AAC3 R2 - Verlux vs Goldlizard Gud Judgement

Broadly speaking it appears that there are two main points of contention in the debate. A question of detection, and a question of combat.

# Detection

Both Verlux and Goldlizard argues that they will be the one to detect the enemy team first, and not be detected in return. True Assassin of Verlux's team is argued to be capable of passively detecting presences of up to a few hundred meters, thus combined with his speed this is argued to prove that he will be capable of easily detecting Goldlizard's team. Skitter of Goldlizard's team is argued to be capable of controlling bugs within a similarly large radius, whom she can utilize to detect enemies.

In turn Goldlizard questions the utility of True Assassin's detection capabilities against non-magical beings, and likewise Verlux questions the utility of bugs within Pearl Skyscraper and how useful they'll be in providing Skitter with the information net she needs.

Generally speaking I don't think either poster made a good job of arguing for the superiority of their own team's detection capabilities. I think Verlux did a good job of casting doubt on how many actual bugs Skitter will actually have access to here from the match start here in a clean building like Pearl Skyscraper, and whether there are a sufficient number of bugs in a sufficiently adequate density to allow for the detection capabilities claimed, and Goldlizard doesn't really seem to address this in any quantitative way. Likewise, I think Goldlizard has provided enough evidence to at least cast doubt on the idea that presence detection in Fate in general refers to things other than detecting magical energy, and I find it unfortunate that Verlux didn't really provide anything to counter this.

So my takeaway from the arguments presented here is that both sides are going to have a harder time finding each other than argued. True Assassin isn't going to spider sense Skitter and Mizu from a hundred stories up, and likewise Skitter isn't going to latch a mite onto True Assassin's feet. They're both going to have to go through and search the building the old fashioned way.

In that sense, True Assassin has actual legit true invisibility, and is also much faster in movement than anyone here, so it seems natural to conclude that Verlux's team will likely end up deciding the terms of the engagement, even if not in a decisively overwhelming way as hoped by Verlux.

# Combat

With that said, let's move on to combat. The argument by Verlux is that both True Assassin and Nagumo both beat Mizu, never mind Skitter, by pure stats alone. In a likewise way, Goldlizard's argument is that Mizu can defeat both True Assassin and Nagumo if engaged.

Goldlizard seems to largely concede that if Skitter is caught alone against True Assassin or Nagumo, she's probably dead, even if she may not die instantly. His main defense for Skitter appears to be that Skitter will never be engaged due to her superior detection. See above on my thoughts on how well this was argued - so I'm rather forced to conclude that Skitter is probably going to die, unless she moves escorted by Mizu most of the time, which I don't think was specified.

I'm uncertain on whether she'll die before or after Mizu, but I think the order matters little since Skitter has relatively little capability to contribute to a direct melee combat scenario, or at least none was argued to be - at most it was some poisonous bugs, for which no specific timeframes until they reach the desired critical lethality was given. Since no major argument seems to have been made to establish that Skitter will be able to generate enough combat power in a relevant time frame, if she can't detect her enemies she's a non-factor in the decisive fight.

So with Skitter out of the way, the remaining question is whether Mizu is capable of fighting True Assassin and/or Nagumo and win.

A lot of the stat argument revolved around combat/melee reaction speed. Unfortunately, in this case as well I don't think neither Verlux nor Goldlizard made a convincing argument for why their character was decisively faster. A 16c arquebus that Mizu is shown dodging and reacting to in close quarters have a muzzle velocity of some 300-400m/s, which is also the ballpark in which a 9mm Parabellum travels at, so the bullets Kirei is deflecting are about the same speed as the bullets Mizu is deflecting/dodging, or the bullet Sakamoto deflected. All in all I think it’s pretty safe to say that True Assassin and Nagumo both appear to be faster in terms of reaction speed in comparison to Mizu by a pretty significant amount, but not by an order of magnitude or more.

Goldlizard's argument for Mizu winning appears to also heavily rely on superior fighting skill, however "skill" is a pretty difficult factor to compare in the first place, and Goldlizard didn't really do much work to compare the fighting skill of Mizu against that of True Assassin or Nagumo to establish that Mizu's skills are superior enough.

Other factors in the melee, such as strength or durability don't seem to have been heavily contested by Goldlizard, although likewise it doesn't seem like Verlux tries to contest that a single fatal blow from Mizu wielding the Nanothorn could take either of them out, so I think it’s pretty safe to say that in any 1v1 melee, there is a greater chance of True Assassin or Nagumo winning against Mizu rather than vice versa but perhaps not by a decisive amount. If it's a 2v1, though, then it’s no contest. Combined with True Assassin's invisibility and likely capability to dictate the terms of the engagement for reasons outlined above, I think Mizu's chances of surviving an encounter or engagement with Verlux's team is rather low.

# Conclusion

So given all that said above, here’s how I imagine the match playing out:

Neither side are going to have an easy time detecting each other, but True Assassin probably finds Skitter or Mizu first, and not too long after match start at that too. If he finds Skitter first, Skitter probably dies, and then its Mizu vs True Assassin and Nagumo which is a foregone conclusion.

If he finds Mizu first, there is a slightly bigger chance of Mizu landing a lucky blow and killing True Assassin, but I still find a True Assassin victory more likely, and as previously mentioned True Assassin can always just chose to disengage if necessary. After that its Skitter vs True Assassin and Nagumo which is a foregone conclusion.

Therefore I judge that a Likely Victory by Verlux's Team to be the most probably outcome of this match, based on the arguments presented.