Arena of Assholes Round 1

[u/TooAmasian]

Welcome to the first round of Arena of Assholes, aka Venom Tier

This is a debate focused bracketed tournament where users pick characters to argue against other users, with a certain character (Venom in this case) functioning as a measuring stick to prevent any one user from being too strong or unfair. You pick four characters, enter into rounds, and then argue you win against someone else with their picks.

In this tournament specifically, you choose 4 characters to run that can range from "unlikely to likely victory" against the tier setter Venom. The 4th pick works as a "rotating backup," meaning you choose only 3 of your characters to participate prior to each round.

The Brackets

Round 1 - 1v1s

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The Tier Setter

Example of this kind of debate

This tier is designed for strong characters who can deliver and take hits that destroy copious amounts of concrete while being fast enough to bullet-time at close distances.

The tier setter is an idealized version of the sinister symbiote, Venom.

Venom

Full Tourney RT

Stat	Interp
Strength	A full force blow launches an opponent through several floors hard enough to embed into asphalt
Speed	Bullet timing reactions, can run 100 mph and web-sling at 200 mph. Superhuman agility.
Durability	Is fine being punched through a very thick concrete wall
Range	Tentacles can reach around 20 feet when standing still and a decent distance greater than his melee range in combat
Misc	Has tentacles that can extend his range, web-slinging for mobility, and anti-stealth measures by "seeing" out of his skin

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Rules

Arena Rules- Round 1's arena will be Nuketown 2025 from Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

• Spawn points and other relevant images

  • Team 1 is the top team in the comment and team 2 is the bottom team

• Video tour of the map

• Nuketown 2025 trailer

• There will be no nuke detonation

• Do not be an asshat with arena rulings. Do not make arguments like "This is real earth, so abilities do not work" or "I become omnipotent due to magic present in the arena."

• Assume materials within the map are made of and equivalent to their real life counterparts (road is made of asphalt, dirt is made of dirt, cars are made of metal, etc.)

• There's is an invisible WhoWouldWinium wall surrounding the map's bounds to prevent escaping the map and the sky caps at the troposphere

  • WhoWouldWinium is an infinitely durable material that otherwise has properties equivalent to balsa wood and cannot be affected in any way. It is fully sapient and has the authority to disqualify your characters if you attempt to abuse it

• All "sunlight' present in the arena is fake sunlight that grants whatever normal powers but will not inhibit vampires or other characters with an inherent weakness via a WWWinium lightbulb. It is as warm and bright as normal sunlight.

Battle Rules

• All combatants are aware of the basics of their allies' combat abilities but are in the blind on their opponents (unless they have canon knowledge of said person via sharing a fictional universe)

• All combatants are fully aware that their enemy must be defeated for them to be able to survive, to be able to return to their home reality, and for the omnipotent organizers of this scenario to be satisfied. All combatants are aware of rules for the objective of the tournament

• Incapacitation is defined by being unable to continue fighting. Being knocked out, being killed, being BFRd, or fully succumbing to exhaustion. If this condition is met for more than 12 full seconds, your character loses, and in a 3v3, they are removed from the arena in a flash of light after being incapacitated for 12 seconds. To reiterate, combatants are aware of this rule. Note that being restrained does not count as being unable to fight if it's something like a physical grapple or generally something that needs concentration to maintain, for example, you can't hold someone in a full nelson for 12 seconds to delete them from a 3v3.

• Summons or 'fake' characters do not count for the purpose of a win condition - for instance, if a conjurer died in a 1v1 and left behind his 2 zombies, he would still automatically lose. This also applies to hive-minds or drone characters. This also means that characters who can reasonably be considered one entity can be run with ruling on a case by case basis, and will likely need to have a Prime Entity stipulated. This is, as well, determinable case by case without a specific end all be all example.

• Every combatant starts each round being teleported into the arena, knowing full well whomever they face down needs to die or be incapacitated in order for they themselves to advance and win and will do so.

• All combatants begin without any weapons drawn or abilities active, hands idle at their sides, and the moment they teleport in they can begin combat

• All combatants are in-character for the tourney itself

• Characters with holsters or similar will begin with their weapons holstered, characters with weapons that cannot feasibly be holstered will begin with the weapons pointed at the ground.

Debate Rules

• Rounds will last roughly 6 days, from now Sunday until Saturday at noon EST of each week of the tourney; there is a 48 hour time limit both on starting (we do not care who starts, you and your opponent can figure that out, after Round 2 however we will mandate this) AND on responses, AND ADDITIONALLY each user MUST get in two responses or else be disqualified. If one user waits until the very last minute to force this rule to DQ their opponent without any forewarning to their opponents or the tournament supervisors, they will be removed from this tournament, no exceptions.

• Intros, OOT requests, and conclusions are a max of 10k characters

• Intros can be used to set up arguments such as by laying out that stats of your characters

• Out of Tier Mechanic- A character can be veto'd mid tourney if the opposing debater calls for an Out of Tier review and the head judge agrees they are out of tier.

  • An OOT requests works by pinging the head judge (me) and explaining why the character has been argued as Out of Tier by the opponent
  • Each participant gets 3 OOT request for the whole tournament which is lost whenever their OOT fails to go through, this is done to avoid abusing the mechanic

• You can not bring up new points in your conclusions, it is used to succinctly summarize and go over your prior arguments

• Format for each round: the one to go first gets an Intro + 1st Response, their opponent replies in kind, then both get a 2nd response, then a 3rd response in a back-and-forth style, and a closing statement individual of one another that can be posted any time after both 3rd responses are complete. Reponses are max of a 15k characters each spread along a max of 3 comments.

• Rounds will either be a full 3v3 Team Match, or 1v1 single matches. 1v1 matches are determined by randomization. Match format will switch every round, with Team Matches always followed by single matches, and vice versa.

Victory Conditions

Winning a match will be determined by a council of 4 judges. Each specific round will be judged by 2 judges with a 3rd judge coming in if needed for a tiebreaker. Judgements are based upon who made the more convincing argument not which character "objectively" wins the matchup.

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Links

Pre-Tournament

• Hype Post

• Sign-Ups

[u/Theultimateambition]

Yeah fair enough the first post was pretty sloppy, I'll get better scans on this one

Deku vs Ryouga

Attack of the NOT CROPPED and VERY LEGITIMATE scans

Strength scaling to Bakugo: Bakugo's big explosion and his hurty arms, Deku hurts Bakugo's hurty arms more than his explosions do, making him scale to them, and here is the smokscreen scan. And for the video I linked, Deku definitely does move with the bullets. Oh yeah, and just for reference, this is the size of the stadium: making this explosion roughly building level (the little dot in front of the explosion is Bakugo)

The actual fight -

Now that I've properly established that Deku is at least building - large building level with his 8%, and double that with 16%, and that his speed is at least equal to Ryouga's in base, I think he takes this with the points I've established beforehand. Also to counter your "he gets skewered" argument Deku does have resistance to piercing as shown here against Shigaraki, he quite literally chews through the spikes that impaled Bakugo. Obviously not to the degree shown there but logically it would scale to his 8% durability and at least prevent him from turning into a shish kebab. Ryouga stands no chance against Deku's (at least) equal power and speed, plus his wide variety of abilities AND his Fa-Jin which allows him to amp his power without using more of One for All.

Goku vs Dragonite

The monkey boy still beats the dragon

here, proof for my claims, I forgot to link Goku vs Roshi the first time...

Yes, Goku is built like a gnome, but he's a TOUGH gnome. The feats you linked for Goku are both of him in a casual state, either trying to show off (In the first case he just wanted to flex on the martial artist man to get the money) or him holding back against some randos who were trying to rob him, who he felt absolute 0 fear towards. Or against the Dinosaur dude when he had just gotten his tail back and was flexing, again. Even scaling from the Dinosaur's size and mass Goku would be stronger than that feat. He logically scales above Krillin who kicked a dude through a wall and into another wall with a flying kick. Charge up time doesn't matter when he's much faster than the competition. Dragonite's fire and Thunder Punch also have startup, and his fire is also slow enough that regular humans can outrun it. Ice Beam is nice but unless you have scans for it's above average speed in comparison to Dragonite's own it's not gonna hit. If Dragonite tries to fly, Goku can fly too with the nimbus. Goku can also whack Dragonite with his Power Pole, which could send a bunch of rabbits to the moon in a small amount of time, and should be fast enough to blitz him if he aims it right. Oh yeah, and here's Goku resisting bullets- here.

Kirishima vs Danny Phantom

Kirishima something something hard something something

Yeah I forgot I equalized Kirishima's speed

Your point of Kirishima not being able to tank a Howitzer Impact is null, actually, as the flashback takes place after the Sports Festival, which is where a weaker version of Kirishima got overwhelmed. And what you linked of Danny destroying metal isn't very impressive seeing as it took him multiple seconds to break through. And while yes, Kirishima's hardening was damaged by Rappa's barrage of punches, right after that he gets a power boost and re-hardens his body, over, and over, and over again in order to withstand Rappa's punches and buy Fat Gum some time to charge. That means that he could withstand multiple times the power of an attack that previously harmed him, not that Danny barrages people anyways. Freezing also isn't a viable strategy when Kirishima can just bust out the ice. Also you can't really measure the potency of freezing attacks when they're used on ethereal creatures who don't actually have organs or bodies. And your strategy for Danny running away from Kirishima then bullrushing him again isn't viable as that only gives Kirishima more time to regenerate his Red Riot Unbreakable form, leading to either a win for Kirishima or a stalemate. Also, he can hit, he was able to damage Bakugo even in the sports festival who absorbed the recoil of this attack.

[u/NuzlockeMaster → u/Theultimateambition]

Out of Tier Request

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/u/TooAmasian putting in an OOT request because my opponent has argued his own pick to be above the guidelines of the tier (Venom). I will list the evidence below for why Deku is too strong for the tier.

Strength scaling to Bakugo: Bakugo's big explosion and his hurty arms, Deku hurts Bakugo's hurty arms more than his explosions do, making him scale to them

Oh yeah, and just for reference, this is the size of the stadium: making this explosion roughly building level (the little dot in front of the explosion is Bakugo)

Now that I've properly established that Deku is at least building - large building level with his 8%, and double that with 16%

plus his wide variety of abilities AND his Fa-Jin which allows him to amp his power without using more of One for All

It allowed him to go from 45% to 100%, that's a significant increase, all without injuring Deku at all.

Here my opponent is arguing Deku to be within the building to large building ranges, at least, in 8% and can double his strength even more with Fa-Jin without the drawback of breaking his own bones like he normally would from using higher percentages. Large Building level is way out of Venom’s range considering his maximum striking feat is launching a large opponent through 3 floors and into asphalt. Venom would also be practically one-shot by a single punch from Deku because he was left-winded from an attack that deforms a tank, a feat that is obviously below Large Building level.

Also to counter your "he gets skewered" argument Deku does have resistance to piercing as shown here against Shigaraki, he quite literally chews through the spikes that impaled Bakugo. Obviously not to the degree shown there but logically it would scale to his 8% durability and at least prevent him from turning into a shish kebab.

My opponent has also demonstrated that Deku has resistance to piercing attacks, meaning that Venom has no way to damage him with his bites either.

And for the video I linked, Deku definitely does move with the bullets.

And if that's not enough, he can double his power with Fa-Jin, a quirk that allows him to accumulate energy to artifically increase his power (and speed!) without straining his body.

If taken at face value, Deku is also more than fast enough to keep up with the tiersetter, so he has no drawbacks to account for his other superior stats over Tier Venom and is able to increase his speed, even more, using Fa-Jin.

Deku can output a city block's worth of smoke to conceal himself

Deku has danger sense, allowing him to sense Ryouga's intent before Ryouga even attacks and act accordingly

combined with Deku's float and blackwhip which allow him to fly and create tendrils of energy respectively, he has a variety of combat options he can put to full use to take that man down.

My opponent has also shown that his character is not just a bigger brick than Venom, but he also has a multitude of other abilities and powers that further my case that Deku is too much for the tier.

To further my case, even more, my opponent has also listed Deku as being a Nearly Guaranteed win against Venom in their own submission post despite the rules stating that the match-up should only be within the range of Unlikely Victory to Likely Victory.

With all of this together, I would say that I’ve given a sufficient case of how my opponent has OOT their own character.

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[u/NuzlockeMaster → u/NuzlockeMaster]

Response 2

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First off, thanks for using higher-quality scans.

Goku vs Dragonite

The feats you linked for Goku are both of him in a casual state, either trying to show off (In the first case he just wanted to flex on the martial artist man to get the money) or him holding back against some randos who were trying to rob him

Ah yes, very casual of Goku…So casual that he literally has to throw his entire body at a fairly thin brick wall in order to make an about 3 foot wide hole, this also ignores the fact that the striking feat I listed are Goku’s best objective feats at this point in time.

But so what? Goku throwing himself at a wall literally does worse than Venom at his weakest and Dragonite would also tank his best strikes. Along with the feats that I listed in my previous response, Dragonite can take a hit from a Pokemon that obliterates way more stone with a strike.

He logically scales above Krillin who kicked a dude through a wall and into another wall with a flying kick.

Cool, where’s the evidence @ tho?

Charge up time doesn't matter when he's much faster than the competition. Dragonite's fire and Thunder Punch also have startup

Goku is about 3 feet tall and Dragonite is 7'03", like I said before, he is going to have to make way more movements and do a lot more work in order to get a meaningful hit on an opponent that has over 4 feet on the guy. By the time Goku get’s all his movements done, Thunder Punch or Flamethrower will be ready to launch and punish the midget, especially since Dragonite has been equallized to being able to throw a punch in 25 milliseconds which easily allows him to be able to hit while he’s still mid-jump or in a cross-counter counter.

his fire is also slow enough that regular humans can outrun it. Ice Beam is nice but unless you have scans for it's above average speed in comparison to Dragonite's own it's not gonna hit.

So? It’s totally in character for Kid Goku to take attacks like these head-on or engage against them in a beam struggle.

The question is now, can Dragonite overpower and withstand the Kamehameha? The answer is hell fucking yes!

At this point in time (reminder that the Red Ribbon Army saga ends at Chapter 69) Goku’s best feat is destroying the head of a robot that can tank his strikes and I already explained how Goku’s strikes aren’t that great for the tier.

Dragonite however, can easily blast a hole through a metal wall with Flamethrower. Not only is the hole in a harder material (metal instead of brick), but it is both thicker and wider than any of Goku’s best striking feats. His Ice Beam also has some power to it and doesn’t just have freezing, a reflected blast is able to blast a hole through a thick roof of a decently-sized building. Dragonite is able to take blasts that are both stronger than these moves and capable of redirecting them.

So yes, if they were to engage in a beam struggle (a very likely thing to occur) Dragonite would easily be able to overpower the Kamehameha and either scorch or Freeze Goku is Flamethrower or Ice Beam.

Goku can also whack Dragonite with his Power Pole, which could send a bunch of rabbits to the moon in a small amount of time, and should be fast enough to blitz him if he aims it right

Nice speed feat for the Power Pool, but this tells nothing of its striking power so Goku blitzing Dragonite with it isn’t gonna change much considering I have demonstrated that he can tank all his hits.

In conclusion, Goku is still built like a gnome and still has trouble with dealing any meaningful damage to Dragonite, while Dragonite still has many ways to deal with Goku’s lack of resistance to thermal attacks.

Kirishima vs Danny

I’m actually gonna start off with the last point made.

Also, he can hit, he was able to damage Bakugo even in the sports festival who absorbed the recoil of this attack.

Kirishima leaves a small scratch/cut on Bakugou’s face with a punch, Bakugou’s explosions/blasts come from his hands…These literally don’t scale at all to each other. Not only are these two different damage types, piercing vs explosive/internal damage, but they are also on two different parts of Bakugou’s body. The explosions come from Bakugou’s hands, so most of the recoil would be absorbed by arms not his face dude and would be more effecting the inside of his body not really his skin. So again, Kirishima still can’t hit hard enough to damage Danny.

And what you linked of Danny destroying metal isn't very impressive seeing as it took him multiple seconds to break through.

This one is a minor point, this feat isn’t for Danny’s striking but his durability and this metal is titanium btw, so it is indeed a very impressive feat.

Your point of Kirishima not being able to tank a Howitzer Impact is null, actually, as the flashback takes place after the Sports Festival, which is where a weaker version of Kirishima got overwhelmed.

Okay and? Kirishima still doesn’t have any actual feats to support that he is able to withstand anything more than the small blasts from the feat that I linked in the previous response, and my opponent has not provided any evidence sufficient enough to suggest otherwise. So Kirishima still has no defense against Danny’s blasts. Also, Danny does barrage things.

Freezing also isn't a viable strategy when Kirishima can just bust out the ice. Also you can't really measure the potency of freezing attacks when they're used on ethereal creatures who don't actually have organs or bodies.

Being strong enough to shatter ice is very different from being able to bust out of ice and you have yet to provide evidence that Kirishima is able to resist being frozen solid. Also, Danny is able to freeze physical/non-ethereal objects like water, so his freezing powers definitely work like normal ice/cold.

And your strategy for Danny running away from Kirishima then bullrushing him again isn't viable as that only gives Kirishima more time to regenerate his Red Riot Unbreakable form, leading to either a win for Kirishima or a stalemate.

No, the strategy wasn’t just Danny running away from Kirishima after he knocked him away. It was the Danny would hit Kirishima with one of his normal strikes or a bullrush (all of which I have demonstrated can damage Kirishima in my previous response) and it would send him flying away from Danny, allowing him to just keep blasting Kirishima while he’s trying to regenerate his broken hardening or just freezing the sucker solid.

In conclusion, my opponent still hasn’t proven that their character has any defenses against Danny’s main forms of attacks (blasts and ice) nor have they proven that he is even able to hit hard enough to damage Danny, so Danny still mogs.

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/u/Theultimateambition Here you go mate

[u/Theultimateambition → u/NuzlockeMaster]

Goku vs Dragonite

Goku still soloes

Yeah Goku threw his whole body at the wall, because he was flexing, it's never implied he needed to do that, in fact, it's the opposite. Especially with his earlier feats of casually crushing a boulder, and later pushing this giant boulder a fair distance, if his striking strength scales to even a quarter of what his lifting strength is, he could casually destroy a stone wall. Oh yeah, and here's proof he scales above Krillin (Here's the link to the kick), I already sent you the scans of Goku fighting Roshi in the 21st, here's the scans of Roshi 1-shotting Krillin, while Goku could at least take hits from him. And here's striking power for the pole, Goku stuns and damages a giant pterodactyl with a hit from the thing. For your points with Dragonite's flamethrower, it looks to me like the wall is only partly metal, a thin layer on the outside, and stone for the rest of it, supported by the smoke that comes from it as if from pulverization of stone/concrete. Now, Goku couldn't damage that robot, but his kamehameha could. That just means it upscales a bit further than his raw strikes.

Kirishima vs Casper the Ghost

Kirishima still too hard

Yes, he scales to Bakugo. Bakugo was dodging all of his hardened strikes, and Bakugo's full body does scale to his own explosions, just less-so. Unless you believe the explosions the size of small buildings that come directly out of his hands have shockwave recoil limited to like.. 4 feet. And you're saying Kirishima can't tank a Howitzer Impact, when the show clearly implies he can. Bakugo says he wants to use Howitzer Impact on Kirishima, Kirishima agrees he can take it, even Sato isn't worried about Kirishima getting hurt, he's worried about him flying out the building. That's 3 separate people in verse who believe Kirishima can tank the attack. Ice doesn't really matter either since Kirishima is resistant to extreme temperatures. And a barrage doesn't matter when Kirishima can regenerate his hardening at extreme speeds, enough to block all of Rappa's attacks that are faster than bullets.

[u/NuzlockeMaster → u/Theultimateambition]

Response 3/Final Response

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At this point, my opponent hasn't added much and seems to just be grasping for straws now. For the sake of the debate, I'll just counter what little he has added in this last response of his.

Goku vs Dragonite

Especially with his earlier feats of casually crushing a boulder

So casual that his face was turning red and the dude looked like he was about to shit his own pants.

Yeah Goku threw his whole body at the wall, because he was flexing, it's never implied he needed to do that, in fact, it's the opposite.

Then where are his striking feats to show he can do those things without throwing his whole body at the wall? Even then, as I said in the previous response, these are all pretty weak striking feats for the tier anyway.

Oh yeah, and here's proof he scales above Krillin (Here's the link to the kick), I already sent you the scans of Goku fighting Roshi in the 21st, here's the scans of Roshi 1-shotting Krillin, while Goku could at least take hits from him.

The only link that works here is Krillin kicking someone through a wall, so nothing has been proven yet again. But even if I did grant this, it isn't as impressive as you might think. First off, like in all the Goku feats, it involves Krillin throwing his entire into a kick to send his opponent flying away. Also, in this same clip, Goku tells Krillin to use all of his strength. Lastly, the hole doesn't even seem to be that much bigger than in Goku's other feats nor does the wall appear to be that thick. So again, Goku struggles with striking hard enough to damage Dragonite.

And here's striking power for the pole, Goku stuns and damages a giant pterodactyl with a hit from the thing. For your points with Dragonite's flamethrower, it looks to me like the wall is only partly metal, a thin layer on the outside, and stone for the rest of it, supported by the smoke that comes from it as if from pulverization of stone/concrete.

Cool, he stuns a dinosaur. You haven't shown why this scaling is impressive, next point. Regardless of if it is only partly metal is irrelevant because the hole is still bigger and thicker than any hole Goku has made.

Now, Goku couldn't damage that robot, but his kamehameha could. That just means it upscales a bit further than his raw strikes.

This is just what I said in my argument, so nothing new has been added.

Conclusion: None of my actual arguments have been rebutted so they all still stand, see the previous response.

Kirishima vs Danny

Yes, he scales to Bakugo. Bakugo was dodging all of his hardened strikes, and Bakugo's full body does scale to his own explosions, just less-so. Unless you believe the explosions the size of small buildings that come directly out of his hands have shockwave recoil limited to like.. 4 feet.

I don't see how a character dodging your strikes makes you scale to them? Bakugou's fully body scaling to the explosions is still irrelevent. You're trying to compare a surface level strike against the skin to the shock from the recoil of the blast, which would be internal. And again, it was a small cut against Bakugou's cheeks from his hardening, skin is less resistant to cutting so these two things aren't even comparable.

And you're saying Kirishima can't tank a Howitzer Impact, when the show clearly implies he can. Bakugo says he wants to use Howitzer Impact on Kirishima, Kirishima agrees he can take it, even Sato isn't worried about Kirishima getting hurt, he's worried about him flying out the building. That's 3 separate people in verse who believe Kirishima can tank the attack.

Just because they believe it doesn't mean that it's true, especially since you've failed to provide other supporting evidence. Sorry man, still no dice on this one.

Ice doesn't really matter either since Kirishima is resistant to extreme temperatures.

Another scan that is cropped poorly for whatever reason, what even is happening here? What kind of temperature is he experiencing here? Because it's certainly not freezing cold, so I still don't see why Danny doesn't just freeze the lad.

And a barrage doesn't matter when Kirishima can regenerate his hardening at extreme speeds, enough to block all of Rappa's attacks that are faster than bullets.

Regenerating against physical blows and nothing in this scan says he's punching faster than a bullet, so I will just ignore that assertion you made. And since you still haven't disproven the point I made about Kirishima not having any good defenses against a barrage of blasts, this is still a viable way for Danny to win.

Conclusion: As I said at the beginning of the response, my opponent hasn't added anything new to the debate and hasn't actually countered any of my major arguments, so Danny still wins based on the points from my previous two Responses.

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/u/Theultimateambition Round 1 ends tomorrow and since we have both done our 3 responses, this is the end of our debate (as said in the debate rules). I had fun, I hope you did too.

May the one who made the stronger arguments win.

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[u/Theultimateambition → u/NuzlockeMaster]

I feel I've lost, but gg either way