Ken vs Azure

Stella OOT: My basic read on the situation here is that Stella's heat clearly can harm Superman, and I don't really understand what option Superman has here that Hyperion wouldn't. Ken makes much ado about the fact that Azure is arguing that Hyperion just charges in, and the tier setter doesn't fight like that, but I don't really understand what he does do instead. I especially don't buy the stovetop argument. If I had to walk ten meters through heat that would feel like that, I would die. It doesn't really seem like Superman has a viable way of fighting from range, or getting into melee without being heavily harmed or dying.

Kenpachi OOT: Unlike above, I think the idea that Superman starts the fight by trying to disarm Kenpachi, and then can fight him after that's accomplished makes plenty of sense. If Kenpachi can't cut Superman, he doesn't really have a real offensive win condition. This seems reasonable enough to me I think?

The fights themsleves:


Azure paints this as essentially just 2 1v1s, with Hyperion fighting Stella and Shredder fighting Kenpachi. There's some kind of pushback here in terms of Ken arguing it's a 2v1 until Shredder closes the distance, but doesn't really present a meaningful impact to that. I can sort of infer that Kenpachi can cut Hyperion, and he might do that while Hyperion tries to engage Stella, but there isn't a lot of meat to this argument on either side. I give some vague amount of credence to Ken's argument here, but I don't think a game winning amount. Especially since Ken invests a lot of time and effort into the idea that Kenpachi and Shredder fight, and his conclusion to the argument is him telling Azure "Put a number to Shredder's speed, you wont." while Azure ends the argument by...putting a number to it. In general I think "Shredder engages Kenpachi and Hyperion engages Stella" is a given in the round.

Stella vs Hyperion: Already mostly discussed this, but I think Stella is either out of tier, or would lose to Hyperion for the same reasons she'd lose to Superman. All of Stella's relevant durability feats have some kind of mitigating context that suggests that it takes at most a few hits for Hyperion to kill her, (numb hand feat involving sword to sword and not a body shot, the other feat involving her by Ken's own admission leaving her dizzy, which is yknow a form of being harmed). If her heat aura is a legitimate offensive that would stop Hyperion from getting these blows in she wouldn't be in tier. That leaves Kenpachi

Shredder vs Kenpachi: I tend to buy Ken's arguments here. Kenpachi's cutting feats are better than Shredder's cutting durability, Shredder's regen takes a while and he doesn't really have great ways to avoid getting chopped up, and Kenpachi should be able to deal with Shredder's cutting attacks. I think the blunt attacks would be scary, and it's a real shame the whole argument only really came up in like the third response for either side. I sort of buy the in-character argument for this, but only insofar as like, Shredder realizing his cutting attacks aren't working at all. Kenpachi might just chop him up completely before he realizes that though, so it's not a nothing point. There's also the point that Ken makes baselessly that Shredder dies if his vital organs are cut, which does not actually seem to be true. I think Kenpachi probably wins this fight the vast majority of the time, but it takes a minute and he might not come out unscathed.

Which leaves the tiebreaker here as the vague edges of the debate where Hyperion fights Kenpachi. The most notable point I think Azure wins on here clearly is that Hyperion's heat vision can harm Kenpachi. Lightning is really bad at transferring heat, and is not a basis for Kenpachi surviving Hyperion heat vision. Also, Kenpachi's blunt durability is really ill defined here. Neither feat given is all that good, and it seems like Ken is mostly reliant on Kenpachi fighting Shredder and not Hyperion? The last point here which is like super vaguely talked about by both sides expending like 3 sentences each on it is if Hyperion can get into Kenpachi's blade range. Ken in his first response says essentially "no its impossible" and then Azure in his second response says "ah but Hyperion can fly really fast" and then Ken in his third response says "yeah but this takes 400 miliseconds so Kenpachi can still react" A really lifeless barely debated point overall, but it matters a lot in the end. Azure in his second response or something makes the point that the time in which Stella can react and the time in which she can like, preform actions is different, and that also applies here, but there's 0 actual things that let it carry over to here. All this is to say Hyperion vs Kenpachi is extremely muddy, and both sides sort of have win conditions

Overall I think in most cases the result of this 2v2 is as follows: Stella gets killed by Hyperion really fast, Shredder and Kenpachi fight and Kenpachi wins, and then Kenpachi and Hyperion square off in the last 1v1, or Hyperion starts fighting while Kenpachi is engaged with Shredder. I think in this eventuality, Azure has more clear win conditions on the board than Ken, so I give the match to him.

Azure wins