LogFAQs > #879121448

1a) Luis

Luis - Hallelujah Essaim (0-0, 20GP)
Low: Sonic, Agnès Oblige
Mid: Haseo, Jaesa Willsaam, Neptune, Flynn, Selvaria Bles
High: Bayonetta, Vergil, Dizzy
Supports: Carmilla (Link: Haseo), Morrigan (Link: Selvaria)
Recharges:
Notes: Vergil is Selvaria's liege, Agnès is a Monk

I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about Mercenaries the game as a whole, moreso than the two teams I'm about to rank. You see, these teams represent two different approaches to the game that nonetheless touch on the same basic core. Essentially, Mercs is divided into four sides, more or less: Economy/Logistics, Politics/Strategy, Abilities/Tactics, and Charisma/Battle Worth. Because there's no econ and no long season, draft mercs throws out Logistics and Strategy, favoring Tactics and Charisma. There's generally two ways to get ahead in the game at the micro level (as opposed to the macro level of playing your enemies against each other, finding true friends because this is really not a competitive solo game so much as a cooperative factional one, and steadily increasing your economic power by any means necessary): you either come up with amazing, breathtaking arguments that take a debatable match and make it seemingly one-sided and field mercenaries who are so respected and well-known they basically get voters to argue for you, or you use abilities that make a debatable or bad match a stomp in your favor. Having tried both these approaches in my tenure as a leader in Mercenaries 4, I firmly believe ability spam is the way to go - voters can be biased against you, like the opponent's mercs more, or simply be doing rigged voting (particularly late in the game), but abilities don't lie and nobody can ignore them without getting DQ'd. It's simpler, safer, and easier on your sanity to rely on them. Luis chose abilities that affected the battle once it's hit the topic - he has very strong mercs, then he buffs them up to the eyebrows, then he wins 50-0 because any one of his mercs could solo the enemy team that seems pathetically weak by comparison. What's amazing about this team isn't the strategy, because it's simple, but the marvelous craftsmanship of it all. None of the pieces are incidental or useless, everything interlocks together in a charming way. Mercenaries is a game that allows for amazing amounts of self-expression in teambuilding, and when self-expression reaches a certain level of quality, it becomes art. This team is art, and I feel like there's no way it doesn't make top 4 regardless of final results.

1b) Boko

Boko - Boko Reunited (0-0, 20GP)
Low: Nilin, Tira, Morrigan, Kyo Kusanagi
Mid: Alucard, Ansem, Luca Blight
High: Lightning, Dark Samus, Grigori
Supports: Monokuma (Link: Lightning)
Recharges: Lightning (Faithful Servant, 3 weeks), Nilin (Memory Remix, 3 weeks)
Notes: Lightning has saved Serra's soul, Lightning is beary deceptive

Boko's team, by contrast, takes a different tack. It doesn't win by throwing in mercs that basically can't lose a battle. It simply doesn't let you play. If Luis' team builds up unstoppable forces that you can't vote against without being DQ'd, Boko's team tears enemy teams down, crushing them underneath the weight of an infinite barrage of removals. It's not at all dissimilar to the strategy I rode all the way to the championship, and I feel it's much safer - you can argue a team with 500% parameter buffs can't SOLO you five times over, but you can't argue your lone surviving 3/week after an offensive maelstrom beats the five 6s or 7s Boko will have after his ability phase is over. This, in the end, is why he's #1 and not Gravy - filthier, more unanswerable combos.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.