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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsTwo Bosses Enter: Cataclysm Season 1 finals
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 27th 2011 at 9:00AM
"Today, in the left corner, stands the guardian of the World's Heart!" Tirion's voice rose to a crescendo to be heard over the explosive cheering of the audience and the music thundering forth from the gnomish sound projectors. "Ozruk!"
Break yourself, break yourself
Break yourselves upon my body
Break yourself, break yourself
Break yourselves upon my body ...
And so it went. A frown grew on Tirion's face, displeased with the so-called hippity-hop, but what the audience wanted, the audience would get. The moment the music faded, the old crusader motioned to the other corner. "In the right corner stands ..." Tirion leaned forward, squinting to make out the form far below. He sighed deeply. "Vanessa, what are you doing here? Where is the Cardboard Assassin? And why are you wearing that chapeau?"
Vanessa shifted her gaze from the rocky behemoth before her, up toward the old man above in the stands. "He's dead."
"What do you mean he's dead?" Tirion demanded. "He was never alive to begin with!"
"Your medical staff is untrained in the care and feeding of paper men, Lord Fordring." Vanessa smiled sweetly. "They tried to quench his thirst and he fell all to pieces."
Ozruk snorted with a start. With all the coherence of an old man waking from an afternoon nap, the stone guardian asked, words slurring, "A protector has fallen?"
Vanessa ignored him. "As our dearly departed assassin's manager ..."
"No, Vanessa." Tirion cut in. "Absolutely not!"
"... I will compete in his place."
"Fine. I don't even care anymore." Tirion groaned and took his seat. "I will allow it."
"Champions," Vanessa mocked, lowering herself into a fighting stance. With a flick of her wrist, a poison vial went soaring through the air toward the ancient of earth. "Begin!"
| Ozruk | |
|---|---|
| Vanessa VanCleef |
The rules of the ring
- The WoW Insider Ring is considered neutral territory, where both combatants are able to access their usual encounter mechanics and abilities. If you can't visualize it inside the squared circle, visualize it someplace else -- but you must take into consideration all of each bosses' abilities and mechanics.
- Assume that each opponent is intelligent and capable of strategic thinking.
- All of the competitors' abilities, including crowd control and other effects to which bosses are usually immune, work on their opponents (with apologies to considerations of lore on this point).
- Assume that the opponents share similar levels, health pools, and comparative overall damage output.
- Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter.
- Don't neglect style, story, and scale. Everything is a factor; seeking balance is your goal as a spectator and judge.
Break yourselves upon my body!
Ozruk utterly dominated his opponent in round one with 81% of the popular vote. He knocked out Lord Godfrey with just shy of 70% of the popular vote. He took out the unstoppable Eregos with ... not quite 60% of the vote! Ozruk's reputation as being entirely invincible has been slipping over the weeks, but all you really need is one vote more than the other guy to win, right? Can he pull it off?
Ozruk's arsenal includes ... If you haven't witnessed Ozruk's gleaming, perfectly chiseled body yourself, perhaps you'd like to learn more about his flawless physique or read other adventurers' first-hand reports.
Your tale ends here!
Vanessa VanCleef is a cheater. Plain and simple. She was knocked out in the first round by the Cardboard Assassin, but with her skill at intrigue and conspiracy, she managed to find a way to get into the finals. Will her cheating ways be enough to put her over the top against Ozruk, the fan favorite to win the tournament and an all-around scary dude?
Vanessa VanCleef's toolkit includes:
- Backslash
- Deadly Blades
- Vengeance of VanCleef
- An assortment of poisons of the mind
You can't please everybody, but Tirion Fordring, Two Bosses Enter Overseer, certainly tried. He granted Vanessa VanCleef permission to compete alongside the Cardboard Assassin in a tag-team match against Whitemane and Mograine, and there was absolutely no question who won -- Vanessa and the Cardboard Assassin dominated utterly. Of course, it also marked the end of the Cardboard Assassin's career, so it wasn't much of a win for him.
Reader Qing Guang knows Vanessa's fighting style well and outlined Whitemane and Mograine's defeat for all of us.
The Crusaders never stood a chance.Whitemane and Mograine stood staring in confusion at the odd pair, glancing back and forth from their synthetic foe to their unexpected one. They hardly noticed when Vanessa began to speak.
"I've been waiting a long time for this, you know. Biding my time, building my forces, studying your twisted minds.
Now, cheaters, let us see how you fare when you are the victim of foul play, rather than the instigator..."
As the two Scarlet champions stood baffled, the young VanCleef slipped around behind them and jabbed each with a syringe. Their consciousness immediately slipped away...
They awakened in a room filled with treasure. Something was definitely wrong here. Sally reached up to secure her hat, only to find a filthy turban in its place. Perplexed, she looked down at herself in horror - a wretched little pygmy! Meanwhile, Renault fought to raise himself off the floor where he lay sprawled, only to discover that he, too, had had a transformation... a scaly one. Heavy footsteps padded somewhere to their left. A voice, disembodied, floated in on the desert winds.
"Augh led the pygmies by maintaining fear and awe. But the other denizens of the Lost City were unmoved, and they did not appreciate his theft of their ancient treasures..."
Two Neferset approached from the outside. They stopped in front of the statues and stepped apart, revealing a third behind them, his decorative helmet marking him clearly as the leader. The ram-horned Neferset stepped into the room and forcibly dragged Whitemane and Mograine outside.
"So," he said, "You are the little bit of camel dung that looted our town as we fought, hmmm? Let us see how well your flunkies respect you when they have us to fear instead."
He called out, and several towers of pygmies waddled into view. Shortly thereafter, swarms of crocolisks surged from the water. He left them to their fate.
Fortunately, the Scarlet champions discovered they still retained their abilities. The pygmies and crocolisks stood no chance against the power of the Light, and Whitemane and Mograine easily disposed of them.
The nightmare shifted.
The duo stood chained, held by a trio of Twilight's Hammer cultists in what appeared to be a large smithy. The two champions seemed to have resumed their normal forms, though the value of that given their present situation was unclear. One of the cultists jangled the chain and pointed at an anvil, indicating the hammer lying upon it. The voice bubbled up from the molten metal in the great pit at the center of the room.
"This is life in Khardros' Anvil: work or suffer. A chain of oppression is maintained through fear, even for those at the top of the ladder..."
Pounding footsteps indicated the arrival of their other defeated opponent. Forgemaster Throngus looked at them with an expression of frustration mixed with terror.
"Why you not work? You gotta work, or you get beat... we all get beat! Throngus no want to get whipped!"
He raised a massive hand to smack them. They readied themselves for another difficult fight... but all slipped away into blackness.
Vanessa VanCleef yanked her daggers out of the two corpses, letting them fall to the ground. She had learned from her mistakes. Never rely solely on one gambit when it will enable a surer plan of victory. Turning, she patted the Cardboard Assassin on its flimsy head and strode out of the arena.
| Vanessa VanCleef and the Cardboard Assassin | |
|---|---|
| Sally Whitemane and Renault Mograine |
The battle begins!
Remember, Two Bosses Enter matchups are all about substance and style, not gameplay, mechanics, and numbers. Don't base your strategies on player tactics, which opponent has been easiest or most difficult for you personally, or the difficulty of each opponent relative to instance progression. Vote for the spirit of the battle as set forth above. Set aside differences in opponents' health pools, game level, and actual damage output. Absolutely no game mechanics nitpicking!
Set aside the world order -- let the WoW Insider Ring determine who's the champion! Your votes determine the outcome in WoW Insider's series of fantasy deathmatches, Two Bosses Enter, One Boss Leaves.
Filed under: Two Bosses Enter
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
Amaxe Jun 27th 2011 10:14AM
Yep, I knew this was going to happen.
The vote was for Cardboard Assassin **against** Vanessa in the first round.
Whether or not that was a stupid idea to include it is debatable of course, but you included it and people did go with it.
So the sad thing is, all this voting is meaningless. You've shown you're willing to overturn it whenever you want.
I'd call that the ultimate fail of this series.
Daedalus Jun 27th 2011 10:58AM
You're absolutely right! This cannot stand!
Where is the governing body for hypothetical video game character fights in all of this?! The commisioner of the meaningless virtual though-experiment athletic league needs to take action: Alex Ziebart deserves to have his license as a promoter of purely theoretical fights between imaginary digital constructs in a humorous setting on fan website revoked!
Whether Vanessa or Ozruk wins here, they'll be a champion with feet of clay; the record books need to have an asterisk next to their name to indicate that they only became champion because the true best man in the tournament was unjustly eliminated, most likely in a back-room deal brokered by the highly powerful anti-corrugated persons lobby. I, for one, will always regard the Cardboard Assassin as the true champion of this season, and I hope that when future comedic hypothetical virtual combat fans look back to this season, (as I'm sure they will...) they'll agree with me.
Amaxe Jun 27th 2011 12:21PM
Don't be an idiot.
I'm not protesting against any official rules. I'm saying it is really stupid to create a series going by polls and then change this when they don't like the results.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html
Xotzalqual Jun 27th 2011 3:59PM
I was actually surprised that the Cardboard Assassin was eliminated in the downlow like that. I totally expected him to win the whole thing... and you know that he would have had they not eliminated him without reader input.
I have to agree with you that it's kind of pointless to have the assassin removed like that behind the scenes just because he didn't go down in flames as he was supposed to from the beginning, despite the fact that this column is meant only as silliness. Not that there is a great deal of credibility on this particular column, but the way I see it whatever meager ammount of it that existed before is now gone since it would be just as easy for the writer to simply say "X challenger wins, no votes necessary" and who would be able to do anything about it?
anuillae Jun 27th 2011 4:14PM
I dunno...
They royally screwed up in the beginning, including the Crusaders, along with CBA and Vanessa, but I *do* think that they ended up handling it pretty well, given the circumstances they'd dropped themselves in.
While it's admittedly a bit sad that they ignored the voting, but with such a ridiculous farce, it couldn't be helped. Like it or not, they make the rules, and they can bend them. Besides, do you *really* want CBA vs. Ozruk? Really? Surely this way is better?
Besides, last week's post was pure win.
Amaxe Jun 27th 2011 4:47PM
I apologize for the tone in my second comment. That was immature to put in the personal slam.
Prissa Jun 27th 2011 6:01PM
They ran a few rounds with the cardboard assassin and the comments were bombarded without how everyone was severely disappointed that he was even included because it was a joke character, that the whole tournament had lost it's fun when something stupid like that was included and won for the joke appeal.
And so they've responded by working the story a bit and putting the -actual- crowd favourite in his place, and now they've ruined it even more? Whinging like that is probably why it took so much effort for them to run the series again in the first place.
Meatball Jun 27th 2011 6:15PM
The fact that Ozruk made it all the way to finals kinda tells that as well. One of the easier bosses of the x-pac, only really annoying for casters.
StClair Jun 27th 2011 7:29PM
@Prissa:
I believe the idea/thought process is that the contest was irrevocably broken when they introduced the Assassin as a joke option, and attempts to fix that by fiat don't actually help (especially when it means ignoring the voting); the damage is already done, all credibility lost, and the whole thing should be quietly buried in an unmarked grave and Never Spoken Of Again.
Dboy Jun 27th 2011 7:39PM
"Fine. I don't even care anymore."
I see what you did thar.
+1 for Tirion
mibu.work1 Jun 27th 2011 10:25AM
Sorry if I posted this once already, had a posting issue:
Ozruk shook himself, bits of shale and lichen falling from his long beard. He stomped and looked up to the edge of the arena, where a small human woman sat, small enough to fit in his hand, her legs swinging idly.
"None may pass into the world's...arena." he bellowed, glancing around to take stock of the setting. The girl simply laughed, before tossing him a vial of green liquid. It crashed into his outstretched palm, working its way into the rocky crags of his skin. The world grew dark...
Ozruk found himself suspended over a pit of molten metal, too small for him to fit in, but hot enough to hurt if his arm fell in. Far off, he heard a voice call 'Vanessa! This is grand-scale cheating!"
Ozruk reached up, felt the chain holding him, and yanked, tearing a section of ceiling out and landing spread-eagled on the vat, which crumpled slightly under the weight. "Break yourself upon my body!" Ozruk cried to the inert foundry, before hoisting himself up and onto a nearby platform. Suddenly, his great steps slowed to a crawl as his vision, already poor from so long underground, blurred.
"My leutenants have all had their fears exposed to me, they fear themselves, the dark, their own nature, and their past deeds, can you face such things?" the girl's voice, so like her laugh, echoed within Ozruk's stony head. He walked slowly, treading through fire so hot it scorched his craggy feet as ice fell from the ceiling, breaking against his shoulders and bruising even his mighty form. Dazed, he found himself facing an ogre, which raced forward to beat at his feet, even as the flames and ice irritated him some more.
Ozruk stomped, and columns of earth shot upwards, impaling the ogre, who dissipated instantly. Ozruk bellowed to the cavernous hall "Feel the fury of EARTH!" before he realized that the world had gone dark. A tiny, cowering goblin was before him, so small he almost didn't notice. What he did notice were the spiders crawling over him, biting, seeking a weak point to inject their venom. He stomped, feeling the goblin was responsible, but the goblin seemed unaffected, still cowering. He stomped again, and again, and finally, the creature was crushed, before also vanishing, along with the spiders.
Ozruk could not fit through the door, so he simply used the opening as a starting point, and ripped upwards, tearing rock and metal. Ahead of him, a newly lofted tunnel contained a multitude of small, glowing orbs rotating in a pattern. Temporarily fascinated by the spinning lights, Ozruk reached out to touch one, but withdrew his hand as it seared him. Massaging the hand, ozruk gingerly stepped over the orbs, only to be struck in the foot by another, and another as he stepped again, only to find himself already past the orbs. A mechanical creature half his hight stood before him, spinning and whirring ominously. Ozruk had learned by this point, and simply threw forward a fist. The creature clawed furiously, its talons ripping through stone far more easily than Ozruk was comfortable with, so he erected a bulwark, and the creature fell, crushed.
Burnt, cracked, scarred and shocked, Ozruk stepped out to see a massive boat, sitting in shallow water. He shuddered, he hated water, even the shallow stuff, that's why he took the job in the world's core, where Neptulon's domain couldn't touch him. He saw several small howling beings savaging a small figure, and stomped forward in a temper. He smashed the three bestial creatures, and heard more farther away. He stomped to them and again smashed, and again with the next batch. It was here he realized that he was on the ship, and it held his weight, amazingly. The girl stood before him, laughing. He didn't like that. Suddenly, the ship disappated, and they were standing in the arena. His cuts were gone, as were the burns and shocks, though he still felt their pain. He realized this was the girl's doing, and raised a fist with a roar. He knew she was too far to shatter, so a paralyzing blow would do.
As his fist descended, a small knife flew through the air, bouncing off his mighty bulwark, and ricocheting back, striking the stunned girl in the arm, and breaking the paralysis. with a look of genuine fear in her eyes, she leaped backwards, avoiding his Ozruk's shattering stomp and dodging his columns of rock. A glint came into her eye, and she hurled another bottle. Ozruk was ready this time, and erected his bulwark, though his imagined injuries tired him. The bottle fell to the floor, breaking, and a small puddle of the poison spread there, inert and useless.
From there it became a running fight, the girl fleeing before appearing and striking, always staying out of shatter range except to strike and vanish. Ozruk found this tiring, more even than his mental burns and cuts. A cut on his shoulder, on his foot, and on his face all angered him though, and he wished to pay the girl back for them. Finally, he cornered her, her back to the wall, he planted one foot and raised the other, and stopped.
The girl was smiling, her face full of glee. Ozruk looked down, and saw his firmly planted foot, the one that had been cut, was in the puddle of poison, and his rocky skin with a texture like pummace, was absorbing the poison. He distractedly noticed the girl had vanished, but that a new presence was in the arena. He turned, and before him was a creature of earth and crystal, floating above the ground, a tempest of whirling rock below her tiny feet, her usually smiling face now a grimace of cold fury.
"E-e-Eearthmother!" Ozruk spluttered. She simply glared. "I-I-This protector has defended the world's heart, none have passed, save those permitted by lord Neltharion! The world's core is safe!" Again, Therazane said nothing and glared. "Earthmother! Forgive me! I failed in my duty! Please!" Her stony face seemed to soften, and then, with a look of contempt, she turned and began floating upwards. "Earthmother!" Ozruk cried. Then, Therazane vanished, and in her place, high above ozruk, was the girl, her good arm holding a rope, he feet planted in the loop of the rope, smiling again.
Ozruk bellowed, took a step, and then looked down at what he'd stepped on. The arena floor was covered with explosive barrels. The girl laughed again, and dropped a torch. The light of it reflected in Ozruk's obsidan eyes as it fell...fell...fell, to land on the pile of fine black powder at his feet, he'd spilled when he stomped on the barrel. He looked back up at the girl, who removed her mask before blowing him a kiss and a wink. Ozruk simply looked on, his mouth opened as he said, with grim finality "A protector, has fallen."
With a resounding BOOM! the arena floor was full of light and sound. The stone giant's form shattered into a thousand fragments, the blast threw Vanessa through the air, still clinging to her rope, until it reached the height of the swing. She leaped from the rope, flipped once, and landed before Highlord Fordring. "'If you can't visualize it inside a squared circle, Highlord, visualize someplace else'. Isn't that a paraphrase of the rules? I think I've done just that."
Cetha Jun 27th 2011 10:28AM
Voting for Vanessa simply because I loved Qing Guang's story for last week's fight, and would love to read another one for this week!
Xotzalqual Jun 27th 2011 10:50AM
"Ozruk, the fan favorite to win the tournament and an all-around scary dude?"
I thought the fan favorite was the Cardboard Assassin, and that's why he had to be eliminated behind the scenes.
Ruta Jun 27th 2011 10:54AM
Vanessa, for all her speed and ability, moved between the hulking legs of the stone behemoth and after much struggling, Vanessa manages to climb onto Ozruk, and deftly ascends to the top of him form.
"This calls for something a little more... potent" whispered VanCleef, reaching into her belt, she produces a vial, darker and more ominous than any she had made before. With a forceful push, she smashes the vial into the eyes of Ozruk, temporary blinding the guardian as the vial's contents begin to take hold, while Vanessa holds on tight to the rocky flesh as he flays about...
---
...Stonecore. How did I get back here? Wait, no, I never left here. Countless years I have guarded here, and many more I shall. None have ever gone past me, even now, as my brothers and sisters flee me.
Yes, run everyone, from a few pitiful mortals. For none shall pass into the w-wait.
"Who dares walk there?"
Nothing. Of course not, none would dare walk h-no, there's something there.
Lots of things.
Mortals. Lots of them. I better defend myself.
"NONE SHALL PASS INTO THE WORLD'S HEART!"
Feel my spikes, mortals. Your pitiful spells and blades will deflect off me.
"BREAK YOURSELVES UPON MY BODY!" Yes, their blades bounce off, their spells bounce back, incinerating themselves. Pitiful mortals. Perhaps I should end their misery.
"FEEL THE STRENGTH OF THE EARTH!" And down my foot goes. A resonant shockwave, mortals falling all aside. That should end their attem-more of them.
Too many.
Can't hold them all off. Even my bulwark is failing...
It is too much, I am falling...
Last resort time. Lift my boot high... and down. The rocks fall. Once more. More rocks. One more time. Feel the entire passage collapse. On them. On me...
"A PROTECTOR... has... fallen..."
---
The arena lies in ruins. Damage everywhere. People have fled their ensuing chaos of watching Ozruk go mad...
...but those who fled were the lucky one. As Ozruk flayed, he never saw the small human on his back fall, losing her grip. Nor did he see her fall under his foot as he felt himself be swarmed. Broken and disorientated, Ozruk had stamped VanCleef into the earth with gusto, before falling himself.
Ozruk may have been the winner, but he may never realise what has happened. As far as he is concerned, he is buried under the rocks of the World's Heart.
Winner: Ozruk
Schiffer Jun 27th 2011 5:35PM
THIS. PLEASE. THIS.
sardai Jun 27th 2011 10:55AM
Ozruk, being a man, erm, rock of honour, watched Vanessa from the other side of the arena, infuriated that Vanessa had rigged the entire tournament from the beginning, and that she had used those tricks to remove his rightful adversary, no matter how silly the whole "cardboard ninja" debacle was. " A protector has fallen, but you shall not pass into the world's heart" rumbled Ozruk, as he prepared to crush this dishonest fleshling standing before him, when he heard vials smash and caught a foul on the wind, unfazed, Ozruk headed towards the fleshling, when it disappeared. Thinking quickly, Ozruk activated his Elementium Spike Shield, and heard a scream and felt a slight tingling sensation around his ankles. "GAH!" Vanessa yelled "why does my Nightmare Elixir not affect you!?"
"silly mortal," chuckled Ozruk "your pathetic poisons cannot affect a creature such as me."
"Fine then" Vanessa snarled, appalled that her best weapon had been negated "i'll just kill you the old fashioned way"
"break yourself upon my body!" Ozruk taunted.
Vanessa circled Ozruk, trying to discover a way to harm him without harming herself ,but waited too long, as the pain from the spikes wore off, she noticed that she was unable to move and was slowly drifting off, as if she had inhaled one of her own elixirs.
"good-bye fleshing" Ozruk said with finality, and crushed Vanessa with a shatter. "the cycle continues"
"Ladies and Gentlemen!" yelled Tirion, having perked up when he saw Vanessa was losing," WE HAVE A NEW CHAMPION!" Ozruk merely bowed when he heard the applause and wandered off to get his prize. "now, make sure this never happens again" he whispered to the co-organizer of the event, Alex Ziebart.
Ozruk now has a great rap career, with his first Album, BREAK YOURSELVES UPON MY BOOOOODY" selling three hundred million copies in it's first hour and even making a fan out of tirion, who is said to lock himself in his office and blast Ozruk CD's at full volume when he thinks the keep is empty
sardai Jun 27th 2011 4:44PM
caught a foul SCENT on the wind
WTB edit button
Rhu Jun 27th 2011 11:03AM
Ozruk's power is coming from the one thing... The power of sound! I demand a bonus round where these crazy beats are put to the fight.
Ozruk vs Jaraxxus
Ozruk = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tMXQvp3cBY
Jaraxxus = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkeC9WVVsQ4
All with a great bow to MrVoletron!
StClair Jun 27th 2011 1:53PM
Eredar Lord of the trifling gnome!
Thayer Jun 27th 2011 1:55PM
Cannot upvote enough!