Wolf vs Coco
Stalin's Judgment
Wolf v Coco: Coco came out with several bold claims, this came back to bite him in the ass. When you make some claim, you better hope you can back them up. Wolf came in disproved damn near every single claim Coco made, proving that Coco vastly under-sold Wolf's team. The rest of the debate went almost no where, Coco barely responded to Wolf's points and Wolf just copy & pasted his first response hammering in everything Coco failed to touch one. WOLF WINS
Chain's Judgment
https://puu.sh/E4974/a8dbfb98fa.png
Verlux's Judgment
Wolf v Coco
Let's be real here: this was a bloodbath.
Wolf provably showed Coco to be lying/deliberately snipping feats to misrepresent them, which straight out the gate destroys most of Coco's response 1. Wolf also simply smacked down almost all of Coco's feats and scaling, and pointed out how the arena benefits solely his team. The second and third responses were almost unecessary since it became a slapfight of copy-pasting things that Coco never addressed from Wolf's R1. Goliath was simply not defended well, is worthless as-argued, and Slade's motication argumentation was simply outright bad.
WOLF WINS AND TAKES THE MATCH 3-0
Iridescence vs Talvasha
Stalin's Judgment
Iri vs Talv
This was an argument of Skill and Stealth. Iri did very well defending and making Luther not seem like shit while Talv defended Szeth decently. Shin was basically a non-factor, the defense by Talv didn't convince me and Iri clearly pointed out how odd it was. Etreri v JoJo was an odd one, bad arguments of speed from Talv's side and the weak points against stealth from Iri's side. Talv's arguments with Szeth and Entreri were great, but with what was essentially a 2 v 3 battle he couldn't pull of the victory.
THE_IRIDESCENCE WINS
Verlux's Judgment
Iridescence vs Talvasha
Straight up, this one was likely the one I thought on the most and replayed points more than any other match this round.
Iri swung from the get-go with some good hard-hitting points on why Talv's characters are pretty goddamn slow from his perspective, why Luther is superior to almost everyone, and why Artemis can't pull his normal win-con. Something I will note, the ash wall DO in fact work and are not ranged.
The entire Luther skill meta-debate was pretty well done on both sides, and the Lashing argumentation was a bit odd on Talvasha's part at times given it was simply stated to have a timeframe of operation without good evidence for the given frame.
Artemis' weapons and fighting style were portrayed well enough to be able to harm Iri's heavy hitters, and as a completely random aside Iri had a sexy as hell OOT defense. The Szeth debate on scaling him was curious, Josuke's speed was well-argued by both debaters, but realistically the skill debate was the most important.
Simply put, Talv argued the skill of his team and the arena well enough to just barely squeak out a win. The brightness of the arena being visualized by Iri was well done, and Luther is still a factor that could alter the fight alongside Kaneki in my mind, but for now I award the match to Talv.
TALVASHA WINS
Chain's Judgment
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THE_IRIDESCENCE WINS THE MATCH 2-1
Tarroyn vs MightyBox
Chain's Judgment
https://puu.sh/E498y/2cec3dd633.png
Stalin's Judgment
Box vs Tarroyn
This debate was basically: Will Nami and/or Skull get there gear? Box and Tarroyn put all their eggs in this basket and basically left the rest of their respective team members be only time wasters or escorts. Box was in a rough battle proving that Skull can get to his gear in a timely and safe manner and trying to claim Nami couldn't get her gear nor will it be important. He never really any points that I felt were good enough to answer Tarroyn's arguments, especially on the front of Nami getting to her gear.
Also Hisako was a bad Scramble submission you boob
TARRYON WINS
Verlux's Judgment
Tarroyn vs MightyBox
This one really showcased how superior formatting and ability to give the reader flow of points aids the debater; Tarro's points were showcased super crisp and cleanly, allowing concise argumentation. Box, in his defense, still argued pretty goddamn well, I just wanted to highlight Tarro's formatting.
Overall this fight turned into a meta-debate on speed as most do, with Luke patently being accepted to be a good tank, DD and Nami being questionable in their application, and Defiant just being a big armored motherfucker of a wrench in Box's plans.
Tarro did well at highlighting the questionability of the Luke Cage speed scaling while maintaining a good offense on how much trouble Defiant would give him and prevent his escort Skulduggery quest from coming to fruition. Ultimately, that alone really pushed it in Tarro's favor, the fact that Box's entire strategy pretty well crumples to Defiant. Mockingbird being able to be countered by DD was a very good argument Box pointed out, but DD wasn't sufficiently argued to keep both Nami and Mockingbird on their heels, meaning Skulduggery is not getting his magic easily/not being useful.
TARROYN WINS AND TAKES THE MATCH 3-0
*Glob vs Serra
Stalin's Judgment
Glob v Serra:
Serra had alright points initially, Glob quickly poked holes in everything and put into doubt everything Serra claimed. Serra's underwhelming or non-existent defenses to several very important points that Glob argued cost him too much.
GLOB WINS
Chain's Judgment
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Verlux's Judgment
Globsterzone vs Serra
First off, I want to compliment Serra's formal prose style. Very nice way of putting forth information, and doesn't distract from the argument. I simply like it.
Serra opened with a pretty good counter to Mean Machine and strongly touched on Anubis as well as the proper ways their characters can simply blast apart Glob's. However, Glob did clap back pretty powerfully with antifeats for Anubis and pointing to the lack of concise, objective speed feats from Symphonia's verse in general.
Serra did successfully refute the reaction feats in their second response, as well as the speed feats in general that Glob scrutinized, but in the end Glob's win conditions are more well-rounded and solidly able to occur as-argued.
This was probably the most pleasant debate to read, personally, of this round.
GLOB WINS AND TAKES THE MATCH 3-0
Ame vs Clev
Nkon's Judgment
Ame vs Clev: Batmech was deemed in tier. Fight proceeds as normal. This was a tough debate, with both sides stubbornly clinging to their stated win conditions and refusing to cede any points to the other debater. However, I think that once the debate devolved into a mess of individually quoted and rebutted sentences, Ame had a slight edge and was better able to address his opponent's claims while defending his own. Ame wins in my book, but both sides have enough advantages that I could see the other judges going either way.
Letter's Judgment
Clev vs Ame
This is probably the most thorough, maybe the best argument in this round. Both sides had me convinced with each debate response, so picking a winner wasn't easy. Deathstroke's sword cutting through titanium is good yeah, and the rest of his team also has good counters to Clev's team. But I gotta say, Speed Racer is the star of the show here. While most of the other debates sort of revolved around the members one shotting each other (Venom Strike vs Martial Arts skills, no piercing resist vs the shields sucking), I'm not entirely convinced Ame's team can properly deal with Speed Racer with the way Clev defended him. Every time Ame said something that made sense, Clev came back with a counter that seemed outright goofy at times showing how versatile that car is. Like I said, this match was extremely close, and I'm feeling Clev wins by the skin of his teeth here.
Clev wins
Embrace's Judgment
Ame vs Clev
Best debate out of the rounds by far, with precise formatting and in depth discussion on each aspect of the fight, although It was slightly messy in the middle. That being said, this fight comes down to how I interpret Speed Racer's mobility and durability, since the other aspects of the debate were close, with Ame slightly ahead. Ultimately, I find Clev slightly ahead in that area in giving context for Speed's character, the force impacted on the windshield, and the agility of the car.
Clev wins
CLEVERLY FUCKIN' CLEARLY WINS THE MATCH 2-1 IN THE CLOSEST JUDGMENT I CAN REMEMBER
TheKjell vs InverseFlash
Kjell advances by default
DoctorGecko vs TooAmasian
Embrace's Judgment
Gecko vs Amasian
Decent debate, with well indepth analysis of each section of feats, although some more comparative analysis could be used. That being said, my decision comes down to two factors: Reaper's speed vs Amasian's team and the Broker feat interpretations. In both cases I side w/ Gecko. There are almost no movement speed feats articulated for Bane or Tex while Reaper can atleast blitz children comparable to assassins so I buy that he gets the guns faster. If I buy that he gets the guns first, that it's a question if his aim can overcome Tex and Bane's stealth and agility. Reaper has amazing aiming feats that are way past what those two are capable of moving, and I rate their stealth feats above the other two, mainly as I think some of the stealth scaling is mixed (sneaking up on someone depends on who that person detects and doesn't detect, not on how they sneak up on others). On Broker straight up I interp the plates as mostly solid, and buy the arguments on the scaling to Shepard being appropriate in various areas. Ultimately, I find Broker ahead in Strength, Durability and Speed, to the point where he's borderline OOT imo.
Gecko wins due to their two pokemon being superior to Tex and Bane in the aspects that they need to be.
Letter's Judgment
DoctorGecko vs TooAmasian
TooAmasian essentially had Doc on the defense the entire argument and it never really let up. While I do believe that the Reaper has a chance of getting the guns before the other team and using them to his advantage, he never really counters his opponents strong points, such as not mentioning how Reaper would deal with an invisible opponent (he mentions that Tex has no stealth feats while invisible and leaves it at that). The Shadow Broker scaling is a little suspicious (it does somewhat reach a point where Shadow Broker is strong because Shepard is strong because Broker is strong all based on the table feat), the gunshot definitely seems questionable, and while I disagreed with Amasian's interpretation of the sword durability feat for Krogans not counting due to how ME bullets work, I did agree that his team wouldn't really have much of an issue getting around his shield. So you're left with a beefy slow opponent with good strength, and Amasian argued quite well how his team can handle those. Essentially, from the arguments provided, I walked away feeling a bit more confident Tex and Bane could overcome Shadow Broker and catch up to Reaper with their speed, than I did that Reaper would get the perfect stealth run and shoot both opponents to death while Broker engages his opponents in hand to hand.
Gonna rule in favor of TooAmasian
Nkonrad's Judgment
DoctorGecko vs TooAmasian: Batman Beyond ruled OOT. Sakuya ruled OOT. This match was reduced to a 2v2. A lot of the debate focused on the two heavy hitters, who are not present, meaning that the arguments I'm allowed to consider are a bit sparser than usual. With the remaining pair, I lean slightly in favour of TooAmasian as the Shadow Broker is a slight underperformer, and I'm not convinced of the Grim Reaper's ability to pick up the slack, whereas both Bane and Tex are relatively capable in their own right, even with the loss of their stronger team member. TooAmasian wins, slightly.
TOOAMASIAN WINS THE MATCH 2-1
Kerdicz vs Ameraaa
Kerdicz wins by default
Kirbin vs Ralton
Chain's Judgment
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Letter's Judgment
Kirbin vs Ralton
Ralton definitely says a lot of questionable stuff in this debate, such as "Major is too weak, too slow, and not durable enough to win" and "Any member of my team can 1v3 yours" which would kind of make them all out of tier. One of them even got deemed out of tier. Being stronger than your opponent is good, trying to argue you massively stomp them isn't. Onto the meat of the debate, Kirbin skillfully defended against the anti-feats Ralton tried to provide for the most part, and his feat interpretation was clear to me, while a few of Ralton's were a bit more questionable (namely the speed feats and scaling). Ralton's arguments for his team, while good and convince me that under normal circumstances he could outstrength his opponents, don't seem enough to fill in the gap of losing Jaune. Thus, I'm going to have to side with Kirbin on this one. He tried being too hyper offensive with his interpretations, and got punished for it.
Kirbin wins.
Nkon's Judgment
Kirb vs Ralton: Ohma was deemed in-tier and so remains at play. Jaune was deemed out-of-tier and so will not be part of this fight. I think Kirbin was slightly better at controlling the discussion when it came to feat interpretation, both in defending his own feats and downplaying his opponents. Ralton went slightly too far in his attempts to make his characters appear powerful, and lost one to an OOT challenge as a result. While Ralton might have had a chance to succeed under normal circumstances, losing Jaune left him in an untenable position that he couldn't come back from. Kirbin wins.
KIRBIN WINS THE MATCH 3-0
Crim vs FJ
FJ wins by default
Feminist vs Spdier
Chain's Judgment
https://puu.sh/E4akt/08ea6fc42b.png
Letter's Judgment
Feminist-horsebane vs spider_manectric
Gonna keep this one short despite the impressively thorough back and forth these two had. Feminist definitely is underestimating Mr. Mime's power through the debate, and if he gets his powers, then he might be able to give his team the advantage they need to win. However, I believe Feminist thoroughly asserted their team's dominance in this debate, having essentially a perfect counter to all of their opponent's arguments with each character. I don't really believe that Spider's team could get their power ups honestly with the speed feats presented. Fem's team is straight up overall stronger, which never got contested, so the debate has to go to them. Spider's closing argument is too powerful though, so I gotta side with him
Fem wins
Nkon's Judgment
Fem vs Spider: This was a very polite and friendly debate, and I approve. I think the semantic discussion over what constitutes a "real" missile was a bit asinine but overall harmless. I lean slightly toward's Fem's team for a likely victory, although I do think Mr. Mime isn't as utterly useless as Fem claims. Spider's characters are too easily countered by Fem's, and their abilities simply don't synergize well enough and rely too heavily on perfect cooperation to give them a chance to succeed. Fem wins.
FEMINIST TAKES THE MATCH 3-0
Guy vs Azure
Guy wins by default
Mikhail vs False
Mikhail wins by default
Pizza vs Corvette
Stalin's Judgment
Pizza vs Corvette
This was a saucy battle with two niggas getting salty in the end, I loved it. Corvette hammered in hard and gave Pizza and issue of gravity that was left untouched. Pizza made questionable claims against Corvette's team's strength, but wasn't very important as he made it a point that duking it out wasn't a priority. It all came down to pushing and pulling, something Pizza put a lot of faith in and wasn't argued well enough by Corvette. If it wasn't for the arena advantages the gravity would have shut down Pizza in my opinion.
POTENTIALLY deep dish PIZZA WINS
Embrace's Judgment
Pizza vs Corvette
This was a close match, and surprisingly I give Corvette the win here. While I think Pizza is ahead on most points like the tactics and getting past Buffy strat, the issue that I find particularly glaring is the lack of defensive arguments made in favor of Vin and Elend relative to Buffy and Selene's projectiles. Corvette makes at least some defensive arguments about how their characters would handle getting hit, whereas Pizza is more reliant on speed scaling and dodging which I think could be explained better. I think Selene and Buffy can weather and/or dodge enough coins to make one shot on the Mistborn characters which would gank them considering that their durability was minimally argued during the round. Relevant to this is that I think Corvette is ahead on how the coins function and are not comparable to bullets whereas Pizza misunderstands that argument.
As an aside, Adolin and Blade were generally irrelevant to my decision. The former mainly as I don't think they can survive for 10 seconds against Bane and Selene (yes Pizza has the accelerated heartbeat arguments but this is countered by the lower gravity creates a lower heartbeat argument). The latter as they're generally slow, although he doesn't have no speed feats since he's better than vampires, the issue is that isn't quantified enough other than somewhat greater than humans.
Corvette wins
Verlux's Judgment
Pizza vs Corvette
Corvette came out swinging on this one in a debate that was pretty aggressive from both parties, something I did enjoy seeing but the relentless sarcasm detracted a bit from the debate proper imho.
Corv's speed and physical superiority was argued to an effective end in this debate, with a really notable issue being the Shardblade (suuuper good catch on his part). Pizza, for what it's worth, was able to clap back with some impressive calcs on the speed claim that gave his team a pretty good advantage and placed the ball back in his court solidly.
The teamwork strategy Pizza lays out was actually wonderful and made immense use of the 3v3 format, and the Adolin analysis he gave superb even for someone unfamiliar with the source material. I should rather liked to have seen him actually engage the whole gravity change issue more, since Corv hammered on it well, as well as the superfluous nature of a lot of Pizza's contextual evidence.
Overall, Corv did better in the second response in my eyes, but Pizza's main framework from the first response was too strong and even with Adolin being heavily held back, something Pizza didn't strongly rebut, his other two coin-tossing weirdos and his ability to assail the speed calcs and Blade's physicals were simply too impressive.
PIZZA WINS AND TAKES THE MATCH 2-1
Ken vs Stars
Embrace's Judgment
Star vs Ken
Fairly even and well debated match. Both sides won pints against the other in their favor, but Ken is generally ahead in pointing out inconsistencies and vagaries on Star's team while defending their own points. I do think Star generally nullifies Tiago but ultimately find that Guts and Zi Yu are sufficient to end the match
Ken wins
Stalin's Judgment
Ken vs Star: This was a very even match, both contestants had several good points but also failed/missed on others. Ken was able to direct the debate in his favor, as both contestant spent plenty of time defending their own characters and trying to downplay the other. Star's mostly failed downplays against Ken's team while also not being able to properly argue 2 key points in the debate cost him the win. KEN WINS
Verlux's Judgment
Ken vs StarsSeeAll
Wew fuckin' lad. This was a back-and-forth of epic proportion.
So Ken right away comes in with some good, concise win conditions that didn't go overboard, something that SSA was able to pounce upon. The lack of piercing resistance was a good thing to hammer on as well as Guts' reach. However, SSA for some reason wasn't content to roll over and die on the points.
SSA slammed speed feats pretty damn well, and then contrasted Ken's team with his own in terms of speed strength and durability, highlighting a pretty stark contrast broadly in such a way that he simply stole the first response points-wise for me pretty heavily.
Ken countered in response 2 with a damn good haymaker of a post on how the speed downplay is simply that: downplay, while pointing out that SSA seemingly did not understand that a couple of disparities in physicals did not guarantee a win for their team, especially when the physical powerhouse that is Guts is on Ken's team. Something I did like seeing that both debaters harped on heavily was the subjectivity of certain speed feats, such as those for the UHEC and the arrow-timing feats in general.
Ken ended his R2 on a pretty high note, which SSA saw fit to try and undermine and bring back to a level playing field. Of note, SSA's R2 highlighted Tiago's lack of given stealth feats to support his stated strategy, and the assault on his durability given his shield was a bit...lacking, nor was Guts' durability as proclaimed by Ken to be the best in-tourney heavily contested (endurance was being equated to durability by Ken in my reading, and this simply just wasn't addressed by SSA). The bear scaling started to get a little hilarious, personal aside. It's legitimate in context, yes, but when you're stating your character is 3x bear level, maybe define what sort of bear. Another aside, the whole 'the opponent has confused me with themselves' bit made me laugh the fuck out loud when utilized by SSA. R2 ends up being in Ken's favor overall however, with his points being well-made and Guts being a powerhouse that simply wasn't given enough evidence of getting taken out.
The UHEC is a potent combatant, Mannequin too, with Child Emperor being useful to support, but Ken's R3 simply pushed him from 'marginally winning' to 'cemented victory'. Ken utilizes a few off-the-wall questions of his opponent's statements and stances to call their validity into question, and covers the controversial idea of Tiago quite well.
KEN WINS AND TAKES THE MATCH 3-0
Andrew vs Foxxye
Foxxye wins by default