#1-1: Argis vs. Whitakker

[Argis]

Argis takes a moment to observe the movements of the blade and how Whittaker's muscles constrict Argis then wait for the perfect moment and charge slicing in a upward fashion hit the blade up and slides it forward to get in stabing range.

[Whitakker]

*Whitakker falls away from the samurai's thrust, regaining his balance just in time to backpedal a few meters.

"Nice one."

*Whitakker then sprints at Argis, crouches, and performs a floor-sweeping maneuver. While crouched, Whitakker thrusts his sword at the samurai's stomach.*

[Argis]

Argis thrust his blade down aiming for Whittaker's neck. Both blades closing in on their targets the are about three centimeters from their destinations.

OOC: plz use this post to decide the winner.

[Nicholi]

Nicholi steps into the arena and gives a nod to both combatants. He raises his nagitana and begins to speak.

"Both of you have fought well. It was a tough choice, but I have decided on a winner. I declare Argis Boren, the winner of this match. Congratulations to the both of you for a spectacular fight. Argis will go on to fight the winner of match 1-2. Until then I bid you all adieu."

With that, Nicholi vanishes from the arena.


RULING NOW VOID

[Whitakker]

*Whitakker retrieves his coat and ranged weapons from the pile in the corner, putting them back in their respective places. He sheathes his sword, and turns to Argis:*

"I have enjoyed this immensely, though I am inquisitive as to how our venerable battlemaster came to his decision. Nevertheless...good day, Argis Boren."

*With that, Whitakker turns and exits the arena.*

[Argis]

*Argis sheaths his sword and then perfom a deep bow.* "Good day to you as well."Argis then leave out anouther door.

[Thanatos]

I have difficulty justifying the ruling in this match. As founder and original Battlemaster of the Arena board, allow me to present my own analysis of this fight.

This brief combat was not an ideal arena match; in fact, in all honesty I would consider it somewhat of a disaster. While posts began with a suitable level of depth and length, the entire affair very soon degenerates into little more than a flurry of haphazard emotes, although Whitakker still very clearly places more thoughts into his responses.

Something else I found sorely lacking in this thread was sportsmanship. As I mention in the rules governing the Arena board, it is impossible to have a decent fight without both combatants doing their part and rolling with the punches--and this was something NOT ONCE EXPRESSED in this battle. NEITHER SIDE SUFFERED ANY INJURY, despite a ridiculous amount of assaults being thrown back and forth in rapid succession.

I also found a disturbing amount of auto-hitting on Argis' part. Observe the following:

Most of Whitakker shots where blocked by a combination of the armor and the quickly drawn Tanto still some hit drawing blood Argis says “I thought you would rather live but her we go!” Argis blocks the blade, and then in a second wrap his arm around it and slams it with a palm heels it if is slung out of Whitakker hand and also flies out of Argis hand it hit the wall and clatters to the ground. And Argis then begins to throw a series of kicks and punches all with deadly accuracy. With the last few moves Argis stops Whittaker still stunned from the first few that caught him off guard. Doesn’t move Argis drops down in a flash Argis, caught Whitakker under the jaw sending him fling back he hits the wall opposite of his sword. Argis takes a step back and grabs both swords and throws his Tonto at Whittaker’s crest….

As mentioned earlier, I found both sides guilty of a laughable amount of flawlessly executed acrobatic maneuvers, dancing their ways in and out of all sorts of mortal danger--but there is one case in particular I would like to illustrate which is undoubtedly the lowest point of this combat.

The attack:

*Whitakker dives out of the reach of the flames, rolls, and rises, now having cut the distance between himself and Argis. Whitakker sees his sword on the other side of the samurai, close to the wall. Without hesitation, Whitakker dashes towards Argis, and aerials over him, dodging a swipe at his midsection in mid-flight. Whitakker throws the tanto at Argis' head, freeing his hand. Whitakker comes down hands first, one hand closing his sword. Pushing off with his hands, Whitakker flies towards the near wall. As impact is made, Whitakker pushes off of the wall, and soars over Argis again, this time making multiple slashes at Argis' exposed head...*

A fairly good post, filled with crisp, physical description that helps create a fairly vivid mental image of the unfolding scene. Argis' response?

The defense:

Argis duck quickly to avoid the blows to his head and in one foul motion spins around to cut at Whittakker"s side

Not only has Argis written only a single sentence--he has also succeeded in butchering a verb tense, using an incorrect word, and making one typo. This is with spell-check. On top of all of this, he has avoided TWO ATTACKS with a simple duck, neglecting the throw of the tanto entirely.

An undeniable essence of the arena scene revolves around literate, descriptive, entertaining reponses to help create a truly riveting scene of mortal struggle in the mind's eye. For this Whitakker is to be commended. While his phrasing is ocasionally awkward and his word choice sometimes strained, he has all in all succeeded admirably in capturing the heart of combat. (Then again, the tiny mistakes he is guilty of I have probably surpassed ten-fold in my own often times ludicrious writing)

Argis, on the other hand, has created unindented, jumbled horrorshows of the English language which require the patience of a Zen monk and the logical artifice of Bobby Fisher to unravel and understand to any great level of success.

Even though this fight went ultimately unresolved, the winner is clearly Whitakker. A single reading-through of this veritable disaster is all it takes to establish this ironclad fact.

I would suggest that Battlemaster Nicholi post his own analysis of the battle, as well as his justification for naming Argis winner. The Arena is intended as a place of generally light-hearted entertainment; this is an atmosphere impossible to achieve if players are unsure of the reasoning behind a specific decision on the administration's part.

(Please inform me if you consider my evaluation of this fight inaccurate, or if I have missed something in my own examination of this thread. My apologies if I seem overly blunt--this is an issue that very much bothers me.)

[Thanatos]

After having confered with Battlemaster Nicholi at length, he has decided to withdraw his original ruling rather than write out a sufficiently sized justification. This makes Whitakker the undisputed winner of Match #1-1, for reasons outlined in my previous post.

Because of the unorthodox series of events leading up to this judgment, the player Argis is more than welcome to present a case arguing in his favor, even finding a suitable advocate to argue for him if necessary. In either case, I would like to present my apologies for the originally misleading decision surrounding this match, and express my hope that other such arena matches will be resolved with substantially less fuss in future.