Heavy Team Tourney (Quarterfinals)

[Tide]

Last week results:
Winners - Dragons, Speedrun Special, Clones, Boss Rush

Apologies for any lateness; IRL stuff + lots of speedrunning events this weekend. Anyway! Coming down to the end now. 8 Teams lefts. Matches for this week:

Winner's bracket
Team Dragon Sandbags vs. Team Darkness
Guv (no Call Team), Angelo (DQ8), Cristo (DQ4) vs. Cthulhu (CStW), Athos (FE7), Sierra (S2)

Team Here Comes the Sun vs. Team Boom
Ho-oh, Groudon, Exeggutor (Pokemon; No Mega Forms) vs. Jowy Atreides (Suiko1), Lyon (Suiko5), Geno (SMRPG)

Loser's Bracket
Team DRAGONS vs. Team Speedrun Special
Zog (BoF1), Sara (BoF1) and Ryu (BoF1) vs. Jeremy (WA4), Tidus (FFX), Jet (WA3)

Team Clones vs. Team Boss Rush
Chaz (PS4), Claude (SO2), Cress (ToP) vs. Lassic (PSes), Marcello (DQ8), Jenova (FF7)

Expect this to close within a week

[Pyro]

Winner's bracket
Team Dragon Sandbags vs. Team Darkness
Guv (no Call Team), Angelo (DQ8), Cristo (DQ4) vs. Cthulhu (CStW), Athos (FE7), Sierra (S2): I think Sierra and Ctulhu do too much damage/death before the other team can move.

Team Here Comes the Sun vs. Team Boom
Ho-oh, Groudon, Exeggutor (Pokemon; No Mega Forms) vs. Jowy Atreides (Suiko1), Lyon (Suiko5), Geno (SMRPG): Exeggutor goes first and Sleeps someone (should probably be Jowy as otherwise bad things happen).  At that point... Geno Boosts Lyon and she wastes Exeggutor and Groudon, leaving only Ho-Oh. I don't know if weather effects stay but I doubt Ho-Oh can KO both Geno and Lyon, and he would have to as both can ID him the next turn (especially since this assumes that Sleep MUST have landed on Jowy).

Loser's Bracket
Team DRAGONS vs. Team Speedrun Special
Zog (BoF1), Sara (BoF1) and Ryu (BoF1) vs. Jeremy (WA4), Tidus (FFX), Jet (WA3): A team that has too much durability for Hasted Jeremy to handle. I think.

Team Clones vs. Team Boss Rush
Chaz (PS4), Claude (SO2), Cress (ToP) vs. Lassic (PSes), Marcello (DQ8), Jenova (FF7): I will need to think some more on this one. Jenova is fast and can apply ... silence? That might help. Chaz Claude and Cress can probably one-round Lassic because of weaknesses... Although I think he can only even hurt Chaz becaause Claude and Cress have crazy element walling.

[superaielman]

Winner's bracket
Team Dragon Sandbags vs. Team Darkness
Guv (no Call Team), Angelo (DQ8), Cristo (DQ4) vs. Cthulhu (CStW), Athos (FE7), Sierra (S2)- I don't think they can get Cristo and Angelo dead at the same time offhand?

Team Here Comes the Sun vs. Team Boom
Ho-oh, Groudon, Exeggutor (Pokemon; No Mega Forms) vs. Jowy Atreides (Suiko1), Lyon (Suiko5), Geno (SMRPG)- Fast blitz is pain.

Loser's Bracket
Team DRAGONS vs. Team Speedrun Special
Zog (BoF1), Sara (BoF1) and Ryu (BoF1) vs. Jeremy (WA4), Tidus (FFX), Jet (WA3)- Blitzing Zog. With physicals. No.

Team Clones vs. Team Boss Rush
Chaz (PS4), Claude (SO2), Cress (ToP) vs. Lassic (PSes), Marcello (DQ8), Jenova (FF7)-I think? Jenova is a total nonfactor for me, Marcello dies horribly after getting an action off and I don't think Lassic can kill Claude? And Claude can solo Lassic at the worst.

[SnowFire]

Winner's bracket
Team Dragon Sandbags vs. Team Darkness
Guv (no Call Team), Angelo (DQ8), Cristo (DQ4) vs. Cthulhu (CStW), Athos (FE7), Sierra (S2)
Angelo is faster than Sierra (even before any equip-changing hype comes into play, just off OK's base stat values).  That's kinda bad, for all that this entire team has above-average magic resistance, and DQ status accuracy drops a bunch vs. "hard to status" enemies...   although honestly, if Angelo is worried about Kathwack not doing enough damage, he can just cast Bounce instead and laugh at Sierra helping murder herself with Black Shadow.  Let's say Cthulhu hit Cristo, Sierra's MT finished Cristo off (and hurt her a lot), then Athos kills Guv (...sketchy, but we'll allow it).  Bounce'd Angelo probably solos anyway since only Cthulhu can hurt him, so turn 2 is Cthulhu Darkness Strike, Angelo Dazzle, Sierra physical, Cthulhu starts attacking and hoping to get lucky, Angelo uses Buff & Fullheal to ensure that even luck won't work, then starts spamming Kathwack on free turns.  Maybe throw recasting Bounce in there if need be.

EDIT: Cthlhu apparently more badass than expected.

Team Here Comes the Sun vs. Team Boom
Ho-oh, Groudon, Exeggutor (Pokemon; No Mega Forms) vs. Jowy Atreides (Suiko1), Lyon (Suiko5), Geno (SMRPG)

Just assuming Team Boom does Team Boom things.  Unless enough Pokes outspeed -and- kill?  Seems doubtful.

Loser's Bracket
Team DRAGONS vs. Team Speedrun Special
Zog (BoF1), Sara (BoF1) and Ryu (BoF1) vs. Jeremy (WA4), Tidus (FFX), Jet (WA3)

OKay so maybe I should have voted for DRAGONS last week, but they definitely win more cleanly this time.  About as pure a spoiler as you can get to Speedrun.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I think Cthulhu is really being underrated here, this is the type of match where he shines. He's coming in with the Insane Sword, which, combined with his Insane Strength passive and the fact that he has three opponents, means he does 8950 damage turn 1 (kill point is 8624, remember), and he's the fastest barring maybe Mercury's Rapier Angelo (someone else can math that one). The best-case scenario is Angelo goes first, but if he uses Bounce he just gets OHKOed. So his only hope is to try for some status, Dazzle can stop Cthulhu from OHKOing -maybe- but Sierra goes next, uses Black Shadow which is now MT OHKO to average, so certainly kills Angelo/Kiryl at minimum. Like I dunno maybe there's a slim argument if this fails to OHKO either of them (high S2 kill point) but at worst she IDs Kiryl, Athos smashes someone else, and I'm certainly not respecting Angelo both applying useful status AND Cthulhu missing next turn after he already successfully applied blind and had Cthulhu miss turn 1.

Alternatively Angelo YOLO Kathwacks, but this has 0 hit against Athos and is coinflip at best on the other two. This... could work, but I'm not really feeling it. If Cthulhu survives he can OHKO any other member of the team, if Sierra does she has that super-nasty MT or again can ID any opponent, and hell even Athos hits like a truck here, and is extremely hard for the other team to deal with outside of Bounce because boosted Nosferatu is a thing (full healing!).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Mercury's Rapier Angelo is 0.76 SDs above average. Insane Sword Cthulhu is 0.7 SDs above average. That said, I honestly have trouble seeing Dragon Sandbags doing -anything- here, since Sierra wins the instant she gets a turn and she's faster than Kyril. But whatever.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Winner's bracket
Team Dragon Sandbags vs. Team Darkness
Guv (no Call Team), Angelo (DQ8), Cristo (DQ4) vs. Cthulhu (CStW), Athos (FE7), Sierra (S2): As above, Cthulhu comes in with the Insane Sword (enemies take 50% more and deal 20% more). Angelo goes first. Bounce is useless, his boosted damage still scares nobody. I think Kathwack is his only good option, but on average Sierra will live, and KO him and Cristo at minimum. That's game, even if you allow insane people to revive (I forget if they could; I know they can't heal). It's a better match if you see Sierra failing to KO, but even then... if we assume Cthulhu lives, he OHKOs Cristo and Athos damages Angelo with Nosferatu. Even if Angelo lands Kathwack again I'm not sure this team can win since Athos can finish him off and isn't going to be soloed; if he goes for Kazing then Athos finishes him off and Cthulhu kills Cristo again.

Team Here Comes the Sun vs. Team Boom
Ho-oh, Groudon, Exeggutor (Pokemon; No Mega Forms) vs. Jowy Atreides (Suiko1), Lyon (Suiko5), Geno (SMRPG): Exeggutor goes first and... Lyon/Geno are gonna resist sleep, so sleep on Jowy. Geno goes next, and boosts Lyon. Lyon... is now tanky enough to survive the sunmons' crap, and can KO Groudon and Exeggutor with her MT. Even though she goes last, she nulls fire and halves everything else so the pokemon can't do much to her, or recover from this.

Loser's Bracket
Team DRAGONS vs. Team Speedrun Special
Zog (BoF1), Sara (BoF1) and Ryu (BoF1) vs. Jeremy (WA4), Tidus (FFX), Jet (WA3): Zog is getting a turn and kills Jeremy and Tidus in one hit, Jet dies to anything else.

Team Clones vs. Team Boss Rush
Chaz (PS4), Claude (SO2), Cress (ToP) vs. Lassic (PSes), Marcello (DQ8), Jenova (FF7): I had a lot to say here about whether Jenova and Marcello could down Claude and it had a lot of math to back it up hinging on exactly where people see Marcello's and Claude's speed. Then I looked at Cress' stat topic entry and I realised that he nulls every element used by the enemies in this fight except for Marcello's basic physical, Marcello isn't lasting long enough here, and he'll need two turns after Chaz dies (who can heal him) to actually kill Cress, at minimum, then Cress solos.

[Random Consonant]

Team Here Comes the Sun vs. Team Boom
Ho-oh, Groudon, Exeggutor (Pokemon; No Mega Forms) vs. Jowy Atreides (Suiko1), Lyon (Suiko5), Geno (SMRPG)

[SnowFire]

If Cthuhlhu -actually- has OHKOs with  Insane Sword in a team match hype, that'd switch my vote.  I'm used to the Insane Sword strat being a tad underwhelming but fair enough.