Lion (WoO) vs Angelo (DQ8) - Lion is terrible against healers faster than him. Angelo having myriad status to screw with just further drives the point home.
Lion vs Kanji (Pers4) - Lion is -considerably- faster first turn, which means Wild Cry sees healthy usage (Kanji likely can't even lap afterwards). Open with that, apply D-Formation, Half-life and now Kanji can't possibly hope to outslug. Lion could try for another Wild Cry if he wanted, but that's total overkill. Gravity damage is a good way to handle Tatsumi, come to think of it.
Lion vs Ephraim (FE8) - lion dash against eph evade and 2HKO counters that might double aw yeah
Lion vs Sceptile (PKMN) - This is really weird. Scepty has an easy 3-2, but Lion two-rounds and Alert makes him a pain in the ass. Just... Sceptile nearly 2HKOs off the bat, and Lion's RNG races against him just as well, particularly with Sceptile's headstart. Lion can't go for two Half-lifes in a row and Giga Drain can screw over the chipping, and the turnsplit is pretty fierce to boot. My kneejerk is Scepty only needs the dice games to go his way once, while Lion... struggles considerably more. So, it hinges on whether I see Elements picking up Grass, which would tilt the fight pretty decisively against Scept (it would turn his offense and draining suck complete ass, which gives Lion a whole lot more time to work with). Do I? Good question. EDIT: Yet I suspect that, even if it -does-, Sceptile has okay odds to win, while he's sorta coasting eventually otherwise. Yeah, going with the poké.
Lion vs Halley (SH1) - More weirdness! Halley's status is... likely turn three before Alert? But it 4HKOs Lion at best, and that's before Elements+Alert kick in. However, Lion has to reapply those every three turns (Elements being -expensive-), and in order to pressure Halley, he needs to apply Half-life at least once a round to boot. I honestly doubt Lion can keep the resources up for this long (he needs to hold out at least until Halley runs out of sanity), since Halley -will- get more than one unbuffed shot in the middle of the fight, and then, he -does- have a small chance of winning the fight before Lion can even get going. Yeah, going with that. Lion's matches are just so full of RNG minutiae when they're not over in a couple rounds.
Lion vs Albel (SO3) - Aura Wall makes Lion cry himself to sleep.
Lion vs Yang (FF4) - So does Sleep.
Lion vs Stocke (RH) - Stocke goes first and 3HKOs at base! But Lion gets Alert+Elements going in a hurry and now Stocke damage fails too much. Gravity should also work at keeping Stocke under pressure to boot, and his healing just isn't good enough. Halley could make do even with the lower damage and durability due to having full healing and status attached. No such luck for the agent.
Lion vs Amarant (FF9) - D-Formation => Half-life spam should work.
Lion vs White Rose (Saga) - White Rose opens with LightSword. Lion then does his best impression of Diekbeck's physical game by aiming at the broad side of a barn and ramming into a sword.
Lion vs Yulie (WA4) - Yulie gets one-rounded by two high-variance Lion Dashes and she has the perfect stats for it to be viable... but she's faster and Protect staves off the one-round decisively. After Protect, even Half-life+high-variance Lion Dash can't do it, so she calmly outlasts him.
Lion vs Nelis (S5) - Nelis shaves off nearly all of Lion's health in a single Final Flame. He just can't recover from that.
Red Mage (FF5 vs Angelo (DQ8) - Faster, lolbounce, lolstatus.
Red Mage vs Kanji (Pers4) - Faster, lolstatus.
Red Mage vs Ephraim (FE8) - EDIT: overrated the evade some. Oh well.
Red Mage vs Sceptile (PKMN) - EDIT: Right. Come to think of it, Berserk -would- have won it against Yulie too.
Red Mage vs Halley (SH1) - lolstatus.
Red Mage vs Albel (SO3) - lolstatus+confuse immunity.
Red Mage vs Yang (FF4) - EDIT: Eh, if I allowed Yellow Scarves, guess Hermes Shoes aren't so bad either. Just smacking the "Auto-Haste into averages" thing at worst.
Red Mage vs Stocke (RH) - Stocke kinda sucks. :middle:
Red Mage vs Amarant (FF9) - lolstatus.
Red Mage vs White Rose (Saga) - Honestly? I just think Red Mage lives long enough to land Silence and outpace... eventually. WR has a shot of winning through coup du grace, but dualcast healing can put a wrench on that strategy. So it goes.
Red Mage vs Yulie (WA4) - lolmagicalstatus vs. Yulie.
Red Mage vs Nelis (S5) - lolmagicalstatus vs. S5 high-end mage. Nelis just 2HKOs.
Lexis (Lufia 2) vs Angelo (DQ8) - Lexis and status, always a winning proposition.
Lexis vs Kanji (Pers4) - Kanji gives Lexis so much time to work with the IP status.
Lexis vs Ephraim (FE8) - Even if I don't see Eph doubling, he has plenty of damage control to 2HKO with.
Lexis vs Sceptile (PKMN) - Speed split burns.
Lexis vs Halley (SH1) - Block paralysis, go to town with his own shoddy status. Sleep is annoying, but my kneejerk on Lexis vs. status is just too strong.
Lexis vs Albel (SO3) - Aura Wall+paralysis blocker.
Lexis vs Yang (FF4) - Sleep spam.
Lexis vs Stocke (RH) - See Random. This match kinda fails like a Onix vs. Chansey Holiday Special.
Lexis vs Amarant (FF9) - COUNTDOWN AND CHAKRA SPAM WINNING AMARANT A MIDDLE MATCH
Lexis vs White Rose (Saga) - White Rose casts LightSword and dicks around until a double to 2HKO Lexis' ass. She probably just spams Fascination to troll Lexis further if she wants.
Lexis vs Yulie (WA4) - Yulie and pressure, pick one.
Lexis vs Nelis (S5) - She OHKOs to me and is faster. The end.
Lion - 3-9 (Fairly strong pool that nicely highlights Lion's problems. Almost all his matches required a non-trivial amount of thought, too, which does play into why I consider him a fun Middle, even if he's underwhelming where you wouldn't assume him to be)
Red Mage - 9-3 (Holy crap the status whoring is -mean-. She's probably closer to Heavy than Middle)
Lexis - 2-10 (Once again, strong pool. Once again, nicely highlighting Lexis' issues. He wishes I allowed a half-full IP bar and I wasn't closer to Elfboy's interp of temps than Random's/super's)
