r/whowouldwin • u/FreestyleKneepad ​ • Aug 18 '22

Event Character Scramble 16 Tribunal

Tribunal is now over!

Click here to pick your Veto or Opt-Out of NSFW subs

Thanks to everyone involved for your hard work. :)

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Refer to the following links for easy access to all the resources you need to debate cases:

Season 16 Tiersetter RT’s for Predator and Galahad

Current list of unclaimed backups

Signup FAQ

Link to the Pre-Scrambled Roster for this season

Featured Submissions

In an attempt to help aid the review process, we will be highlighting a section of the submissions each day to focus the lens on a group of submissions. Understand that these submissions aren’t being picked due to any reasoning or bias beyond their position on the list alphabetically, our goal is to help you focus on specific parts of the submission list each day in the hopes that characters that would normally pass under the radar are given proper scrutiny.

Here are the featured submissions for today.

The link will be changed each day until we’ve covered the entire submission roster or until Tribunal has ended.

Here’s how this works.

For the next One and a Half Weeks, all characters are under review. If you think a character is not in tier, whether they be too weak, too strong, too nebulous, or somewhere in between, here is where you can air your grievances. We'll be going through all of the submissions during this time, all I ask is that you follow along and call what you see.

Tribunal will end in about 2 weeks, on Monday, August 29th, or when all cases are closed if that happens first.

To clarify, this deadline is subject to change if we decide that there are unresolved issues that warrant some more time. Don’t worry, we’re not going to spend the entire time arguing about Pyramid Head. If we get done early and there’s only a couple cases left a few days before Saturday, odds are good we’ll wrap those cases up and end Tribunal early. Every remaining case will be notified if that’s happening.

If you have a problem with a character:

  • Create a comment with the name of the character in question, a link to that character sheet, and the username (with /u/ to notify them - /u/GuyOfEvil for instance) of the submitter. Then list what questions/problems you have with the character.

  • Please be respectful when calling out characters, and remember that you are probably pointing out problems with someone's favorite character/series.

  • Keep in mind that Tribunal is for judging whether a character is too strong/weak for the tier. Whether or not you personally like the character or think they’re good/well-written has no bearing on whether or not they’re in tier.

  • Please give a detailed complaint about each character a separate reply to make sure that conversations are organized. Quick thoughts on multiple characters in one post are fine as well as long as you keep each case clearly separated.

  • Starting with the initial complaint post, each person involved gets five full posts to argue their point back and forth. If a decision is not reached by that point, judges must be called in to make a decision. If that happens, the person issuing the complaint and the person whose submission is being complained about both get one closing post to argue their case to the judges before they rule on the issue. We will allow a little lenience on this when a case involves several people arguing amongst each other as that’s difficult to manage with a limited number of posts, but if it starts to get really long-winded a GM will generally step in and force a vote.

If your character is called out:

  • First, realize this is not a personal attack. We're just trying to ensure that this tournament runs smoothly for everyone.

  • Please address the concerns brought forth, either by standing firm and arguing for your character’s inclusion, or by buffing/nerfing the character. Please keep the amount of buffs and nerfs to a minimum. This isn’t a good place to redesign the character from the ground up, and you don’t get any extra Major changes at this point. If the judges determine that it would take more than one Major change to balance the character, your character can also be ruled out of tier that way.

  • If it’s agreed that a character cannot work in its current state and can’t be easily edited, replacements from the backup submissions will be issued. If one of your characters is being removed you are free to request a specific backup to replace your submission, otherwise a GM will choose for you.

Swapping Backups

If a character is ruled out of tier, you will have the opportunity to swap them with a character from the backup list. Here are some quick clarifications about that.

  • Once you ping a GM (please ping /u/GuyOfEvil first, but myself or /u/OddDirective can also pass it on to him) with your backup swap of choice, they are now locked in. You are unable to pick a backup, then change your mind and pick a different one later.

  • If you pick a NSFW backup to replace one of your characters, you will be unable to opt out of receiving NSFW submissions. Keep this in mind when you’re choosing a backup.

  • If your character is ruled out of tier, and by the end of tribunal you have not picked a backup to replace them, GM’s will default to filling in the slots with your backup submissions. In the case that you have no backups and are seemingly unavailable to pick backups, the GM will swap in characters of their own preference. Since you will be guaranteed one of these submissions in your pool, it’s best to remain active in tribunal, or you may get a character you’re not satisfied with.

If you see a problem with the roster:

  • Make a post and let us know. Odds are, you will have to resubmit the form with the correct info so if you want to just go ahead and do that and let Letter know to look for the new entry, that would save time.

  • If your problem is that you don't show up in the list, it’s because you never filled out/submitted the form... just go ahead and do that NOW, assuming that you started your sign up process before this post was created. Here’s the form. If you need to make a change because you swapped things out, just make sure you’re signed into the same account you initially used and you’ll be able to update your form. Please let Letter know either on Reddit or on Discord if you do this. DO NOT CHANGE YOUR FORM IF YOU HAVE TO TAKE A BACKUP REPLACEMENT FOR ANOTHER CHARACTER. We’ll handle those swaps personally when Tribunal ends.

Judges

In order to streamline the decision making process, we have selected a small panel of judges that will, along with the GMs help make decisions on characters where a resolution cannot be reached.

Please give it up for...

/u/TheMightyBox72, /u/Corvette1710, /u/Ultim8_Lifeform /u/Wapulatus

There were a lot of great applications this time around, so if you weren’t picked don’t feel too bummed out. It was pretty close between everyone.

Here's how the judge system works:

  • If a submission is called out and all parties involved cannot agree as to whether the submission is in tier, ping any three of the judges.

  • Once judges are being called in, the argument is effectively over. Both sides of the argument will be allowed to post a Closing Argument which sums up their stance, their argument thus far, and any other major notes they might not have been able to touch on just yet or counter-arguments that hadn’t been answered yet. Be complete on this, as this is your last chance to get your word in before the judges decide on the case and effectively close it.

  • Three of the judges or GMs involved will then each make a statement on whether they think the character is or is not in tier and why. If they're able to come to a complete consensus, then that decision is made final. If a complete consensus is not made among the judges, then the resolution defaults to the majority decision. However, in this case, the decision can be appealed.

  • To appeal a decision, respond to the post in which the statements are made explaining why you think the arguments made were wrong or inaccurate. After an appeal is made, the remaining two judges will step in and also vote. This vote out of 5 is effectively final. If the previous vote was 2-1 and the new vote is 2-3, them’s the breaks. This is also why an initial unanimous vote among 3 is final, as changing a 3-0 vote to a 3-2 vote doesn’t accomplish anything.

  • If a final decision is made, then that decision is completely final. You cannot argue it further. If that means a character is in, they won't be brought back up again. If that means a character gets removed, your options are to choose the backup you want to replace them or let a GM choose instead. /u/GuyofEvil is in charge of the backup list, so ping him or have a judge ping him to get any backup swaps sorted out.

  • To be clear, GMs can do whatever they want and don’t answer to you. If we want to take the place of a judge in a vote, we will. If we want to singularly decide on something, we will (note that this will be very rare and most likely only happen near the end of Tribunal to wrap things up or in cases where something is clearly un-submittable, such as a character from a literal porn series). If we say something needs to be removed for whatever reason, what we say goes. The judges will handle the majority of the Tribunal process, we’re just here to smite shit from the heavens. That takes work, though, so expect the judges to do more judging than us.

  • If a GM takes the place of a judge in a vote, they’re effectively identical to a judge for that vote. That in mind, if the vote goes 2 to 1 and gets appealed, the remaining judges can still step in on the final 2-person vote.

Veto & NSFW Opt-Out

We will be implementing an opt-out similarly to last season, wherein after Tribunal a link will be posted here letting you designate whether or not you wish to receive a character that is considered NSFW for sexual content. We may also include extreme gore as NSFW.

Additionally, in the same form you will be asked to veto any one character. If you want to, you may designate a character, and you will be guaranteed to not receive them.

A few notes on this process:

  • A link to this form will be posted on this thread in the top section after Tribunal has ended. The link will also be posted on the Scramble Discord channel. 2 days (48 hours) after the link has been posted, the form will be locked and the GMs will prepare to scramble rosters.

  • We will not be indicating in any way what characters are and aren’t NSFW. This isn’t an opportunity for you to choose to veto a specific list of characters. This is an opportunity for you to decide whether or not you want a character with NSFW content. NSFW generally only applies to sexual content- we don’t typically include violence and gore in this opt-out.

  • To that end, anyone who is underaged is automatically opted out of receiving NSFW submissions. While we are aware of certain individuals this applies to, if it is found that you are hiding your age in an attempt to receive a NSFW character on your team despite being under 18, you will be immediately disqualified.

  • While we did ask in the signup form whether your submissions were NSFW or not, final judgment falls to us as GMs. We may choose to include characters in the list that weren’t marked, and vice versa.

  • Your veto can be for any character you absolutely don’t want, whether or not they’re included in the opt-out or not. If the character is included in the opt-out, you apply for the opt-out, and you also veto the character, you do NOT get to pick a second character to veto.

  • You cannot veto your own submissions or backups you pick to replace a Tribunaled submission. If you do, the veto will be ignored.

Discord Rules on Tribunal Discussion

In order to ensure that every scrambler is equally able to contribute to the Tribunal, discussion of specific Tribunal cases will NOT BE ALLOWED on the Discord channel. We believe it is unfair for people to “come to a decision” on a character entirely out of your field of view if you are not on the server, so the topic is banned entirely. Linking to a discussion with the intent to have a Discord user comment on that chain on Reddit is perfectly fine, but actual discussion of the cases will result in the users being warned the first time, and kicked the second time. We have a zero-tolerance policy on this situation.

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5

u/LetterSequence ​ Aug 21 '22

/u/DudeBro231

Marcus

He looks too weak all around. He needs multiple hits to knock out a normal man, doesn't have any impressive accuracy feats with his gun to make up for it, doesn't really have anything that shows he can avoid getting shot or take a bullet or two.

He's got some hacking skills, but Nuketown is a replica town with dated technology, so I don't think he can actually hack and move the cars since they're all manual.

He's essentially just a video game guy with a lot of guns, so it seems to me that Galahad would just beat him in a quickdraw and use his better agility to take out Marcus before he can do much of anything.

2

u/rangernumberx Aug 22 '22

Alright, first of all, a minor change is needed (under the 'Change the environment so powers can actually be used' clause) to have the surrounding area completely outfitted with ctOS. This, effectively, gives him full range of his abilities despite Nuketown being a replica town.

For the actual fight, Marcus is not a close quarters combatant. His bolas strikes and durability feats show he's not going down instantly if forced into it, but he's going to focus much more on putting distance between him and Galahad to fully leverage his options. Before going onto the following, him knocking away a gun pointed at him with malicious intent and charging up to a guard before either weapon could fire shows it should be possible for him to act without just instantly being shot.

Yes, if Galahad closes the distance, that's pretty much game over for Marcus. But given his skillset, weapons of choice, and personality favour escaping and instantly incapping from a distance as opposed to fighting a trained figure on their terms, I believe he pulls out at least an unlikely victory with all the above methods of winning. If all the above is not enough for you to be fully convinced, we can also use the major change to give him a bulletproof vest. This would give him much more breathing room to create the distance between them and either end the fight instantly or hole himself down somewhere else to finish it on his own time using his equipment.

3

u/LetterSequence ​ Aug 23 '22

With a major change we can clear out his durability issue. I still kind of have an issue with speed and hacking, and maybe strength.

  • This feat

    • He is knocking the gun out of his hand before the guy fires, so I'm not sure if it's fast enough for an aimdodging tier. He kind of avoided the whole component of aimdodging, which is, the bullet. He also has a large wind up motion to swing his bola before the gun is knocked out of his hand, I feel like Galahad could just shoot him, or take a step back, before the disarm attempt occurred.
    • I mostly buy your electricity strength gun argument, but in this gif, the guy is shot in the ass and seems annoyed at best. This kind of makes it seem like either he will need a lot more shots to put down Galahad, or he'll need to land a headshot on a target that is much, much faster than him, which ties into a lack of any strong speed or accuracy feats.

  • This feat

    • He's also knocking out the gun before the guy can fire it

  • Hacking

    • This one is a minor quibble, I know the rules say "assume what you need is in the arena" but it feels weird to extrapolate that to "Assume my character can hack all the manually driven vehicles, and also there are boxes around for him to explode." I guess if judges or a GM say the minor change is fine, this point is moot.

Essentially, I think the character can potentially knock out Galahad with his gun if he lands a headshot, or mines if he somehow tricks Galahad into walking onto it, but he lacks the speed and/or accuracy to do so. He has a grab bag of a bunch of tricks to maybe throw Galahad off of his game, but it seems more like "throw a bunch of stuff at the wall until it sticks" kind of method, rather than anything efficient.

2

u/rangernumberx Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22

First feat

It should be said that this guy's an experienced hitman fully willing to kill Marcus, so he's very likely to have been willing to pull the trigger at the first sign of trouble. I'm not saying Marcus is as fast as Galahad, just that he's not going to be Predator's level of just a regular guy. Also, we're taking the assumption that Marcus is going to be trying to throw hands with Galahad, when I explicitly said that's his lose condition.

For the second point, it does get brought up later that the shot is blocked by something, either his wallet or phone from memory, and this wouldn't be taking the armour-piercing upgrade into account.

Second feat

He's also running up to the guy, covering a good distance and knocking the weapon aside before it can be fired. Again, not saying he's Galahad level, but he's definitely more mobile than slower people in the tier.

Hacking

It's not really a weird extrapolation. The exact wording of it is:

"If alterations to the map are necessary for your character to function, they can be appended as a minor change (i.e it is night so my vampire character doesn't die instantly, there is a suitable amount of water on the map so my waterbender can fight) however please try and keep these to things that are absolutely necessary for your character to fight/function."

I would argue that it is absolutely necessary for Marcus to have full access to his hacks to function, and even in-game ctOS prides itself on having complete coverage over everything: A dead space about the size of a small building was notable enough to be picked up on by DedSec at the start of a side quest. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to assume the vehicles around him can be tapped into, any electrical focus points can be overloaded, etc. It's much of the same vein of saying Skitter couldn't be submitted because we don't know for sure what if any bugs there are on the map, we're allowed to specify and allow that as a minor change.

Offense

Again, I'm not saying his only real method of attack is headshotting with the stun gun or forcing him directly over a trap. Here's everything he has:

As a note, all his hacks happen basically instantly, with a parked truck reversing as fast as it can the moment he wants it to, so time needed to hack or for the vehicles around him to move isn't going to be too much of an issue.

As I firmly believe letting him use his main gimmick would be a minor change, I do think Marcus has more than enough ways to obstruct and incapacitate Galahad before he gets in close to overwhelm him physically, especially with the bulletproof vest.

3

u/LetterSequence ​ Aug 24 '22

I don't really feel like getting into a huge winded argument and Ranger said I could call judges so I'm just gonna sum up my thoughts and ping them.

  • I think it's maybe a step too far to just assume all the exact things Marcus needs to hack to be in tier are scattered around Nuketown, but the judges will probably say it's fine so I'm not gonna really dwell on this.

  • I don't think this character is fast enough to avoid being shot by Galahad, or to really get in.

  • His electricity gun can probably knock out Galahad but Galahad has a lot more options to avoid this than Marcus has in landing this. If Galahad pulls out him Umbrella at any point he basically loses this as a win condition. This similarly goes with all of his other weapons like mines.

  • Marcus has to immediately run away and try to kite Galahad into running into all of his bag of tricks to defeat him when Galahad just has to shoot him, I feel like this is too difficult of a win condition to land him into an Unlikely Victory

/u/GuyOfEvil /u/TheMightyBox72 /u/Ultim8_Lifeform

3

u/corvette1710 ​ Aug 27 '22

Marcus, Who Turned Out The Lights?

I'll keep this short because I'm pretty tired.

From what I can tell, since the GM ruling on Marcus's minor change bars a ton of his versatility, but it's on the grounds of his purported ability to fight without those resources, Marcus lacks stats and skills for the tier.

With regards to his stats, when I look at this exchange, I do not see "Marcus disarms a man who would otherwise shoot him as soon as he drew a bead", I see "Marcus disarms a man who is for some reason or another not shooting him despite having the gun trained on Marcus". Galahad isn't trying to find anything out about or from Marcus, and as such would not hesitate as this man does when he trains a gun on him, even if all else about the two were equal.

In this exchange the man disarmed is similarly unimpressive and similarly not shooting Marcus when Marcus advances at close range.

Marcus's gear looks like it's generally in tier in that it would affect or help to dispatch Galahad in some sequence of events, but that isn't the only marker of the tier; Galahad is better at all aspects of physicality than is Marcus, as far as I can tell. He can avoid being shot much better than Marcus, and Marcus can neither avoid nor tank gunshots from Galahad, whereas Galahad seems able to, at least to some degree, do both with respect to Marcus and his weapons.

Verdict: Not In-Tier

2

u/GuyOfEvil ​ Aug 27 '22

/u/dudebro231 Marcus has been ruled out 0-3, please choose a backup Player to replace him with

1

u/DudeBro231 Aug 27 '22

woe, i'll take the 12th doctor

2

u/rangernumberx Aug 24 '22

I've not got too much to add myself, so just going to summarize my thoughts in counterpoints.

  • Saying we can't give Marcus all the things he can hack is like saying a waterbender could only access water through Nuketown's houses' taps or something like that, and I feel it falls under the minor change.
  • While nothing impressive the speed is something there above the Predator tiers, and especially with the bulletproof vest Marcus isn't going to be trying to close the distance between the two in a manner that requires constant aim dodging but trying to put as much distance between himself and Galahad, using all the tricks at his disposal, to either end the fight in the first few seconds or letting him hide out of sight while still being able to attack his foe.
  • I don't know how the umbrella would deal against the armour piercing stun rounds (given higher calibre shots shoot straight through it), but his sniper rifle and possibly shotgun could break through the umbrella. In either case, I don't feel it matters too much, as his other shock items can easily be triggered from behind the umbrella (especially if Galahad isn't aware that he's about to blow up a junction box he's nearby or whatever)
  • This running away is accommodated for in his gear and hacking abilities, and further allowed with the bulletproof vest. Galahad getting in close and forcing melee is the lose condition, there's more than enough otherwise to give at least an unlikely victory.

5

u/GuyOfEvil ​ Aug 25 '22

(this is a GM decision, not a judge decision, this does not count as a judgment, and, more importantly, will not feature a haiku)

Under the explanation of the environment minor change, we stated

please try and keep these to things that are absolutely necessary for your character to fight/function. This isn't carte blanche to warp the field so your character has a huge advantage.

It is the feeling of the GM team that the proposed minor change for Marcus crosses that line. the things being proposed for Marcus are far too specific to really be in the spirit of the rule. A waterbender would be stipped to have a tank of water or whatever nearby, Marcus requires the map to be fitted with several cars, various electrical objects, cameras, and whatever else Marcus is capable of hacking, which goes far beyond a minor change rule designed mostly to ensure characters will not end up incapable of fighting.

As an example, the proposal is less like saying "a waterbender has access to a suitable amount of water to do their feats" and more like saying "there are several large puddles all over the map, which can be used by the waterbender to hinder Galahad's movement or incap him." One is allowing a character to actually preform their feats, and the other one is inventing entirely new win conditions they would not have access to otherwise.

Especially when Marcus is a still a functional combatant without anything to hack, we do not feel this is allowable as a minor change.

2

u/TheMightyBox72 ​ Aug 25 '22

Marcus is lacking, certainly, in physicals, I will agree on that. However, the bullet-proof vest buff helps shore up his central weaknesses, I believe fully that with the gear as described he could knock out Galahad, and while he's not as fast as Galahad, he is faster than Predator, and I think that makes it in tier if low end speed. Certainly he probably gets shot in the head a lot, but I don't think it's every time, with the vest and him running away rather than towards Galahad and distracting elements like the cars and such.

So is he in tier? Well, it depends. I'm a little iffy on the use of a minor change to fill the arena with stuff that Marcus specifically can use and would like to defer to the GMs on whether that's legal in the spirit and the letter of the rule as described. If the change is alright, I think he's very easily in tier. If it's not, then that severely limits Marcus' ability to interact with the tiersetter fight and would put him just under.

2

u/Ultim8_Lifeform ​ Aug 25 '22

I have a feeling most of the judges will be in agreement with the effectiveness of certain aspects of Markus' skillset. Strength, lacking. Speed, not nothing but lacking. Durability, lacking. I'll start off with saying that a major change giving Markus the bullet proof vest would definitely be a good idea. I can also buy the idea Markus' armor piercing rounds could get through Galahad's suit, and that and the mines would be an effective means of fighting off Galahad.

However, there still lies one problem. Markus would struggle to get either of those options off in an actual fight. He's not nearly fast enough to avoid getting shot in the head off the rip nor is he fast enough to attack Galahad first. He would need something to level out the playing field a bit, which brings us to his hacking. If he could say, cause the buses to go haywire and then retreat, laying out traps for Galahad to walk into, I could buy the idea of him squeezing out an unlikely victory. Unfortunately, after discussing the idea in judge chat, we've come to the conclusion that altering the environment to such a specific degree is not an acceptable change.

With this in mind, Markus Holloway is

Out of Tier