DC League- Nightcrawler vs. Apathy Boy

[Nightcrawler]

Anyone can vote. Please read both strategies before voting.

Nightcrawler- Manchester Black, Mary Marvel, Wonder Girl, Raven

Apathy Boy- Mirror Master, Jericho, Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd, Turtle, Gog, Felix Faust, Ragman, Mad Hatter


Here is Apathy Boy's strategy:

The Turtle steals the opposition’s kinetic energy, reducing their speed to a crawl.

Gorilla Grodd and Felix Faust use their powers to mentally and magically shield the team from Manchester Black’s and Raven’s mental control. Grodd and Faust may not be able to protect the team forever, but all they need to do is buy the time to take Black down.

Gog is the key to that. With his teleportation abilities, super-speed, energy blasts and Superman-level endurance, Gog actually stands a good shot of taking Black single-handedly. At the very least, Gog will keep Black too occupied to pay attention to what everyone else is doing. (And that’s not exactly a stretch, anyway – Black’s a cocky little bugger, so he won’t be able to resist a pissing contest with my team’s alpha male.)

So, what is everyone else doing? Well, Captain Cold’s erecting an ice shield inches in front of the slowly moving Mary Marvel. A nice and reflective ice shield, which Mirror Master can work his magic on. As a result, when the Turtle restores Mary’s kinetic energy, her momentum carries her right into the ice at full-speed and she disappears...

By this point, Black may very well have brought Gog down to his knees. In true Manchester Black fashion, he’ll stand over Gog’s body to gloat… which is when Mary Marvel emerges from Gog’s shiny chestplate at full-speed and hits Black point-blank. Black should be dead at this point, but even if he was able to partially block the impact with his telekinesis, he’ll be hurt too bad to put up much of a fight when the Ragman approaches. Seconds later, Black’s another patch on the Ragman’s cloak-of-evil.

Meanwhile, Mary Marvel, dazed by the impact and traumatized from possibly killing her teammate, will be easy pickings for Grodd. Grodd reads her mind, learns her secrets and then makes her say “Shazam!” A flick of the fingers puts Mary Batson out for the count.

Mad Hatter’s found a new fixation for his Alice fetish: Wonder Girl. Naturally, Cassie is creeped out and decides to pound Hatter into paste. Unfortunately for Cassie, this isn’t the Mad Hatter. It’s Jericho in the Hatter’s body. Cassie unwittingly looks into the Hatter’s eyes and… CONTACT.

Raven, quite frankly, is screwed at this point. Grodd can counteract her empathy powers; Mirror Master can match her teleportation abilities. Just a matter of time before someone takes Raven down. Let’s say Wonder Jericho gets the KO.


And Nightcrawler's:

Analysis: Apathy Boy has a good team, but he doesn’t have enough mental power to hold back Manchester Black for a second.

Phase 1 (Instantly, 1 second)
• Manchester Black telepathically takes out Turtle, Gorrilla Grodd, and Felix Faust, snapping their spines telekinetically if he can’t break them with his mind. He sends distracting blasts at the others, keeping them from concentrating. This shouldn't present a challenge to him.
• Mary Marvel and Wonder Girl engage Gog, with Black mind-linking them
• Raven makes Apathy Boy’s team very depressed, and gives mine an adrenaline surge

Phase 2 (2-3 seconds)
• Manchester Black puts a TK shield around himself and Raven, then psionically turns off Captain Cold and Mirror Master
• Raven, Mary Marvel, and Wonder Girl unload on Gog

Phase 3 (4-5 seconds)
• Black kills Ragman, then wastes Gog, along with everyone else.

[Jessica Drew]

Still pondering this one....

[The Wayner]

Gots to go with Apathy Boy.

[Lex]

I don't know, Nightcrawler. You rely on Black quite a bit. Besides, not only do I think Apathy Boy can pull of most of his strategy, he does several interesting things like playing with Turtle's kinetic power.

I want to vote for Apathy Boy, but I feel I should wait until I see NC's defense to that strategy.

[Apathy Boy]

Analysis: Apathy Boy has a good team, but he doesn’t have enough mental power to hold back Manchester Black for a second.Perhaps. But a second can be a heck of a long time if you're moving in slow-motion and your opponents are not. I'm banking that the Turtle buys enough time for Grodd and Faust to put up a decent defence, for Black to revert to his usual dumbass-ery and/or for Gog to get some decent shots in. We'll see...

[raoulduke]

Apathy Boy's got a good strategy.

Any good telepathic feats for Manchester Black?

[Hellpop]

Goin' with Apathy Boy here. I think his Faust/Grodd block on Manchester Black would work long enough to counteract Nightcrawler's strategy. Grodd is a powerful telepath in his own right.

[twilight]

Any good telepathic feats for Manchester Black?

Giving Superman a stroke.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I voted for Apathy Boy on this one. If Black gets taken out or distracted, then most of Nightcrawler's strategy is uselss

[twilight]

My vote goes to Apathy Boy.

I think his Turtle/Grodd team up should be enough to stall Black until Gog takes him out.

But both strats were fantastic.

[Mainline]

The main problem with Apathy Boy's strategy is that it relies on The Turtle- who, you know is notorious for being, well SLOW- to blitz the opposition. If the Rogues can bring The Turtle in, clearly his abilities are insufficient to stop them. While he has shown a full-block time-stop, since his abilities are Speed Force based, he's Speed-Force attuned... so his ability to stop blitzers really seems to only occur with Speed-Force speedsters, not generic speedsters. During the Turtle's freeze feat, it is not like he showed the reflexes or power control to stop the dump truck from falling on himself.

Aside from Turtle, however, it is an interesting strategy.

[Jared_Humpherys]

The main problem with Apathy Boy's strategy is that it relies on The Turtle- who, you know is notorious for being, well SLOW- to blitz the opposition. If the Rogues can bring The Turtle in, clearly his abilities are insufficient to stop them. While he has shown a full-block time-stop, since his abilities are Speed Force based, he's Speed-Force attuned... so his ability to stop blitzers really seems to only occur with Speed-Force speedsters, not generic speedsters. During the Turtle's freeze feat, it is not like he showed the reflexes or power control to stop the dump truck from falling on himself.

Aside from Turtle, however, it is an interesting strategy.

Turtle called himself a black hole for kinetic energy. The only time he ever directly touched the speed force was in the flashback min-story in Secret Files. In Flash, he even managed to slow the other people around him down.

Gog is also speedblitz-capable(though not FTL by any means), and IIRC, Black is as fast as the speed of thought. Gog should be able to at least distract Black, especially with Turtle helping out.

Also, Apathy Boy had some very clever tactics(the Cold/Mirror Master combo against Mary Marvel and Black was brilliant). Gotta go with Apathy Boy for this one.

[Mainline]

Turtle called himself a black hole for kinetic energy. The only time he ever directly touched the speed force was in the flashback min-story in Secret Files. In Flash, he even managed to slow the other people around him down.

However his new ability was triggered specifically by Flash passing by Iron Heights, then Turtle goes into exposition about how his ability stems from the Speed Force. While it's true he can stop people in general, we have no evidence that he can do it quickly... if anything we have evidence to the contrary, examples: Dump truck & Rogues capturing him. He was given to Society by the Rogues as a gift specifically for his Speed Force attunement, the only type of blitz he can sense, then effectively stop. Meanwhile non-speed force objects moving quickly give him trouble unless he already has his passive slow field up... something, again, that we have no evidence he can perform quickly.

[da noble savage]

I think turtle could do it in the one where he bust out of iron heights he takes out the whole city. And he doesn't need to do it super quick. cause the first attack nightcrawler did was with black and not directed at turtle. Plus the marymarvel k.o was kick ass.

[Nightcrawler]

None of Apathy Boy's strategy works because Turtle is gone instantly. His whole team's reaction times are going to be very low because of Raven's depression, while mine will be getting adrenaline surges.

[Jessica Drew]

I'm going with Apathy Boy, for I think that both Grodd and Faust could momentarily keep Manchester Black's attack from reaching the team.

[K'Nort]

Manchester Black is damned powerful. But he never uses it full throttle like that. Plus, can he be taking out three people at the same time as mind-linking two others? (Although I don't think MM and WG would need to be linked in order to fight Gog.) I think Apathy Boy has a good grasp of his personality it terms of preferring to toy with opponents.

I don't buy the Turtle slowing everyone from the official starting distance. But both the Mary Marvel and the Jericho tricks are damned clever.

Not sure Grodd could pull Shazam out of Mary's mind. Was Mr Mind ever able to do that to any of the family? If not, she'd be backing up Raven. And they'd have a fighting chance.