Birthday Cup Review: Edgar/Locke vs. Rojo/Gilgamesh

This thread was crazy complicated to keep track of. On the one hand, we had Locke throwing out healing magic and summoning not one, but TWO powerful espers, Edgar using poison and some heavy-hitting Tools to great effect plus some additional healing AND getting off a blind to negate some damage. On the other, this version of Greg is frankly a monster, and Rojo was tossing out white magic like beads at Mardi Gras, plus several -ga spells. At the end of the thread, I think ultimately team red took more damage, but ended up closer to full anyway thanks to Rojo's protections, buffs, and healing spells shaving away more of that damage than the returners did, but only just.

Oh. My. Goodness! The banter in this thread was amazing! If Gilgamesh had landed on one of his chattier incarnations I'm not sure if the thread would have moved past the repartee and into the actual combat, it was GLORIOUS! And it kept up through the entire thread, through everyone who was likely to banter! Without impacting the overall flow and strategy of the actual combat portion of things! A+ to all participants for that. With that out of the way, special mention to the Edgar/Gilgamesh interactions here. Not just the combat, because Edgar felt spot on in the pride he obviously took in his selection and the variety of tools he employed quite well, and Gilgamesh really felt like he was testing Edgar by escalating through his swords as needed and keeping just enough pressure on that the King of Figaro was only able to throw a few token attacks at Rojo, and had to spend the majority of his actions on Gilgamesh himself. Gilgamesh was clearly trying to see what the playboy was made of, and Edgar was more than happy to provide. Rojo and Locke, meanwhile, were both keeping one another busy and providing as much support as possible. Between Locke's strategic theftsacquisitions, healing magic and summons, and Rojo's...everything, it felt like both of them were trying to pull as many tricks out of their hat/bandanas as possible to change the flow of the battle overall. This is another match where I feel like another round of posts would have provided a much clearer outcome, but we can only comment on what was in the thread.

This is another really tough category for this thread. There was a lot of banter, and everyone was good about making sure their actions were clearly described and that they were taking hits on the chin. It felt like a lot of healing was getting spread around, and a fair few damage reduction or avoidance skills, but none seemed out of character or unfair. This is quite probably one of the best-done forum based PvP threads I've ever read, even with only a couple of die rolls to act as impartial arbiters. Honestly the whole thread was a joy to read, but in the end Red had Gilgamesh, who not only held back his big guns until late, but triggered the retaliatory aspect of Air Anchor even when he'd have been fully justified as someone whose raison d'être was making sure royals were well-guarded in hesitating for a moment. Again, all four players were fantastic in this category, but I feel these two acts in particular were enough to edge out the sportsmanship category.

Rojo and Gilgamesh were largely on the defensive for the first half of the fight, but nevertheless clearly dealt the most damage, partially due to having a stratospheric advantage in both quality and quantity of moves at their disposal. While theoretically both sides tossed out the respectable damage, Rojo and Gilga managed to negate/heal/mitigate most of it. During the second half of the battle Rojo and Gilgamesh seized and maintained control of the battles flow, clearly taking this section

The banter in this thread was refreshing to read. All too often these kind of battle scenarios devolve into kill-bot silence without alot of personality. Here the personality of all the participants got a chance to shine. Likewise their styles were quite distinct, with Locke’s hit an run tactics (its hard to pull off a rogue character in a pitched battle but Metus managed it), Edgar’s artificer ingenuity, Rojo’s spellblade flamboyance, and Gilga’s intriguing grim warrior approach. All members employed their skill sets strategically, with Rojo and Edgar particularly standing out in this category. Locke stood out in the third category, seizing every possible strategic advantage and opening on an opponent despite having the least resources to utilize. While both sides did very well, I personally think that Edgar and Locke did alot more with alot less, overall being more resourceful and having to make up for their lack of raw power by being more consistently tactical .

Overall this was a well-written fight, with Gilga and Edgar most consistently standing out to me in term of description. On that note, I’d like to take the time to praise Gilgamesh for showing a whole other side to the character. It would’ve been easy to just play bombastic Gilga regardless of form, but Malach took us a level deeper and introduced us to Gilgamesh tester of kings that brought on a whole other dimension to this fight. Edgar played along and soon we had a miniature narrative concerning Edgar’s worthiness as a monarch, and Lana did a great job showing us some of Edgar’s insecurities under the gallant playboy facade. While overall everyone was pretty sporting, I felt that Gilgamesh and Rojo didn’t give their opponent’s attacks enough credit a some points, and there a couple points where attacks were dodged without using actions. While this section was very close and both teams contributed to making it a fun read, the sportsmanship category shifts it toward Edgar and Locke in my mind.


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