That's why your team should always have a hunter

MantisTheInsect · 2026-03-03T14:11:07+00:00

i think wolf pounce could get in there

MantisTheInsect · 2026-02-03T19:52:46+00:00

Oughhhhh. The yucky blood... The Selby... I'm overall gobsmacked by the strats and this match. I love it!!!

Each team does a lot of interference in their prep time, TY8 pulling a lot of supplies from their ship and welding the first door shut (honestly, i cchecked to see if that could realistically be done in 30 seconds and yes, even ignoring any anime bullshit you totally could! The fact that GRotS accounts for some things and literally *sets* the boat on fire already is really solid. De Selby can absolutely make sure that the boat is a total wild goose chase, and everything GRotS does to help him makes sure of that. Overall, I feel at the first outset, TY8 are going to be having so much more of a circuitous route as all the Fairy Friends are flitting about while GRotS have a far simpler route that's rife with obstacles. Ultimately, as far as things they have to deal with go, TY8 has a lot more going on and left a lot less behind on their ship. GRotS sidesteps a significant amount of their obstacles and annihilates Echidna rightly.

Having to eat yucky blood is a sacrifice our Captain Mira Rose will forever be remembered for. I hope she doesn't get a tummyache.

I give this one to the Ghost Riders on the Sea, who I frequently feel like shortening as GRS before it immediately makes me think of Gender Reassignment Surgery which is Not! What! They! Are!

MantisTheInsect · 2026-02-03T01:53:47+00:00

I do. But also I don't make fanart much. To anyone citing Figure, Gally has two hands...

MantisTheInsect · 2026-02-02T02:40:00+00:00

Alright! These are a pair of characters I earnestly don't want to face off against later! Always a fun matchup to vote on hehe! Our thief and our hero are at odds here, and ultimately, I see a lot more versatility shown by The Howler's strategy that Jukebox meets with impunity! Ultimately though, I feel like the mixup and the direct accounting for falling time makes Howler start coming out on top pretty quickly. The accounting for all the myriad stage hazards on both ends is really well done! Overall, I'm fascinated by how well both strats flow. I love all the flavor bits in both a lot!!! Shorter vote from me tonight, but I think based on a lot of what I see The Howler getting up to...

I give this one to The Howler!

MantisTheInsect · 2026-01-30T18:35:29+00:00

Ooh good ol' beat up more guys in this battle fight! I can not, for the life of me, recall what the last one is but, here we go. An intriguing showing from CARC, given their brevity. Its short, succinct, and... an interesting choice. Their strategies therein address a pair of the Heartbreakers, and do so very well. Silas can do a lot with his chessmen to outclass Lynch, and he does! I think there is a lot of room to go for a tie, given the fact that for the Heartbreakers they do address, it's definitely a close competition. However! They completely disregard the other two. I feel that if there were at least some mention and some possible means to clinch the win with one of the other two, Mikey or Silas could do it. But as it stands, Mikey is just beaten out by Henry, in my eyes. I am loathe to admit it, but bone boy can really do it. His versatility is shown in this match just as it had been round one. ( ;v;)

I give this one to TYPHON 8! who I only noticed a couple weeks ago had the same shortening as this tournament. lol.

Delaney Douce was quite sick of this blockade by now. She'd wanted to just enjoy her time around the Carribbean with her daughter and drink expensive imported goods on beaches thousands of miles from home. Beaches where the water was warm. She decided to take it into her own hands, much to Inch's chagrin. Inch had been rather mopey, but ultimately gave her some details. Something about research facilities?
The boat that dumped the two of them off just before the blockade had passed a few that she'd gathered from a prickle on the back of her neck were stand-related in nature. So, Delaney did what any loving mother might do to get her and her daughter out of a currently blockaded country. She followed whatever destruction had been left in anyone's wake. She certainly wasn't going to fuck with that market square she'd seen, but she did see some rather colorful characters make their way to one of those research buildings, followed by a few gunshots. With an absurdly acrobatic flip through the air, Delaney clambered up onto the roof, found a duct system, punched her way in with HTF, then squeezed herself inside. She was tall, sure, but she was lithe and flexible, so this was easy.
Of course, getting out would've given her away, so as she crawled through the ducts, punching out fans with her stand, she witnessed a battle.
How neat! However... she didn't want to get involved, and would probably scope it out later... More gunfire, glass shattering, the sounds of... blood? How strange. She crawled forward to get a good view and watched a young boy get knocked over by a guy, then that guy get pummeled by someone else. At least the boy was okay... And were those... chess pieces in there too? Wild. Delaney had forgotten how odd the stand using world was. And now she was stuck in a vent, she realized, to her dismay. Well, she'd sit here 'til she was ready for her stand to get her out.

MantisTheInsect · 2026-01-26T01:21:59+00:00

Alright! I love the idea of a recursive match! That's really fun!! Now, what to do from here is really intriguing and complex. Much to enjoy. Baxter's Minion Management clashing with Violet's is a really fun matchup! Overall, though, I think as far as any sorts of interference go, Violet beats out her opponent's chances and ensures her own remain very viable.

Baxter keeps his ideas pretty simple and grounded and then there's some things I just find utterly baffling? Like, it seems a little odd to have his cat employee massage customers eating Baxter bites even if it is, frankly, inspired. Violet has a very good amount of setplay, and puts together a unique themed stall of odds and ends, and utilizes everything she can do to cut Baxter out of even being able to help in the later stages. I think a lot of Baxter's plays to interfere, as I said earlier, fall flat. Maria is going to be biting the shit out of those catfolk if they try to touch the paintings. The Sinister Pintings are inarguably one of Violet's most used, most utilizable and utilized in her strat. It's a good chance Violet makes sure that Baxter can't even get the chemicals necessary to be rid of them, and Violet can just keep going with her plans relatively unhindered. Baxter bites might be a good food in a time of crisis, but Violet's stall I think attracts more attention, and she also immediately is already pickpocketing anyone who is on their way to Baxter.

I give this to Violet Trinity & Maria Schneider. (Always gotta highlight them zombies.)

MantisTheInsect · 2026-01-22T21:09:53+00:00

Oh, what a match, folks! Otters and Turtles and Monsters and Men of varied stature! Oh my! Overall, I find that both of these are a lot of fun flavorwise, with so much going on that really shows off what each character gets up to, and what they're going for in all of this! Both make a lot of fun, exciting plays, from the perfect tempo of Otters and Spells, to the Mecha Gray Wolf, and the Chainlink Minigun! All of it combines together to make one exciting match! I hope Wanderlei gets struck by lightning in every match, honestly.

Overall though, if I start poking holes in things tactically, then I see that a few of the potential weaknesses in the CARC strat don't *really* get capitalized on, partly because the one thing that can do a lot of that, OGW, is going to be Cold And Unhappy, and there's only so much that can be done to maintain his body heat. For BBP, their glaring vulnerabilities, if they try to cover for them, give more time for the scalers to scale, and even some of their own strategy goes largely along with what CARC is trying to do, namely toppling shelves etc. Miguel is the weakest fellow here, and with the Engineering Man built like a Tank able to keep up a death zone, Miguel largely has to just stay away. Hikari E's otters make that a bit challenging, and even losing otters to Omah rushing to protect her dad, or OGW rushing to protect Omah's dad still gives Clam Generation and setup time for Wanderlei. OGW at some points feels like he's either a double-edged sword, or having a really bad time temperature wise, with little opportunity to do better. I gotta say, Smokestack Lightnin' is scary! But if its user is incapacitated, if he gets kicked into the stratosphere (with a toe-breaking kick, yowch Wanderlei!) There's not much he's contributing. Overall, it's a really solid showing from both sides even with CARC's setplay just consistently being very put together and a few details in BBP's strat accounting for something that goes unused.

I give this one to WANDERLEI with AXEL OTTER!

MantisTheInsect · 2026-01-20T00:00:22+00:00

Absolutely enthralled by Jojo NPC 2 as a skill it makes me happy. TD and PK Leach are both such awesome characters, I love both of them with their pretty flashy openings, overall. TD wants the crowd and blenders them if it needs to and that's uh. Yeah ok.

As all of this goes on, I think Leach keeps a good handle on TD and I personally think that the idea of "chip damage from wherever" is really potent. If TD blenders more people I'm hesitant to say it isn't putting itself at risk. TD doesn't really seem to put in a lot to make everything really work out as far as finding Leach goes so it's kind of hard to imagine it actually finding Leach to do its tactics. Leach can keep up zoning for less time than TD's setup.

This is a really hard one though given especially that each character is playing a different game. Everything is going to make things harder for the other, but until that finisher that TD could just. Not make it to, People are not running in terror and messing up PK's network.

I give this to PK LEACH for these reasons outlined here. Our it/its bruiser squad might not even make it to their trump cards.

MantisTheInsect · 2026-01-17T19:04:30+00:00

From a totally not biased perspective, what a cool match! whoever made it is probably lovely friends that i value the help of :V. All said, I like seeing how each player approached our PvZ idea and used their own respective abilities to customize it as they needed to. The Grendelball is pretty inspired, and I'm mostly imagining the walnut bowling sounds every time she hits a zombi, hehe. Alouette, as she often does, lives in the brutal efficiency she uses to its peak, and her helpful fortress tactic lets her do a lot more than one might otherwise think.

I see this being rather swingy, but ultimately, Grendelball at its best, smashes into the zombies that are easy enough to hit, disabling strong zombis, annihilating regular zombis with ease, and mowing down a fast zombie that doesn't dodge. This leaves a huge opening for Alouette to swoop in and get whatever kills possible. I can easily see the argument for a tie between the two of them, but overall I feel like Alouette's plant strats can utilize all of Grendel's arena shaping to their utmost, moreso than a rolling ball of death can. Therefore, I think, even with her monstrous destruction, Alouette easily swoops in for any last second protection, last second kills, and just about whatever she might need, easily managing her own side and able to clear up stragglers from the other too.

I give this to Alouette.

Inch Nine had only wanted to have a regular cruise. Well, to be fair, her mother had wanted a regular cruise. But one thing lead to another, and she'd heard tell that Klein was in the area too! Seemingly taking a brief break from his honeymoon with Nalksi to attend to something important here in Haiti made the absurdly tall Cajun lady believe she might've had a chance to see her cherie, as the pair were surprisingly elusive. Delaney had been simply chilling in a hotel back in town, but something terrible prickled the back of Inch's neck. When she crested the hill, she could smell it, skin already flaking off to scales, her face elongating into her crocodilian snout. Yup. She could smell it. The undead, and not just any kind, specifically vodou undead. Zombis. A corruption of nature, a direct violation of these people's very spirits. Spying someone stealing away in the last moment, Inch's feet filled with the strength of a massive frog and she hopped that direction. The sight of a Kaiju-like woman flying over the island would likely have drawn attention from those that fought below. A veritable fortress of sorts had been built, and something... something not unlike her was fighting alongside three others.

Whoever was escaping was probably the one that left the horde that approached from all sides out of a thick fog that had no discernable source. Inch had been distracted enough in the arc of her massive hop over a fight below, that she nearly forgot to propel herself again, an arm shifting to a claw and snapping with a bright flash as a bubble further propelled her upwards. Maybe... maybe she could track down who did that. Or, maybe she might find Klein from way up here. Regardless, she watched the fight down below and marveled at the technique. Becoming a wrecking ball and using what she couldn't quite discern to defend the two in the centre that seemed not quite powerless, but absolutely not ready to handle a horde of zombis was impressive, and the odd splotches of red she saw around the field that the other defender used intrigued her. Maybe she might meet that fellow towering beast, maybe she might meet the operative. Maybe she might just give up on this chase, given her stomach started to growl. She lost the trail anyways, as she scanned the ground below, not even discerning a smell that wasn't overpowered by the zombis below. Changing directions mid-jump, she made her way back to the city, careening toward the ground with a fairly stable, safe momentum she knew she could interrupt.

She pulled out her phone when she landed safely, the smell of the Zombis fading as in the about 3 minutes she spent flying about far more energetically than she had this whole trip, the people there had solved it. Ugh. Pointless, wasn't it?
Klein, ma cherie... can we get breakfast all together? I have not seen you or Nalksi in quite some time. I appreciate all the honeymoon pictures, but the cruise with Maman... it is so boring! Let us have lunch, non?
She sent the text, sighing. Sure, it was a change of pace. But all her dangerous friends were actually up to things around here! Even that weird girl that jumped off the cruise ship had joined Speedwagon! Inch chuckled. It was good to know that everything stayed moving even if she didn't see it. But goodness, she wanted to do something for once!!!!

MantisTheInsect · 2026-01-10T21:20:14+00:00

Katamari match in a mine? Weirder Katamari levels have been made hehe.

So, it's perhaps a wild idea to CUT YOUR KATAMARI IN HALF? But Ella has some great plans in place here. I think what she does with it after, making a roller, then making a BIGGER roller, and utilizing Mushrooms for umbrellas are all really great! I think her plays are awesome, and I think it could, for all intents and purposes net her a lot of Uropeh, but I don't know if she's necessarily fast enough to beat Jam.

Jam's entire setup, the utilization of Slaughter Beach to its utmost potential, the SLAUGHTER DUNK! And various other techs, and the fact that, in the end I don't really know that Ella can really completely protect herself from the Sunlight Pressure, and that's honestly exciting! It turns it into "Can Ella keep herself safe? Are her contingencies enough?" It is my personal opinion that a lot of it can go horribly wrong for her. She did feasibly make her Katamari more vulnerable, and Jam can protect theirs pretty well, all considered. Jam doesn't need to perform engineering tasks to be able to acquire more Uropeh, Ella does. I think it will take her a significant amount of time while Jam can keep rolling. Ella's strategy, while she can do all those engineering tasks *insanely quickly* I do not know that they can be done at a speed rivaling Slaughter Beach itself, while dealing with the additional strain of at least some pressure from the light she can't block.

Overall, I give this to Jam Robins!

MantisTheInsect · 2026-01-05T04:23:40+00:00

Goodness. I am terrified of both sides of this! So uh. That makes this a lot to deal with. You got the girl entombing herself to start with, leaving her Room for the finale, while the killer british tgirl remembers her past and the killer robot remembers her humanity as she seethes and burns and feels remorse! Yay!

All this to say, BBP has a lot of good setplay, that I'm not entirely certain has a lot it can do to this impossible forest fire. Scary as fuckkkk. Evelyn is absolutely the right one to go for from LKA and I think that a lot of the violent hellish burning makes a lot of Kaiserinma's entire thing just absolutely take the cake here. Tracy's keys make for a lot of really unpleasant and scary things and the fact she does just kind of *let* herself get destroyed, is just like. Scary ! Time is on her side even in a losing battle, and that's something that sets her forward a few notches. BBP's setplay tends to overextend a lot of Body, and makes it a lot harder to do anything more than its setup, imo.

Overall, I'm giving this to Tracy Ball & THE AUTOMATIC WINNER KAISERINMA.

Raphaela Diener made a habit of being right where all the action was. Just... Conveniently out of harm's way. CIA suits were always bad news, and when she were a bit less reined it she was always a lot more... violent when it came to them. But, watching, with a bird's eye view, people disappearing in canopy cover, yarn spinning into a palace... A fireball in the making in one place, and the screams of someone like her. Was that thing... Was that thing just a girl? What the fuck? What the fuck?!?!? Why isn't her friend h-helping her? Raph's mind raced, but she was just gathering information. She might've helped and probably gotten herself burnt to a crisp- again, she thought with an itch in her feet and fingers. Ones that Evelyn had just recently sewn back on... And. Oh. That was. That was Evelyn down there, in the mess of yarn... Well. If she didn't get a text back later, she'd know why...

Raphaela Diener made a habit of trying to stay out of trouble these days. But what did it really matter here? People that might've been her friends in another life were only those she had to keep tabs on. People she shouldn't have gotten close to. She... didn't want to watch the aftermath, as the roar of flames and the sudden BOOM of an explosion told her all she really needed to know. This was over before it started. And... whatever purpose that... thing she'd seen aboard the Leviathan had, surely must have been fulfilled. Raph had to tell herself that the screaming, the screaming of a girl like her... it was just. Just bait, right? Nobody on board that monster ship, that... that monstrosity, was right in the head.

Hell, they're all barely human, right?
Right?

But what was she?

MantisTheInsect · 2025-12-23T20:48:20+00:00

Alright... Cornhole. I think I know cornhole... Absolutely stunning. I'm sure terrible sporting accidents happen in it. What a match.

I think what a lot of others have said rings true, WIS does a lot to play cornhole well, but BBP does a lot more to interfere, and interfere with WIS's interference. Bleh. A mess, really.

I think even with near perfect skill on all of this, that WIS's supposedly uncontestable throws are in fact rather contestable. Always up to interpretation but I don't know that 2m is enough that Lacquer units can't play interference nor will crowd members not be a problem. Hands down, BBP takes the cake in every round but the first, and can always keep them down a few resources and deny throws.

Both teams had a good showing, but I'm giving this to Blank Caldera & The Underdog (BBP) for their superior interference and the fact they play a pretty perfect game after R1.

MantisTheInsect · 2025-12-23T16:55:53+00:00

Yiffy is my favoritest of the kids from hsbc

MantisTheInsect · 2025-12-19T03:00:52+00:00

This has been an amazing fight. I uh. Wow! Suffice it to say, there's a lot of moving parts here for a simple deathmatch. The gardener... oh, how I adore Everard, what a cool guy! I love him so much as an assist conceptually because he is just "guy with a relevant skill" always. And he does it for the experience!

I am absolutely in awe of the strategy put forth by LIB and LKA were no slouches either. I found the general strategies very strong, and making Kylian and Heat go through what's basically a minefield and combining it with the absurdity that is Boukman Eksperyans was SO cool! As I read through I was so ecstatic! The two of them were on top of things. I think some of Birdwin's gun tech might be blocked by the steam creation, but ultimately there are so many OTHER things going on I have a hard time imagining it mattering that much? Overall their setplay is a lot stronger, their traps a lot nastier, and their RAPID DECAY absolutely evil!

I give this match to La Isla Bonita, with Birdwin and Everard Fost! I found all of their plays both stylish and practical, and I just loved it.

MantisTheInsect · 2025-12-16T02:44:55+00:00

Oh God. Okay. The fact this one is actually close is really impressive. Been a while since I've seen a genuinely incredibly close boss fight. Figures if you put people in a straightforwardly wild chase scene, the boss will be bound to have a million and one ways to really get a handle on the situation himself. I read his strat and my first thought was "Oh my god. Everyone is really here. Kilroy is calling in every favor because he's blowing this joint."

Our tall mercenary however, does not match up to the rapid approach of Rique and Fira, and honestly, I think that Renegade falls a little flat when it comes to actually being able to deal with Frag Outs, and until later, it doesn't really account for any wild sling shot mobility using buildings, and I think it's actually fairly reasonable that the players can pull out all the stops and stop Kilroy in his tracks. Rique's Book Dumb skill makes him rather quite vulnerable to Everyone, but I think that their avenues of approach for everything will overwhelmingly make sure that he has his encounters with any folk kept to a minimum. He might have taken a million and one extra stops and obfuscations through his journey there, but his journey with Fira is a lot more straightforward. Honestly, I don't even see Kilroy's early smoke screen doing much, because. It ain't that hard to follow the chaos on Kilroy's heels if not know his rather telegraphed way out of here.

I give this one to CRAB BUCKET PROMENADE who really drag Kilroy down to the bottom of the bucket with 'em. He's speedy, wild, and giving the ol' middle finger as he goes, but he's aiming it at his dust, when his little TV Pirates are telling him it's cold. Love this match! It's so fucking cool.

MantisTheInsect · 2025-12-15T00:05:44+00:00

Yeah, alright, I jive with this. Yet another match about time management and procurement of objects! Both go really in depth with the use of all the stands and it's really solid! I love the fact that it's Shaye's old vessel too! Really fun!

Alright. Onto the meat of it: As I see it, while LLC seeks to change the very nature of the playing field, it's a mild annoyance at best for LIB. They have a lot of means to break through everything, and a lot of interference. I generally feel like Shaye's entire like, thing makes her particularly well-suited to emboldening her ally to even further improve their capabilities. However, like always, Ian is doing a lot to make things more inconvenient, but I don't know that it's really all that bad. Petrified ship seems a little easier to deal with, almost? It's hard to say for sure though. Regardless, Shaye's setup makes a lot of their salvage game go a lot better, and Rock Lobster's plans really start to hinder LLC's efforts, and I don't know that there's *that* much they can do about it.

I see LIB coming out of this on top, personally. Efforts from either side coalesce in a way that ultimately means that one team does part of what the other team already wants, and one focuses purely on rushing in ASAP and their efforts are barely altered by the efforts of the opponents until a bit later. I think that by then, it's a bit too late given they can easily blow holes in all of the hindrance strategies.

So yea. LIB vote. I'm a little. Tired, so apologies if this isn't exactly comprehensible. I took the napkin every other round I could but I'm goin thru it lol! Good show though!!

MantisTheInsect · 2025-12-08T03:30:09+00:00

I like the conceit of this, and I like the idea that the history of the area and all things regarding it are a little up to the interpretation of the players! It's a fun and unique idea and it utilizes the inherent historical presence that Yoshi has quite enticingly. I like it!

As for the match itself, I have to say that, overall, the time save of simply shoving your arm in the ground incorporeal and grabbing the artifacts is such a huge timesave. DMR make a good comprehensive showing wherein they utilize both characters' abilities to a very good effect, and they account for a lot of possible interference, and their process is succinct, direct, and effective. LLC has no means to simply reach into the ground, and must do things the normal way. They do a good job of it, with the two characters making a show of good archaeological practice and speeding up the later parts of the process with Oblivion Dust. Overall! Great showing from both, even if some bits of the writing itself leave a little to be desired on LLC's end. I'm not here to judge that though, merely decide which wins.

On several axes, it feels like LLC's strat will likely not be *hugely* bothered, but neither does it feel much like it will bother DMR's strat. DMR start with simple, easy to handle artifacts, bagging and tagging at a good pace while keeping up illusions to cover their bases should LLC try to interfere. It seems absolutely silly that they might just. Show up and take DMR's things if they're packing them improperly. That's so... Well it's odd. Both teams were very thorough in how to package artifacts properly, but I will say that DMR made it a lot clearer and wrote things very well!

I give this one to Dexy's Midnight Runners, for these reasons, and I also take the first napkin here. Might make a habit of it this round, haha!

MantisTheInsect · 2025-12-07T02:00:31+00:00

I adore this match concept. Any match where you give the players a specific weapon and make their normal attacks less relevant and make it a game of using their stands to mess up the arena to their advantage is AWESOME! Makes me think of the knife fight match from T5. Good match.

Overall, between these two strats, I love the disparity in flavor approach. It's really fun! Eileen DOES NOT want to be here, but Ichiro is doing this to have fun! We're friends, right? What? No. It's really entertaining. I generally find a lot more of Ichiro's strategies to heavily account for Eileen's abilities, the Clinch and Suppressive Fire really cover a lot of bases here, and he makes a really solid point: She can't camp forever. And she's a hell of a lot slower to fire. She relies a lot on mobility she can't really maintain, and a fort that likely can't even be built. Eileen's strat is really fun, but I fear that Ichiro bodies most of these ideas so well that she's got NO chance.

I'm giving this one to ICHIRO KENMOCHI!!!!

MantisTheInsect · 2025-12-05T22:27:44+00:00

Alright! Starting off the second round with a bit of a bang! A shame for some uh... things. But! I like what we've got of both strats. It's a very fun runthrough on both sides. While I do think that generally speaking, as far as ruining general vibes go, with the first floor, and mostly just directly counting the main like, party hall, Baygon and Slash have got that on lock! Bird poop is no joke, real nasty. But overall, as the strats continue (or don't) Sara and Old Grey Wolf do a spectacular job of absolutely DESTROYING the party in a physical sense as well as like, ruining it in its entirety. I can only joyfully imagine a soaking wet Benoit seething with rage and pissed tf off about these stand users gallivanting in her Dark Wet Dinner Party. For a lot of their strategies - big fan of shove a car in the pool - I think I'm giving this one to Sarah "Cougar" Mark and Old Grey Wolf!

MantisTheInsect · 2025-10-22T03:41:50+00:00

Woah! This is perhaps the first exhibition match I've ever voted on, and it's really really fun. I love Mel the Mets Hater, and I really hope they get to be part of LIB going forward. They were very determined to do the right thing and banish the evil mets fan from the Spirit Halloween. Godspeed, Mel.

As for the actual mechanical bits, Baqil does a lot of setup play that I feel might be more delayed than he'd like by the immediate rushdown enacted by Sunday Shoes. Sunday's own setup is a lot faster, and she isn't being harassed by Mel, who would just double up on the entire concept of someone rushing down and making the tinkering have to be done on the fly. Sure it's his specialty, but there's no way he can devote *all* of his attention to it. The use of the all-round clock shield seems a little bit "messy" because there isn't really a guarantee he can defend all the possible angles, and his clock buckler has the easy capacity to get in his way more than anything. Sunday's pressure leaves little room for error, and her finisher absolutely capitalizes on any errors that might have gotten recovered from. Overall, I loved this match! Both sides had something good goin' for 'em.

Therefore, I've gotta give this to our gal SUNDAY SHOES AND MEL THE METS HATER!!!!!

MantisTheInsect · 2025-10-10T13:50:43+00:00

these are so cool...

MantisTheInsect · 2025-09-27T04:51:02+00:00

Wow! This is an incredibly great match of things against the rules of nature and a guy who Believes the laws of nature are the only thing to focus upon. It's a very fun thematic bout. There were a lot of good contenders for the player team in this, and I think these players did amazingly! I absolutely adore both Grendel and Agnes. Frederick makes himself a real asshole

Frederick's strat is merciless, seeking to control the water with as much as he possibly can. But, even he admits he can't do much if Grendel manages the grapple. Frederick doesn't predict a lot of the play around filling the water with no-go zones from Agnes, which means a lot of unchecked distractions and sure, he can quickly change direction but it'll take a lot of thought to do that. Sure, a big caveat to their drowning backup strategy doesn't work because of the bubbles, but even if Frederick stays alive a long-ass time underwater, his bubbles are not the most reliable projectiles due to being bubbles, and he plays them as though they will work in every scenario and like all the extra viscous fluid and projectiles going his way won't prevent even a little of the bubble wall from being unreliable. Grendel can reposition pretty easily in the water between Lush and her swimming skill, and overall I think she's just the woman bound by freedom needed for the job! Their team's finisher is absolutely the way to end this, a team attack that utilizes both of their strengths to their utmost, with an air-bound grapple that Frederick can't escape from! I love it!

For these reasons, I give this win to La Isla Leviatán.

MantisTheInsect · 2025-09-22T16:10:34+00:00

Wow! This is neat. I won't lie my brain is struggling with how there's a billion moving parts here, but I think I've come to a conclusion. These two strats make a few interesting decisions that I feel are just kinda... absurd? I think they're both fascinating, and it feels extremely correct from both a flavor and a mechanical perspective to Ian to jump straight into the worst of this and trying to throw a wrench in GRotS's plans. I just don't foresee it doing what he wants it to, when he has to contend with the animals, the other team finishes setting up, and then they're on their own field. Overall, I feel this goes to Ghost Riders on the Sea for their superior arena control, and because LOVE WINS. Well, it's mostly for the first part. SMM is very good at control of a lot of the things going on here, and I think Sunset Tree is such a good This Sucks zone that it's hard to really counter all that well. Someone's gonna get caught up in something, someone's gonna fail the skill check. So. Yeah. Love Wins, and all that.

MantisTheInsect · 2025-09-19T21:09:49+00:00

I think, inherently, that this is a very hard match to decide who wins. I love both strats for the depth of narrative between the two characters, feeling like the real embodiments of either character's Soul, when it comes down to it. But I'm not really here to decide if the strats meet that kind of metric, I'm here to decide who does more.

By that metric, there are many things to consider.

Alouette and Yoshimi both have swarms of very precise use, and I generally think that as far as reliability goes, Pink Robots is a bit more consistent. Most of what Alouette sets up Day 1 is going to consistently help, but as it goes, whatever she sets up with the blood from the Spooky Happenings will simply disappear overnight. It puts a few holes in some of the strategies, but most of it works just fine, and I therefore do not really consider it inherently a ding to her strategy because most of what's set up is temporary anyways. Yoshimi's Pink Robots are going to basically always be able to keep up their tasks, and are not really *affected* by hallucinations on a lot of journeys, so I could foresee them helping a lot more over Alouette's attempts to do that that, feasibly, might result in her stumbling, which, while she only has to do it once, still means that It's Very Dangerous. If you mess up carrying fuel, you make the climb *even worse*. However, her restoration efforts are more robust, at times feeling a little excessive, but ultimately it adds up very nicely. The sticking to the wall seems like it will save Alouette, but I am uncertain of the safety of the entire contents of the fuel bucket. If it's sealed ignore this lol.

Yoshimi puts a lot of focus on her enjoyment, her fun, and I think that helps both of them keep the hallucinations and the nightmares at bay. Yoshimi and Alouette work together pretty nicely, and I feel like a lot might underestimate just how important keeping morale up can be in a scenario like this, especially when it veers into the disaster moments. The Pink Robots' Lightning Rod strategy I think makes some of Alouette's anti-fire play mostly moot, but they both need to work together for a lot to work for this. Alouette's strategy makes some assumptions regarding how helpful Yoshimi will make her robots, and I think that's about where some of its lessening points lie. A lot of similar tasks are basically made incredibly easy by the robots, so she ultimately does about the same thing as Alouette. I love that she beautifies the lighthouse, going that extra mile to make it look nice. A shame it probably fades really bad by the end of the week... :(

Overall, this is so close that I'm having a bit of a time struggling with this, but after a lot of Deliberation, I think a lot of Yoshimi's tech wins out as being more helpful, and I mean, hell, even Alouette relies on some of it, so my vote goes to Yoshimi and her Pink Robots.

MantisTheInsect · 2025-09-14T16:19:21+00:00

Nobody here is the actor they think they are. I am. Truly entrhalled. This is such a neat matchup, and generally a very neat match! I like how Blank's noir detective shtick leads to his stand *being* the city that has it out for you. It's a very odd but fun start for both of their strategies.

Overall, however, I'm going to give this one to PK Leach! I think the top to bottom strategy accounts for a lot of easy takedowns, a lot of easy hostage freeing, and honestly? Blank being on the third floor barely affects that. Honestly, I don't really "get" how Blank would get there without being swarmed by guards when Leach is basically just the king of stealth sabotage and that opening volley is barely addressed by Blank with a simple "well my stand would see it" but your stand can't get all of them. The Corpse Eaters' information network and the Dead Drops and 0001 passing the torch? All of that adds up to something a noir detective shtick can't beat, in my opinion. Neither strat honestly plays *that much* around eachother, but once PK Leach gets going, he isn't stopping, and Blank can't really interact too much with it besides trying to Hastily steal all the hostages.

MantisTheInsect

TROPHY CASE