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

[Kaoz]

Singles 1	Sanada Gen'ichirou	Oni Juujirou
Title	Emperor	Gatekeeper of Hell
School	Rikkai Dai Fuzoku 3rd Year	High School 3rd Year
Height	180 cm	187 cm
Weight	68 kg	83 kg
Dominant Hand	Right	Right
Playstyle	All Rounder	Aggressive Baseliner
Techniques	FuuRinKaInZanRai Black Aura	Black Jack Knife

Serve order: Oni -> Sanada


This round ends on Monday, October 15th 8 PM GMT.

Cast your vote and discuss (logically) why you voted for who you voted for. Have fun, but keep it clean!​

 

[LetalHawk]

Sanada. He has enough power to return both BJK and Oni's next move, also, the buff in stats provided with Black Aura will make him win in the end. He won't have any problems returning Oni's shots, and I don't think Oni could use the gut to return Rai, he could use the bottom of the racket. Oni would put up a fight but he should go seriously/all out all the way from the start, he'll be in serious trouble if he doesn't. Sanada has enough power to counter Oni.

Sanada wins 6-4 or 7-5. Oni returns Sanada's shots and then he activates BA and wins.

 

[FrostyMouse]

You're just never going to convince me that Sanada has enough to win at the moment because you have to assume improvements for him even to stand on the court with Oni based on Mifune's "10 at Once" speech.

Oni wins 6-2.

 

[LetalHawk]

You're just never going to convince me that Sanada has enough to win at the moment because you have to assume improvements for him even to stand on the court with Oni based on Mifune's "10 at Once" speech.

Oni wins 6-2.

If he can defeat Irie who is probably equal to Tokugawa and Oni, he can also defeat Oni.

10 balls? We don't know how many can hit Sanada right now, 5 for the moment but maybe more right now. Also, what is the matter with that? He doesn't need to hit 10 to defeat him, tell me how Oni would counter BA.

 

[FrostyMouse]

Letal, nowhere is it ever shown that BA improves your stats. All we saw was that it was "intimidating" to noobs and it seemed to give Sanada a new speed shot, but nowhere does it show that Sanada's stats increase.

---------- Post added at 04:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:57 PM ----------

If he can defeat Irie who is probably equal to Tokugawa and Oni, he can also defeat Oni.

10 balls? We don't know how many can hit Sanada right now, 5 for the moment but maybe more right now. Also, what is the matter with that? He doesn't need to hit 10 to defeat him, tell me how Oni would counter BA.

I don't think Sanada can defeat Irie. I also happen to think that Irie's a touch stronger than Oni. It's also not as if Sanada has even played Irie in the manga, so where are you coming off assuming that he can just defeat Irie? Your argument is based on nothing except for you saying he can most likely defeat Irie, and thus can defeat Oni as well, which isn't based on anything in the manga.

Sanada currently has 5 balls, and you have to assume that Sanada gets 10 at Once for him to even stand on the court with Oni. What makes you think Oni can't return BA? It's implied by Kaji that Oni has a technique above BJK. If we're talking reasonable improvement here, we've accepted Sanada gets 10 balls, but you magically think Oni would be helpless in the face of BA? Get real.

---------- Post added at 05:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:59 PM ----------

Considering that Oni has played against Irie before and, even if you want to argue that Sanada's BA shot isn't any slower than Irie's speed shot against Akiba, Oni has experience playing against Irie, so he shouldn't have any difficulty returning the BA shot.

 

[Ninomiya]

Letal, nowhere is it ever shown that BA improves your stats. All we saw was that it was "intimidating" to noobs and it seemed to give Sanada a new speed shot, but nowhere does it show that Sanada's stats increase.

Common sense would imply there was a stat boost. You don't go from unable to take a point away from Yuki, to taking a confident point from Yuki without something increasing.
After that BA brief moment, Sanada is not under yips and he loses straight points to Yuki in that tie-break.
So BA practically has to give Sanada a boost now that he has it under control.

---------- Post added at 04:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:52 PM ----------

I don't think Sanada can defeat Irie. I also happen to think that Irie's a touch stronger than Oni. It's also not as if Sanada has even played Irie in the manga, so where are you coming off assuming that he can just defeat Irie? Your argument is based on nothing except for you saying he can most likely defeat Irie, and thus can defeat Oni as well, which isn't based on anything in the manga.

Sanada currently has 5 balls, and you have to assume that Sanada gets 10 at Once for him to even stand on the court with Oni. What makes you think Oni can't return BA? It's implied by Kaji that Oni has a technique above BJK. If we're talking reasonable improvement here, we've accepted Sanada gets 5 balls, but you magically think Oni would be helpless in the face of BA? Get real.

Considering that Oni has played against Irie before and, even if you want to argue that Sanada's BA shot isn't any slower than Irie's speed shot against Akiba, Oni has experience playing against Irie, so he shouldn't have any difficulty returning the BA shot.

This I agree with.
However Ijust want to put forward Oni, Irie, Tokugawa, Ryoga, Tanegashima, Byoudouin and Duke are likely not that much above the MSers.
Also, it's pretty likely storyline wise that Konomi is going to have Sanada defeat Tanegashima in the next match.

 

[LetalHawk]

True. My bad to speculate things, Sanada for the moment can hit 5 unless it's shown he can hit ten in the manga. I do think in fact Oni could keep up with Sanada's BA eventually, but maybe forfeit because of exhaustion. Stamina wise, they're pretty much equal, so it would be a long battle. I don't think Sanada would be crushed like Oni defeated every player he faced but Oni should go all out if he at least wants to win. However, I see Sanada overcoming Oni and winning in the end.

The BA boosts your stats, Sanada couldn't get a single point against Yuki, he activated BA, he magically scored one point eqsily, so his stats lifted dramatically. If he can power up his FuuRinKaInZanRai with BA, Oni would have to adjust to every move. Also, Rai plus Black Aura boost is just deadly.

I'd love to hear what Fayte has to say about this match, he wrote a fanfic about it, so now we go the real deal.

I just think Sanada will win in the end. That he cannot hit ten balls doesn't prevent him from losing, even if Mifune said that, it's just ridiculous, tennis doesn't matter on how many balls you can hit. Sanada can hit 5 and Oni 10, yet Sanada for sure can defeat Oni, nothing says he can't.

 

[FrostyMouse]

I gave Sanada 10 at Once as a reasonable improvement, Letal.

The thing is that it that BA gave him an impressive speed shot, but we don't know if his stats actually boost, or if that's just part of the BA effect. We also can't say whether BA would provide an improvement to FRKIZR or if it's just going to be a new playstyle that doesn't rely on the old style. I'm not saying Sanada would lose the ability to use them, but he shouldn't just gain new versions of every part of his style. What we saw out of BA looked like a regular shot, not anything having to do with Fuu, and that's what I see BA as. Just a new attack style that probably lowers your opponent's Mental and gives you extremely fast shots, but not something that powers up your entire arsenal.

Until we see Sanada in action, the most we can do is speculate about what it does, but there's really nothing we can say with certainty.

Fayte wrote a fanfic, but that has nothing to do with the canon of the manga. Fayte will claim that Sanada wins, but in order to effectively argue in favor of Sanada here, you have to speculate about how BA works and claim that it gives quite a bit of new powers. You've claimed that BA grants a significant stat boost and should also be able to power up all of FRKINZR.

 

[Phantron]

Sanada is the only middle schooler who can possibly play a top high school tier character straight up in terms of base stats. We can reasonably be sure he won't break his arm on the first BJK he returned, for example, while we really can't be sure with anyone else (not counting TnK Tezuka).

But it's also because of this he doesn't have the random miracles that middle schoolers tend to pull. Like Tezuka he's pretty much an 'always 100%' guy, and the only reason to use or not use certain moves is a matter of self preservation (Rai hurts yourself too). He doesn't ever save anything so he has nothing to improve in terms of in-match gains. It's been stated repeatedly that the high schoolers, especially guys at the top of G10, have unbelieveable base stats. Sanada is probably the closest to them in terms of base stats out of all middle schoolers, but he still can't possibly be as good as those guys. As a character he's decidedly lacking in 'plot bailouts' so to speak.

If Sanada completely abandoned his style of tennis he might have say a 30% chance of beating Oni, because it's implied FuRinKaZan each counters a specific style (i.e. Fu beats Ka, so Fu should counter Power styles). But it's hard to see Sanada do a repeat of what happened on the nationals since that's just not in his character. If Oni plays a power game he'll play a power game too, and he will lose at that. I don't see him using Fu instead (which is stated to counter Power styles) just because it gives a better edge, unless you want to say like he has a total change of heart after getting slapped by Yukimura.

 

[ashore]

i like both. we dont know the exact powers of black aura.
since oni is top5 Genius 10. i think his skills shouldnt be underestimated. and he could win sanada. it would be close game.
oni wins[ unless discussion changes me mind.

---------- Post added at 07:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:03 PM ----------

If he can defeat Irie who is probably equal to Tokugawa and Oni, he can also defeat Oni.

10 balls? We don't know how many can hit Sanada right now, 5 for the moment but maybe more right now. Also, what is the matter with that? He doesn't need to hit 10 to defeat him, tell me how Oni would counter BA.

IF who can defeat irie? specify manga chapter please or source thanks.

EDIT: i see you mean sanada beating irie in this tournament

 

[Phantron]

Even if Sanada can beat Irie (never stated in manga), Oni is ranked #2 on the reserve team, ahead of Irie who was #3.

---------- Post added at 09:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 PM ----------

As an aside, Sanada pretty much straight up owns anyone who cannot play 4 styles of tennis if he really wanted to. We can assume:

Fu = Speed
Rin = Tech
Ka = Power
Zan = Endurance

Sanada for the most part plays the identical style as his opponent, relying on the fact that he's somehow best at those 4 styles than anyone else. But, what's overlooked is that his 4 styles are inherently hard counters to certain other styles. For example, Ryoma copying Fu > Sanada's Ka. The gap between Sanada's physical power to Ryoma is surely bigger than the power gap between Oni and Sanada (Ryoma has always been a physically weak character) but Fu can overcome that. Tezuka's tech is almost certainly #1 out of all middle schooler (unless you count yips as tech, I think of it more as mental) but Rin can shut his techs down. It's not clear what counters what (Rin counters Tech, Fu couners Power, unknown about other two) but it's clearly implied these are hard counters.

So based on this to defeat Sanada you either need some kind of borderline mental power (yips), or something that cannot be countered by these 4 styles (World of Ice). Even if you possess significant advantage over Sanada in any of the 4 styles, it doesn't matter because one of his four styles will counter you hard. Unless you can switch between the 4 styles at will, you will still lose even if you're significantly stronger than Sanada.

But here's the important part: Sanada really hates playing the counter game. He wants to play everyone straight up (though for some reason he didn't want to use Rin to counter Tezuka, who is clearly a tech-type player). He strikes me as someone who views the team's success more than his personal success, which means while he is willing to forsake his ideology to beat Tezuka (because the team needs the win), he will be unwilling to forsake his ideology for any personal reasons. So you can't really count on FuRinKaZan despite they actually represent pretty much an invincibile set of basic skills against anyone who lacks one of the aforementioned 'uncounterable' styles.

 

[Hardy]

I don't know... it's a hard choice. Although I don't see Sanada hitting a shot that's impossible to return for Oni, he's still Sanada.

I'd love to vote for Sanada. Then he'll face Fuji in the finals (and if Fuji wins there, Fayte is gonna lose his mind lol).

 

[Fuji Shusuke]

Oni has got this I reckon.

Considering he can hit ten balls, we can assume his movements are very fast and probably can match Black Aura.

 

[LetalHawk]

I don't know... it's a hard choice. Although I don't see Sanada hitting a shot that's impossible to return for Oni, he's still Sanada.

I'd love to vote for Sanada. Then he'll face Fuji in the finals (and if Fuji wins there, Fayte is gonna lose his mind lol).

I'm waiting to hear Fayte's opinion about this lol.

 

[Phantron]

For Sanada versus Fuji, Rai speed (doesn't have to hit with Rai) + Rin will shut down everything Fuji has the same way it can shut down Tezuka's moves, but Sanada won't do that because that isn't how the Emperor plays. Instead he'll try to attack head on with Ka/Rai and Fuji will eventually figure out a way to counter that.

Rin, as portrayed so far, is auto-win against tech-type players. It's unclear why Sanada considers using Rin dishonorable against tech players, but he's extremely reluctant to use Rin against tech-type players.

 

[TheShiraishi]

I feel like the very concept of Rin goes against Sanada's play style. Sure it's part of the FuuRinKaInZanRai but it doesn't require him to use his power. It's a technique-based drop shot and isn't based on his physical abilities as much as his mental. Ka uses his power, Fuu uses his arm speed, Zan uses his endurance, and Rai uses his DBZ teleport ability. In is arguable since it also uses his mental, but it's also pretty exclusive in its use so I don't think he minds using it (exclusive in that it only counters a few moves) All Rin is is a carefully controlled dropshot and thus, it goes against his play all out head on style of tennis and his title of Emperor.

Evidence here:

Spoiler

 

[Phantron]

I feel like the very concept of Rin goes against Sanada's play style. Sure it's part of the FuuRinKaInZanRai but it doesn't require him to use his power. It's a technique-based drop shot and isn't based on his physical abilities as much as his mental. Ka uses his power, Fuu uses his arm speed, Zan uses his endurance, and Rai uses his DBZ teleport ability. In is arguable since it also uses his mental, but it's also pretty exclusive in its use so I don't think he minds using it (exclusive in that it only counters a few moves) All Rin is is a carefully controlled dropshot and thus, it goes against his play all out head on style of tennis and his title of Emperor.

Well of course that brings the question if using Rin to counter tech moves is dirty then when is it ever NOT dirty to use Rin, since Rin seems to exist to only counter tech moves (it sure doesn't look like an offensive move). Sanada's 'Emperor' style is clearly that if opponent plays style X he plays the same style with more of whatever that style requires, except for tech type players. I guess versus tech players he is supposed to use a combination of everything but Rin to overpower them, since we know Rin, as described, pretty much unconditionally counters all techs.

So if Sanada plays his 'Emperor' style tennis he can't beat Oni because it's hard to see he just get more power than Oni. But if he plays the 'counter' style he has a good chance of winning. Again Ryoma's Fu counters Sanada's Ka despite the extreme difference in physical ability of the two, so we can infer Sanada has very strong counter styles. But I don't see him abandoning his tennis style for a personal match and he's not going to beat Oni head-on.

 

[Ninomiya]

I gave Sanada 10 at Once as a reasonable improvement, Letal.

How is 10 at once reasonable?
It was given to Ryoma. The Main character.
Why should we assume Sanada would get BA, AND 10 ball return?

Are just gonna assume Kintaro and Akutsu have it too?

---------- Post added at 03:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:10 PM ----------

For Sanada versus Fuji, Rai speed (doesn't have to hit with Rai) + Rin will shut down everything Fuji has the same way it can shut down Tezuka's moves, but Sanada won't do that because that isn't how the Emperor plays. Instead he'll try to attack head on with Ka/Rai and Fuji will eventually figure out a way to counter that.

Rin, as portrayed so far, is auto-win against tech-type players. It's unclear why Sanada considers using Rin dishonorable against tech players, but he's extremely reluctant to use Rin against tech-type players.

Since in Rikkai Dai, nobody likes just ''winning''.
They ALL like to Destroy, Crush and Annihalate.

Sanada came out with all of FRKRIZ in the first game.
Tearing apart TZ, Hyakku Ren, ZSD.

Yagyuu/Niou used a switch to destroy GP's mind.

Yanagi/Kirihara didn't attack all-out from the outset and just returned Kaidoh/Inui's best moves at the start.

Marui/Jackal had Jackal hit Boomerang Snake, tearing Kaidoh's mind apart.

Yuki didn't attack from the outset, but casually returned everything Ryoma had early on, trying to convey defeat into him.

Niou became Tezuka JUST to leave Fuji with nothing left. When Yukimura knows he could have become Yuki or Sanada instead.

Kirihara is just a violent dude. Self explanatory.

So, not crushing your opponent head-on is unlike the style of Rikkai.
The whole reason Sanada went out of his team's way to get Ryoma to face Yuki. As he wanted it that Rikkai somewhat shut down Seigaku.

---------- Post added at 03:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 PM ----------

And on this,
To be assuming Sanada has suddenly improved far beyond with what we have seen is just being an intense fan. Not necessary.

What need's to be understood I believe is that the gap between the top MSers in the camp, Ryoma, Yuki, Sanada, Kintaro, Niou, Atobe, Akutsu in Singles between the top HSers Byoudouin, Tanegashima, Ryoga, Duke, Oni, Irie and Tokugawa and possibly Ohmagari,
likely isn't as big as it was at the start of SPoT.

There has been a level of general improvement from everyone. Which would explain why Kite who I rate around Inui/Yanagi level, and Marui who I rate around Hirakoba level, are able to take on No.8 & 7 and look like they will win.

Otherwise this whole G10 thing would be pointless if the best HSers can't be levels above anymore. There cannot be much difference between the Top HSers and MSers anymore.
Sanada winning this isn't impossible.
As a matter of fact, I see a few MSers defeating Oni.

 

[LetalHawk]

Otherwise this whole G10 thing would be pointless if the best HSers can't be levels above anymore. There cannot be much difference between the Top HSers and MSers anymore.
Sanada winning this isn't impossible.
As a matter of fact, I see a few MSers defeating Oni.

The MS growth is just amazing, the top MS will close the gap between them and the top HS of the first string quick.

Of course it's not impossible, Sanada can win this. He can return Oni's BJK easily and probably his next move after some tries, Sanada overwhelmed by Oni is just impossible and unlikely.

About a few, players like Echizen, Yukimura and Sanada are the only ones I see defeating Oni. I won't say Tezuka because with his current level and POP would destroy Oni.

 

[Ninomiya]

The MS growth is just amazing, the top MS will close the gap between them and the top HS of the first string quick.

Of course it's not impossible, Sanada can win this. He can return Oni's BJK easily and probably his next move after some tries, Sanada overwhelmed by Oni is just impossible and unlikely.

About a few, players like Echizen, Yukimura and Sanada are the only ones I see defeating Oni. I won't say Tezuka because with his current level and POP would destroy Oni.

Not just Ryoma, Yuki and Sanada.
I mean I don't think its impossible that Niou or Akutsu or Atobe defeats Oni too.