Psycho-Squad Tournament R1: Nico4Ever vs. mightyrearranger

*OG sign-up thread: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/psycho-squad-tournament-battle-challenge-better-th-1485258/?page=1

The Scenario:

Dr. Sivana was having the time of his life at his bachelor party. Everyone he invited had made the trip to Oolong Island for a night of dancing, drinking, and pretty much everyone trying to hit on Killer Frost, her being the only female in attendance. Even billionaire Bruce Wayne made an appearance! In fact, everything was going great...until Bruce had one too many drinks, remembered his previous encounters with Deadshot under the guise of Batman, and made an offhand joke about shooter's impotence to him.

Floyd Lawton had finally had it. He could have just challenged Bruce to darts or something, but instead, Deadshot took the opportunity to prove what a great aim he was. In a split second, he killed the entirety of Bruce's entourage, Sivana's personal guard, and the bartender.

Deadshot, audibly a bit buzzed after a bottle of scotch, proclaimed, "I hear Batman's been branching out...investigating a case in Mexico City. Thinkin' me an' some old chums are gonna find a motel there and put the Dark Knight down for good a week from now, at dusk! Anyone else who thinks they can make a chump out of the world's greatest marksman is more than welcome to take their shot at me!". He glanced over to Bruce and shot him a glare, before surveying the damage he'd just caused. As he walked out, he smirked at a devastated Dr. Sivana and muttered, "Put it on my tab, four-eyes".

Sivana wasn't amused by the spectacle. He and Bruce gathered a team of their own from the party's guests and decided to take Deadshot up on his offer.

The Teams:

Nico4Ever:

1. Ravager -- [prometheum armor and swords, four daggers]
2. Bruce Wayne -- [seven days prep]
3. Killer Frost
4. Solomon Grundy -- [incarnated at 75 tons]
5. Dr. Sivana -- [two days prep]

MightyRearranger:

1. -Deadshot -- [wrist-guns, armor, mask, two sidearms with a spare clip for each]
2. Thinker (Cliff Carmichael) -- [seven days prep]
3. Count Vertigo
4. Clayface
5. Key -- [two days prep]

The Setting:

• Mexico City (half a mile apart)

The Rules:

Each Team must be made up of 5 specific types of characters, each type has it's own limits & restrictions

Psycho Next Door: Well-built character. Can have high intelligence (below Deathstroke), physical stats below Luke Cage, minor superpowers. No TP/TK/enormous HF's/energy projection, etc.

A Beautiful Mind: Genius prep-character. Cannot be amped in any way by suits or serums. This character gets one week of prep before the beginning of the fight. Cannot have physical stats above Batman.

Unlimited POWAHHH!: Elemental/Energy Specialist. No physical amps above Mr. Freeze, no power output above Electro. This also includes "physical elements" like plants, i.e. Poison Ivy is available. Magic is available but, seeing as it is far more versatile, it must be significantly weaker. No Elminster.

Wrestlemaniac: Brick. Cannot have physical abilities above Toxin. Very limited extra powers. Cannot be smarter than Wolverine.

With Science!: Gadgeteer genius. Gets only two days prep, but can use serums/suits/gadgets. Power level cannot exceed pre-52 Cyborg.

Beautiful Mind Characters spend the majority of their prep time laying out plans & tactics. They CANNOT bring anything with them that does not fit in their pocket.

With Science! Characters CANNOT bring anything that they can't carry on their person.

@nico4ever@joygirl: Callouts haven't been working for me in the OP, dunno about anyone else. So I'm doing it here in the second post.

@mightyrearranger: Um, okay, I'm here. How's this work?

(also, Killer Frost would not have been the only female at the party. Ravager is also female)

@nico4ever: Sh*t! I even saw "Rose Wilson" and I still thought of the wrong Ravager, haha. Sorry!

I guess let's start by laying out our prep. I'm on my tablet, so I can't post scans til tomorrow at the earliest. Wanna go first?

@mightyrearranger: I've never done this before, so maybe you'd better start lol.

@nico4ever: Ok, no problem. Looks like a fun team to debate against. Good luck!

My team's not gonna have a whole lot to do in the way of prep. The Key will gather his standard equipment (Key-blaster w/ teleport function, his psycho-chemicals, and the neural implant that allows him limited telepathy) and he'll make a duplicate of his Key blaster, which should be doable in 2 days. Cliff will use his week to procure rounds of ammunition from Belle Reve and fashion a couple smoke pellets as well. He already has the Thinking Cap technology imbedded within his brain, so he won't need to worry about bringing that along with him.

So, my team will consist of a sociopath whose brain implants allow him telepathy and telekinesis (Cliff), another low-level telepath with teleportation tech (The Key), a metahuman who's able to disorient your team and greatly disrupt their aim via his powers (Count Vertigo), arguably the greatest marksman in the DCU armed with extra ammunition, smoke pellets, and one of The Key's teleporting guns (Deadshot), a master shape-shifter on the loose in a populated city (Clayface). A lot to counter for your team.

Alright, so first post whatever Dr. Sivana and Bruce are going to use their prep for and then we can get into laying out our teams' strategies. :)

Um, Rearranger, no TP/TK for Beautiful Minds, pretty sure we went over that. Thinker is more or less a non-combatant/weak point.

Also handing out gear is a no-no. Key can only carry stuff on his own body, not hand out goodies.

That's what I figured, haha; was curious why you allowed him over Per. I mean, technically the pieces of the Thinking Cap could fit in his pockets, they just happen to be lodged in his brain. :P I'll use him as if the implanted tech never happened, no big deal.

Quick related question though: Can our Beautiful Mind and With Science! picks interact with our other characters at any time during their prep. For instance, could Cliff surgically implant Thinking Cap tech into one of his teammates (as he did to himself)?

@mightyrearranger: They can interact with teammates, but not physically, i.e. enhancing them. They can impart knowledge, strategies, tactics, can examine the battlefield, lay out routes and cover-points, etc. With Science characters can gather tech to enhance their own selves, and donate tricks/traps to points in the battlefield.

@joygirl: Gotcha. Thanks and sorry for the trouble on that!

@nico4ever: Ok, so Cliff can't have his Cap, but other than that, my prep remains mostly the same. In addition, The Key will take his tech and set up traps halfway between our teams and in buildings near your starting location, armed to release a neural disruptor in the immediate vicinity if a motion sensor is tripped by any one of your team members. This mirrors what he did to infiltrate the JLA Watchtower, albeit a bit more low-tech approach to releasing the trap.

Cliff discusses where these traps are set so my own team doesn't trigger any of them. On day 2 of his prep, The Key steals a car, jump starts it, and parks it near our base of operations. Cliff tells Clayface that when the battle begins, he is to assume the identity of Bruce Wayne.

Your move. Then we can get to the showdown! :)

@mightyrearranger: Alright, well with Bruce being Bruce, he's going to be doing a lot of work during the week of prep he has. The first thing he'll do, as he undoubtedly has access to 3D imaging technology, is scan the entire city, not only to acquire a three dimensional map of the entire area right down to the smallest crevices, but also to scan for any potentially harmful anomalies, such as traps set to catch them unawares. He will then pass this information along to his team, giving them a terrain advantage.

Secondly, being very familiar with Clayface, he'll be packing a pair of literal X-ray goggles. Being composed entirely of clay, Clayface does not have a skeleton, so should the shape shifter attempt to mimic one of the members of their team if separated, he will be unable to hide. Also, because of this, he will be sticking near Killer Frost at all times. Since Clayface is highly vulnerable to being frozen, Killer Frost should be able to turn him into a clayscicle in seconds.

Given that Count Vertigo is probably the most detrimental threat with his nausea inducing abilities, the scientific genius Dr. Sivana (whose résumé includes building a time travel device, bringing people back from the dead, and creating Famine), will be taking his two days to create a device to counteract the vertigo waves, to either neutralize them, or if possible, direct them back from where they came. However, chances are this won't be needed anyway, as Solomon Grundy is unaffected by human ailments, and should therefore be immune to Vertigo's abilities. In fact, your team has no real way to actually harm Grundy at all, so Bruce will be instructing him to simply bull rush your team and turn them into paste, starting with Vertigo.

@nico4ever: So sorry! It's been a while since I've had Wi-Fi available to me and I've been really swamped at work this week.

First and foremost, I'm intrigued at how Bruce would work with the rest of your team in the first place. Since teamwork is a factor here, I'd imagine tensions would be high when he's forced to work alongside people who go against everything he fights for on a daily basis (eg: Grundy, Sivana. and Killer Frost in particular). The Key, Clayface, and Cliff will definitely know how to exploit this, Clayface having worked with Grundy before and Cliff having worked with Frost.

Primarily, my team's strategy will lie in getting The Key close enough to your team. Clayface may be a shape-shifter, but Key is a mind-bender with his telepathic implant. He can alter a person's very perception of who he is; he did so to Manitou Dawn here:

Killer Frost, to my knowledge, has never displayed any feats suggesting a resistance to telepathy, nor did Sivana or Bruce come up with anything preventing it during their prep. Bruce has inconsistently shown some, depending on the writer, but Key's priority is to brainwash Frost anyways.

Once he targets Frost and confuses your team (Grundy should be particularly easy to confuse, as Ragdoll and Icicle have been able to coerce him into betraying teammates merely by speaking to him before), Key will order Frost to drain the heat from Bruce and anyone else nearby. Not sure if this will kill Grundy or not, but it should take care of anyone else on your team, as they're packing 0 resistance to her powers.

• ^In this scan, Key has coerced Dawn into lending him access to her mystical powers via his telepathy. No reason to believe that he couldn't also turn Frost to his side and use her powers against the rest of your squad.

In addition, he has proven capable of bypassing or hacking the Watchtower's defense systems, teleporting, projecting duplicates of himself, and assaulting the JLA with a "neaural bolt" from his gun, which was able to incapacitate the entire JLA before he administered his Psycho-Chemicals. Here are some scans showing use of the aforementioned abilities:

Gallery

So once Killer Frost has outlived her usefulness to Key, he can simply shoot her with a neural bolt to put her under. All this is going on while Deadshot is running interference, keeping Grundy at bay with explosive or incendiary rounds. With Frost out of the picture, Grundy doesn't really have anything that Clayface doesn't. Plus, Clayface will be able to take his punches while entrapping him.

I haven't seen anyone able to replicate or reflect Count Vertigo's abilities before, so I'm not sure Sivana could do quite that. But it is an option, and I don't think anyone on my team will underestimate the mad genius, since all of them have seen what he's capable of before. And I don't think Grundy's going to be touching the Count; he has one thing that Grundy doesn't: the power of flight. So he can sweep the battlefield and target who he wishes with his power. He's also extremely capable of interfering with technology, so he'll have a hand in messing with Bruce's X-Ray goggles and rendering them useless against Clayface.

Add to that Deadshot's incredible accuracy, near-unlimited special ammo and a couple smoke bombs thanks to Cliff's prep, plus his penchant for taking down threats much bigger and tougher than Grundy (see his match with Manticore in Suicide Squad) and I don't think he'll have a problem cleaning up either. He'll be the one to deliver the killing blow to Frost after Key incapacitates her.

Ok, your turn!