[Semifinals - Team 3 vs Team 6 Singles 1] Sanada vs Oni

[Fayte]

My turn.

I will start my argument by saying if anybody is beating Oni in this series, it is Sanada.

Black Aura is pure speculation? Excuse me? SO IS ONI. When have we ever actually seen a full match from Oni against someone who isn't a low tier character like Momo? Oh that's right, the day after never. Any of the top MSers would have defeated Momo 6-0 so that is no feat, nor does it give us any information about Oni. What next? We are shown that Oni beat Kintarou. Wow! so did Yukimura! And when Yukimura did it, we still knew nothing about him even after their match. Next...we don't even see Oni win against court 3. Next...we don't even see Oni beat Kaji. Sounds to me you all know as much about Oni as you do about Black Aura, which is next to nothing. I don't want to hear that "speculation" bullcrap from you people, when this whole series is speculation.

That said, it would be ABSURD to suggest Black Aura does not raise Sanada's ability level/stats when not only does EVERY SINGLE AURA do that, but Sanada's shot was obviously faster during that moment. Not only that, but why the hell would Konomi reveal a "NEW" aura and have it not effect Sanada's ability level? "Ohai, this is the greatest new technique thus far called black aura which does not make Sanada any better than he was prior to using it eventhoughhewasabletoscoreapointagainstyukimurawhenhecouldn'tbefore." Suggesting Sanada's stats did not increase with BA would be absolutely ridiculous and it would contradict every single literary move Konomi has ever done with this story. That was just flat-out incorrect.

Let me clear this up for the willfully ignorant or those in denial:

The entire purpose for Konomi showing us Black Aura to begin with, was to show a hidden potential within Sanada's character. A "potential" that is greater than Yukimura. If you didn't get that from that one point he took in the tiebreak match, you missed the point ENTIRELY. Sanada coming back from the mountains training and briefly showing BA to the noobs was to tell us, the reader, that he has unlocked that hidden potential. I'm sorry, but that's just a fact of the storytelling. The thing we are supposed to assume about Sanada is that guy who took that one point from Yukimura is now the standard. Sanada has raised the bar, and he is no longer that same Sanada who played Yukimura.

As far as this story goes, Oni is not going to "improve." He is a stepping stone character that a chosen middle-schooler needs to climb over. This is true because we have yet to see the fullness of Oni. We HAVE seen the fullness of Sanada, and he evolved. We have yet to see the fullness of this evolution (Black aura), which means if Sanada were to play Oni, it would be shown. Oni simply would not defeat Black Aura. When push comes to shove, Sanada will win this no matter what. If Konomi did this match, he would have to show both the extent of Oni's power and the extent of Sanada's power in the SAME MATCH. If Konomi had to choose between giving a "pass" to Sanada or Oni, he is going with the former. Sorry, Sanada did not improve just to be defeated the very second he shows it. That makes Black Aura an anticlimatic build, which is contrary to Konomi's writing style. This series is about the evolution of middle schoolers, not high schoolers.

Sanada wins 7-5

 

[FrostyMouse]

Fayte, the problem with your whole argument is that this tournament isn't based on the plot of SPoT. In the manga, yes, Konomi will probably have Sanada defeat either Shuuji or Oni; however, this isn't the manga and there is no plot to advance the MSers here.

What we saw out of BA was just a great speed shot. That doesn't actually mean that his stats increased. Did they probably increase? Yes, but it's not shown or stated.

Based on what we've seen so far in the manga and because this isn't about the plot of SPoT, Sanada hasn't shown enough to beat Oni, and that's the point you're missing, Fayte. I've freely agreed that Sanada will almost certainly beat a top 5 HSer in the G10 challenge matches, regardless of whether he really should or not, but that has nothing to do with this tournament.

 

[Fayte]

Fayte, the problem with your whole argument is that this tournament isn't based on the plot of SPoT. Based on what we've seen so far in the manga and because this isn't about the plot of SPoT, Sanada hasn't shown enough to beat Oni, and that's the point you're missing,

I don't think you understand my argument. There is nothing (by your logic) to suggest Oni can beat Sanada.

 

[FrostyMouse]

I don't think you understand my argument. There is nothing (by your logic) to suggest Oni can beat Sanada.

Your argument is that by the plot of SPoT, Sanada should win. What's there to miss there? If you think that you said something other than that, it didn't come across to anyone else.

Did you read anything I typed in my original argument, Fayte?

We've seen more out of Oni than out of Sanada, and Sanada needs improvements to stand on the court with Oni at the moment. Reasonable improvements are fine and all, and I granted him 10 at Once for the purpose of this, but Sanada just needs too much and it has to be assumed that BA is as great as you think it is in order for Sanada to even have a chance. You also seem to be ignoring that Kaji implies that Oni has another technique, possibly Black Tomahawk.

 

[Fayte]

Your argument is that by the plot of SPoT, Sanada should win. What's there to miss there? If you think that you said something other than that, it didn't come across to anyone else.

Did you read anything I typed in my original argument, Fayte?

We've seen more out of Oni than out of Sanada, and Sanada needs improvements to stand on the court with Oni at the moment. Reasonable improvements are fine and all, and I granted him 10 at Once for the purpose of this, but Sanada just needs too much and it has to be assumed that BA is as great as you think it is in order for Sanada to even have a chance. You also seem to be ignoring that Kaji implies that Oni has another technique, possibly Black Tomahawk.

And I am arguing that we have not seen more of Oni. Every single match Oni has ever played would have had the same result, had Sanada been in his place. Sanada would have raped Momoshiro, destroyed moustache man on court 3, and dominated Kaji. There is absolutely no base for arguing that Oni somehow has something against Sanada. Saying Oni may have black tomahawk is no different than saying Sanada has black aura. Oni having black tomahawk is speculation, whereas Sanada having black aura is fact. There is no argument for "black aura may not even be that good." Fact of the matter is, it was good enough to beat Yukimura. That's all the facts you need. Oni needs more to beat Sanada than Sanada needs to beat Oni.

 

[-Ken-]

It's really funny that people are suggesting that Sanada can beat Oni, but Echizen can't. Just saying.

 

[Phantron]

The middle schoolers have amazing growth because the high schoolers starts with an amazing physical advantage over them. In Atobe's game against G10 he said that an endurance match against high schooler is bad for them and this is the face of endurance amongst middle schoolers. Oni starts out with >2X strength of Momoshiro (who isn't exactly a physically weak person). High schoolers can hit 10 balls at once while 2 was considered amazing for middle schoolers (Samurai Drive). So of course the middle schoolers need to have amazing growth or they wouldn't even stand a chance.

This discussion is not supposed to be the manga, otherwise Ryoma would never lose and you can pretty much just figure out who'll win based on popularity. I think it's fair to say like 'Kirihara gets random upgrades more often than other people' as a consideration, or "Fuji is likely to develop another technique", but that alone doesn't mean they must win. Indeed a lot of Kirihara's upgrade turn out to be useless (probably why he gets so many), and Fuji's new techniques can be stopped (e.g. versus Shiraishi).

Sanada is the most physically gifted character out of all middle schoolers. He and Kintarou are the only top tier middle schoolers who doesn't need plot immunity to return a Black Jack Knife level power shot. That is, if you strip everyone's plot immunity there's really nothing stopping Oni from shattering the wrist of Tezuka/Ryoma/Fuji/Yukimura because there's no reason to believe any of these guys have a higher physical strength than Momoshiro, and whatever tech you might use to return BJK can be argued that Oni's status as a 10-baller can neutralize whatever tech you tried to use to neutralize his power. So in a game absence of plot immunity, he (and Kintarou) are definitely your best choices because you wouldn't have to worry about wrist-shattering effects.

Now Black Aura almost certainly gives him a stat boost but there's no way it'll take him directly above Oni since the top high schooler's stats are meant to be incomparable. So in the end it still boils down to how Sanada wants to play Oni. Given his personality he ought to just do Ka versus BJK, but he'll lose because he can't overpower Oni. We know Sanada can play an extremely strong counter game, but he hates doing so because that's not how the Emperor is supposed to play. So the question boils down is Sanada willing to change his style, or is he going to play Oni head-on? I'm inclined to think Sanada won't change his style, though you can argue that after getting slapped by Yukimura he may have changed his mind toward his style.

---------- Post added at 02:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:53 AM ----------

And I am arguing that we have not seen more of Oni. Every single match Oni has ever played would have had the same result, had Sanada been in his place. Sanada would have raped Momoshiro, destroyed moustache man on court 3, and dominated Kaji. There is absolutely no base for arguing that Oni somehow has something against Sanada. Saying Oni may have black tomahawk is no different than saying Sanada has black aura. Oni having black tomahawk is speculation, whereas Sanada having black aura is fact. There is no argument for "black aura may not even be that good." Fact of the matter is, it was good enough to beat Yukimura. That's all the facts you need. Oni needs more to beat Sanada than Sanada needs to beat Oni.

Black Aura isn't going to take a middle schooler's base stat to above Oni level characters. That just seems downright impossible given how the top high schoolers are described.

Of course, Sanada's available moves seem significantly better than BJK, so he has a move edge. However, like I mentioned, Sanada generally prefers matching move for move against his opponent. If he uses Ka versus BJK then you're just looking at pure power versus pure power, which he should lose. If he uses Fu (which has been shown to counter power shots), it should beat BJK, but the question is what style will Sanada use?

 

[LetalHawk]

It's really funny that people are suggesting that Sanada can beat Oni, but Echizen can't. Just saying.

While Echizen has way more potential than Sanada and would have won against Oni, people just decided that Oni had to defeat Echizen, while in fact Echizen's monstruous growth would make him win. Seriously, people give too much hype to Oni when players like Echizen and Sanada would defeat him, and players like Yukimura would rape him completely.

 

[Hardy]

It's really funny that people are suggesting that Sanada can beat Oni, but Echizen can't. Just saying.

I didn't thought that Echizen could be able to return BJK (even with Muga), but I do see Sanada returning it.

 

[-Ken-]

I didn't thought that Echizen could be able to return BJK (even with Muga), but I do see Sanada returning it.

Well, Echizen do return a shot more dangerous than a shot that break a spotlight without any problem. I don't think BJK would be that much of a problem for him. But this is all off topic.

For me? I see them both returning it.

 

[Phantron]

Argument about potential is meaningless because Sanada and Ryoma aren't at the same point in their career. For the most part Sanada's evaluation that Ryoma has potential but doesn't really understand how to use all the moves he learned because he learned them so quickly is pretty much spot on. Without plot immunity bailing him out at the last second he'd lose quite a few games because he actually mastered everything. These games are presumably without plot immunity or it wouldn't make sense to talk about them, so you can't count on Ryoma randomly unlocking secrets nobody has figured out in a generation to win.

On the other hand Sanada pretty much has no plot bailouts but he also starts with the highest physical stats out of just about any middle schooler to make up for that. I don't think that is enough if he doesn't change his style but he and Kintarou are the only top tier MSers that don't have to worry about wrist shattering attacks from Oni.

 

[Ninomiya]

@Phantron
You really think Kintaro and Sanada are the only guys who won't have shattered wrists?

So Oni destroyed Nationals!Momoshiro and Kaji. People we should expect that Niou, Yuki, Atobe, Ryoma would have shat on.
There's Kintaro, who would definetely lose to Niou and Yuki.

Since when were Atobe, Niou, Yuki, Ryoma the type of players that get raped by the opponents power from a match??
Niou, Yuki and Ryoma are definetely are at a level where they can gather up the technique to be returning Oni's power shots.

Since Technique can ALWAYS cancel out power.
This whole Sanada is the only guy who could handle Oni's power is complete BS.

Why should we put Sanada on the level of Oni who trains with boulders in terms of power??
I don't see Sanada lifting boulders. Oni >> Sanada in Power. THat's clear as day.

Sanada-ists need to chill with that nonsense.

To suddenly put Sanada at the top of the MSers based off of BA is nonsense too.
I can't believe people have had Ryoma lose to Oni but Sanada to win.

who has 10ball return and will be able to perform TnK when driven into a corner.
(He did so against Kintaro and Yuki).
We can assume it was plot reasons why we didn't see him bring out Muga on Tokugawa.

Sanada can bt Oni. But not just him. There are other MSers who could do the same.
Like BJK is really harder to return than Rai all of a sudden.

 

[ashore]

i admit this is a hard choice.

Irie, who may have has a high technique stat than sanada, should have made it a close game vs sanada.

If in theory you have high level stat of technique you should be able to see through other people's special moves and counter them(or return them)
ie. sanada's FUURINKAZAN RAI
but sanada's shadow technique seals up irie special ability to see through the person's mind.
so it would have gone down to well rounded tennis play.

so now fast foward to oni. does he have the same level of technique as Irie? if so... he would be able to counter Fuu Rin .. RAI.
so it would be again.. about all around tennis skills that would have to be measured.
but we are just guessing and estimating. so this could be another subjective win based on forum users.
so if irie had the smarts to

 

[Phantron]

The problem with technique counters power is that high end power players have their own technique that negates the recipient's technique. Duke Homerun isn't going to stopped by the basic Hyakuren. If it did there's something really wrong with Duke being the #3 player in Japan. When Byodouin did his annihilation ball, neither Tokugawa nor Ryoma can return it. Gin can negate any Hado ball type attacks but obviously cannot do anything about Duke Homerun. At the G10 level you're not talking about power players who are power with no tech like Kawamura. They've power and technique and it's implied their techniques makes it difficult to negate their power shots, otherwise you wouldn't need Ryoga to come in to save the day against Byodouin, given Ryoma has returned plenty of power shots on his own and presumably Tokugawa is still stronger than Ryoma at that point.

Now in the manga you're not going to see Yukimura have his wrist shattered by BJK so they'll just say something like 'well Yuki's tech is just enough to negate BJK' but that's a plot device. Oni has power and some unknown level of tech negation due to his position as #5 (Byodouin clearly has tech negation power shots, and no reason to assume Duke at #3 would be any different), and because the stats of the character are unknown you can't even say for sure that the MS tech-based players can deal with Oni's power + tech negation. It is pretty clear Momoshiro's base strength is higher than most of the top tier MSers (top tier MSers don't tend to be power type players). Since Oni can hit 10 balls at once it's implied he has pretty strong tech to begin with, so you have no way of even being sure that his power shots can't directly punch through any power negation techs at this point.

Sanada has always been a character that's high on stats and low on miracles. Since POT matches are generally won by miracles, not basic stats, he's not necessarily unstoppable in the manga. But these hypothetical matches should strip out the miracles. For example, Sanada said there's only a 1% chance Cool Drive can succeed (since Ryoma just learned it, again showing his obvious weakness of lack of mastery of high end moves). That means Sanada vs Ryoma, if played out 100 times, should end with Sanada winning 99 out of 100 because Ryoma's trump card, Cool Drive, is supposed to fail 99 out of 100 times due to his lack of experience. Of course in the manga Ryoma always beats 1 in 100 or worse odds comfortably, but this isn't the manga. Sanada, due to his lack of reliance on miracles, is probably the best matchup against the top HSers. I don't know if he'll win, but at least he won't get into a situation of 'need another miracle or 3' to win.

---------- Post added at 03:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:15 PM ----------

Just to clarify, there's no way Sanada's stats even with Black Aura can be as high as Oni's because that'd pretty much defeat the point of HS having unfathomable physical stat (G9/G10 had higher endurance than Atobe, for example).

But he's going to be the MSer that starts off closest to someone like Oni in pure stats for sure, because Sanada has alwyas been a base stat kind of guy and his moves are really just an extension of his basic stats. So far the average MS vs HS game always starts with the MS getting completely slapped and people will comment about how MSer stat are no match for HSer. This is true even at the court 3 matches. At that point the MSer will invoke the power of the plot and get some unbelievable miracle their way to turn things around. But this isn't the kind of tennis match we're talking about. You've to assume these matches strip out plot immunity so that if a MSer is getting slapped they might just stay getting slapped without having a plot miracle to bail them out. Sanada pretty much gets no breaks in terms of plot miracles, but this helps him here because you can't use plot miracles as an argument here.

 

[Ninomiya]

I agree that Sanada can win this.
But you're overrating the G10 I feel.

The gap between them and MSers can't be as big as it was anymore. Otherwise this whole G10 thing would be pointless.
Secondly, Yuki returning Special Shots is no longer plot device. It's most likely Base Technique.

And regarding Duke's Homerun, why shouldnt Hyakkuren be able to send it back?
Rai is a different issue. It wasn't a Power Play shot. Hadoukyuu, Summer of Danji and DH (DUke Homerun) are Power play shots.
Its likely Rai had a random spin on it.

So really, Hyakku Ren might well return DH and be enough to bt Duke.
But the issue is, who else has been able to open Hyakku Ren besides Ryoma & Tezuka?
It's an almost exclusive technique so it doesn't matter.
Since we've reached just No.s 6 to 1 + Tokugawa left to see their ablities.

I doubt more than one of them could even have Hyakkuren let alone one.

And if we are going by Base abilities, Sanada is a dead man. He is strong sure. Stronger than Ishida Gin? Doubt it strongly.
He isn't anywhere near the fastest MSers. Has Rai which is outside of Base stats.

He can hit only 5 at a time. Compared to Oni's 10 at a time. It would be silly to assume he improved the same rate Plot Powered Ryoma has.
In terms of technique, Tezuka and Yuki would be the one's higher than him.

His Mental seems beast however. Only guy to stand and swing in Yips.
Stamina is likely solid.

But all in all, BA is what will change Sanada's match.
Although it is arguable Oni might not be able to return Rai, it really is down to whatever stat boost BA provides.
I believe the fact it changed from Sanada unable to take a point off Yuki, to taking a comfortable point, that shows how beast it can make him.

Again, there are a few MSers who could take on G5 and win.

 

[Phantron]

If Hyakuren can return any arbitary power shot then Ryoma should've been able to return Byodouin's annihilation ball. Either it won't work or he somehow forgot it and either way it doesn't matter because if Ryoma has magically forgotten Hyakuren then nobody currently in NPOT in Japan has Hyakuren.

At any rate Hyakuren isn't even that hard for Yukimura to handle (he loses to it without yips, but not badly) and you think a technique like that will completely shut down Duke, who is the #3 player in Japan? They talk about how you got to see the world-class level playing to open your horizons and yet the G3 player gets shut down by a move that middle schoolers have and presumably isn't rare at all at the world level?

For a long time the 'power' players are guys with only power and no tech, but this has changed. Byodouin, Duke, and Oni are all power type players but it's clear they've decent tech, at least enough so that their power shots don't get automatically cheesed by POT magic. In absence of plot immunity, most of the high tier MSers aren't even better than Momoshiro in terms of avoiding a one hit KO injury simply because most high tier MSers have never been shown to do any feats of significant physical strength. Even if they don't sustain a wrist shattering injury they can easily take a racket busting attack that they can't tech out of and then they'd pretty much be doomed.

Now BJK versus Black Aura Sanada probably would like Ka vs Tezuka Zone. BJK should break through Black Aura the same way Ka can break through Tezuka Zone but it will take time. During that time Sanada potentially can vary his strategy. Given his personality, he's unlikely to do it, but at least he has a window of opportunity to work with.

The stats of HS starts out unfathomably high to account for the fact that of course all MSer will have unbelievable growth. However, the HSer are still above the MSer even at the end of their unbelieveable growth (not counting TnK). Atobe, who is THE endurance man of MSer, consistently loses in endurance matches and he even acknowledges that you can't get into an extended fight in his doubles match. Now that doesn't mean MSer can't possibly match up, it just means you can't directly try to overpower a HSer at the G10 level and expect to get anywhere. That's also Sanada's biggest weakness because of course he will just try to overpower anyone no matter what, since that's how he plays. Sanada's stats will at least give him a shot at playing Oni, but his unwilling to vary his style means he can't win the old way. Now will Sanada switch his style to win? It seems unlikely but he did that against Tezuka, so you can't say it can't possibly happen.

The most likely way Sanada can beat Oni is simply switch to a speed game (Oni doesn't seem particularly fast, as Momoshiro forced him to lob the ball with a drop shot) and avoid Oni's power, but of course we know if Sanada did that you'll have a bunch of noobs on the side shouting: "OMG he (Sanada) is playing dirty and avoiding a head on challenge! He's not worthy to be the Emperor!" and really that'd be worse than losing for a guy like Sanada.

 

[TheShiraishi]

If Hyakuren can return any arbitary power shot then Ryoma should've been able to return Byodouin's annihilation ball. Either it won't work or he somehow forgot it and either way it doesn't matter because if Ryoma has magically forgotten Hyakuren then nobody currently in NPOT in Japan has Hyakuren.

Errr... Tezuka Kunimitsu anyone?

The most likely way Sanada can beat Oni is simply switch to a speed game (Oni doesn't seem particularly fast, as Momoshiro forced him to lob the ball with a drop shot) and avoid Oni's power, but of course we know if Sanada did that you'll have a bunch of noobs on the side shouting: "OMG he (Sanada) is playing dirty and avoiding a head on challenge! He's not worthy to be the Emperor!" and really that'd be worse than losing for a guy like Sanada.

Tarundoru! xD

 

[Phantron]

Errr... Tezuka Kunimitsu anyone?

Tezuka went to Germany, so he's not in Japan right now.

Actually Niou can still use Hyakuren, but the fact he didn't really use it in the doubles match suggest it's just not as uber as it once was at the G10 level.

 

[Hardy]

Errr... Tezuka Kunimitsu anyone?

He's technically not in Japan, he's in Germany lol... TARUNDORU!

 

[TheShiraishi]

Awwww fine.. Why would you bother saying that then? Ryoma, Tezuka, and Niou are the only three anyways.

Oh please Konomi, give Shiraishi Hyakuren... he's gonna be forgotten soon anyways ;(