Final Fantasy Class Warfare Team Tourney, Round 1

[SnowFire]

Final Fantasy classes!  Which one is the best?  Let's find out in a crazy team tourney.  (That and Nyarlie's Dungeon hasn't updated in awhile, so clearly we need some more team fun.)

As per usual for team matches, please feel free to vote on teams with characters you haven't played.  The vast majority of the characters are from FF1-FF10+T, so hopefully votership should generally be high, even if a few lesser-played games snuck in to reinforce a few classes without many options.

Nitpicky stuff:

• For this tournament, all FF1 & FF3 classes are male and all FF5 classes are female.  (Yes the mysterious FF1 White Wizard is of indeterminate gender, but isn't here anyway).  This matters uh when the Thieves team is fighting, I guess.  (Good ol' Protect Girls & Steal Heart.)
• The astute may have noticed that 20 teams isn't a power of 2.  Don't worry, there is a cunning plan - we'll be at 16 teams next week, and vanilla single-elim afterward.  So 6 out of 10 of the losers will advance to week 2 anyway.
• The idea for this tournament came out of silly comments in chat on FF Bards & FF Dragoons.  As such I rigged that to be one of the first-round matches.  All of the other matches were randomly generated.

Knights (FF1 Knight, FF5 Knight, Squall, Steiner) vs. Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine)
Thieves (Locke, FFT Thief [female], Zidane, Rikku*) vs. Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8)
Dancers (FF5 Dancer, Mog, FFT Dancer, FFTA2 Penelo) vs. Ninjas (FF1 Ninja, Edge, Shadow, Yuffie)
Blue Mages (FF5 Blue Mage, Strago, Quistis, Quina) vs. Dark Knights (FF3 Dark Knight, DK Cecil, PC Gafgarion, PC Seifer)
Black Mages (Palom, FF5 Black Mage, Vivi, Lulu) vs. Squires (Gogo**, Cloud, Ramza, Kimahri)

Bards (FF3 Bard, Edward, FF5 Bard, FFX-2 Songstress Yuna) vs. Dragoons (FF3 Dragoon, Kain, FF7 Cid, Freya)
Time Mages (FF5 Time Mage***, FFT Time Mage [female], Tidus) vs. Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille)
Summoners (Rydia, FF5 Summoner, FFT Summoner [female], Garnet) vs. Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix)
Samurai (FF5 Samurai, Cyan, FFT Samurai [male], Auron) vs. White Mages (FF3 Devout, Rosa, FF5 White Mage, Eiko)
Monks (Grand Master, Sabin, Zell, Amarant) vs. Monsters (Gau, Cait Sith, Vincent, Red XIII)

For the most part, "balance" was thrown by the wayside in favor of flavor since hey, some classes just are better.  That said, there are a few character-specific interp notes to make some of the teams at least vaguely interesting:
* Rikku: Her thief friends have 'acquired' for her FFX Common Steals for Use / Mix; see the Dungeon list from F1-F7 (the aftergame Farplane Winds are disallowed, however).
** Gogo: Explicitly has full FF6 command choice to throw the Squires a bone…  if Gogo lives to get a turn, anyway.
*** Time Mage: Due to issues last time this came up in Nyarlie's Dungeon, Reset is banned.

Short form:
Knights vs. Archers
Thieves vs. Engineers
Dancers vs. Ninjas
Blue Mages vs. Dark Knights
Black Mages vs. Squires

Bards vs. Dragoons
Time Mages vs. Red Mages
Summoners vs. Paladins
Samurai vs. White Mages
Monks vs. Monsters

[SnowFire]

Knights (FF1 Knight, FF5 Knight, Squall, Steiner) vs. Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine)
Archer damage is good but spread out and hitting a bunch of extreme physical tanks and risks turning on Squall's limit.  The Knights kill whoever they like meanwhile.

Thieves (Locke, FFT Thief [female], Zidane, Rikku*) vs. Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8)
Rikku status out Edgar somehow then dismantles the only robot in the tourney later.  She practically solos.  (Alternatively she lets FFT Thief seduce Edgar?!)

Dancers (FF5 Dancer, Mog, FFT Dancer, FFTA2 Penelo) vs. Ninjas (FF1 Ninja, Edge, Shadow, Yuffie)
Yuffie & Shadow must kill Penelo ASAP, but that's doable.  FF5 Dancer is a threat but kind of random, the rest of the team gets going too slowly.  Good luck off Nameless Dance might turn this but it'd have to be REALLY good luck.

Blue Mages (FF5 Blue Mage, Strago, Quistis, Quina) vs. Dark Knights (FF3 Dark Knight, DK Cecil, PC Gafgarion, PC Seifer)
Sure, I'll buy the blitz strategy.  I forgot that Quina was so freaking slow.

Black Mages (Palom, FF5 Black Mage, Vivi, Lulu) vs. Squires (Gogo**, Cloud, Ramza, Kimahri)
Uhhhhhhh.  Comes down to a speedbreak between Vivi & Gogo I think.  Lulu basically solos the non-Gogo Squires effortlessly (lulz Ultima), so the BMs just need to kill Gogo...  which is unusually difficult.  Palom needs to die, so Cloud OHKOs him with the Ultima Weapon, but Ramza & Kimahri can't combine to kill anyone else, fail.  FF5BM + Vivi damage should kill Gogo...  barely...  or they could do some kind of status blitz, alternatively, although MBlock can randomly screw up either strategy.  Problem is that Vivi & Gogo are practically tied in speed.  If Gogo wins the speed-off, he Sour Mouths Lulu (Noiseblaster not a good idea, lots of this team including Lulu can resist Confuse), although even that might miss.  If it does hit, though, then the rest of the Squires can easily clean up the remaining living 2 Black Mages.  Coinflippy, but leaning Black Mages, which is kinda pathetic this is that close. Get some speed, guys.
FWIW, Sneak Ring-less Gogo is 30 Spd to an average that's either 33 or 36, and might have some vague way to tweak upward.  Vivi is 21 to a 25 speed average.
EDIT: Sure I'll buy super's hype about Gogo outracing Vivi & his status being better than FF5BM's.

Bards (FF3 Bard, Edward, FF5 Bard, FFX-2 Songstress Yuna) vs. Dragoons (FF3 Dragoon, Kain, FF7 Cid, Freya)
Yuna is totally a Dancer but dang if the class title doesn't indicate she's a bard.  Anyway FF3 Dragoon is the only one fast enough to smash Songstress, which is not that hard, but he barely misses the OHKO, then the entire Dragoon team eats Stop.

Time Mages (FF5 Time Mage***, FFT Time Mage [female], Tidus) vs. Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille)
We all know how insane Tidus is from the old Dungeon days.  Sonic Steel -> Hastega -> Slowga -> Quick/Quartr/Quartr, then Time Mage clubs red wizards on their head to finish 'em off and doesn't even bother with Short Charged Meteors.  RWs might get 1 turn, but anything defensive like X-Magic Life is a waste, they need to do something significant and fight-turning like smash Time Mage or Tidus, and it isn't happening.

Summoners (Rydia, FF5 Summoner, FFT Summoner [female], Garnet) vs. Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix)
Garnet nulls Holy...  so Beatrix has to nuke someone else, but Garnet can either revive them or throw down MT 50% ID to try and get Cecil or Beatrix.  Agrias & Meliadoul kill Garnet, but then the Paldins probably just get nuked by 3x incoming MT damage.  I think.

Samurai (FF5 Samurai, Cyan, FFT Samurai [male], Auron) vs. White Mages (FF3 Devout, Rosa, FF5 White Mage, Eiko)
FF5 Samurai has a great start with GP Rain, and Auron can throw down Zombie break on someone, but I think the White Mages just heal it all off then status FF5 Samurai?  This actually seems closeish, the Sams might yet have a long-game if Auron can spread the Zombie love around enough to get past the pile of healing & revival.  Flip side they might murder their own comrade with the MT healing if they're not careful.  Eiko resolving 2 Madeens ever is trouble, so suspect she's target #1 for the Samurai.   Any thoughts?
EDIT: See below, FF5 Samurai doesn't get a 2nd turn, that is bad news.

Monks (Grand Master, Sabin, Zell, Amarant) vs. Monsters (Gau, Cait Sith, Vincent, Red XIII)
The Monks UTTERLY FAIL at chipping around Cait Sith's healing limit short of really good luck on Bum Rush targeting, which is 1/4 a chance.  Yeah no, if they wait too long they're all frogs.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Worker 8's immune to instant death, and Rikku's dismantling only works on Al Behd-made mechs anyway, not the type of excavated, highly advanced automatons from a past civilisation which Bevelle uses (one of those sounds a lot more like Worker 8 to me).

I suspect it doesn't matter because Edgar gets statused out and W8's other allies suck.

[superaielman]

\Knights (FF1 Knight, FF5 Knight, Squall, Steiner) vs. Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine)- Going after that group with physicals? Good fucking luck.
Thieves (Locke, FFT Thief [female], Zidane, Rikku*) vs. Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8)- Cid and Worker are absolute trash, yeah. Ugly fight. 
Dancers (FF5 Dancer, Mog, FFT Dancer, FFTA2 Penelo) vs. Ninjas (FF1 Ninja, Edge, Shadow, Yuffie)- Mog is dead weight and so is FFT Dancer. Ninjas are all competent.
Blue Mages (FF5 Blue Mage, Strago, Quistis, Quina) vs. Dark Knights (FF3 Dark Knight, DK Cecil, PC Gafgarion, PC Seifer- Cecil's going to down Blue Mage. That leaves Dark Knight/Seifer/Gaf to kill Strago. That actually seems plasuable to me offhand. They should all beat out Strago to act and should kill him? Open to arguments, granted.
Black Mages (Palom, FF5 Black Mage, Vivi, Lulu) vs. Squires (Gogo**, Cloud, Ramza, Kimahri)- Cloud+Ramza should knock out Palom before he goes, Gogo can status out Lulu. Seems easy enough.

Bards (FF3 Bard, Edward, FF5 Bard, FFX-2 Songstress Yuna) vs. Dragoons (FF3 Dragoon, Kain, FF7 Cid, Freya)- Abstain on this, songtress matters too much.
Time Mages (FF5 Time Mage***, FFT Time Mage [female], Tidus) vs. Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille)- I'll buy a Tidus blitz.
Summoners (Rydia, FF5 Summoner, FFT Summoner [female], Garnet) vs. Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix)- Summoners have too much dangerous offense.
Samurai (FF5 Samurai, Cyan, FFT Samurai [male], Auron) vs. White Mages (FF3 Devout, Rosa, FF5 White Mage, Eiko)- Kneejerk? White mages have a lot of status and support magic, and the samurais are limited offensively.
Monks (Grand Master, Sabin, Zell, Amarant) vs.Monsters (Gau, Cait Sith, Vincent, Red XIII)- Monks may have issue deal with Gau alone. >_<

[SnowFire]

Well, sneak ringless Gogo basically ties Vivi for speed...  but sure, I'm willing to generally use a lower FF6 Speed average, so I can see him going first, sure.  That still leaves the status blitz, though.  Only Sleep is "turn 1" for FF5 BM, but Kimahri can tap Gogo out of that if it hits since Kimahri is slower than BM but faster than Gogo...   still leaves Death, though.  And while it's rare, Gogo's Sour Mouth can miss.  But eh, fair enough, the BMs are failing it up enough here I'll buy the hype.

Also Sabin's Bum Rush is totally ITD for dealing with Gau, and Zell's Duel can take him down as well!  ...which totally doesn't matter when the monks are busy croaking due to being Toads, but hey.

[superaielman]

That monsters team is *scary*. Lots of support options and status. You can't even totally blow off Vincent, because his limits are a thing in team matches.

[Pyro]

Knights (FF1 Knight, FF5 Knight, Squall, Steiner) vs. Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine): the archer's best offense unfocuses. Knights kinda smash.
Thieves (Locke, FFT Thief [female], Zidane, Rikku*) vs. Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8): Rikku opens with... Petrify grenade or sleeping power.  That kind of screws engineers.
Dancers (FF5 Dancer, Mog, FFT Dancer, FFTA2 Penelo) vs. Ninjas (FF1 Ninja, Edge, Shadow, Yuffie): mostly copying Snowfire here.
Blue Mages (FF5 Blue Mage, Strago, Quistis, Quina) vs. Dark Knights (FF3 Dark Knight, DK Cecil, PC Gafgarion, PC Seifer): Dark Knights get the drop on blue mages and smash them apart.
Black Mages (Palom, FF5 Black Mage, Vivi, Lulu) vs. Squires (Gogo**, Cloud, Ramza, Kimahri):  Bad Breath Lulu. KO Palom. that will do it.

Bards (FF3 Bard, Edward, FF5 Bard, FFX-2 Songstress Yuna) vs. Dragoons (FF3 Dragoon, Kain, FF7 Cid, Freya)
Time Mages (FF5 Time Mage***, FFT Time Mage [female], Tidus) vs. Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille): Tidus Slowgas/hastegas... I suppose FFT Meteor is at least MT. So victory to time mages.
Summoners (Rydia, FF5 Summoner, FFT Summoner [], Garnet) vs. Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix): Beatrix and Cecil KO Garnet, Meli/Agrias KO Rydia... think Paladins win this.
Samurai (FF5 Samurai, Cyan, FFT Samurai [male], Auron) vs. White Mages (FF3 Devout, Rosa, FF5 White Mage, Eiko): A single Zombie and GP rain can't stop the status blitz.
Monks (Grand Master, Sabin, Zell, Amarant) vs. Monsters (Gau, Cait Sith, Vincent, Red XIII): Grand Master and Sabin MT KOs cait sith... Gau does something... Zell pings Red and Amarant throws at Gau. A bum rush KOs Gau then.... think Monks can win.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Grand Master + Sabin MT is about 88% to average, which Cait Sith is notably better than anyway.

[Pyro]

That'd make it a bit messier with Cait's limit thing in play. That might require Amarant to throw in an assist on killing Cait to get around that so that FF1 Monk's hit is the one that KOs Cait through a limit phase.

I suppose Gau would be the next target. Messy fight.

Cait Sith (Fatal status, MT HP/MP heal on a limit that is easy to access), Tidus (wtf hax speed shenanigans), and Rikku (crazy speed and MT status beatdown/buffing/healing) are probably the nastiest PCs in this tourney.

[Random Consonant]

Knights (FF1 Knight, FF5 Knight, Squall, Steiner) vs. Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine) - physical durability
Thieves (Locke, FFT Thief [female], Zidane, Rikku*) vs. Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8) - Allowing Rikku common steals?  Gooodbye.
Dancers (FF5 Dancer, Mog, FFT Dancer, FFTA2 Penelo) vs. Ninjas (FF1 Ninja, Edge, Shadow, Yuffie) - ha.  ha.  ha.
Blue Mages (FF5 Blue Mage, Strago, Quistis, Quina) vs. Dark Knights (FF3 Dark Knight, DK Cecil, PC Gafgarion, PC Seifer) - Think I can actually buy this.
Black Mages (Palom, FF5 Black Mage, Vivi, Lulu) vs. Squires (Gogo**, Cloud, Ramza, Kimahri)

Time Mages (FF5 Time Mage***, FFT Time Mage [female], Tidus) vs. Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille) eh sure
Summoners (Rydia, FF5 Summoner, FFT Summoner [female], Garnet) vs. Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix) - Too much offense.  The paladins need to take out at least two people here and they at best manage one.
Samurai (FF5 Samurai, Cyan, FFT Samurai [male], Auron) vs. White Mages (FF3 Devout, Rosa, FF5 White Mage, Eiko)
Monks (Grand Master, Sabin, Zell, Amarant) vs. Monsters (Gau, Cait Sith, Vincent, Red XIII) - Monk team has no way to avoid Cait nonsense whatsoever.

[Nephrite]

Knights (FF1 Knight, FF5 Knight, Squall, Steiner) vs. Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine) - Too tanky, I think?
Thieves (Locke, FFT Thief [female], Zidane, Rikku*) vs. Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8) - Al Behd Potions, I guess?
Dancers (FF5 Dancer, Mog, FFT Dancer, FFTA2 Penelo) vs. Ninjas (FF1 Ninja, Edge, Shadow, Yuffie) - I'm not really sure Mog is as dead weight here as it seems. The Ninja team can't heal at all, can they? Mog can pretty much tink everything they can do (unless Edge uses BLITZ???) and can the enemy team actually just blast past her 25% HP? I'm not really sure they can... I'll see if I can math it out later, but I'm not really sure this is as cut and dry as it seems.
Blue Mages (FF5 Blue Mage, Strago, Quistis, Quina) vs. Dark Knights (FF3 Dark Knight, DK Cecil, PC Gafgarion, PC Seifer) - I am inclined to believe that if literally any of the Blue Mages get a turn, the other team loses.
Black Mages (Palom, FF5 Black Mage, Vivi, Lulu) vs. Squires (Gogo**, Cloud, Ramza, Kimahri) - Later.

Bards (FF3 Bard, Edward, FF5 Bard, FFX-2 Songstress Yuna) vs. Dragoons (FF3 Dragoon, Kain, FF7 Cid, Freya) - Don't think they can stop Songstress from getting a turn, which means they lose.
Time Mages (FF5 Time Mage***, FFT Time Mage [female], Tidus) vs. Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille) - I'm not inclined to allow Tidus the Sonic Steel here, so I will get back to this one.
Summoners (Rydia, FF5 Summoner, FFT Summoner [female], Garnet) vs. Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix) - If Rydia gets a turn she just casts Break and everyone but Cecil dies.
Samurai (FF5 Samurai, Cyan, FFT Samurai [male], Auron) vs. White Mages (FF3 Devout, Rosa, FF5 White Mage, Eiko) - If Rosa gets a turn she just casts Mini and everyone dies.
Monks (Grand Master, Sabin, Zell, Amarant) vs. Monsters (Gau, Cait Sith, Vincent, Red XIII)

[superaielman]

Edge and Shadow's throw commands are ITD. That is bad news for Mog.

[SnowFire]

Decided to actually math out Samurai vs. WMs, as it's not entirely clear to me how this one plays out.  Turn order:
Auron + FF5 Sam (initiative) > Eiko > FF5 WM > Devout > Cyan > FFT Sam > Rosa
Samurai Gil Tosses and inflicts nasty MT damage on the WM team (although it being ITD plays against it here).  Auron Zombie Breaks Eiko.  Eiko casts Madeen for MT .50 PCHP Holy damage on the Sams.  FF5 WM's Holy is actually quite solid at .61 damage, so sure, she nukes FF5 Samurai (biggest threat).  Devout MT heals the team and incidentally kills Eiko.  I highly doubt Cyan & FFT Sam can stop Rosa from getting a turn, and she will murder Auron with White whose casting time wasn't THAT bad?  And no more Auron Zombie Breaking.  It's cleanup from there.  Even another Auron turn is doubtful.

Okay, yeah, confirming everyone's kneejerk that the WMs have this.  (If FF5 WM had worse damage, this could have been more interesting, but murdering FF5 Sam & Eiko MT hurting everyone else makes it EZ.)

Pyro: Sounds about right to me, Tidus is indeed super-unfair.  As for Rikku, well, I figured that if there's one arena where stolen items should be legal, an entire team of thieves seems like the one.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I feel like Auron's first turn might be better spent on Magic Breaking Eiko than zombieing her, and also feel inclined to point out that FFT samurai can and absolutely should absorb holy here given how white mages work, but it probably doesn't matter much.

Only other thing I can see is that if FF5 Samurai can survive to FFT Samurai's turn, the latter can heal the former and perhaps let it survive Rosa's too so that it gets off another turn but not sure how much this matters. Alternatively both Cyan and 5!Samurai should just charge cleave which team white mage really doesn't like much as none of them immune instant death (and Sam will get hers off if she can avoid being one-rounded). I dunno. Kneejerk is still WM but I feel like that fight does deserve more analysis.

[Pyro]

FF5 Samurai's Giltoss is NOT ITD at all. In fact is tremendously subject to defense. It is something like 1 point of defense = 150 points of damage reduction/increase. So if you preserve that for the fight then Armor Break -> Giltoss probaly KOs whoever was Armor Broken.

Also reconsidering Monks vs. Monsters. Cait Sith's limit starts at 50% full and takes 60% lost HP to fill from 0 to 100%... This means that he only needs to be whacked for 30% to trigger his limit "get turn". This in turn means that he IS seeing a turn, and can use that to either heal up or to transform Master Monk into something less intimidating.

Sabin can heal the status though, and immunes Imp/Toad... And then next turn he can be handled. It's not like Red and Vincent can contribute much and Gau isn't able to control his targeting. Messy business!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Sabin can only heal Imp by committing unrevivable suicide. Gau can't control his targetting but he is still a ticking timebomb, and while Red/Vincent aren't too bad at first (although Red's not negligible, borderline 2HKO physical depending on where you put the FF7 kill point) they will unavoidably get some nasty limits.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Knights (FF1 Knight, FF5 Knight, Squall, Steiner) vs. Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine): Most of what makes archers competent is reliant on focussing, doesn't work too well against a team.
Thieves (Locke, FFT Thief [female], Zidane, Rikku*) vs. Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8): Normally I'd kick up a stink about stolen items for Use, but sure on a thief team, why not?
Dancers (FF5 Dancer, Mog, FFT Dancer, FFTA2 Penelo) vs. Ninjas (FF1 Ninja, Edge, Shadow, Yuffie): Considering the other team has ITD to spoil Mog, the dancers don't have anyone above low Middle.
Blue Mages (FF5 Blue Mage, Strago, Quistis, Quina) vs. Dark Knights (FF3 Dark Knight, DK Cecil, PC Gafgarion, PC Seifer): FF5 blue mage having a shield means DK Cecil can't one-shot her. He one-shots Strago instead. Blue Mage, though... can't do anything -really- decisive with one turn? Turn 1 sleep but the DKs can heal each other to get around that, other status is turn 2 except Mind Blast which is too temporary. Quina also needs to not get a turn or we'll see Night, which FF5 blue mage can immune while none of the dark knights can. So three DKs blitz it out. Think that's enough.
Black Mages (Palom, FF5 Black Mage, Vivi, Lulu) vs. Squires (Gogo**, Cloud, Ramza, Kimahri): Cloud kills Palom, Dark Gear Gogo is made of paper but outspeeds all the black mages as well and statuses out Lulu, yeah. 5!BM can't really slow the bleeding now (may OHKO Gogo), and Vivi just sucks.

Bards (FF3 Bard, Edward, FF5 Bard, FFX-2 Songstress Yuna) vs. Dragoons (FF3 Dragoon, Kain, FF7 Cid, Freya): FF5 and FFX-2 can both do a pretty big lockdown as the opponent team can't block stop. The bard fail horribly at damage so something might go wrong before they win, but... only Freya can really do terrible things with a single turn (Berserk!) so I imagine they can blitz her out first / focus extra statuses from Edward etc. on her.
Time Mages (FF5 Time Mage***, FFT Time Mage [female], Tidus) vs. Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille): Tidus paired with someone who can add their own Slowga/Hastega? And simultaneously use Quick to do something else as well? (Meteor probably). Yikes.
Summoners (Rydia, FF5 Summoner, FFT Summoner [female], Garnet) vs. Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix): Yeah there's way too much MT doom here. Even if the strategy suggested by Pyro works (Garnet nulls holy so neither Cecil nor Beatrix can do much to her) and both Garnet AND Rydia die... a combined MT blitz from the two surviving summoners will kill any paladins caught in the FFT summon's blast radius, which I'm inclined to see as 3 minimum.
Samurai (FF5 Samurai, Cyan, FFT Samurai [male], Auron) vs. White Mages (FF3 Devout, Rosa, FF5 White Mage, Eiko): Probably. FF5 wants to charge ID here since the white mages all fear it... but Rosa can status her out with Berserk. Gil Toss just gets healed as others have noted.
Monks (Grand Master, Sabin, Zell, Amarant) vs. Monsters (Gau, Cait Sith, Vincent, Red XIII): Not much respect for the monks' ability to dodge limits.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Knights vs. Archers:  Climhazzard speeds up the slaughter.

Thieves vs. Engineers: Sure, I'll go with Edgar getting statused out.  The rest of the Engineers lack attack variety and Worker 8 ignoring defense isn't enough when he's so slow.

Dancers vs. Ninjas

Blue Mages vs. Dark Knights: Death Claw is an evil spell.  Stone may be even more evil since the Dark Knights are status bait.  PC Seifer can access his MT Limit at 84% HP so he becomes evil if he takes more than scratch damage.  Oh, and there are two White Wind users on team Blue Mage that fullheal at full HP.  EDIT: completely forgot about DK Cecil's frequent instant death physical, probably the most evil thing on team Dark Knight.  Leaving my vote for Blue Mages but can easily see Dark Knights winning as well.
  I'm wiling to consider that Strago doesn't live to get a turn: his durability is OK but he's sluggish.  So is Quina but an Egoist's Armlet protects him from dark elemental swords and DarkWave.  So I'll go with the argument that Quina sleeps the field with Night and Krile lands at least one Death Claw aided kill to turn the tide.  It's rather close though and letting Gafgarion have access to Aegis Shield and/or his MP draining may very well spoil this narrow win.

Black Mages vs. Squires: abstain

Bards vs. Dragoons: Hilarious.  There's a lot of MT accurate status from the Bards.  I do see Kain as fast enough to Jump first turn but he's not strong enough to kill someone   Freya very much wants to fire of Luna early as the Dragoons would win a Berserk brawl.  This reminds me of what happens when 4 Sirens all get a turn in Lufia 2.

Time Mages vs. Red Mages: FF5 Red Mage would very much like to get off a doublecast of Toad.  I'll buy that she gets blitzed though.

Summoners vs. Paladins: Kneejerk that Cecil can oneshot Rydia.  Still, an even faster slaughter than Knights vs Archers.

Samurai vs. White Mages ;FFT Samurai will absorb Holy.  Kiyomori is a nuisance but when the White Mages can Dispel, not really that much of a factor.  He's a tough bugger to kill, if only his allies had his resistances.  They'll die, the mages will mini and berserk him, then Fenrir will chew him up.

Monks vs. Monsters: I believe Wild Cat rage uses Blaster while being ID immune itself and the Monk team is lacking in ID protection.  Aura can delay the slaughter until Cait turns Amarant into a frog.

[SnowFire]

Closing this tomorrow.

Bards vs. Dragoons, now that I look again, is closer than I thought - I didn't play FF4a, so arguably I should use the classic FF4 speed averages (which omit uber-Edward), which means Kain suddenly outspeeds Songstress and helps FF3 Dragoon finish a Songstress KO.  And Edward's speed is now worse though he still has a Sleep game.  Still, the Bards are pretty screwed without Songstress, FF5 Bard has some good status he can maybe throw at Freya but probably not to me (I'd let her equip Clearheaded or whatever the FF9 confuse-blocker skill was) and FF3 Bard is terrible.  Flip side the stat topic isn't really original FF4 anymore so it's entirely possible other intangibles are out there.  Bah.

[VySaika]

Knights vs. Archers - Physicals vs. Knights. Yeah, that's gonna work.
Thievesvs. Engineers - Engie team is just bad.
Dancers vs. Ninjas - Throw being ITD saves this for ninjas. Otherwise Mog would get some chances to wreck hell.
Blue Mages vs. Dark Knights - Kneejerk that between Quina and FF5 Blue they can do something nasty before dying.
Black Mages vs. Squires - See Elf, really.

Bards vs. Dragoons - Not sure how the Dragoons are supposed to deal with MT Stop spam, plus whatever the Songstress does to them. Slug freya down first, then cleanup from there, she's the only one that can really threaten them.
Time Mages vs. Red Mages  - One red mage in a team is great. A team full of them is terribad.
Summoners vs. Paladins - Phystanks vs. MT Magical Overkill. Yeah that's gonna work.
Samurai vs. White Mages - Between Chameleon Robe to block Holy and Blade Grasp to block physicals, I'm not sure how the White Mages are supposed to hurt FFT Samurai at all. DO what they can to keep Eiko down to stop whatever non-holy damage summon she has(does she even have one?) and keep the others healing while FFT Sam spams Bizen Boat to shred MP, the only damage they can't heal off. I think they can take this. 
Monks vs. Monsters - I think Gau and Cait could take this without Red and Vincent, sadly. This is not close.

[Dark Holy Elf]

FF5 Bard is pretty much the same as Songstress in that she has both MT stop and MT confuse, so yeah just killing Songstress isn't necessarily enough. Also FF3DS Bard isn't useless here, since he has initiative "reduce damage to party by 25% for a turn" which helps ward off any one-rounding hype.

Gate: Rosa and FF5 White Mage both have a whole bunch of nasty status effects which neutralise FFT Samurai (Berserk, Confuse, Paralysis in Rosa's case) and allow them to hit through Blade Grasp thereafter. Bizen Boat in vanilla is rather weak MP damage, especially since FFT Samurai is locked male here, and I don't think that's time the Samurais have since the white mages can cut through them rather quickly... Holy is decent damage in most of their hands and as mentioned two of them have rather nasty status.

[superaielman]

Closing this tomorrow.

Bards vs. Dragoons, now that I look again, is closer than I thought - I didn't play FF4a, so arguably I should use the classic FF4 speed averages (which omit uber-Edward), which means Kain suddenly outspeeds Songstress and helps FF3 Dragoon finish a Songstress KO.  And Edward's speed is now worse though he still has a Sleep game.  Still, the Bards are pretty screwed without Songstress, FF5 Bard has some good status he can maybe throw at Freya but probably not to me (I'd let her equip Clearheaded or whatever the FF9 confuse-blocker skill was) and FF3 Bard is terrible.  Flip side the stat topic isn't really original FF4 anymore so it's entirely possible other intangibles are out there.  Bah.

IIRC Meeple posted original 5 averages for FF4 in the stat topic. 4o Edward's status is also unreliable due to a low number of hits he has that early.

[Meeplelard]

Knights (FF1 Knight, FF5 Knight, Squall, Steiner) vs. Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine): Team of physical tanks vs. pure Physical PCs; Ranger ignores defense, but Steiner's Climhazzard kind of makes the raw offense argument fall apart.
Thieves (Locke, FFT Thief [female], Zidane, Rikku*) vs. Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8): Edgar and Worker 8 are the only real threats here, and I think Rikku offsets that.
Dancers (FF5 Dancer, Mog, FFT Dancer, FFTA2 Penelo) vs. Ninjas (FF1 Ninja, Edge, Shadow, Yuffie): Yeah no.
Blue Mages (FF5 Blue Mage, Strago, Quistis, Quina) vs. Dark Knights (FF3 Dark Knight, DK Cecil, PC Gafgarion, PC Seifer): Kneejerk.  Only real threat I see here is DK Cecil's Instant Death.
Black Mages (Palom, FF5 Black Mage, Vivi, Lulu) vs. Squires (Gogo**, Cloud, Ramza, Kimahri): Way too much offense.

Bards (FF3 Bard, Edward, FF5 Bard, FFX-2 Songstress Yuna) vs. Dragoons (FF3 Dragoon, Kain, FF7 Cid, Freya): FF5 Bard is like the only legitimate threat on that team.
Time Mages (FF5 Time Mage***, FFT Time Mage [female], Tidus) vs. Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille): Kneejerk.
Summoners (Rydia, FF5 Summoner, FFT Summoner [female], Garnet) vs. Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix): Too much offense; Beatrix is the only real offensive threat on the other side.
Samurai (FF5 Samurai, Cyan, FFT Samurai [male], Auron) vs. White Mages (FF3 Devout, Rosa, FF5 White Mage, Eiko): The White mages can keep themselves alive for a while; Samurai aren't exactly good at killing things fast.
Monks (Grand Master, Sabin, Zell, Amarant) vs. Monsters (Gau, Cait Sith, Vincent, Red XIII): Sabin's damage cannot be targetted, that right there is a huge issue.  Cait Sith getting an instant turn when he gets a limit up is the other issue, and having Frog/Mini really screws over everyone but Sabin on that team (or he can just heal...)

Also, I gotta say some of these classes really don't fit and are questionable, but whatever, won't get into details.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Just a semantics question, but how does Cloud count as a Squire? And since we're calling Kimahri a Squire, does that imply he gets Ultima?

Matches:
Knights
Rikku
Ninjas
Dark Knights
Squires

Songstresses
Tidus
Summoners
White Mages
Monsters

[SnowFire]

Kimahri gets whatever you'd normally give him in the DL, no special rules.  Interp him how you like.

Squires were kind of a catch-all.  Mechanically, the theme is "characters who can do anything in their home game and thus nothing in the DL."  Ramza & Cloud are both flexible characters who are good at both physicals & magic and can do whatever yet don't get to play with that really in the DL, Gogo can do whatever (even if he should technically be part of a non-existent Mimics team), and Kimahri can do go down anyone's Sphere Grid in-game, meaning he's flexible.  (Kimahri also could have fit with the Blue Mages, but Quistis is already a "Blue Mage that rarely gets to ever use their Blue Magic", and saddling that team with two of them seemed cruel.)  Flavorwise, uh, Cloud is a "SOLDIER", except he isn't really a Soldier, so what is one level below Soldier?  Soldier already sounds less impressive than Knight, so by FFT logic, it's a squire.  I like to assume that the Shinra MP program is called SQUIRE myself.  (More seriously, Cloud seems like he should be in a Final Fantasy tournament and doesn't fit anywhere else, and has a vague case to be with the Squires, so that's the least-bad fit.)

To pre-emptively answer Meeple about other things that might seem odd: almost all of the stretches are cases where either someone would comfortably fit in two different slots, or else the team was stretched for options.  Sure, Agrias & Meliadoul are kind of a stretch for Paladins, but who else is out there?  I guess you can pull in Ceodore from TAY or something but meh, wanted to keep it mostly to well-played FFs, and their titles of "Holy Knight" / "Divine Knight" sound like decent flavor matches, and a certain amount of mechanical diversity is a *good* thing.  Rikku could be a Thief or an Engineer, but whatever, just have to pick one.  Garnet & Eiko could both be White Mages or Summoners, but Eiko has a deeper draw of White Magic and Double White for her Trance, while Garnet has a deeper draw of summons and Eidolon for her Trance, so.  Cait Sith is technically a robot, but he's fun and turns dudes into monsters sort of, and the Monsters team would be utterly terrible if he was replaced by Umaro or something.  Squall & Seifer are both Sorceress's Knights and kind of a matched pair, and the Dark Knights basically have nobody to pick from for a 4th character (uh GABRANTH?!  idk).  Yuna is iconically the FFX-2 Gunner, but she also has a weird connection to the Songstress Dresssphere and I didn't want to repeat characters - Cecil is the only one who got repeated out of sheer necessity - so hence Paine.  (I guess the Archer slot could have gone to Barret or Irvine instead, but at least X-2 Gunner has a goddamn skillset.)  Songstress itself is mechanically a combo of Dancer & Bard, but the name indicates Bardiness, so that won.  Everyone else really, really fits their class, to my knowledge, unless you want to get into nitpicking - sure, fine, call Tidus a Time Warrior or something if you must.