[mudhawg]

Ok, so with inspiration from the suvudu.com website and their cage match, and of course the NCAA tournament going on here in the U.S., I have spent the last 4 hours putting together a Malazan Tournament Bracket.

There are 64 total characters in the tournament, with 4 regions (referring to character type). A select few characters are listed twice, due to different roles we see them play. The regions are: Warrior, Mage, Assassin, and Mastermind/Leader.

Mostly self explanatory, although different people could be in different regions. (Rake could be mage or warrior.) So I tried to stick with their most seen role. The Mastermind/Leader region was tough, because you had people like Kruppe who seem to be running whole shows versus battlefield or squad leaders such as Dassem or Fiddler. So give me some flexibility there.

I have read all the Malazan books except for Dust of Dreams, which I have just started. There may be worthy individuals left off the list, but I only had 16 spots per region, so deal with it. Not sure the best way to let everyone start voting except by topic poll. If anyone has any better ideas, I would be interested. With that being said, let's start with the Warrior region.

Feel free to post arguments below!

Have fun!

This post has been edited by mudhawg: 17 March 2010 - 11:26 PM

[Bent]

My votes - Karsa, Brys, Brood, Trull (close one, but All you gotta do is hit Iccy on the head!), Skinner (too close to call, but meh), Skinner, Traveller, Mok (by a landslide), Rake

[Stalker]

Mine are Karsa, Kallor, Brood, Iccy, Tool, Traveller, Second, Rake

[Aptorian]

Oh my, the concept is interesting, but I don't get some of your match-ups at all.

First of all, you should probably add some spoiler warning to your title and the OP.

What more, while we have seen mortals stand toe to toe with ascendants and gods, they really aren't in the same league. It's not fair to put Dassem vs Iron Bars or Rake vs Crust.

Spoiler

Karsa vs Gruntle: At first glance I thought this one would easily fall to Karsa, he is one of the top fighters of the series, a real monster of a warrior. But then I thought about who Gruntle is and what he's turned into. As the MS of Treach he really does sound fucking scary. I think Gruntle actually has the strength and speed to stand against Karsa, what it would come down to would be skill and determination. In that sense, while Gruntle is badass, I think Karsa will still win because he so damn stubborn.


Brys Beddict vs. Kallor: Tough one again. Brys Beddict has been displayed as being an extrodinary swordsman. An artist with the sword. But as I like to point out when people bring up his surgery on Rhulad, it's one thing to cut the tendons on a man lying on the ground unable to defend himself, and it is another to face another master swordsman and match his skill.

We saw that Kallor, seemingly, got outclasses by Dassem in RCG. But I do love Kallor, and I believe that he is a superb Swordsman. I think he could fight Brys and have a chance of taking him out. He has a hundred thousand years of being dirty tricks saved up, and you can't kill Kallor by normal means.

The real question is, what kind of abilities to the two fighters have now, that we haven't seen yet. Kallor has hidden talents and the support of the CG, Brys is the Champion of Life and he probably also has some new tricks up his sleeve.


Caladan Brood vs Silchas Ruin: Hard one. Silchas Ruin seemed very rusty in RG, while Brood on the other hand is in the shape of his life and has been waging a decade long war. Besides having a badass hammer we don't really know what Brood is capable off, but he seems formidable.

Ruin on the other hand is spooky son of a bitch who can turn into a dragon and is probably a master mage.

I can't really decide so I'll pull the "new trumphs old" card and go with Brood.

Icarium vs Trull: Ha ha, oh wow. Icarium, anywhere, any place, Trull is pink mist on the winds.

Tool vs Skinner: This one I have to give to Tool. Skinner is brawler, he's a big mean asskicking machine, but he's not a finesse swordsman. If Skinner doesn't have his armor (or Tool has his magic destroying T'lan Sword) and Skinner doesn't have the chance to cheat some how, then Tool would make minced meat out of Skinner... In my opinion.

Traveller vs Iron Bars: I don't think this one is fair. Iron Bars is good, like scary good, fast and super strong and seems almost unkillable. But we're talking about Dassem here. As far as we've seen, the only people who could match him was Rake and perhaps the top 3 seguleh. Dassem is the pinnachle of Sword fighters. But not just that, he is probably the only character in the series that seems more stubborn than Karsa. Dassem will "willpower" you to death. Like Skinner Iron Bars is a brawler, he wont make it in a sword fight with Dassem, hell throw the swords away and I think that Dassem would steal break Iron Bars.


2nd vs 3rd: My vote goes to Mok. The First sent Mok away because he was becoming a threat to the Firsts position. He beat Tool with ease. The guy is amazing. The 2nd on the other hand I don't know. Maybe he is actually better than any living Seguleh because he's so old and experienced, or maybe he's not, maybe undeath makes him slower, maybe he's rusty... I think Mok is in his best years while the 2nd is uncertain.

Rake vs Urko: Poor, poor Urko. We hardly knew ye.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 15 March 2010 - 09:56 PM

[Bent]

He wouldn't need to put spoilers in the title, if you had not put spoilers in your post Apty.

[mudhawg]

As to the match-ups, I seeded in a completely subjective way the 16 choices. So, typically 1 would be strongest, 16 weakest. Then just copied the seeding match-ups from the NCAA tournament. So especially this first round, you will have some mismatches, but as the rounds go on, the matchups should get tougher.

[Aptorian]

These topics kind of invite discussion. It would be hard to discuss these things without some spoilers.

But you're right, spoiler tags added for the uninitiated.

[Bent]

Aptorian, on 15 March 2010 - 09:57 PM, said:

But you're right

Saved, because I am awesome

/thread derailment

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Absolutely just a loaded bracket here. Any time you get a Hammer of Burn wielding ascendant known as 'the Warlord' as a 5 seed you know you are in for some epic matchups. The 8/9 matchup was the most difficult to pick but I had to go with the young up and comer, recently returned to the full vivacity of life. The 7/10 matchup was difficult to pick as well as we haven't seen a whole lot of the two, and they both encountered very different styles to get to this point, (armies, dinosaurs and undead swordsmen vs. a group of really mean dogs) but I'm gonna go with youth as a theme in this bracket and take Mok because its entirely possible the second spends the match bitching and doesn't realize they've started until Mok has disabled half his limbs. My only other first round upset is Tool over Skinner. It was actually an easy one for me when I thought about it. Tool's undeadness totally nullifies any poison that Skinner might try to sneak past the judges and into the match. Skinner does have that tough defense that seems impossible to penetrate on, but if you really break it down there are vulnerable seams to it. If you are looking for one matchup to watch it'll be interesting to see how the Son of Darkness deals with the committee's decision to slight him and put him as the number two seed. He might really wanna go out there and prove to all his loyal followers that he hasn't slipped and still has big intentions of making it to the title game. I'd like to give Urko a puncher's chance in all of this, but I don't think anyone but Killy can knock out a freakin' dragon. Traveller has had too much experience with the avowed to be surprised by anything Iron Bars is gonna try and gameplan for him. And you definitely can't like Trull's chances. Back at the throne he was surrounded by a team of all-stars and still needed extra help to squeak out a tie. If Icarium comes out in full Lifestealer mode he could be a force to be reckoned with for the entire tournament.

[mudhawg]

This is a really tough bracket. Any of the top 5 could pull this out, and I feel that 6-11 could win on any given Sunday. No upsets in the top 5, although I really like Iron Bars. Brys vs Kallor would be wonderful to watch. Kallor is the most confusing to me. I mean they had to bring down the CG to take him out the first time, yet he seems so subservient when traveling with Brood and Rake. So I flipped a coin and Brys won.

There's not much that separates Tool, Skinner, Mok and the 2nd. Mok has already taken out Tool, but he is the 3rd. (rumored to be a threat to 1st though). 2nd is obsessed with Skinner. Must have been a pretty even match there somewhere in the past. Besides all that, I went with Tool in the upset and am going to stick with standard Seguleh ranking and say the 2nd.

[dsarll]

Love a good bracket. We might have undervalued Ruin, but then again Quick Ben owned him in RG.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

This were way thougher than the assassin's ones!

Spoiler

Karsa vs Gruntle: Gruntle may be Threach's Mortal Sword but he has no Chances. Voted Karsa

Brys vs Kallor: Now don't misunderstand me, I love Kallor, he's my favourite character, and I think many here underestimate him, but from what we have seen of both of them I think Brys will win unless Kallor uses some long forgotten move that no one knows how to par anymore. Voted Brys.

Brood vs Ruin: This is a hard one. Brood is a military genius, may be one of the strongest guys in malaziworlds(others being Karsa, Urko and Mappo) and has a earthquake-creating hammer. On the other hand Ruin is a top swordsman, the cruellest of MD's children, the one who has drank the depest Tiam's blood and a powerful magician. In the end I voted Silchas simply because I like him very much.

Icarium vs Trull: No contest. Voted Icarium.

Skinner vs Tool: I don't care if Skinner has an unbreakable armour, he'll still be chopped to pieces by a big stone sword. Voted Tool

Dassem vs Iron Bars: NO contest again. Voted Dassem.

Seguleh 2nd vs Mok: I'm sure the 2nd is no pussy but from what we have seen in the books it has to be Mok.

Rake vs Urko: Again, no contest. Voted Rake.

This post has been edited by Bauchelain the Evil: 16 March 2010 - 06:42 PM

[mudhawg]

Most of the favorites seem to be pulling away here in the second half. Skinner is losing in a potential upset, but probably wasn't a strong favorite to begin with. With 24 hours to go, still a lot could change!

If we thought this round had some tough matchups, it won't be getting any easier!