Rather than doing the other match one writeup at a time, I'm going to discuss them both together but split it up by weightclass (regs, meds, ubers)
The Mediums -- Lightray vs. Engineer:
- In Gog's, the team first fries everything (including Engineer) with an EMP, then Lightray beats her up and then Boom tubes her away. He protects himself from her radion attack by using heat.
Actually, what he's doing is using heat to destroy any invading nanites that may be infiltrating his body in order to produce it from the inside. My defenses vs. Radion are otherwise the same they've been throughout the tournament; energy-conversion and a containment suit. I guess Ari's right in that I didn't mention those in my prep, but the strange thing is that he neglects these measures in his write-up, even though I'd used both options when we fought the first time.
Personally, I thought Ari was a little quick to assume Engineer could shut down all opposing tech. Batman 1-million's tech from over 800 centuries in the future, so it may well be more advanced than anything Engineer has controlled before.
The way Aristotle's been using the Engineer's certainly raised red flags, but I have very little knowledge of the character. I will say though, I would have expected her to have at-least had difficulty with the aliens during
Coup d'Etat or there never would have been a threat, and that, at-least going by the event book, nano-technological warfare was pretty damn common during the 853rd century. It's there explicitly with the Solaris Virus, which effeceted every electronic and biological system on the planet - including all JLA 1,000,000 members - with only J'onn J'onnz able to hold it off using his shape-shifting DNA, and Vandal Savage's battle with Resurrection Man, used miscellaneously for other purposes, and maybe Solaris controls Aresnal 1M. I thought Batman's own custom was probably made from the stuff, given the way it receded along his body when he showed Zauriel his face. Then again, both Red King and Moonstone used to put their cloths on the same way. Either way, he must have shielded his own equipment somewhat, since he sweeped electronics himself, and he was a technopath in his own right, from a future some eight-hundred centuries past even Abra-Kadabra or the Legion's times.
Still, even if she is capapable of controlling the EMP device, who's to say she'd get the chance? I mean, even if she can take control the EMP in the first nanosecond of the fight, who's to say Gog's team couldn't build an EMP that would automatically detonate in the first half a nanosecond, or whatever. Especially since they could use computer chips that are hundreds of centuries more advanced than Engineer's computer brain. Surely there's been some increase in processing speed over that time.
I did mention quantum computers specifically during debate.
I don't know whether Profitt'd have a defense for EMPs he could readily share, but Authorititans seem clearly to be banking on sweeping all my tech away during the first moment of the fight. Electronic defenses are the last thing on their minds.
Even assuming an EMP utterly fails to affect Ari's team individually, it or my team can still do a lot to minimize communication between The Engineer and her more remote nanites.
And even if she somehow prevails completely, we're still using much cruder weapons her team could not have anticipated. Come to that, Ari says he always gives rival teams a strategy, but I'm still struggling to see what mine may have been.
- Gog has Res Man stuck to the ground with Adhesive-X. He presents various options, but argues that none of them would work. Most notably, he has Batman hack into Zemo's boom tube suit and teleport him into a room filled with a toxin similar to the one Res Man uses to kill himself. Since Res Man is known to be vulnerable to such a toxin, it can keep killing him over and over.
I was actually thinking of a somewhat weaker toxin, just to keep him from developing new powers. Although he may still drown. That would actually be preferable, because the new power he'd be getting may be geared towards avoiding drowning.
Comments: First, regarding Gog's contention that Res Man would be toast if his ressurector device is taken out by the EMP... I'm not so sure. It seemed to me that the device he wore was just a convenient way of killing himself, whereas the resurrecting was an innate power, and the choosing what power to get when resurrecting was just something he'd learned to do over the course of the millenium. With that interpretation, destroying the device he wears on his arm would just mean he couldn't kill himself as easily. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, though.
Well firstly, my scenario already had him stuck (figuratively and literally) with a now useless power. But even if what you say is true, not being able to switch powers would be a major set-back.
I don't doubt he can call back on his 20th-century powers anymore. It might have been a little different, but Quantum Speed was the power he used to pacify Superman in the future, and the first ability he manifested in
RM #19. Quantum Telekinesis would still be a power my team's familar with from the last first round, and presumabely one Batman has some knowledge of from his time working with Mitch.
Ari argues that Zemo and Red King would fight together, so Zemo can also use his quantum TK to stop Adhesive-X from being used against Red King. But to me, the more important question is whether Red King could be teleported. I've not read anything with Red King, so I'm just going by what the participants have said. Ari argues Red King has anti-teleportation counter measures, but Gog seems to view these as mostly ways to shut down the JLA teleporters. But Red King also seems to have magic resistance, so that might let him stop Ares from teleporting him.
I don't think there can be doubt that's what the scene involved suggested. Red King might have some other protections availabe, but if so, it can't possibly be all-inclusive, since he's teleported himself.
As for magical defenses, disregarding the likelyhood of it for the moment, he has never faced anyone with nearly as much raw magical power. Not even Fate. And I've counted at-least four different effects Ares used for teleporting, disincluding portals and reflections. Zemo wouldn't even target him directly unless he's bisecting him, only the area immediately surrounding him.
Anyway, when Profitt said he asked for protocols for a Themysciran invasion, what he clearly wanted and received were firstly countermeasures against Wonder Woman. A lot of his steps were extremely specific, and usually geared against Justice League members, who were something of an obssession. So he had a shield around him that made Diana's lasso give her visions of the different ways he'd seen the League die when she wanted the truth. Just like he had a Bizzaro virus and a chemical to use against the Flash. That's Good for him, but it hardly helps him any here.
I'm willing to grant that Red King has superspeed based on him going toe-to-toe with Superman et al., but I suppose the same reasoning would suggest Ares has some superspeed based on his being able to fight Wonder Woman.
I don't think that logic really works, or John Stewart, who'd also fought the Red King, would have needed super-speed himself to keep-up. I'm also pretty sure he's
meant to be is something well beyond the limits we've established - someone with just about every power you can think of, as is actually stated clearly in his first appearance, a
Secret Files issue. In practice, what we've seen him do was a lot more manageable, and I'm holding him to that, or at-least those things we know concretely he'd been looking into.
One last thing about the Red King. Ari states he was a decent team-player, and I never really questioned that. However, he was also very keen on preserving his own life. He was coming apart when he thought he couldn't leave the moon in time to survive, and there's precious little he holds sacred enough to fight for. This is a man who systematically eliminated six-and-a-half
billion possible realities, after-all, and, near the end, stopped caring even for the fate of his own alternates.
If things ever took a truly dire turn, there's little that would hold him by his teammates' side.
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