoos when they are crushed by Hellion and Vanguard. And they are crushed beyond usefulness.

They stated in their very first sentence in strategy that Dead Girl would kill anyone who was knocked unconscious, even her own teammates.

[Brian "Vash" Ashby]

Deadgirl is too preoccupied with the Multiple man fight to do that. Her first move puts her in the stalemate battle. She's not going to be able to leave that fight

[Zombienorthstar]

Yeaaaaaaaah!!!!! Thanks to Nightcrawler and Jessica Drew for a great game, it was SO close for so long there, it could have gone either way.

[mattbib]

Final score is 17:15. Congratulations Zombienorthstar & Mitsaso. Next Thursday you'll face the loser of tomorrow's PM Game 12 (Siddon & venuscameback vs. Novaya Havoc & Nyssane).

Nightcrawler & Jessica Drew, unfortunately this means you're eliminated from this year's tournament. Hopefully we'll see you both back next year.

[Mitsaso]

I want to thank the Academy for... oh, wait, he still have more matches to go?:eek:


It was a great game, with polite (if not always plausible) debating and overall calm and collected. Nightcrawler & Jessica Drew were great opponents and made this battle be the nail-biter it was!


What, Nightcrawler & Jessica Drew are not even online? I guess they weren't the ones doing the nail-biting...:o

[Mikl C]

Congratulations guys, well fought and in an above all civil way. I literally couldn't decide who to pick here.

[Brian "Vash" Ashby]

If the decision was only separated by one vote i would have forced a tie-breaker.

Good jobs

[The Fury]

Or am I smoking chocolate bunnies, and this idea would completely change things?

I understand your point but the idea is that the strategies as a whole work and the characters are in character. I believe that her killing is out of character (whether or not she did it in the comics, i believe that was wrong as well).

And like said...picky. :D

[Zombienorthstar]

I understand your point but the idea is that the strategies as a whole work and the characters are in character. I believe that her killing is out of character (whether or not she did it in the comics, i believe that was wrong as well).

And like said...picky. :D

Well, not to push the point here....but its part of her character in the comics. Her first appearance had her killing people. If you were a writer, that might not be your interpretation of the character, but we are bound by the textual evidence. There are certain characters in our team who we would have kill and certain characters we wouldnt for that very reason. Notice how Hellion never kills anyone? That's because he wouldn't.

[Jessica Drew]

Good fight, good strategy, and great team, you two. I'm glad the match was as close as it was. We'll be back next year.

[venuscameback]

Good fight, good strategy, and great team, you two. I'm glad the match was as close as it was. We'll be back next year.

I didn't get chance to vote in this match & I wish I had - I'm shocked by the result. Glancing through the strats I can't see how the voting went the way it did, but perhaps a more thorough study would reveal that. My commiserations, JD & Nightcrawler, and a big 'well done' to ZN & Mitsaso

[venuscameback]

I understand your point but the idea is that the strategies as a whole work and the characters are in character. I believe that her killing is out of character (whether or not she did it in the comics, i believe that was wrong as well).

You're not making any sense to me, Kri. Dust has been shown on multiple occasions to be willing to kill; maybe she's premature in going for the kill in this battle but her comics characterisation makes clear that she kill if she needs to. you might not like that fact, but it's no reason to not support the strategy

[The Lucky One]

Wow... first time in 3 years Madrox won't be on the team that wins the tournament.
:eek:

Congrats to both teams, and Nightcrawler and Jessica, you guys played a great game. My greatest regret in your elimination is that now I'll never get a chance to use my "naked redhead" strategy on Mimic. (Which, since Ian and Siddon turned down my trade for Firestar, would only be 2/3 as powerful anyway.)

-D

[mattbib]

through the strats I can't see how the voting went the way it did, but perhaps a more thorough study would reveal that.
There's not going to be "a more thorough study".

[venuscameback]

There's not going to be "a more thorough study".

I meant a more thorough of the strategies, Matt - I said before that I'd only had time to glance through them