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Death Battle Predictions: Sabrewulf vs Jon Talbain

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Death Battle Predictions: Sabrewulf vs Jon Talbain

SoMaShadow

(Phantom Falcon)

(Clockboxxer) (This is an old TN please ignore the stupid ass white spot I fucking hate it too)

“We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.”

– Khalil Gibran

Neither animal or man, the werewolf takes the worst from both species: the bloodlust and primal nature of a wolf, and the ruthlessness and cruelty of a human. The myths and legends surrounding these creatures of the night stem back to the days of Medieval Europe; those cursed with Lycanthropy assume their beastly forms under a full moon’s light, and woe to any being unlucky enough to cross their paths as these monsters rampage and ravage anything they see fit, much like our next combatants: two such hybrid monstrosities hailing from the 90’s fighting game boom primed and ready for a moonlit melee between East and West:

Konrad von Sabrewulf, the cursed aristocrat-turned-reluctant beast of Killer Instinct. Jon Talbain, the baneful warrior of the night from Darkstalkers. Once just normal men who longed to rid themselves of the monster within, the uncontrollable hunger for battle that drives their bestial instincts have transformed them into some of the deadliest creatures to ever wander the planet, more than capable of fighting and defeating all sorts of formidable opponents. Death Battle is ready for the wolves to enter a bloody and violent fight this Halloween night; under the moon of oblivion, which of these mighty monsters will howl for the last time?

(we’re not kidding bc uh)

A Heads-Up From Ya Bois

Just gonna be a quick heads-up, but this blog is gonna be compositing both characters among most of their common media.

For Sabrewulf, this means he’ll have access to feats performed in both major Killer Instinct timelines. Ditto for Jon, who’ll have his feats split between the Darkstalkers games’ continuity, as well as the UDON comics (including its canon crossover with Street Fighter), the OVA and the American cartoon. Let’s be honest, this blog would be a lot shorter in terms of feats if we just used the games. The Darkstalkers manhua, however, won’t be included. What the hell is a manhua and why isn’t it being accounted for you ask? Well we’ll just show you these out of context panels from it and leave it at that.

Wait hold on is that fucking Jago

Background

Sabrewulf

“I must either cure this curse… or master it.”

The Killer Instinct tournament hosted by Ultratech has sported a wide array of strange and exotic competitors: robots, agents, aliens, humans whose bodies have been engulfed in flame, and even cybernetic dinosaurs. But among all of them, none have been quite as classic, or as tragic, as the tale of the werewolf that entered.

Baron Konrad von Sabrewulf was once a wealthy aristocrat from Germany who was kind of like Tony Stark. While he was rich and smart, he also loved parties, women, and booze (especially booze). But after receiving his family’s castle from his dying parents in their will, he discovered that his family had a secret: they were actually monster hunters, known to have wiped out multiple monstrous races, including werewolves, and had even mounted some of the trophies from these long battles on their walls. But the biggest change in Konrad’s life was yet to come.

One night, while stumbling around in the basement totally shitfaced, Konrad accidentally cut himself on a nearby wolf’s claw that was mounted on the wall. However, this wolf’s claw was actually that of a werewolf, and its ability to transform a human into a werewolf still remained dormant inside. And on the night of the next full moon, Konrad transformed completely into a werewolf and went on a rampage, destroying most of his family’s estate. Once he transformed back, he discovered that he had accidentally destroyed the last cure to his lycanthropy, and sought out a new cure through experimentation. Ultimately, however, this only drove him further into his madness and made him addicted to opioids.

It wasn’t long before the werewolf’s story reached Ultratech, who found that they could profit from the man’s pain. They offered him a cure if he managed to win their Killer Instinct tournament, which Sabrewulf ultimately accepted. Now pretty much owning the rights to Sabrewulf’s body, they used him to experiment with cybernetic enhancements, enhancing his agony by extending his transformations as long as they could go. Now, Sabrewulf has escaped Ultratech’s control, having more control over his transformations, but hoping to find a cure to his affliction, by any means necessary.

Jon Talbain

“The beast within forces me to rip and shred everything!”

In the dark demon realm of Makai, among the seven legendary houses and families who rule it, the Kreutz nobility is perhaps one of the deadliest. Led by the Wolf Lord, Baraba Kreutz, this group of royal guardsmen participated in numerous battles across the history of Makai, even earning Baraba the honour of being rival to vampire noble Demitri Maximoff. Twenty years prior, Baraba had ended up stumbling into our ever familiar human world, falling in love with an unknown woman who cared for him as he suffered grievous injuries. Despite his fading memory upon returning to the demon realm, this encounter permanently tied Baraba to mortal life. Ten years later, Baraba disappeared. Rumour has it that he returned to the woman he met that decade prior, but his true fate is a mystery. This secret affair would give birth to the cursed werewolf, Jon Talbain.

Born 1940, England, Jon’s mother died shortly after giving birth, and his father soon disappeared once again. Jon was forced to grow up alone, unaware of his demonic ties, viewing his parents in a merely conceptual sense. Jon would remain ignorant of his heritage until he was a young adult, where one fateful day, under the iridescent glow of the full moon, a beastly instinct awoke. Where there was once bare flesh laid fur. In his new werewolf form, the orphan had become an outcast from human society, and was determined to prevent his monstrous urges from consuming his human past completely. He devoted himself to pushing his physical limits, adamant that mastering his inner humanity would undo the curse and make him man once more. Eventually encountering a similarly plagued hermit, who informed him that the curse would be broken if Jon achieved his physical peak, Jon hears of Lord Demitri’s plan to organise a tournament to determine the strongest Darkstalker, alongside the invasion of the alien energy god Pyron, and saw this as a way to further his physical abilities and link to humanity. Jon’s wishes become manifest after the events of the first Darkstalkers game, as the curse is lifted and he returns to human form. His quest seemingly over, Jon looks to the shining sun, illuminating his victory over the darkness within.

Despite his success, however, Jon continued to be shunned by human society, finding acceptance only amongst the innocence of children, even befriending two orphans known as Fred and Marco. Years later, the otherworldly heir finds himself sensing the urge of the werewolf within once more. Hearing an ethereal voice in the back of his mind, Jon abruptly transforms into a monster once more. It is only then that Jon finally realises that it is impossible to rid his blood of the curse forever. He becomes aware of his fear manifest as a corrupt alternate version of himself, referred to simply as Dark Talbain. Called to the unnatural realm of the Majigen by the sealed demon lord Jedah Dohma, Jon comes face-to-face with his malevolent alter-ego, and engages in a battle to determine which side of him will obtain dominance. Achieving victory, he at last comes to terms with his monstrous half. Regardless of the consequences, as long as he seeks to retain control, Jon Talbain will never stop pushing himself to his limits.

Equipment

Sabrewulf

Aside from technically the cybernetic implants he’s had come and go throughout his history, Sabrewulf doesn’t typically carry around any equipment.

Talbain

Nunchucks

A pair of nunchucks he apparently keeps on his person at all times. Gotta love kung-fu werewolves.

Abilities

Sabrewulf

Sabre-Pounce

Sabrewulf gets on all fours before performing a lunge.

Sabre-Spin

Sabrewulf spins around, swinging wildly at his enemy.

Sabre-Roll

Doing his best Blanka impression, Sabrewulf rolls into the opponent with sharp strikes.

Sabre-Slap

Fucking slaps you dude. It hurts.

Flaming Bat

Sabrewulf can call bats to him. Through some strange unexplained magic, they can light ablaze and act as fiery projectiles.

Howl

By howling, Sabrewulf can “charge” himself. His attack power and attack speed increase.

Sabre Flip

Sabrewulf can do a powerful flip strong enough to send foes flying into the air.

Sabre Wheel

yo why is the wolf doing cartwheels

Sabrewulf cartwheels into the opponent, damaging them with his limbs outward. It does the job.

Who’s the fucking wise guy correcting my shit

Dash

Sabrewulf is fast enough to dash past enemies, allowing him great opportunities for mix-ups. 

Run

…exactly what it sounds like. Sabrewulf will run on all fours at his opponent and is able to follow up in three different ways. 

  • Hamstring: Sabrewulf will slide below an enemy, passing under their projectiles and swiping at their legs. 
  • Jumping Slash: Allows Sabrewulf to jump over a foe and perform an overhead swipe. Like the Hamstring it is also able to dodge projectiles by going over them.
  • Running Uppercut: Sabre says screw it and decides he wants to put your ass in the air by performing a powerful uppercut slash.

Overpower

Sabrewulf rears back his paws. When fully charged, he strikes forward with enough force to break through the opponent’s defenses with an unblockable attack.

Ragged Edge

Sabrewulf frantically charges the opponent with several claw swipes. The Shadow version will have Sabrewulf swipe forward up to five times.

Eclipse

Sabrewulf swipes overhead, launching his opponent. The Shadow version is larger and deals more damage.

Feral Rage

This is Sabrewulf’s Instinct Mode. When his emotions reach a boiling point, Sabrewulf will enter a berserker state. In this glowing form, Sabrewulf will hit harder and become less predictable.

No Mercies/Ultimate

Claw Stab

Sabrewulf sprouts a large claw from his hand, and slays the opponent with one deadly stab.

Screen Punch

Sabrewulf sends you into the screen with a slap. Very rude of him.

Bat Swarm

Sabrewulf calls upon his army of bats to charge the opponent down and carry their unmoving form to an unknown death, presumably consumption.

Electric Claw

Sabrewulf fries the opponent with volatile blasts of electricity. This can only be performed with non-standard cybernetic enhancements, however.

2013 Ultimate 

Sabrewulf brutally swipes the opponent 4 times, quicker than they can react, before powering himself up and pouncing towards them and cutting them apart.

Talbain

Rapid Crunch

(Clip taken from one of Maximillian Dood’s videos)

A simple and quick bite Jon performs when near an opponent.

Canyon Rounder

(Credits to Combo Breaker and Vampire Arcadia’s YT channel)

As shown above, Jon grabs the opponent and rolls with them backwards, latter throwing them, it’s basically his normal throw.

Canyon Flyer

(Credit to warowolf04 on YT for being the only sensible human being on using Jon’s air-throw)

This is basically Talbain’s air-throw, as shown above he gets a good grip on the opponent and spins with them into the ground, throwing them shortly afterwards.

Sadness Wind

(Thank god for “Mellow” on YT for being the only human being on making a comprehensive DS3 Talbain guide)

Very similar (if not the same) as his regular medium kick, the only difference is that he steps a bit forward before delivering the kick. Why he decided to name this technique something so depressing for something so simple is beyond us.

Strike Wolf

His “pursuit” attack, Talbain tackles an already grounded foe, dealing extra damage.

Beast Cannon

Jon, engulfing himself in an aura of chi, propels himself with incredible force against his opponents. This is probably one of his strongest and most versatile attacks. He can go in any direction he desires and even do several of them back to back if need be. It’s fast enough to cover large distances in a few seconds and even one-shot Huitzils.

Climb Laser

A Flash kick-type move in which Jon performs an upwards kick engulfed in chi. It’s also strong enough to slice Huitzil robots in half.

Wild Circular

A powerful grab in which Talbain does a rolling backflip into the air and slams his opponent down.

Million Flicker

Talbain takes out his nunchucks and swings them at his opponent in the blink of an eye, dealing a lot of damage at close range.

Moment Slice

Jon stabs the opponent in the gut with his claws and then proceeds to slice them into the air.

Dragon Cannon

Talbain summons a giant spiral dragon (or twin dragons in other games) made of fire and shoots it at the opponent. This tends to be one of his strongest techniques overall, capable of incinerating people in a few seconds.

Mirage Body

This is his “Dark Force” ability in DS3, Talbain creates a mirage clone of himself that follows his every move, dealing devastating damage (Kinda like Zero’s Songenmu from MvC3).

Feats

Sabrewulf

Overall

Strength

Speed

Durability

Jon Talbain

Overall

Strength

Speed

Durability

(Credit to World of Longplays)

Weaknesses

Sabrewulf

While Sabrewulf has shown he can speak and think while in his werewolf form, he often acts on pure instinct. This can be great against a more feral opponent, but it also makes him prone to being outsmarted. After years of desperation and betrayal, he finds himself having to constantly withhold his exceedingly violent urges until he just can’t contain it anymore. His lack of restraint has on occasion led him to being tricked, with, well, unfortunate consequences.

Talbain

If there’s one thing that Talbain is constantly struggling with, it’s fighting his urge to go full monster. While he’s never given into his bestial side thanks to years of honing his skills, he still constantly battles himself inside to keep it in check. If he does succumb, while becoming more ruthless and savage, he loses most of his intelligence and skill, which has allowed fighters like Felicia to defeat him in the past.

Summary

Sabrewulf

“Is this instinct, or bloodlust? What power do you possess that calls to the beast inside of me?”

Advantages:

  • Likely stronger and more durable
  • More vicious and savage fighter
  • Superior regeneration and survivability
  • Has two ways of boosting his stats
  • Has kept up with trained opponents before
  • Tooth & Claw slaps HARD
  • Terrifying and unpetable
  • Actually got a new game in the last decade

Disadvantages:

  • Likely slower
  • Very simplistic moveset
  • Unlike Talbain, lacks martial arts training
  • More prone to going feral and operating on pure instinct
  • Possibly not dead but KI needs to be brought back
  • Oh god no not the manhua Sabrebros

Jon Talbain

“My power is the fury of the beast. None can overcome it!

Advantages:

  • Likely faster
  • More varied and versatile moveset, including better ranged options
  • Superior skill due to having actual martial arts training
  • More control over his beastly side
  • Has fought savage and unpredictable opponents before
  • Prettier
  • Looks more petable
  • JON BLANCO

Disadvantages:

  • Likely weaker and less durable
  • Not quite as ruthless
  • Has shown less impressive feats of regeneration and survivability
  • Has no ways of increasing his stats
  • Despite what Capcom might claim Darkstalkers is fucking dead
  • Is constantly one misspelling away from being called a terrorist

Verdicts

Phantom Falcon

(SHIROU HIVE MOTHERFUCKER)

Oh, so RvB got delayed. Ah well, what’s next th-

Sees the castle from KI in 0.00002827736262728893836 seconds HOLYFUCKYESHSJSHJEHSJEHFJSUEBFJONVSSABREWULFHOLYFUCKMYDICKISOFUCKINGHARDOHMYGODYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

I AM SO FUCKING EXCITED FOR THIS MATCHUP, YOU HAVE NO IDEA

Killer Instinct is by far my favorite fighting game franchise of all time, with its diverse cast of fighters, fun as hell gameplay, and kickass soundtrack. Darkstalkers is also a great series, for the same reasons as KI. Both Jon and Sabre happen to be some of my favorite characters in their series, so this is definitely a hype matchup for me

This is surprisingly complicated stat wise doe, and that’s mainly because no one can fucking agree on the stats for either series, particularly Darkstalkers. With all that said, I’m going to do my best to represent both to the best of my ability and give my interpretation of where they land stat wise. With all that said let’s dive into this

Sabrewulf

Funny wolf man

Sabrewulf has decent enough direct feats. He can cleanly tear right through a steel door, launch heavy opponents like Fulgore into the air, move fast to be a blur, survive gunfire, etc. Not bad at all. The h̶u̶m̶a̶n̶ meat however goes further than that. In Jago’s stage, Sabrewulf is strong enough that during an Ultra Combo, he can knock down a massive bell in the background b̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶h̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶b̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶. The big ones though come from scaling to other fellow combatants in the series. In the original timeline, Tusk is capable of summoning meteors from orbit to barrage his opponent. This can get 700 kilotons to 4 megatons, which is large town+ to small city level. As for why Sabrewulf scales, in the original timeline, he was capable of harming Jago and killing Orchid, both of whom are top tiers in that timeline. Jago can match and even defeat TJ Combo, who can match Tusk in combat in his ending. Not too inconsistent as in the reboot timeline, an Ultra Combo can cause incredibly dangerous and powerful storms, which get over 3 megatons, also small city level. As for speed, pretty damn fast. Sabrewulf can be scaled to ARIA having nanosecond reaction speeds, which is about 3x lightspeed, and he can move in tandem with Fulgore’s satellite laser, which is around 6% lightspeed, or sub-relativistic+. Durability should be the same as AP for him, given how he can survive brutal blows from characters who can also make the storm in Devil’s Landing.

Things get reaaaaally big with Gargos scaling however. For context, Gargos, by simply opening his portal, can create a shockwave powerful enough to disperse air on an outright planetary scale. There are various calc’s for this feat, but generally speaking, it shouldn’t be below the planetary range of power. Now, while I won’t personally push for Gargos scaling, the argument is there for sure. Omen was capable of fighting and weakening Gargos, ARIA defeated Omen, TJ beats ARIA in his story mode, Glacius beats ARIA in the comics, Chief Thunder beats ARIA in his story mode, fucking everyone wrecks ARIA’s shit honestly. Oh, and Spinal fought Aganos in a story mission. Totally not relevant at all, besides the fact that Aganos fought and defeated Gargos in the comics. Haven’t checked myself recently mainly because of scheduling issues but I can guarantee you Sabre’s story missions have instances of fighting these people. Like I said, I’m not pushing for this myself, but the argument is there nonetheless, better to mention it at least

Addressing Counter-Arguments

That said, not everyone is comfy with these feats thrown around, as is the norm for most franchises. To start out with the storm in Devil’s Landing, I’ve seen people argue that it’s not the characters themselves causing the storm and is rather just a weird coincidence, and there’s no clear indicator that they caused it. I cannot agree with this argument however. As we see numerous times in various other stages, every Ultra Combo causes some sort of destruction in the background. The bell collapsing, lightning striking and destroying part of that structure, buildings collapsing, etc. Like, those seem like pretty clear indicators that yes, an Ultra Combo is causing them. The storm, and the other stage damages, only occur during an Ultra Combo, and nowhere else. To say this is different than the previous examples is cherry-picking imo. The place was already storming, yes, but the fact that it changes to literal fucking tornadoes and massive rainstorms happening the instant an Ultra Combo starts is what pushes me to think it’s legit. Every argument I’ve heard against this feat is weak to me, personally.

Tusk’s meteors I’ve seen people use reentry speed mainly because that’s how fast meteors usually are and stuff, even when space debris are usually around 800 km or something from the ground. However, that wouldn’t make sense. Assuming reentry speed, it would take over a minute for the meteors to even reach the surface, which, unless you’re blind, clearly isn’t what happened unless you’re arguing Tusk did that pose for a minute straight. So personally, the higher end is the most accurate one to me

Other Factors

Sabrewulf’s regeneration and endurance is pretty solid. He can survive essentially ripping out his own arms and not bleed to death, and survive being stabbed right through the neck and being capable of healing near instantly. That’s some really solid regeneration right there. Sabrewulf has 2 ways of boosting his stats, with howl and his berserker mode, the latter making him far more vicious and unpredictable. As for intelligence, it’s easy to assume at first glance that Sabrewulf is just some mindless beast or whatnot, but surprisingly, Sabre is pretty intelligent, at least as far as werewolves go. This is shown in his novel:

“Having spent much time at the mercy of his wild side, Sabrewulf has learned that being a predator is often as much about patience as it is power.  He is learning new ways to pounce on and surprise his many enemies.”

Sabrewulf is also capable of using potions and science, given how that’s how he was capable of healing from his ripped arms. So fairly intelligent, even if his gameplay and demeanor doesn’t show that lol.

In terms of skill, Sabrewulf is fairly solid on this. In the KI comics, he’s depicted as being just as, if not more skilled and experienced than Jago, a monk who’s been trained ever since he was a child, and he can match other skillful fighters like Orchid, Fulgore, etc. Sabrewulf being 50 years old certainly helps him, and given the roster of the franchise, he’s faced off against a vast and varied selection of foes.

So a quick TLDR is;

-Sabrewulf has large town-small city AP and dura

-FTL combat and reaction speeds

-While not having any formal training, is still fairly skilled

-Fairly intelligent

-Mid-low regeneration

-Has 2 ways of boosting his stats

With that out of the way, let’s move on to T̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶r̶o̶r̶i̶s̶t̶ Jon

Jon Talbain

Nunchucks go weeeeeeee

Jon’s best direct feats are outrunning an explosion, tearing Huitzil’s apart, and destroying a fountain. Similar to Wulf, fairly basic, and scaling gets him higher. While the two haven’t directly fought each other, we can scale Jon to Anakaris due to the two being in the same general class (B-Class), and Anakaris is capable of surviving a pretty big explosion, which gets building to city block level. His most impressive feat, however, is moving 3 large pyramids, which I’ve calculated to be nearly 4 kilotons, or small town+. Definitely an impressive feat. As for speed, Jon can move in tandem with lightning called down from Felicia’s intro, solidly MHS, and he can wrestle with Huitzil’s, who can travel from Pyron’s location from earth, which was millions of millions of meters away. This gets up to 1.5% the speed of light, or sub relativistic. He also has a statement of being capable of reaching lightspeed (though the statement saying he will obtain it implies he’s slower, but that would just be rela-rela+). However, like Sabrewulf, Jon has higher arguments that need to be addressed

In the OVA, Jon was capable of fighting with Morrigan in the intro. This can let him scale to Demitri, who can cover the Earth in clouds in the OVA. He’s blatantly stabbed right through Lilith in the manga, who’s an exact equal to Morrigan, and in the UDON comics, he fought Chun-Li, who can contend with Morrigan, and he knocked Jedah back also in the UDON comics. For speed, Huitzil’s have a supposed MFTL+ feat of traveling from Earth to Hellstorm, which we know is essentially a “forgotten star”, thus meaning it would bare minimum reach speeds of over a thousand times lightspeed

Why I don’t buy these arguements

Okay, so big elephant in the room, a lot of this involves cross continuity scaling between quite literally 4 different sources of media, which is very sus champ if you ask me. That isn’t my biggest qualm however. My biggest issue is that none of Jon’s high tier scaling is legitimate in my opinion. For starters, his “fight”, if you even want to call it that, with Morrigan in the OVA is less than a fucking minute. We don’t know if Jon won, if Morrigan was serious, how did Jon fare against her in the fight, nada. Literally no details. That alone makes the Morrigan scaling in the OVA extremely questionable, especially when Morrigan usually holds back in character. UDON comics seems fine at first glance, but we need to remember one thing: Chun’s fight with Jon occurred after her first fight with Morrigan, but before her second fight with the succubus. Why is this important? Well, for the first encounter, the entire fight was…not even a fight being honest. Chun-Li kicks her into a building, Morrigan is unharmed, and then teleports away. That’s it. That’s the entire conflict between the two, with Morrigan being completely uninjured. While the second fight shows them comparable, between the fight with Jon and the second Morrigan fight, Chun-Li, as described by Sagat, got more powerful, meaning that scaling Jon to Chun’s second encounter with the HotStalker isn’t really solid. With Jon stabbing Lilith, there’s no proof that manga Lilith = game Lilith, which means we can’t really say Jon is a solar system buster because of that, and the manga is pretty different from the games to say the least, with Morrigan being Jedah’s servant n all. And the fight with Jedah, I seriously have a hard time thinking why people bought that. Besides the main issue that Jedah got immediately back up, no injury at all, and continued bodying everyone fighting him, I’m not sure Jedah’s durability scales to his AP. Jedah’s body is essentially made of blood, no real physical mass there or anything, and this is even supported in the fight, since we see Akuma tear his arm off no problem, but he’s overall clearly outclassed in raw power. Beyond all else, the main issue is consistency. Jon is a B Class Darkstalker while Morrigan, Lilith, Dimitri, and Jedah are S Class, meaning it would be a big outlier for Jon to suddenly be on par with them.

Huitzil’s I can see why people buy but it’s too iffy for me. The main reason is because we know for a fact Pyron was on Earth during DS1/2, and that’s where people fight him in his endings. It’d be kinda weird contextually for them to like, fly to Hellstorm for no reason? The stage showing Hellstorm being the location can very easily just be argued to be gameplay mechanics, and above all, we have no timeframe for how long it took the Huitzil’s to go from Hellstorm to Earth, meaning any timeframe is essentially an assumption. Aside from that one instance, Huitzil’s don’t really have any feat of traveling interstellar distances? The closest we get is in UDON, but we don’t know the distance they flew, beyond the fact that it was implied to be somewhere in the universe, and we don’t know the timeframe, beyond the fact that they arrived on Earth at some point in the last 65 million years. In fact, it took Pyron 3 years to travel from his location to Earth, and Huitzil’s are obviously inferior to him. This feat is incredibly vague to really base anything off on, and the most we can say is that it’s just fast. That said, I can see people buying this, but I only will as a high end

Also minor thing but the meteors in Hellstorm that fall down I think is fine as an AP feat, but the meteors are too far in the background to really compare and something something we don’t know how far up space debris is on Hellstorm while we do for Earth

Other factors

Jon has years of formal martial arts training, particularly in Shotokan Karate (?) and Nunchaku. Jon has a pretty versatile and unpredictable move set, with stuff like fire dragons, mirage blows, grabbing the opponent in the air and slam dunking on their asses, the works. Jon is pretty decently intelligent, given how he’s capable of coherent speech even as a werewolf. It’s really only in a full blood moon that he goes completely and totally apeshit. He has a minor healing factor that allowed him to heal wounds from his fight with Felicia in a night.

So TLDR for Jon:

-Small town+ AP

-Sub-relativistic to lightspeed, possibly MFTL+

-Years of martial arts training

-Fairly intelligent

-Low regen

Conclusion

As far as AP/Dura is concerned, I have to lean Sabre here. With their more consistent and preferable ends, Sabre is nearly 1000x more powerful and durable, even discounting the storm, which no one has brought up a solid counter for. Tusk’s meteors are still super blatant and even going with the 700 kilotons end, that’s still nearly 200x stronger than Anakaris moving pyramids. While Jon’s high tier scaling exists, they’re either too vague to draw a solid conclusion from, have context that makes it iffy, require cross continuity scaling, and in general are just inconsistent with DS lore. Even accepting that however, Demitri in the OVA covering the world in clouds is small country, but Sabrewulf scaling to Gargos gives him an even bigger edge in AP, at least millions of times higher, and his arguments for high tier scaling are more reliable and overall consistent, even if I don’t buy either. Speed wise, I feel much more comfortable saying Sabrewulf is faster since his best speed scaling are far more clear cut than Jon’s, but even giving Jon extra leeway, he still can’t get around the AP gap. And that’s not even counting the fact that Sabre has two ways of boosting his speed and strength. Jon is more skilled via knowing actual martial arts techniques, but Sabrewulf has regularly spanked around opponents just as skilled as Jon, like Jago, and he overall has more experience fighting. Jon has a more unpredictable and varied move set, but Sabrewulf is overall more savage. Jon’s regen is overall worse than Sabre’s via comparing their wounds (shoulder stab vs neck stab), and Sabre’s regeneration is more reliable and immediate in a fight than Jon’s.

So overall, I don’t think Jon has this. That’s a shame, since Darkstalkers is really a great series, even if I prefer KI. It has an intriguing lore, fun cast of characters, tight gameplay, great interactions, etc, and it really sucks that Capcom has neglected the series for so long. Even though I’m rooting Sabre here, Jon is really fucking cool too, and it really sucks that DS is coming back after a decade only to just take another L. I really hope DS fans get their win, I really do, but right now, this fight isn’t the one. Jon’s martial arts, versatility, and greater speed (with a lot of leeway mind you) will undeniably be a challenge, but Killer Instincts resident monster wolf has the terrifying might, the incredible endurance, the superior healing factor, the more fighting experience, and the greater tenacity. Sabrewulf wins this, and I have no clever pun to end on

Jon Blanco stomps doe, and dis is straight fax.jaypeegee

Clockboxxer

(you already know who I’m rooting for lmao)

Venom vs Crona was alright. I think it was a good Crona episode, but not a good Venom episode. Moving on…

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH BABY THATS WHAT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THATS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT WOOHOOOOOO

RvB (don’t like that matchup but it’s happening) got delayed so that’s 4 weeks without a Death Battle BUT this matchup finally fucking happening makes up for that tenfold. This shit was my second most wanted up to now, Killer Instinct is my favorite fighting game franchise, and Darkstalkers is just really damn cool.

Both series have gone a while without a new episode, especially Darkstalkers with the longest gap in the history of the show. Yipes. It’s just really nice and refreshing to be able to talk about these franchises again. It’s all super exciting, and I can’t wait to peep the episode. The timing is also great, I’m glad they moved it up to Halloween and it’s happening during a damn hunter’s moon. It’s like magic.

By now, you know I want Sabrewulf to win all the way. Does he? Here’s what I think.

Admittedly I know way more about Killer Instinct than Darkstalkers bare with me here lol

Talbain has it better if we’re talking non-stat advantages. Aside from regeneration, Sabrewulf doesn’t really have any important edges. Jon’s in better control as a werewolf, has a longer history of formal training, and can fucking shoot dragons made of fire. I don’t exactly think Wulf’s bats are stacking up to that.

If stats were completely even, I’d say Sabrewulf gets run over. But despite these two series starving for content, the stats are pretty wonky, especially on the Darkstalkers side.

Speed is easier to explain than strength and durability. Sabrewulf should be comparable to ARIA in speed, having competed with characters on her level. That would give him nanosecond scaling, solidly a FTL werewolf lmao

Jon on the other hand is a bit tricky to lock down. He’s got some basic bit feats, but they don’t even really come close to some of KI’s lesser speed feats. That is, except for those Huitzils.

I think scaling Jon to them is plausible, since the Huitzils likely had to at least steer when traveling, so their reactions would scale somewhat. They’re pretty easy fodder that everyone can smash to bits, so it’s all good. With that, there are quite a few results you can get with varying distances and timeframes. I definitely don’t think it’s 1,000c or something. I’d put Wulf and the ‘Bain on pretty equal footing in swiftness, probably an edge to the Darkstalker.

So far, Jon is dominating. Sabrewulf’s only real chance of victory now is straight up overpowering him, which, to be fair, is already how he fights. This is uh…yeah, things are about to get tricky.

There are already the basic bitch feats like tearing through steel doors and busting fountains. Just going off these, Jon would be superior. But of course, there’s more to it.

Jon seems allergic to actually fighting people on a serious level. His scaling is awkward, cuz he fights high tiers a lot but never actually does anything to them. That, or they’re holding back. What little we can gather is that he scales to Anakaris and Donovan.

Sabrewulf is a lot clearer in scaling. He’s got scaling to Maya, Glacius, Fulgore, and OG Tusk. Tusk is especially important due to those meteors. With them being a kill move and all, it is a little hard to properly scale, and there’s a lot of unknown factors. I feel safer with the lower kiloton estimates, putting it in the ballpark of Anakaris.

But what about that storm? Simply put, I don’t know if I agree with it. It’s totally random and unexplained, there’s no obvious visual indicator that the combo itself is causing it, and the weather was already pretty stormy. If you used this, you might wanna use the meteors that come down in Hellstorm when the round ends. Both are just really weird and hard to properly justify.

If I had to say what I thought, it’s that Sabrewulf very likely has an edge in strength, since Tusk’s reasonable figures seem decently higher than Anakaris.

So who do I think wins? Uhhhh, gonna be honest, I was vouching for Konrad a lot, but I gotta go with Jon on this one. I don’t think the gap in strength and toughness is insurmountable. Jon has like…every other advantage that isn’t regeneration. I think it’s a close one, but I think my boy’s gonna be torn to shreds by the end of this. I really really hope the episode proves me wrong, but I super doubt that it will. On the bright side, Darkstalkers fans would get their long awaited dub. I just hope the full episode is fire. Jon’s gonna be the bain of Sabrewulf’s existence.

JON BLANCO-

Kingoman

(I consider Darkstalkers dead)

Due to schedule flipping and all, this verdict is going to be a lot less detailed than I would have liked. Still, devil’s advocating for Jon, as overused as it is, just because I do prefer him and I figured most others would be going for Wulf regardless, so I wanted to bat for him no matter who I think actually wins. Keep that in mind while reading of course, this argument is coming from the mindset that Jon wins and going from there.

Strength, best you can argue for Wulf is the storm caused by performing an ultra combo on Thunder’s stage. That’s definitely pretty debatable. since there’s really nothing outright confirming the character is the one causing the storm. The stage is already storming and irl storms can just randomly set in whenever, and KI matches are already in a small, set interval of time anyways. Could definitely argue that it’s more just a dramatic thing. Also >storm feats and >cloud calcs. Darkstalkers also has a similar feat where ending a round on Hellstorm causes big meteors to fall from the sky and cause a flash when they hit the ground. I think that’s pretty highly questionable as well, but the comparison is there. Beyond that, Tusk’s meteors have a lot of different ranges depending on what assumptions you make, but I think just using re-entry speed is better. IRL debris doesn’t start burning up and become a “meteor” until they’re about 80 km high or so usually, and thousands of pieces of debris fall through the atmosphere every day, so Tusk could just be pulling those down, burning up aside, and the timeframe can be similarly explained as him just pulling already incoming meteors. I think assuming he’s outright dragging them from 800 km away isn’t too reasonable an assumption. Using re-entry they get a few kilotons or so, and they’re a kill move so that’s kind of an upper limit. Jon meanwhile could scale to fellow B+-class Anakaris pulling down pyramids, or to Donovan freezing over a castle in the comic with his spirits if you accept scaling to temperature feats like that (I don’t), which would make him comparable in strength at the least. Worth noting as well, if you do use 800 km for Tusk’s meteors and all, applying the same to the Hellstorm meteors would get them to a few megatons, on par with the storm, since even finding their minimum size by comparing them to the furthest object in the background that they’re behind gets them to be pretty decently heavy.


Speed, Wulf scales to Glacius outpacing ARIA’s nanosecond reactions and KI has a few other impressive speed feats on that level. Jon’s ehhhhhh there’s contention over that feat in the games of a Huitzil flying from Hellstorm to Earth in their DS1 ending, but I think it’s probably fine. The stage is outright called “Planet Hellstorm” in the Graphic File, the background in Huitzil’s ending is the same as that of the stage’s, it’s called “Hellstorm” on the map, etc. You could make a point about it not making any sense that other characters could return to Earth in their endings, but I feel like that’s just kinda standard fighting game procedure. Huitzil’s ending specifically has evidence for being set on Hellstorm given the background details, and that’s arguably enough. Accepting it, Jon would be a lot faster. Huitzils are depicted as the mooks people mow down in alt media like the OVA and the comics, and in the games they’re clearly not supposed to be hot shit or anything. I don’t think them beating Pyron in their ending means much either,  given the format of literally every ending is “X beats Pyron and then celebrates”. This is also kind of getting into pretty wonky territories, but technically human-sized Pyron himself only gets showings placing him massively above the regular cast in alt media as well, not the game’s continuity, so it’s arguably not that contradictory.. I think you could make a good case for a Huitzil’s travel speed not scaling to reactions, but you could probably do so for ARIA’s processing speed as well.

Beyond just stats, Jon holds most auxiliary advantages. He has actual formal martial arts training and has been practicing for several years. Sure Wulf has fought skilled martial artists before, but he also doesn’t tend to super well against them. He lost to Jago just surprising him in the comics and he only kills Orchid in the original timeline by catching her off guard. Jon is smarter, he has better control over his beast side, and he’s generally more versatile. Dragon Cannon is a better and more wide reaching ranged option than Wulf’s bats. Wulf has better regen, but it’s nothing that really saves him, and his most potent regen feat was caused by a specially cursed item that powered him up as well. Wulf is deceptively smart, but he’s also been tricked before by more intelligent opponents, unlike Jon.

Even ignoring scaling completely, Jon likely matches in terms of direct feats. He’s smashed through steel (or aluminium depending on the train’s composition, perhaps a mix), torn apart metal robots, destroyed fountains, etc. Meanwhile, Wulf has torn through and lifted a steel door before in the comics and briefly halted a helicopter’s ascent, so at the very least he has better lifting feats. At that point, with somewhat comparable power, Jon outrunning an explosion is much faster than Wulf, who has no real direct speed feats other than moving as a blur with his dash. To quickly touch on high-tier scaling, I think Wulf being comparable to Gargos in Shadow Lords is probably fine actually, given all the missions meaning everybody fights everybody pretty much, but I also can’t say I buy Gargos’s big portal feat people use for reasons that are too complicated for me to get into with limited time, so I don’t think it changes anything. Meanwhile all of Jon’s instances of fighting high tiers are too vague and brief to derive anything from really, and it’s worth considering the power variance of high tiers in DS across different continuities and all.


To make an argument for Jon winning, given everything above, he’d be >= in speed, would match in strength, and would be notably more skilled, intelligent, and versatile than Sabrewulf, with Wulf’s regeneration and experience not really being notable enough to compensate for Jon’s advantages. It’s a shame I had to make this verdict shorter than I would have wanted, because I really am excited for this episode. KI is a great game that deserves more spotlight and I love Darkstalkers. It’s been nearly 10 years since Felicia got in, and the series has been pretty dead ever since if that wasn’t abundantly obvious. It’s really refreshing to have these franchises get in again, and to represent the wonderful cartoony-anime-horror world of Darkstalkers in the show after so long. I just hope this episode does well and shows there’s still interest in getting these franchises into DB. And if Capcom could bring back Darkstalkers in a faithful way, that would be pretty nice too.

AkhilPDX

I’m just gonna keep it short and sweet for now cause as cool as Killer Instinct and Darkstalkers are, it’s not my cup of tea. 

Getting straight to the point, I think Sabrewulf wins. He’s stronger, more durable, more vicious, has the better healing factor, and could even be argued to be faster. Jon does have the intelligence and skill advantages and potentially speed as well, but in the long run, that just doesn’t stack up well against Sabrewulf, especially when Talbain scaling to Jedah is bunk.


So at the end of the day, I’m going to have to give this one to Sabrewulf after a long and hard fought fight.

Cyber

A conveniently released Halloween episode on a full moon? It seems the stars have aligned. Going into this, I was more familiar with darkstalkers, but I have come to pleasantly enjoy the killer instinct franchise. 

I’m going to keep this verdict short but straight to the point.

Ap and Speed

Sabrewulf’s overall AP scaling is far more straightforward than Jon’s. Wulf scales to tusk via Orchid’s ending in KI2 and from harming jago in the original and killer instinct comic, considering both orchid and jago are far stronger than tusk. Tusk’s AP comes from his meteor no mercy which has calcs ranging from town to small city. Sabrewulf also can scale to the environmental destruction caused by ultra combos, one of which is causing a storm which also is around Small City (personally I find this feat a little dubious as each stage has its own environmental destruction caused by ultra combos which all get varied results, including one that only nets small building) Regardless, town to small city Sabrewulf should be fine from the tusk scaling.

For Jon, different continuities of darkstalkers have to be used to determine his overall power due to lack of feats in the actual games. Jon directly destroys Huitzil units in the OVA, and those units tanked an explosion. Far more impressively however, is that John and other darkstalkers directly scale to a meteor feat in the hellstorm stage (if we are accepting environmental destruction caused by ultra combos then the acceptance of this should be fine as well, since it is literally the same premise). This feat either nets exactly one kiloton, or a few megatons depending on the method you used to calculate. (The megaton variation uses the same method as the higher ends for the tusk meteor).

Otherwise Jon can possibly scale to Anakaris’ pyramid moving feat, which is small town. (The scaling is based on them being in the same tier on the makai tiering system, though have never directly fought)

For speed, Sabrewulf scales to Glacius in the new timeline, who is comparable to Aria in speed. This puts wulf at 3c via Aria’s nanosecond processing speed statement.

Jon has a massively hypersonic feat alongside a statement that he will reach the speed of light. He may possibly scale to a Huitzil unit that flew from the planet hailstorm all the way to Earth in a short time frame (the darkstalkers graphic file data book confirms that the fight with pyron is on the planet hellstorm, rather than earth). Planet hellstorm is near a star that is outside of our own solar system. Given this the travel speed feet the Huitzil perform can get as low as 5c, all the way to 1000c, assuming it traveled that distance in one day. The problem is that while Jon has beaten Huitzil units in other media, he has never canonically fought one in the games where the feat was done. Considering his statement that he will reach light speed and that his own feats are drastically slower than this specific travel speed feat, I find it a bit dubious to scale him to it. 

Results for ap and speed:

Sabrewulf is solidly faster, as the Huitzil requires a bit too many assumptions for my taste. 

Sabrewulf holds the advantage for ap if both are placed at Town level, as John is not even 10 kilotons while wolf can get in the hundreds.

The high end of the hellstorm meteor feat however makes this fight practically dead even, and considering that tusk’s high-end is being considered viable I also believe that the higher-end for the hellstorm feet should be usable. As such I considered both relative in AP.

Both don’t really have much hacks to go on about, though I will say I am disappointed that wulf did not keep the electric metal arms. Wulf does however have a slightly better healing factor than Jon. His summoned bats could also possibly be an advantage to distract Jon.

As for martial skills, I considered both somewhat comparable. Jon has far more years of formal training, but Wulf has fought both orchid and jago and held his own, and those two are particularly very well experienced in martial arts of multiple kinds.

Outside of the bats I would give Jon a point ahead when it comes to long range attacks.

Final Verdict:

Both are comparable in attack potency. Sabrewulf should be exponentially faster which gives him a distinct edge. His Superior healing factor may not help that much but given the speed advantage it is a decent step up. Jon’s weapon (nunchaku) and long range attacks potentially gives him a point to even out. 

With that said, I favor wulf by an extremely small margin.

It’s easier to definitely prove that wulf is faster. I see this being a drawn out fight with wulf barely winning due to the speed.

Extra:

I want to debunk two misconceptions regarding Jon.

The first is that he scales to Jedah.

Besides the issue with this brought up by Speedy above, it is evident in the street fighter darkstalkers crossover comic that Jedah’s durability does not scale to his overall AP. He changed his physiology to be more so living blood, and the fact that akuma can rip his arm off with barely any difficulty yet gets nearly one shot from an attack from Jedah makes it clear that ap and dura are not comparable.

The second is Jon one shotting Lilith in the Vampire Savior manga. While this feat is legitimate, Lilith in that manga has no feats comparable to her game version. It also doesn’t help that most of the manga is currently untranslated. To scale to the game version would require cross scaling and even then would be a massive outlier for a consistent jon.

I would also like to add my take on two things for sabrewulf.

While the shadow lords campaign allows for Wulf to be in the same tier as gargos, this hardly matters at the moment. Issues have been recently brought up with the feat of Gargos splitting air in his trailer. If so inclined, the issues will be discussed at another time.

The second is that the preview issue for the original killer instinct comic implies Gargos (tiger spirit) can amp jago mid combat. This doesn’t affect much with Wulf’s scaling, only bringing into question if Gargos amped Wulf to beat Orchid. Wulf still significantly harms Jago in the comic without any amp, so his scaling is fine regardless.

Final addition:

Here are some calcs for both series, including ones I mentioned in my verdict.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BIIWF_CQQKZ4ZJT8kKb-9-01iyFUbkKzzzIpY1y_4xk/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GsgQAYMxQXG-QRbAMfm3sKpfHyuaPACr7Uhns5LU4Kc/edit?usp=sharing

KirbyKid

I’ve wanted a werewolf fight for sooo long and this one actually never crossed my mind, so to see it happening is definitely epic. 

Both doggos are capable of slashing and thrashing opponents pretty regularly, with Jon being the one to have gone through intense training to harness his lycanthrophy and keep his human half in control (for the most part)

Sabrewulf by comparison struggles on a regular basis to keep his humanity in check, and turns into a feral beastie more often than not. 

That said, while Jon is definitely superierly trained, Saberwulf has taken on dozens of martial artists in combat, including Jago, Thunder and (Mirage) Maya, all of whom also incorporate weapons into their attacks, same as Jon. While Sabrewulf lost against Jon, they were fairly equal standing and only lost because he decided to gloat in his “victory.” When it came to who could survive the fight afterwards, Sabrewulf was completely fine with Jago actually succumbing to his wounds (While also turning into a werewolf himself, what a shitty day that must’ve been) The reason for the others’ loss? Sabrewulf is a beast that simply cannot be put down through fighting styles alone.

It’s like a Kung Fu master vs a Lion. That isn’t to say Jon isn’t also at times a ravenous beast, as he fought a dark version of himself and defeated it, despite the more ferocious style of fighting. Thing is, when it comes to being feral, Sabrewulf is legitimately better in that regard. Having been infected for decades and trying to heal his affliction, one of his procedures included ripping off his very arms and using certain magics to regrow his limbs. He’s purposely puts himself through electroshock therapy and other various methods to fix himself but to no avail. He has a very high pain tolerance and pushes himself past any injury to kill. 

The amount of wins Sabrewulf has under his belt in comparison to Jon is definitely worth noting, especially when some of Sabes best feats can feasibly come from notable character like Tusk, who has a strong meteor feat, or the feat where any KI character is capable of creating a storm just from hits alone. He’s fought more characters with similar afflictions but also uses weapons, like the vampire Mira who had to run away from Sabrewulf having roided out on werewolf juice, and stalemating Hisako, a ghost with a naginata weapon. And despite the proper training Jon has, Thunder has stated that Sabrewulf is very in tune with his animal spirit. 

While Jon’s fire dragons are definitely > Sabrewulf’s fire bats, this does mean Sabrewulf isn’t short when it comes to the projectile department, especially since said bats come in swarms and can ravenously eat whoever Sabes pits them off on, in addition to blazing on fire. 

Funny enough, I think Sabrewulf’s experience with fighting a multitude of supernatural creatures, strength, comparable speed and comparable projectile attacks will be enough to edge him out with a win. Jon’s gonna be howling in pain when Sabrewulf’s done with him. 

(Also I hope this DB curse brings Darkstalkers back)

Robin (TexasRoastingOnAnOpenFire)

(My spouse called me a furry, shit hurts)

When this fight was announced, I’m ngl, it was kinda boring as shit to me. I wasn’t into KI or DS, and I couldn’t fathom why such a simple fight concept would get people so hyped! Then I played both series, and Hoo boy. They were a lot of fun! I was sleeping on two great franchises! Enough about that, though, it’s time to take a look and see which of the two comes out on top here…and trust me, it’s a hard question to answer.

Sabrewulf has some pretty safe scaling to Tusk’s meteors in the original timeline, and composting him allows him to scale to some nanosecond shit from the 2013 reboot of the series. This pretty solidly puts him at City and FTL in my eyes as a pretty good minimum, but I do think you can take him higher. With Shadows Lords, the final part of 2013’s canon story mode, you could honestly make an argument for everyone either scaling to Gargos (who’s planet level) completely or downscaling them a bit from him. Overall, I’d honestly say I think Planet Sabrewulf is not something that’s bad to argue? I think for the sake of this argument, however, it’s much easier to just throw him at City and be done with it.

Jon is incredibly freaking difficult to nail down to a specific tier. The OVA has him fight Morrigan in the opponent, the manga has him fight Lilith, the comics….show him kinda getting bodied by Felicia. He’s all over the place, but it’s safe to say you can probably scale him to people like Anakaris and maybe Donovan which makes Jon pretty solidly Town Level in this instance. He could probably be higher though, and tbh he DOES kinda exist in a universe where people can wear planets as rings and Jedah deadass has a universal feat. I doubt Jon scales to either and nothing suggests he does, but there’s some difficulty in believing that Jon is ONLY small town to town range, but in terms of concrete scaling that tends to be where he’s a safest to put. For speed he’s probably FTL-MFTL due to Huitzil scaling in my eyes. It seems pretty legit.

So who do I think wins? Honestly, while I think Jon is going to win the episode my absolute opinion on who should win here is definitely good ol’ Sabrewulf. His scaling just seems a lot safer and I think his ferocity will be enough to overcome the Darkstalker. If Jon wins I won’t be salty though, I honestly prefer him to Sabrewulf just a smidgen!

Jon (El Manhua) wins though.

Joshski

(What better way to spend Halloween then by having two dogs maul each other)

Who would’ve thought that the fight between two side characters from dead fighting games with little to no feats would become one of the most hyped fights of the season. I guess when the DB community becomes so starved for video game fights they will take literally anything.

Anyway jokes aside this is a really dope matchup for a good number of reasons 

  1. We finally get Killer Instinct and Darkstalkers back with some of the coolest characters in their respective series
  2. This could potentially lead to us getting more Darkstalkers characters in (please god give us Jedah)
  3. It’s good to have a nice simple fight after a majority of the second half has been…well nuts
  4. Fucking werewolves man (This is all the reason you need tbh)

Anyways gonna keep this verdict short and simple as I don’t really think there’s too much to talk about please ignore the verdict right below me and Speedy and Cyber’s verdicts.

At first, glance when you look into things besides stats it seems pretty obvious. One’s basically a feral beast who lacks any martial arts training at all and has a pretty basic moveset. Meanwhile, the other wolf can actually contain their beastly side, has sick skillz, and has a much more varied moveset. Based on this alone it’s kinda hard not to side with Jon here…however as we are all aware there’s a lot more to these fights than just that. Feat wise these two are entirely reliant on scaling and just to get it out of the way now, I don’t think either should really scale to the high tiers of their verse.

In Jon’s case a lot of people might try to argue that using side material would give him consistent scaling to characters like Dimitri and Morrigan but when you look into the examples people present for it…it’s very flawed. Not only are Dimitri and Morrigan straight-up confirmed to be a higher tier than Jon which alone makes the scaling very iffy but when you look into the instances of Jon “hurting” a high tier character or being comparable to a character who harmed a high tier, they aren’t quite as good as they seem. While Jon tussled around with Morrigan a bit in the intro to the OVA not only was it, well, just in the intro but it was also extremely brief and doesn’t give a ton of evidence that the two are comparable to each other. There’s also the example of both Dimitri and Morrigan fighting a group of Huitzils while Jon was able to tear up another group. This falls apart immediately when you see that Dimitri and Morrigan were also able to stomp the Huitzils, I don’t see how this makes Jon comparable to them when it’s more just that Huitzils are fodder and get trashed by basically everyone (now this actually might come in handy for Jon in a bit so it’s not all bad).

Sabrewulf’s arguments involve the Tusk in KI 2013 being the same one that was in KI2 and Sabrewulf being comparable to him. Now while I agree with Sabrewulf being comparable to Tusk in KI2 there’s not really a whole to say that’s the case in 2013 especially when it’s more likely Tusk got a lot stronger during the thousands of years he’s been around. The other argument is through chain scaling with ARIA which I honestly don’t think is too out there but personally, I have a bit too many issues with it for me to push it.

Okay so now that that’s done what DO they scale to? For Sabrewulf it’s pretty clear cut, as said earlier he should be comparable to Tusk in KI2 who can summon a shit ton of meteors in his No Mercy. Now calcs for these meteors are all over the fucking place going from Multi-City Block to Small City with pretty much no one agreeing on how strong it is. Another highly contested feat for Sabre is the Ultra Combo on Thunder’s stage being able to create a storm this of course comes with the problem of “Do we really know if the characters themselves are what’s causing it?”. Then finally there’s the main KI speed feat everyone’s well aware of by now, Glacius outpacing ARIA who has nanosecond reactions. By far the simplest shit here now onto Jon.

Since we got Jon not scaling to peeps like Dimitri and Morrigan out of the way, what DOES he get? The main strength feat Jon should be able to scale to is Anakaris’ pyramid moving feat which got small town. Now you remember how I mentioned Jon was able to manhandle a group of Huitzils earlier? Well, we got another contentious feat(can’t have enough of those this match now can we?) with Huitzils being able to fly from Hellstorm to Earth in a presumably short time frame. Besides that though Jon is able to move in tandem with lightning during Felicia’s intro.

Alright so with all that crap out of the way and with me being very fucking tired at the time of writing this verdict, let’s jump into who I think wins. Honestly, this whole thing can go either way depending on which calc’s your most comfortable with but personally, even if I’m not gung-ho on all the stuff argued for Wulf I do feel like that unless you used the lowest ends for his feats, that he should ultimately be able to match and eventually overpower Jon with his superior strength, stat-boosting moves, and better survivability. Even if I’m still a bit iffy on the Huitzil speed feat I do think Sabrewulf still has enough to edge out in the end even if it was used (or maybe I’m just a biased bitch). Now with all that said I think there’s a good chance Jon is probably going to win the episode and honestly I wouldn’t be upset in the slightest with how surprisingly debatable and complicated this whole match is, plus Darkstalkers really needs a W since uh they aren’t winning anything else. But ultimately I gotta go with my gut here and it tells me we are gonna be seeing a lot of Jon’s when Sabrewulf becomes the winner of this monster mash. wait a second i don’t think i kept this shor-

Animator3003


(I’m always happy to talk about dead franchises)

Just before I start, a few things, most of all, as always I thank the blog’s people for allowing me to help in this fight. Frankly I couldn’t be more excited for it and it has been nothing but an absolute blast working with everyone in doing this. The second thing is that I particularly extend my gratitude to a few users in particular, Kingsly for being an absolute trooper when it comes to DS, Phantom for helping with calculations and his input, and Speedy for the previously mentioned as well. Believe me without those 3 this blog and this fight wouldn’t be half as interesting as it is.

*Fair warning before I begin my verdict, I’ll probably be making a 100+ page long thesis here… So if you don’t have the time and/or want to see much shorter verdicts always feel free to skip mine, my fellow friends probably did a better job summarising this fight than I ever could and your time is more important than a dum verdict about an internet show. With that said let’s begin cus there is quite a bit to unpack.

Just as this discussion begins there is a very big issue we need to address, and is that Darkstalkers continuity tends to be a bit of a bitch, not that it’s difficult to understand, nor that it’s a particularly hard task to find (sometimes). But the fact of the matter is that DS has a lot of lost and untranslated media, something we struggled for a lot during these weeks of research. And the material we DO have tends to vary from the original source (Games and guides) quite a bit, so it was crucial to really pin down what was usable and what not. Ultimately Jon came down to a weird mish-mash of compositing various versions across these continuities and comparing them to the original canon and lore to see if they could apply (ofc looking through the og canon for potential feats and scaling as well). With this in mind tho we can focus on what we do have (even if some of it is still incomplete) But aright, it is what it is, thankfully Killer Instinct is super easy when it comes to this kind of stuff. So that’s one…and arguably the most important issue taken care of.

So, who exactly wins this fight? Well, no matter how you look at it, this debate can be described with the phrase: “Eh, It depends”…. And I mean it, ik that technically all fights follow this logic, but this one more than others and that’s because of one issue, both of them are technically feat-less? That is not to say both are as weak as wet paper, but unless we look at stuff like gameplay and such they rarely (if ever) display actual feats of their own that we can directly see/compare. That’s not 100% however, at surface level they seem to be kind of on-par, tearing through solid steel, moving to the point where they look like a blur etc. we can see some differences too however, from the first moment it’s clearly apparent that Sabre has superior survivability due to his apparent regen and the ability to buff himself during mid-fight and even summon bats to aid him, Jon in the other hand possesses better training, much more skill, trickier techniques and superior ranged capabilities. If you simply looked at it like this, with both being what they are, it seems clear cut isn’t it? Both are close stat-wise but Jon ultimately prevails due to superior skills and a slight stat advantage overall. And tbh that’s a very safe and good assumption. But what happens when we look deeper into what they have done, compare the people they have fought? This is where the real meat of this fight takes place.

Is no secret these 2 rely on a lot of scaling to get by, despite not having many feats of their own they have shown their worth against several opponents of their caliber across various continuities. So if we really want to pin down their overall stats it really does become necessary to look at the people they have fought and could theoretically scale to, let’s start with Sabrewulf, since he is actually the simplest to explain, plain and simple, across the 2 main timelines and their respective side-media, arcade mode key-fights and even the novels it’s easy to argue that Wulf should reasonably scale to the mid and even high-tiers in KI, this means things like Glacius, Tusk, Mira and what not. Of these people the feats that are of most use to him are probably Tusk’s meteors and Glacius keeping up with Aria, long story short this should comfortably put him at the large town range and from ftl to rela, however, if you are to take the Ultra combos at face value (which honestly depends on you) he might even reach City ap thanks to storms which seem relatively consistent with other media like comics, since he has also taken attacks from these people it means his dura should be similar as well. 

Jon is harder to really put down because he canoncialy doesn’t fight…anyone-ish? He does don’t get me wrong but it’s much harder to pin down, and because of it we need to make safe assumptions about his potential, thankfully Darkstalkers somewhat provides a way to compare, you see Jon is a “B-class” darkstalker, and as I said we can use supplementary material to confirm if the scaling can truly apply to him. Lucky for Jon, most characters are actually B or B+ Class, so he does have a big pool of potential scaling, and some supplementary material does show him to be relatively on par with at least a few, this means things like Huitzils traveling across huge chunks of space across different mediums is at play (which put him at either ftl or rela) things like Anakaris pulling egyptian pyramids down (which should be around town to city depending on what you believe) and if you want to be real generous to demon hunters like Donovan who can freeze entrie castles.

So you might be looking at both of these rundowns and it actually sounds even as well, doesn’t it? Jon would hold an advantage in speed thanks to Huitzil but Wulf one in AP and dura, but neither truly outclass the other entirely. Take into account I’m ignorning and summarizing a butload of stuff right here for the sake of brevity, I still haven’t mentioned things like Shadow Lords, the UDON Street Fighter vs Darkstalker crossover and so much other garbage. This sounds absolutely stupid but these kinds of things make this fight have a lot of potential variables at play. But, cutting the shit and getting to the point this sounds like we have just gone full circle so there has to be a reasonable conclusion because I can easily keep going and I bet nobody wants that, so here is my take: When looked straight up, barebones, I think Jon wins solidly but in a close bout, when we take a closer look at scaling it does swing in Sabrewulfs side due to a clear stat difference but I’m going to be that guy and play Devil’s advocate, tho yes the stat gap is clear, and Wulf will probably we stronger, Jon is not that far behind as to be helpless, tackle on to that a trickier moveset and skill It’s not far fetched to say Jon can potentially snag a win. It will be a hard fight, and tbh I would make the safer bet and go Sabrewulf (who I expect to win the episode) but due to superior speed, not that far behind stats, and the skills of a kung-fu wolf (and immense bias) I just gotta root for Jon Here.

As closing thought however, regardless of who the winner is, can I just say that I’m happy that Darkstalkers is finally getting some love, not only in DB but in general? It feels nice, always been a huge fan since a kid and seeing people interested and hyped makes me happier than any verdict could ever do. I’m just hoping the franchise makes a comeback someday, same for Killer Instinct btw is a fantastic series and it deserves all the love it can get. As always I’m happy to help, it was a blast to help on the blog (seriously tho it was incredible), and If you read my full verdict,  uh… I’m sorry lmao, but also thanks!

Jedi Bender

Finally after nearly 10 years we’re getting a Halloween fight and it’s between the Werewolf’s my favorite creatures of fiction.  

 Anyway I’m not gonna go into a long explanation on this since my knowledge of Darkstalkers is limited so I’ll just give my opinion as a fan and it’s hard to really pick a winner  in this sense but I gotta go with SaberWolf. He’s far stronger,  Durable, and  His Teeth & Claws are Sharp AF.  

also likely more experienced. Jon definitely has more Martial Arts training and Speed to keep him in this fight compared to Saber as well as being in more control of his wolf instincts  on Paper these would give him the edge 

 However  Saber has fought more experienced Fighters and managed to keep up with em. plus his healing factor gives him a leg up as the fight potentially drags on, so again while this’ll be one of the closest fights in S7  Saber will have the Instincts to be the victor in this Howl-OWeen fight…

. 

Wolf

(Here’s a bone for both of these were-doggos and for Halloween)

You guys didn’t think we’d have a werewolf episode and not have the guy whose mascot is a wolf not be here, did you? Well guess what: I’m here to help for the rest of the season too!

Anyway, let’s get into the prediction itself. So, this one was actually a lot closer than I think most people expected. For a while, I’ve seen people say that Sabrewulf gets utterly slaughtered by Jon, as a normal werewolf like him couldn’t possibly compete with a Darkstalker. However, given that we’re compositing both, Sabrewulf got a lot of help. Sabrewulf’s stats via the comics seem to give him far better strength and durability. Granted, both could very well hurt each other, and if you can hurt something, you can kill it. Plus with better healing and survivability, Sabrewulf would normally win this outright…normally. Talbain, however, is faster and has better range. While Sabrewulf can boost his stats, these boosts aren’t permanent, and if he fully loses control, it’s likely he won’t get it back.

Experience doesn’t help with determining a winner either, as Sabrewulf has fought opponents similar to Talbain and vice versa. It’s really hard to determine a winner here. And without compositing, both are jobbers to the rest of their franchise. Granted, being a jobber in Darkstalkers is a better situation than being a jobber in Killer Instinct, but the point still stands. This might be the closest match of the season to find a winner for

So, as a default, I decided to look at the advantages both had and determine the winner based on who had more.

Sabrewulf’s Advantages:
Strength

Durability

Healing

Survivability

Stat Boosting abilities

Vicious/Ruthless fighting style

Experience fighting trained martial artists

Experience fighting ruthless fighters if Jon gives in

Talbain’s Advantages:

Faster

Smarter

Better Training

Range

Versatility

Experience fighting Werewolves/Savage fighters

So, it’s a really close call, and I honestly didn’t think this would be how things would go. Honestly, I like both characters. Killer Instinct was a game I loved as a kid, and Talbain is one of my favorite characters in Darkstalkers (probably my favorite alongside Felicia). I’m not going to like seeing either of these two werewolves die. But this is Death Battle and, sadly, one of them has to. It’s great to see Darkstalkers get some more attention after pretty much being ignored by Capcom, but Talbain just barely loses out on this one, I would say. Sabrewulf’s Tooth and Claw are going to be the Tal-bane of Jon in this fight. Konrad’s Instinct is too Killer. My vote goes to Sabrewulf

–

The real cal howard

(I couldn’t find my usual TM!Riolu picture so here’s Marx’s death for Halloween. Sleep tight.)

Aight so…wolf fight.

Gotta say, I”m quite happy for this. Saw it coming, was a good Halloween fight, and 

Darkstalkers is finally recognized, baby!!!

But back on the subject at hand, we gotta talk about who will win. Sabre or Jon. Jon is faster, Sabre is stronger. That’s…pretty it. Neither have hax. They both have fire animals for ranged attacks. Jon’s is bigger. Sabre has some form of regen and crazy survivability. Sabre is more experienced while Jon has better training and has a weapon. Sabre can summon bats, Jon can clone himself. Jon’s also smarter, while Sabre’s more ruthless. A very straightforward match. A way it can be put is that Jon has fought more while Sabre has fought better. Honestly I might just give it to Jon simply because his advantages seem more useful and I doubt in the fight itself, they’re going to scale them to the higher tiered stuff as it’s done through non strength means (meteors and telekinesis). Or that could just be my Capcom bias speaking, idk. Legit just a close match. Also helps that I don’t buy the storm creation in this case. So or…neither are confirmed to eat people, but Jon is gonna wolf down Konrad on Halloween.


RJ (Roger)

Halloween is upon us it seems, the bloody battle of Fighting Game werewolves will be released on the scariest time of the year while all of us will be safe at home watching movies of ghouls and ghosts and having leftover candy for any brave trick or treaters coming out in this awful year of 2020.

However, the fight itself is going to be the real treat for us all. Two franchises people love back at it again, two characters adored for their feral styles and shining fans. It’s gonna be a fight to remember for those who grew up with Darkstalkers and the fans of KI who will be enjoying their games on the next generation of consoles dropping next month.

As for whom I think will win, well I have an easier time betting on SabreWulf over say Jon Talbain. For one Factor, the fact that Sabrewulf in the original canon was able to tango with characters like Jago and Orchid, who for the record can take on a man who can use pure manliness to bring down meteors to crush his foes to death with. These Meteors, when calced by the council, came out to be at the lowest 703.68 Kilotons of raw power. When comparing that to the fact Jon could scale to Anakaris who’s own feat of lifting the Pyramids of Egypt into space comes out to round…3.88 Kilos the difference in power and durability are staggering to say the least. 

Speed wise, all signs point to Jon Talbain thanks to one Feat. Due to the OVA having Jon fight and destroy the Huitzil, you can make an easy case to scale to their immense speed when one of their own was able to travel from the Hellstorm (Which is said to be near another star, so using the nearest star to our solar system), which got to about 1,000 times the speed of light. The immense speed difference is staggering for Jon, especially since the fastest Saber can scale to is 3 times the speed of light for being able to face off against opponents who can take on ARIA. ARIA is said to think at the Nanosecond, so this could reasonably be seen as them able to react to her movements. That said, even with the speed gap the insane gap in power mitigates it and if Saber gets a good, clean hit in will still bring down Jon.

With their abilities and skills, both have impressive skills as either Martial artists or the pure instinctual powers of the Werewolf with one being calm and precise vs the ravenous and wrathful. So in terms of these, it could be argue with the training that Jon has he could outmatch someone like Saber…if it weren’t for the fact that even without the same level of martial arts prowess of Jon that he has fought others who mastered these arts and can still come out on time like what he did with characters like Orchid. And with his wild style, his ability to buff himself with his howling and entering a sort of feral rage compared to the likes of Jon who needs the blood moon it could be safe to assume that his feral and unpredictable nature could outlast the more precise style of Jon and then some. Especially since both can heal from their wounds but one has a stronger hide then the other, the battle of Attrition will fall in SaberWulf’s favor.

So with his Raw power, his stronger hide, better attunement to his beastiual side and being able to go on a rage on command I feel safe to say that Sabrewulf is the winner of this battle.

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