Nkon's Judgment
Wolf vs Guy:
As has likely been discussed at length, the first response contained one unique element. Though unconventional, Guy placing his rebuttals first was a good tactic in my opinion. By first devaluing his opponent and then extolling his own strengths, he makes his team seem stronger simply through the order he makes his arguments.
Apart from this unconventional strategy from Guy, both first responses were fairly generic, with each side praising their own contestants and downplaying the opposition. Neither side did anything truly exceptional or extraordinary, but they also didn't do anything genuinely baffling or unsuccessful. Guy takes a slight lead here but nothing insurmountable.
Wolf goes hard out the gate in his second response, showing Guy that sometimes, less is more. By setting such a stringent standard for Wolf's characters, he made it impossible to argue against that same standard being applied to himself. Wolf really hits him hard here, thoroughly dismantling Guy's team and setting himself up for an easy success, though he does fail to properly defend himself in a couple of cases that come back to bite him later on.
Guy comes back strong in his second response, and with the dismantling of Vampire Bat as a viable competitor over the course of his comments, he puts himself in a strong position of effectively a 3v2. From that numbers advantage, he's able to eke out a victory in my eyes. However, a continuation of this debate could have taken it either way, and I would have been interested in seeing a third response.
Guy wins the final round of GDT season 8
Embrace's Judgment
#GuyOfEvil vs WolfPaladin Judgement Great Debate Season 8 Finals
###general Comments
This debate was generally decent, but there were some issues with arguments lacking warrants and some mismatched organization.
The first response from Wolf was fine, and made the correct arguments, but felt a bit Hollow. More anlaysis and evidence would have significantly helped Wolf in establishing their win conditions.
The second response from Guy was decent in some areas and weak in others, although was slightly lacking in organization:
Wolf's second response was significantly better in engaging, although it could use some reorganization due to being repetitive in some aspects
Guy's second response is decent (although questionable with the new Vampire Batman Continuity issue). Better organized and argued then their initial response. ###Decision Calculus
#####Is Vampire Batman real?
The first place I look to in the decision is the argument about Vampire Batman being featless/invalid. Guy gives a response in the 2nd response, and Wolf doesn't offer a rebuttal and instead mutually agrees to end the match at 2-2. From this standpoint, I look at Guy's claim and subject it too significant scuritiny since it came late in the debate. With that said, Guy's arguments are sufficient for me to disregard the feats from other canons that Wolf bring up, and functionally evaluate this fight as a 2 v3
#####Otherwise
Given that this is functionally a 2v3, Wolf has a steep hill to climb. That being said, I find that Guy is ahead on the Gun and tendril attacks sufficiently enough to win at least 50% of the time, due to being able to poke holes Robin's speed and in character combat, as well as their relative lack of durability. Guy does better relative to last round in arguing in how range counters the speed advantage of the opposing team, and argues well into countering Wolf'sarguments. There were some aspects thatWolf was ahead on (suchas speed), but it's insufficiently leveraged to grant Wolf a chance
#####Sidenote:
The Anti Venom cures Mercer argument, while meme, is bad, even as a TimeCharacter Suck. Using those characters on more evidence and denying Guy's win cons would have significantly helped Wolf in this debate.
GuyOfEvil Wins
Stalin's Judgment
Wolf V Guy:
Wolfs first response was very lacking. He puts forth several points such as speed advantages, weak durability, 3v1 on Chris, etc. However the biggest issue with this response was beyond the feat dump, he doesn't back up anything beyond the Anti-Venom v Dracula fight. I wasn't very confident in this response. The rest of the debate went normally with several points not being backed up or not argued at all. Guy barely argued against Wolf's claims of slow speed, Wolf didn't back up a few key points the same as Guy, and arguing badly with characterization.
Batman is in fact not good, by Guy's arguments and Wolf's weak response. Even ignoring the whole continuity issue, Batman will literally just go in and get one shot because of the several scans of him just letting opponents hit him. Wolf only claims that because they're not rando thugs, he wouldn't do what he often does. The killing/blitzing thing is also in Guy's favor, as Wolf's only defense being "he's allowed to kill" and all the scans showing that Batman won't kill disproving it. If Batman attempts something, he's getting Oneshot as he's got no feats withstanding any of the attacks from Guy's team.
Another large point I found important was how effective were the ranged attacks from Anti and Mercer. While Wolf correctly called out the lack of scans from Guy, that's all he did for defense. Guy on the other hand did just under the minimum by showing a scan for Mercer and the large as fuck AoE he can do, but ignores Anti-Venom. While it's questionable if AV can hit Wolf's team without proper scans, Mercers abundance of tentacles covered at least his end. This point also leads into a Wolf's main argument of jumping Chris 3v1. Guy narrowly saved himself here with his final response. Wolf claimed that at least Dracula and Batman would jump Chris due to his human biology, yet Guy calls into question why they wouldn't jump Mercer as he's very closely human as well. He's in the center and would be the more likely target, and Wolf didn't convincingly defend this point. Even if they went to Chris as he tried to go for the gun, Guy fucked on Dracula and Batman by giving scans of them getting easily hit from slower attacks. Which important due to the fact Wolf made it seem they'd focus entirely on killing Chris, and they'd be free hits for Mercer and Anti's ranged abilities. Dracula doesn't have feats to withstand these attacks.
Robin's effectiveness is also questionable. The time-limit proposed by Guy is kinda unimportant due to how fast the fight would most likely last, due to most arguments weren't hinging on long lasting fights. The gear Robin does get is absolutely great, but Guy's arguments of speed and ammo dumping held up for me. He showed off how Robin would just throw a shit ton of his gadgets and Wolf even showed multi throwing for enemies with regen. Wolf claims of speed with scaling to Starfire means nothing when she's not fast at all either. In a melee engagement, Robin isn't terrible, but not very effective long term against anyone but Chris. Guy showcased multiple points of leaping attacks disproving Wolfs "he won't blindly leap attack. Other Minor points
Stealth: Wolf's arguments of stealth were weak, the best Dracula showed was when absolutely no-one is actively combating him. Even the soldier one where he downs several people, they were all distracted chasing Batman. Batman doesn't abuse stealth as he'll show up act all scary and get hit willingly. Robin is the only one with anything with invisibility.
Speed: c'mon Guy, you did jack shit for this basically. If it wasn't for all the ways he could hit Wolf's team, due to distraction, leaping, or just sucking, he'd have been blitzed.
Gun: Wolf, nigga, why the fuck would your team destroy the gun?
Overall: Batman being a free hit, Wolf's main tactic of jumping Chris being turned against him, and Robin's fighting style this fight goes in favor of Guy
Guy Wins Album of my notes, didn't do notes on Guy final response due to laziness: https://imgur.com/a/TxEC0BV?
letter's Judgment
Guy vs Wolf, Man vs Nature
Right off the bat, I think Wolf's first response was pretty strong. He set a dominating force for Guy to overcome, making his team look nigh unbeatable, and made it seem like Guy had no chance. Once Guy responded, it all got very dumb from there.
Both sides kept straight up ignoring vital points that the other side brought up, or didn't expand on their points very much. Wolf mentioned that his team would run around and take their ranged options while destroying all the other guns. He didn't explain why his team would destroy the guns, he just said they would. Some arguments literally boiled down to "It misses." It was a very weird showing for finals. Since the other judges basically expanded on everything in greater detail, I'm just going to point out some details that stood out to me and give my judgement.
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The in character arguments about the teams not wanting to work together were dumb on both sides and basically just told me "Yeah so nothing about this match changes." This is stuff you'd expect to see argued in like, Round 1.
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I don't see why the vampires would hone in on Chris instantly when Mercer should give off the same signs as a regular human, and they should also be able to sense Eddie under the Anti-Venom symbiote. Just because they have weird powers doesn't make them any less inwardly human.
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Dracula's stealth basically means nothing, which is pretty bad when the main argument boils down to stealth vs strength.
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Use scans to defend your points
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This basically boils down to "Is Batman a good combatant," and as the other judges have all noted, the answer is no. Dude's going to get mogged without putting up much of a fight via the stipulations Wolf gave him, and from there it's a 3v2 match that Guy's team should actually be able to handle.
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I was actually siding with Wolf most of the debate. If this debate had an extra set of responses, and Wolf managed to prove that Batman in fact wasn't useless, I could've bought his side of things that he dicks on Chris and the others. As it is though, Guy's last response remaining uncontested and having sound logic leads me to agree with his closing points.
At the end of the day, Guy boulder punches his way into a 5-0 in finals.
Verlux's Judgment
Wolf vs Guy - Final Judgment
First things first: this was, honestly, an entertaining read but definitely lacked proper substance I would expect at the Finals level for Great Debate. I understand there were time constraint issues, and while the varied quip here and there is fine, I'm a bit shocked at how many blunt assertions were made without ANY supporting evidence whatsoever this late in the tourney. Like, damn.
Getting to it: right out the gate, Wolf has a pretty domineering grasp of how the battle plays out due to having characters who are, essentially, ninjas that gotta go fast. Fast, lithe bricks are always a potent force to be reckoned with and Wolf shows why in superb form. Wolf's proceeding to downplay Guy's team was much weaker than his asserted win-conditions in light of the fact that he simply didn't provide succinct scans to back his downplay, but some argument is better than none I suppose.
Guy's retort was one I did not expect, however, since firstly he broke debate etiquette by leaping into rebuttals first (SERIOUSLY, NO), and while that personally peeves me I can't deny the efficacy of his argumentation. Vampire Batman was crucified(heh) by Guy's crossbow argumentation and general in-character behavioral analysis, whilst Dracula's stealth was given heavy shade(heh), leaving only Robin practically unscathed by Guy's offensive (note: yes he threw in the 2 minute timer thing, but gave no backing for why 2 minutes is even important, and the leap strike thesis while potent, was largely unproven via scans).
Overall, Guy bested Wolf in Response 1, taking a slight lead by virtue of having sufficient downplay answers to Wolf's wincon, poking holes in his characters' abilities/contextualizing feats, and giving himself a simple 'Tendrils for the win while Chris guns you down' wincon based in team cohesion which Wolf's team is asserted to lack. Wolf claps back by pulling a Reverse Uno Card on Guy and applying Guy's own curious lens of analysis to Guy's team; he proceeds to dismantle much of the speed for Mercer and Anti-Venom as well as obliterating the team cohesion point. Of note, however, is that Wolf dropped the ball in regards to the crossbow argument; simply asserting 'yeah this SHOULD be higher' with no facts is.....no. Super disappointing attempt at a rebuttal.
The entire idea of Robin's striking was weakly engaged, as well as the 2 minute timer, and covers most of Dracula's downplay in a curiously-titled 'Stealth' section which includes literally everything and barely covers Stealth, ironically. Overall, Wolf’s second response was potent and forced Guy into a corner wherein he must somehow thrash 2/3 of Wolf’s team just to have a chance, or cede the battle.
Guy thrashed 2/3 of Wolf’s team, unfortunately for Wolf.
I’m going to ignore the ‘Vampire Batman’ canon argument in lieu of this: Batman is objectively shit. Guy proves it, 100%, that Vampire Batman is garbage in his second response. Guy brought engineering papers and talks to prove the crossbow feat, his only speed scaling of any note, is literal trash and further, Vampire Batman as stipulated really does seem to be the type to pull punches and take hits for free. That, combined with the horrific speed, makes him useless and unquantifiable insofar as speed is concerned, a major issue when Wolf was relying on ‘my team blitzes Chris’ as a wincon. Guy proceeds to dismantle the Robin jump strike argument further, linking no fewer than 6 instances of leap strikes being Robin’s go-to from across several different Titan’s episodes (hell, even Wolf linked one with the Starfire feat). After the leap strikes, Guy broke down Wolf’s assertions for why Chris gets 3v1 mogged, and applied those exact same conditions to Alex Mercer, calling attention to Wolf not giving explicit rationale for HOW his team ipso facto discerns Chris is the only ‘true’ human when Mercer and Eddie are both, at base, organic humans. Mercer being assailed would grant Eddie free tendril-lashings for days, something Guy jumps on, and also gives Chris a free gun (speaking of this: the whole ‘destroys the gun’ argument was absolute bunk with no scans given as Guy calls out, huge misplay). Redfield’s ability to keep up with persons demonstrably faster than himself really was just the icing on top of this cake.
At the end of the day, Wolf did a fantastic job asserting his priorities and controlling the flow of battle…until his team fell apart under Guy’s scrutiny. The fight is a 2v3 right out the gate due to how awful Batman ended up being as a character. And there’s no strong win condition given Dracula’s lack of stealth when given context.
GUYOFEVIL TAKES THE THRONE AT LONG LAST
My personal notes: https://imgur.com/a/luxEuXz