Sunday, May 12, 2024

Death Battle Predictions: Sweet Tooth vs The Pyro

 

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Dimentio
DoRitto

Chris

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"The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking." ― Albert Einstein

Needles Kane, the killer clown with a Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal.
The Pyro, the fire-fanatic maniac mercenary from Team Fortress 2.

Some say that if the mind is broken enough, it’ll snap in two. However, in certain cases, when one is faced with the consequences of their action, it can form entirely new worlds in one’s eyes. Either way, the distinction between psychosis comes with destruction and disconnection- which, if it’s brought to such a level, this can completely change a person from what they once were. In particular, the difference between combatants can come in their brutality or morality. When one is faced with a reality that doesn’t match the world, one may question what’s true or not- save for these two. Rather than question their reality, these two enact their actions on their own accord, whether they know of the consequences or not… and in some cases, this goes down to straight fear inducement. But between these two flaming, deranged murderers, there’s only one way for the upperhand to be made. Will Needles twist Pyro into a mess of gibs, or will Pyro melt Sweet Tooth’s flesh and sweets? Let’s take a glimpse through the kinds of reality these two will face in a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

As both have really messy plotlines with complex structures despite their simple nature, we’ll be using any potential media for both. This includes all of Team Fortress’ games, including the classic Half-Life mod, all Team Fortress comics (as they’re all canon, essentially), and any extended media. Due to the nature of Team Fortress, we’ll also be including extended statements such as promotional media, merchandise statements, and trading cards.


Similarly, Twisted Metal has a complex timeline with barely connected storylines, however with the nature of its canonicity all media comes in a direct line from the storyboard. This includes games that are typically treated out of the source, such as Twisted Metal 3 and 4 which, despite not sharing Jaffe on the writing team, explicitly kept continuity from previous games in their entries. The only games that are explicitly excluded is Twisted Metal: Small Brawl however this is because the entire game is in its own vacuum for scaling and wouldn’t have any relevance if used. As with Team Fortress, we’ll be using additional statements from official guidebooks, statements from extended media such as promotional media or art, and usage of other extended media such as the Twisted Metal 2: Comic Book. 

Background

Sweet Tooth

“Let's face it, boys and girls: A man has to have his priorities. I killed Calypso about as well as I've ever killed anyone. Now that I'm free, I'm going to be the greatest of all time.”


Clowns are a common fear between many- and rightfully so when you can think of them being twisted into merciless killers, such as the Tooth. Otherwise known as Needles Kane, the story of Sweet Tooth has changed many times throughout Twisted Metal’s history. At first, the man known as Sweet Tooth was simply a clown who wanted his imaginary friend back- joining the Twisted Metal contest and killing all other members in order to have his greatest desire granted by the scheming Calypso, an underground criminal overlord. However, this isn’t the only background, let alone the earliest known conception of Sweet Tooth’s background. Other instances have depicted Sweet Tooth as an insane killer clown who wants to break free from his cursed psyche that kills everyone around him, including his own father- to being a twisted evil child who wants to do nothing more but to become the star of Twisted Metal and overthrow Calypso. One concept that unites all of these clowns is their identity- and even more so, their twisted brains. 


One of the many entries of Twisted Metal has shown an even deeper entrance to his psyche- such is the case of Twisted Metal: Head-on. This entry of Sweet Tooth’s vast interconnected storyline holds a story continuing after the circumstances of Twisted Metal, where Needles would reform himself in the conception of his true body- the ‘crazy bum’ of the previous game, Marcus Kane. Through this, Sweet Tooth breaks himself away from the bounds of Marcus’ mind that trapped him, releasing him into a new physical form where he can now hold dominance over his alternate self. Of course, that doesn’t mean he had to work with him in order to attain that kind of goal…


This isn’t the only medium of Needles’ insanity either- such as the events of Black. In this story, Needles would become a ruthless murderer locked away in an asylum alongside many other murderers who were invited into the Twisted Metal contest to be granted (again) their greatest desire. Needles’ greatest desire was to overcome the curse placed on him by a preacher at his failed execution which set an everlasting fire from the depths of Hell upon his head for the sins he caused- a pain that hurt him for three months straight. However, Needles over his time in the contest realized that there was no point in murder, an idea he would meed face-to-face when he finished the contest. Given a vial that would cure the pain- at the cost of giving up murder- Needles realized there was no point in accepting this, and would instead kill Calypso for the mockery he made. If anything, Needles wanted to be the greatest.


Alternatively, Twisted Metal’s 2012 game showed a more in-depth case to the broken mind of Needles- more accurately, the man known as Marcus Kane. Originally a very innocent ice cream man, Marcus became a cold-blooded killer when another personality of his overcame his mind, splitting it in two and forcing the man to don a new identity. Now known as Sweet Tooth, the killer brutalized his entire family as he became more and more deranged- save for his daughter, the one who got away. With this ambition, Marcus became a gang leader with the Clowns to compete in Twisted Metal’s competition made by Calypso in order to gain his greatest desire- to kill the one who got away from his first murder. However, Calypso, as the man does with all wishes in his tournament, was the only one to know the truth behind Needles’ daughter.


Because Sweet Tooth’s daughter had died herself, the only way for the clown to see her was in the grave- which Calypso loved to allow Needles to do. With this, the killer clown was sealed underground cursing out the man who was responsible for his death. This hadn’t stunted Needles at all, as while Calypso sought out the body of Marcus’ daughter to resurrect her from the dead, Sweet Tooth’s memetic existence came back to haunt his son- causing him to be corrupted and rob the grave of Marcus, becoming the host for Marcus Kane and continue his murdering spree across the world.


Regardless of how one goes through Twisted Metal, the Tooth has always been a psychotic, deranged murderer with way more than enough screws loose. While he hadn’t accepted this in many regards, contesting against himself every time he began to take lives, murder has always been Sweet Tooth’s passion. If he wasn’t going to be the greatest murderer, one known far and wide, feared the way he should deserve… then no one else was going to be great. Of course, after all this time, Sweet Tooth’s wish to become the star of Twisted Metal came true, feared by people all across the globe and renowned for the death he’s brought across it- undoubtedly one of his greatest achievements and the only one a person like him should achieve in life. 

 

The Pyro

“There are only two things that attract bears… honey… and menstruating women. My god, I knew it! Somehow I always knew it! PYRO!”


Almost two-hundred years ago marked the birth of three twins from a woman named Bette Mann. Under the company Mann Co., two of which were brought into the family business as their father’s late will would split these brothers. This will included land bought to expand the business of Mann Co., a weapons dealing business which was going to expand across the planet, land that the brothers fought over in the intention to rule over it. Identifying the gravel pits and dustbowls as common battlegrounds in order to engage conflict, the brothers formed entire mercenary groups in order to enact battle against one another- a conflict that exhausted itself for over one-hundred years. 


In particular, however, the brothers intended to assign mercenaries with similar skills against one another, an inexhaustable number of men who could be thrown at one another just to attempt to usurp control and dominance. This led to the formation of a certain type of mercenary between the teams, including that of the Pyro. Originally donned by Abraham Lincoln, the alias of the Pyro has gone to many people across the hundred year war over the badlands, such as the Classic Mercenaries and, most recently in 1968, included the group of mercenaries most well known as Team Fortress.  Pyro themselves is a massive threat- displaying competence enough to slay entire teams of BLU mercenaries on their own and striking fear even into their teammates. But, of course, Pyro isn’t naturally a murderer. Rather, Pyro sees the entire world in their twisted psyche as sunshine and lollipops and rainbows- helping out everyone he kills (if he even is a he) with kindness. This hasn’t subtracted from their willingness to fight, loving both fire in and out of their delusions, allowing them to be a competent fighter regardless of the situation. 


While the Pyro fought under the conditions of Redmond and Blutarch, the long lost third brother, named Gray Mann, soon forced himself into the picture- faking his sincerness as he intended to take ‘revenge’ on the brothers. Of course, this wasn’t exactly vengeance, rather out of the brother’s jealousy of the two. Being the backstab lying sunuvabitch that he is, Gray Mann would literally backstab the two brothers after their first meeting, leading them to enact a final conflict within the bounds of their mercenary teams. Now in the circles of agony, Hell, the mercenaries of RED and BLU would fight against eachother to help the men who hired them- with one of the brothers vaguely taking control and winning over the other, allowing those remaining mercenaries to ascend back into the real world. 


This wasn’t the end of the conflict of the mercenaries though, as the group reorganized itself now fought against the robotic forces of Gray Mann. While these robots were built to ascend the power of any mercenary, the sheer will and intention of the mercenaries allowed them to strengthen themselves enough with the economy they were given to upgrade themselves far beyond these robots, fighting all across the globe against the robots that Gray Mann sent out, forcing the two into an infinite stalemate just like the brothers before him. While the mercenaries did oppose Gray Mann- the brother had a much greater idea. This was an attack on the very people who hired the mercenaries, being the owner of Mann Co. 


While he does concede the war when face-to-face with the owner, Saxton Hale, Gray Mann uses the idea of the beefy Australian who’s policy of overtaking the company would to be taking on Saxton in a fight. While Gray Mann himself couldn’t take Saxton on in a fight, Gray Mann would put Saxton up against his underage daughter in a fight- someone who Saxton refused to fight. With Saxton’s concession, Gray Mann now took full order over the company, including the mercenaries. Seeing this as his advantage point, he would disband the mercenary team- leading each member to go their own ways unwillingly. This includes the Pyro, who would work at an unnamed company that they would later ascend in the ranks as up until they became the CEO. However, with the intentions of Miss Pauling and the Administrator, the Pyro as well as the rest of the mercenaries were gathered up all together in order to fight back against Gray Mann months after the original takeover. Travelling many times across the world, the team eventually reconvenes in New Zealand overall, with them taking on the forces of Gray Mann’s remaining robots. In the same time frame, Gray would hire the previous team of mercenaries (seen in the classic Team Fortress games, mentioned earlier) to fight against the forces of Team Fortress, which despite being in an elderly state the cast would track down and take down members of Team Fortress, such as killing the Sniper, before capturing them- dragging them to Mann Co’s original headquarters.


However, the Classic mercenaries would find out that their cause of fighting came from Australium- a power source that grants immortality. With their leader, the Classic Heavy, their greed leads to them killing Gray Mann who wields a machine keeping him alive with Australium and attempting to use all of the man’s resources against the mercenaries- however, with the sheer cunningness and power of Team Fortress, these advantages would be overcome no matter what the Classic Mercenaries could do, like draining all of their blood with Australium-sucking robots or using the remaining stockpile of Gray Mann’s robots against them. With this, the mercenaries now took down each and every single member of the team- including the once-powerful Heavy who’d wield the stolen Australium machine from Gray Mann who’d been easily taken down by the modern Heavy. Having taken down all potential numbers of enemies from their final enemy, Team Fortress had taken victory- striking down one of the highest orders of mercenary organizations in the world, and while not recognized as anything but the rejects, they still won. 


While Pyro might not be the mercenary with the extensive tragic background or the heaviest firepower in a battle (some might disagree… Pyro does have the Backburner…….), the sheer fear and dominance over the battleground defines what they do best, controlling massive crowds of enemies in their way and igniting anyone in their way. After all, if you want to set people on fire, you’d have to be pretty fire, which Pyro definitely exceeds at. 

Experience & Skill

Sweet Tooth

Being an immensely powerful serial killer, Sweet Tooth is a merciless killer feared by many. Not only was he a well-covered murderer portrayed multiple times throughout the series but he’s worked as a Twisted Metal contestant fighting all across the globe against various enemies and bosses in order to achieve his greatest desire from Calypso. Even beyond that, Sweet Tooth has orchestrated massive gang wars between factions with people who worship him, being their leader, and has lead revolts against the all-powerful Calypso with his circus of henchmen, becoming the true star of Twisted Metal. Sweet Tooth isn’t just good at killing, either, as he’s shown extensive skill in engineering and mechanical work- displaying such in his responsibility for the creation of the Sweet Bot. 

Pyro

As a member of Team Fortress, the Pyro has met constant reaches towards combat and general fighting. This has included such years where the Pyro has fought the MONOCULUS- a cursed eye with a new form who makes a yearly appearance every Halloween- or Grey Mann’s robot army- a large scale army of machines engineered to exceed any mercenary. This has gone to such a degree that Team Fortress is recognized to be the highest level- outclassing the Classic Team Fortress crew who were seen as sitting on top of the hierarchy despite the Team Fortress mercenaries seen as ‘inferior rejects’. Pyro has done more than just combat to display his (surprising) intelligence, such as when he’d become a very successful company’s CEO after the time gap between the Gravel War mercenary team’s disbandment. 

Forms

Sweet Tooth

Marcus Kane

While not a ‘form’ per se, Marcus and Needles have constantly been able to separate from themselves yet form together constantly. Enacting as a different being however at certain points one in the same due to the personality mesh, there are several instances of Needles and Marcus being the same person or Marcus turning into Needles from his insanity.

Calypso’s Body

Through his wish in Head-on, which couldn’t be denied to Sweet Tooth’s control as the star of Twisted Metal, Needles gained the form of Calypso. While Needles normally wouldn’t be able to access this, his existence as the Star of Twisted Metal and factors that will be touched upon later would naturally allow Needles to form himself as Calypso.

Pyro

Voodoo-Cursed Pyro


Although entirely cosmetic, the Pyro can completely change their body with the Voodoo-Cursed Pyro Soul. This leaves them to become an undead being who roams the battlefield- although it changes absolutely nothing about them. 

Erm… what the scallop?

The Pyro can like… turn into a Yeti kinda…

Equipment

Sweet Tooth

The Mask

Sweet Tooth’s iconic mask which causes him to regress in his madness, the iconic mask resembles his ice cream mascot which he uses to cover his identity- both physically and figuratively. Donning this mask caused the man known as Marcus Kane to become a cold blooded killer, hiding a pitiful man because truthfully this mask is the true identity of Needles. After all, Needles is the clown, bearing the same constant smile painted on his face as he kills.

Clown Outfit

When Sweet Tooth was first introduced as a legitimate character (at least, under the alias of Sweet Tooth), he was a literal killer clown wearing… well, a clown outfit. While not offering much physical protection likely, it is very inherently unaffected by flames which makes it likely useful if Sweet Tooth gets a bit too hot.

Ringmaster Outfit

In Twisted Metal 4, Sweet Tooth wore a new ringmaster outfit which was worn when he reigned control over a large circus with his henchmen. Now renowned as the master of these clowns, he wore an outfit matching his status, becoming the leader of Twisted Metal. He’s even worn this into combat, both directly which allows him to work athletically but even when fighting in his own vehicle.

Body Armor

While normally being naked, Needles has worn a fair share of outfits all across the series- however one of his lesser known defenses was his body armor which he wore in the TV show. Although it hasn’t shown much defense, it’s a lot better to be hit by something wearing layers than being hit bare-naked…

Machete

Sweet Tooth has wielded weapons outside of his truck and his iconic machete is no different. Although it first appeared in Black and later in 2012, Sweet Tooth has used it extensively outside of his series, such as in the Peacock show or Playstation All Stars, becoming a staple to his overall killing abilities. 

12-guage Shotgun

Another weapon Needles has picked up across his entries is the shotgun, which he has shown expertise in, both being able to wield it on-hand against opponents to take them down as well as in his truck. Beyond 2012 in its usage as a sidearm, Needles has also displayed separate usage in Playstation All-Stars and usage of it alongside other firearms in the Twisted Metal TV show.

Sidearms

Twisted Metal 2012 introduced various sidearms, including and not limited to…

  • Magnum Revolver: Seen above.

  • Laser Pistol: A pistol which shoots lasers.

  • Submachine Gun: An automatic firearm.

  • Swarmer: A long-distance rocket launcher which can be used to blow up vehicles, shooting four entire missiles at once as well as having homing capabilities

  • Mega Gun: A pick-up sidearm which can be used by Sweet Tooth, being upgraded machine guns on his vehicle. While they are limited and need to be picked up again to be used, they are powerful enough to make up for it.l

Chainsaw

Another weapon Sweet Tooth has wielded in his entries, the chainsaw is a weapon he can hold with one hand typically upon the Reaper vehicle (more on that later). In vehicles like that, Sweet Tooth can drag his chainsaw on the ground to ignite it on fire as to be able to deal more damage to enemies with it, including against cars that are normally able to withstand massive nukes. 

Sniper Rifle

Wielded in 2012, Needles is able to use a sniper rifle at a long range in order to take down opponents as long as he stays locked upon them for a significant time, however if it were to switch targets the weapon’s increase in damage will fall off requiring more time to charge as a result.

The Sweet Tooth

The namesake for Sweet Tooth solely because of confusion, the Sweet Tooth is a modified ice cream with gatling guns and a large ice cream bomb on top, having usually high armor and a slow top speed. However, Needles has various other vehicles beyond the usage of the Sweet Tooth as well as being able to modify the Sweet Tooth itself.

The Sweet Bot

By transforming his bot, Needles can wield the Sweet Bot, a beefy and agile mech that can jump around the battlefield with speed as well as throw its head as a projectile, wield a chaingun, and charge through buildings and enemies with immense speed. It is able to charge forward with its thrusters, as well as use these thrusters for flight.

The Dark Tooth

Driven by Marcus and Needles, two of the same person, the Dark Tooth is a monstrous vehicle with its own murderous intent, having some of the highest stats in the entire game. Using its massive jaws, the Dark Tooth’s special ability allows it to chomp forward, biting into any opponent and ripping them before spitting them out. With its miniguns, it shoots out mini napalm ice cream cones in the likeness to other Sweet Tooth vehicles.

Boss Sweet Tooth

Appearing in Twisted Metal 4, Needles wields a stronger ice cream truck alongside his henchmen. With its special ability, Needles launches out three henchmen illusions that lock onto opponents, targeting them through walls, with Needles’ blue minion sucking in enemies, the green minion constantly fires M.I.R.V missiles which barrage the opponent with explosives, and the red one shooting out flames that set the opponent alight. When this special is over, all three of the minions blow up, usually ending the unlucky contestant who has this attack used against them.

The Gold Tooth

Appearing in Twisted Metal: Lost, the Gold Tooth is a golden version of the normal Sweet Tooth however holds higher stats, allowing it to perform moderately better despite being no different in special abilities or usage beyond that. 

Tower Tooth

A large tower that Marcus and Needles drive, compromised of four standard Sweet Tooth trucks which a pillar rests upon, holding up a gigantic restaurant with a large clown head in the likeness of Sweet Tooth on top of it. It wields a large flamethrower which can set opponents alight, create storms of lightning to strike down opponents, wield multiple napalm cones akin to other trucks, and wield a machine gun. Minus the machine gun, almost all of its attacks have high homing power on opponents.

Axel

Equipped with two machine guns, Sweet Tooth is put into a two big wheeled contraption that allows him to charge opponents. By sealing together the vehicle, he can crush opponents dealing consecutive damage to them as he progresses. Even further so, Sweet Tooth can create large shockwaves with the wheels to affect opponents around him.

Crimson Fury

A speedy sportscar which Sweet Tooth can drive, which although not reliable physically can deal tons of fire damage with the usage of its special flamethrower and incindiary shockwaves.

Darkside

A large semi-truck which can be driven by Sweet Tooth with immense strength and armor. It is able to quickly bash into enemies with its special ability as well as drop mines behind itself. Another special ability is the tri-gun, three machine guns that pop out of the hood of the truck to shoot down opposing enemies.

Death Warrant

Another vehicle that Death Warrant can drive, a well-balanced vehicle which wields dual chain guns and the ability to fire ‘Zoomy Rockets’, chargeable rockets that can be used as a projectile against enemies which deal more damage as Sweet Tooth charges them up.

Juggernaut

A gigantic semi-truck with armored padding and wields the ability to launch bouncy mines in front of itself as well as a particularly special ability with the power to tuck partnered cars inside of itself to shoot down enemies. It is immune to the freeze ability as well as ramming, preventing it from being hurt by most common means.

Junkyard Dog

A unique tow truck with generally balanced stats. With its special ability, Junkyard Dog can use its hooks in many ways, such as grabbing taxis and ramming them into opponents. The taxi can be used to blow up things, as well as heal enemies.

Kamikaze

Wielded by Sweet Tooth, Kamikaze is a very fast car which packs a heavy punch, wielding a close range flamethrower which can burn down enemies. In addition, Kamikaze has an area-of-effect freeze where it drops a bomb that can blow up, completely freezing over enemies.

Meat Wagon

An ambulance that Sweet Tooth can drive which is able to shoot out gurneys with explosive people behind it, as well as wield its special ability which allows the person’s gurney to be piloted and detonated remotely than timed.

Outlaw

A police wagon driven by Sweet Tooth, wielding turrets. When using its turrets, Outlaw can also shoot out grenades, however it can also shoot Blood Missiles with its alternative special. Beyond its ability, Outlaw is very well-rounded in its statistics.

Reaper

A motorcycle with immense speed that Sweet Tooth can drive, however it has very weak defense. Its specials include the Chainsaw, a short ranged attack that Sweet Tooth can ignite on fire when popping a wheelie to deal extra damage (as mentioned earlier), as well as the usage of an RPG to deal ranged damage which it is able to charge even further.

Road Boat

A slow but otherwise balanced car with magnetic specials. By using its primary special, Road Boat shoots out three homing magnets that deal extra damage when bouncing off walls, as well as its alternate special allowing it to stick enemies to its front, being able to slam them into walls to deal damage or launch them outwards.

Roadkill

A beefy racecar that Sweet Tooth can drive with well-rounded stats however holds nothing particularly special. With its ability, Sweet Tooth can launch mines behind itself, wield automatic chain guns, and launch chargeable Blood Missiles which get strong with every charge held.

Shadow

A slow and less powerful vehicle that Sweet Tooth can drive with a little bit more armor and beef. It is able to throw explosive coffins at people which blow up in time or can be arced with the alternative special. These coffins deal more damage the farther they’re able to travel away from the player.

Talon

The first and only helicopter that Sweet Tooth can drive, it is a very fast and agile but weak vehicle with generally powerful specials. It is able to wield three gatling guns to fire down on targets or drop a magnet from the bottom of itself to pick up enemy vehicles and drop them out of the sky.

Vermin

An extermination van that Sweet Tooth can ride which shoots out rockets in the style of a mouse mascot, both being able to be remotely controlled and piloted or shot out normally as homing missiles, being able to deal immense damage if it hits directly.

Warthog

A modified station wagon to resemble a tank that Sweet Tooth can drive. One of its primary abilities is being able to angle itself via its wheels to crush enemies, as well as create front-facing shockwaves which can hit multiple enemies as to deal with large crowds.


With all of these vehicles and weapons, Sweet Tooth has various other weapons he can use in combination with their own guns, such as…

Missiles

Sweet Tooth has access to several different kinds of missiles which he can use against opponents, such as…

  • Missiles: Standard balanced missiles which target enemies and usually lack strong homing, if any, or other special properties.

  • Freeze Missiles: Missiles that explode in enemies’ faces, freezing them in solid ice or entirely.

  • Fire Missiles: Missiles that, when they explode, will either set enemies on fire or leave fire behind them as a result.

  • Power Missiles: The most powerful missiles usually, they are much stronger at the expense of speed, homing potential, and fire rate.

  • Homing Missiles: Missiles which home in on enemies however lack any good damage due to this factor.

  • Zoomy Missiles: A skill missile that shoots out several fast missiles out at once with homing capabilities.

  • Swarmer Missiles: A skill missile that charges at a timed rate which increases the rate of fire and number of missiles shot out the longer it is charged for.

  • Stalker Missiles: A powerful missile which gains more homing the longer it is charged for.

  • Ricochet Projectile: While not a regular missile, this explosive projectile can be shot out, bouncing off of walls allowing it to deal more damage. 

Bombs

Bombs are a constant weapon used across the series which comes in variants between placeable or detonable bombs, usually working in contact or at a range where they can be detonated at a long range. Other detonated explosives, such as Gas Cans, will release gas in contact or the Freeze Remote Bomb which can be detonated at a long range and freezes enemies when activated.

Mines

Small explosives that detonate on contact, Needles can place them behind his vehicle to take on any opposing vehicles that attempt to chase after him. This isn’t the only type, however, as Needles can upgrade them to Super Mines which are inherently stronger than their normal variant.

Calypso’s Ring

Stolen from Calypso in the events of Twisted Metal 4, Sweet Tooth reigns control over Twisted Metal with the power of its master. Becoming the true star, Sweet Tooth brings down an iron fist however will grant any wish that the drivers want with this- unless they defy his own wishes, like with Calypso himself. Even so, the ring has displayed immense power, a vast display of it, and how to wield it properly.


Although we won’t be explicitly touching upon Calypso’s powers, the ring grants a lot of abilities. From being able to lock out the very player from the game to moving things across time to sealing minds into a coma all the way up to… creating pizza? However, one of Sweet Tooth’s greatest powers, which he has displayed with the ring, is the usage of soul absorption including absorbing ones entire physical body inside of the ring.


Pyro

Asbestos-lined Suit

Pyro wears a fire retardant suit which prevents the effects of afterburn and generally protects Pyro from the effects of flames, hence the general lack of fire damage. The suit Pyro wears is also equipped with grenades of some sort and a gas tank which Pyro supplies ammo for the flamethrower from. 

Hats

Of course, Team Fortress 2 is the number one hat-based simulator, so of course they’d take importance in a fight. In truth though, most cosmetics offer no difference over the Pyro having zero effect besides showing off. Certain items, such as the Pyrovision Goggles, make special differences such as showing other classes the true worldview of the Pyro. Otherwise, besides flexing on an opponent or making special noises, the hats offer essentially no difference in a fight… usually. Tryhards disagree.

Flamethrowers

The most important tool in the Pyro’s possession, the Flamethrower. A short ranged gas-based weapon, the Flamethrower ignites enemies and buildings on fire dealing damage both directly and overtime with Afterburn. The effects of Afterburn additionally reduce the effects of healing and shield effects, allowing it to deal damage overtime and prevent quick healing against damage. Every variation of the Flamethrower, besides the Phlogistinator, is able to airblast, a short burst expulsion of air that can be used to reflect projectiles and other similar attacks as well as push around enemies, alongside being able to extinguish previously ablaze teammates, healing the Pyro in the process. Each Flamethrower besides this difference is usually distinguishable although they have special coverages between one another.

The Backburner

Akin to the regular flamethrower, the Backburner’s holds very similar flame mechanics with how it works. However, the main difference is set in the Backburner’s ability to deal extra damage when behind opponents and having a higher airblast cost, taking one fourth of Pyro’s entire canister in order to perform one. As a result, this item is a highly offensive weapon that doesn’t work as well defensively, fitting innately well into its job as a flanking tool.

The Degreaser

Akin to the regular flamethrower, the Degreaser is very similar both statistically and usage wise. The main difference between the Degreaser and stock flamethrower is its speed difference, which due to its lighter build the Pyro is able to swap easily between other weapons with the Degreaser in hand. Due to this, it can be seen a great tool when the Pyro wishes to use extensive combo tools in a fight. 

The Phlogistinator

The greatest offensive item in the Pyro’s kit, the Phlogistinator is a scientific weapon unleashing the ‘Phlogiston’ inside of all creatures, setting them alight. With this weapon, while Pyro lacks the innate ability to release airblasts, the Phlogistinator can use an on-demand Crits boost when enough damage is accumulated, allowing Pyro to burn down any enemies in his path. This weapon is strong enough to entirely disintegrate a person, reducing their body to ash, further showing the innate power of the Phlog and the devastation it can bring.

Dragon’s Fury

Classified as a ‘flame launcher’, the Dragon’s Fury is a flamethrower which shoots out bursts of flames as its primary attack, allowing them to deal high damage however coming at the cost of their accuracy requiring more consecutive aiming. Like with the flamethrower normally, this burst-based powerhouse uses airblasts, with it carrying less ammo on average with airblasts costing five rounds of the forty round canister. 

Shotguns

Being one of Pyro’s alternative weapons, they are able to use shotguns as a way to deal damage to opponents should they run out of ammo in their primary or intend on dealing burst damage to an opponent. Sharing the three different weapons between other classes, the Pyro can use them in combination with any of their other weapons to increase their effectiveness beyond any other class. As it is their stock weapon, the Pyro is skilled to equip this normally which they can wield alongside their flamethrower as mentioned before.

The Reverse Shooter

Within the lines of the Shotgun, the Reverse Shooter is a secondary that can be deployed quicker than normal, dealing extra damage to those sent in the air. With no big differences beyond clip size, the Reserve Shooter can offer extra damage whenever needed with a faster deployment speed than otherwise.

The Panic Attack

As a quick burst option, no other weapon can come close to the Panic Attack. As a weapon that can be easily deployed on the run, it can deal immediate burst damage whenever needed. However, it is not a consistent weapon when used for longer, which leads to its accuracy decreasing and gaining and increased shot spread when used for extended periods of time. This leads the Panic Attack to be Pyro’s most reliable quick burst of damage but the least reliable overtime.


Flare Guns

Generally, Flare Guns are Pyro’s best way of dealing longer range damage with afterburn or a great immediate follow-up from flaming attacks. Due to their innate ability to deal critical damage against flaming targets, they are a powerful combo tool as well as being one of the Pyro’s only long ranged weapons thus integral to being able to close any gap in range. The standard Flare Gun deals consistent critical damage and has no extensive gimmick, allowing it to be very powerful if focused on consistency rather than gimmicky playstyles, however that doesn’t mean it is inherently the best.

The Detonator

What sets this Flare Gun apart from others is the Detonator’s ability to explode- allowing it to detonate when the Pyro activates it. With this Flare Gun, the Pyro is able to jump longer distances than any other as well as deal special area damage that others likely wouldn’t be able to cover without needing to lose the damage it performs well with.

The Scorch Shot

The worst nightmare of anyone with free will, the Scorch Shot is a heavy area of effect Flare Gun that deals extra knockback to flaming players as well as exploding on the ground- allowing it to even hit people twice for damage. This comes at the cost of the Scorch Shot’s damage, which is decreased, as well as its knockback force towards the Pyro, making it the least usable Flare Gun for jumping long distances. 

The Manmelter

A more ‘scientific’ flare gun, if you will. This flare gun allows the Pyro to extinguish teammates as a secondary fire in order to heal themselves, with each stored extinguish effect giving a guaranteed critical hit per blow. However, unlike the standard flare gun, the Manmelter does not instantly crit players who are on fire- preventing it from having the same on-demand damage increases the other weapons have.

Melees

Usually making their premise as quick on-demand weapons for the Pyro amidst combat, often being used in certain ways depending on the gimmick brought by the weapon, varying from quick get-away tools, options to get Pyro quickly into combat, easy combat tools to end a fight, or... being absolutely useless.

Fire Axe

A common firefighter tool, the Fire Axe is a simple axe used to cut through burnt materials to secure victims in a fire… however, Pyro’s Fire Axe is used for a much deadlier purchase, which rather than saving victims, it makes victims. 

The Axtinguisher

A modified axe, the Axtinguisher is a weapon that deals mini-crit damage to opponents set on fire, however extinguishing them after the hit. Due to its kill speed boost and holster speed, the Axtinguisher’s strength comes best as a combo tool and finisher with Pyro’s flamethrower or flare guns. 

The Homewrecker

Being a simple sledgehammer, the Homewrecker is a weapon that exceeds in destroying technology- such as Engineer buildings or sappers used by the Spy. This allows the Homewrecker to be used in special handy utilities or allow it to take down distracted or idle buildings if needed. 

The Powerjack

The Powerjack is a special weapon that, when equipped, increases the Pyro’s movement speed and allows them to heal themselves on kill. However, this added mobility comes at the cost of the Pyro being more vulnerable to any damage sources, 

The Backscratcher

Being a common garden rake, the Backscratcher is a strong weapon that allows Pyro to deal increased damage. Due to its damage amplification, and increasing healing from mobile health packs, the Backscratcher makes a very potent tool for mobile and lone Pyro routes. However, this weapon significantly decreases healing from any outside sources, making damage sustained very difficult to close up unless the Pyro is able to make a route towards another healthpack. 

Sharpened Volcano Fragment

Created by the magma from a volcano, the ‘Sharpened Volcano Fragment’ is a weapon that, when it hits an enemy, sets them on fire. This allows them to deal damage and set enemies on fire, however has a bigger usage in resetting the time of Afterburn when it hits. 

Neon Annihilator

The Neon Annihilator is a neon sign uprooted from the ground which still retains power. In this regard, the Pyro deals critical damage to enemies who are wet, disintegrating them through pure energy. This makes it very useful in wet environments, hence the concept of a subclass named the Pyroshark. 

The Third Degree

The Third Degree is a really simple ‘fireaxe’, at least, that’s what its meant to be the form of. While statistically the same as the Fire Axe, the Third Degree’s specialty is its ability to chain hits between a Medic and their healed target, dealing equivalent damage to both parties and (due to the nature of shields created by the Medic) allows it to essentially circumvent means of damage reduction. 

The Hot Hand

Being a very… hot hand… this weapon allows Pyro to increase his speed by slapping opponents, which can be potentially useful as a weapon in… scenarios?? There’s not much to write about it, since like, it’s kinda pointless…

Thermal Thruster

The Thermal Thruster is a wearable jetpack that the Pyro can wear into combat, allowing for them to hop easily between ranges and take the high ground by getting into hard-to-reach areas. By jumping or landing, the Thermal Thruster is able to blow back enemies with the gusts of air that it propels, and with Mann vs. Machine upgrades, this air pressure is able to stun enemies and slow down stronger bosses.

Gas Passer

The Pyro is able to deal damage in other ways beyond their ranged weapons, too, such is the case of the Gas Passer, another secondary weapon that they wield on the battlefield. By accumulating enough damage, the Pyro can douse his opponents in a special form of gasoline that sets any enemy on fire- including other enemy Pyro’s- allowing extra damage. With its Mann vs. Machine perks, the Gas Passer’s ignition mechanic causes extra explosives, dealing additional potential damage and allowing it to deal with crowds to a heavier degree.

Magic Spells

By finding lost spell books or using weird potions, the Pyro is able to wield magical spells during Halloween. While they are usually randomized as pick-ups, being able to be found in various locations, the spells all are generally powerful enough to circumvent this. They can be used in support of Pyro’s weapons, support Pyro in a fight, or absolutely dominate opponents with one spell alone allowing them to circumvent entire team fights with the usage of magic.

Blast Jump

With the usage of a special magic, the Pyro can launch themselves upwards with an explosive, dealing damage to all surrounding enemies. This allows them to easily handle any potential crowding situations and, with their mobility options, can allow them to get to higher areas by adding an extra potential jump to their agility.

Stealth

With this spell, the Pyro can turn themselves invisible for eight seconds, allowing them to travel around undetected. Due to its nature, the Pyro is unable to attack in this state, as attacking will reveal themselves and dissipate the cloak. Another factor of this spell is its healing, which while small, can be easily brought up in a pinch if no other spell is given. 

Pumpkin MIRV

By dropping one bomb, the Pumpkin MIRV splits into multiple smaller bombs which can be detonated, dealing high damage to others. However, due to its explosive nature, the vast number of pumpkins can still deal damage to the Pyro if they’re close enough, leaving it better off to play at a distance. With this weakness, the Pumpkin can only be activated by the Pyro- as enemies who shoot the bombs will not detonate it but cause them to disappear.

Swarm of Bats

By summoning a large swarm of bats, the Pyro deals tons of damage with a… swarm of bats. These bats deal bleeding damage and toss around opponents, which makes it very potent for hitting opponents around and catching them off guard amidst a fight or adding extra support to one’s attacks. . 

Fireball

The Pyro can shoot a fireball from its hands which functions very similarly to a rocket, being able to hit opponents and set them on fire. However, unlike a rocket, this fireball cannot be deflected by the airblast, making it potentially a very powerful tool.

Shadow Leap

By launching a dark projectile, the Pyro can use this spell to gain high ground in fights. When this ball of dark energy hits the ground when thrown, it instantly teleports Pyro to the location in question. In addition to this teleportation, it will lightly heal Pyro for damage, allowing it to work both as a getaway tool and a way to continue taking advantage over an opponent in a fight, or even engage in combat against an opponent who isn’t expecting the Pyro (making very powerful usage of their flanking style of combat). 

Overheal

With this spell, Pyro becomes invulnverable for a short moment healing them immediately in the span of three seconds, both healing the Pyro and their teammates. This practically doubles the Pyro, and other teammates, healthpools, allowing them to tank much more damage than they normally would. In addition to healing, this spell brings a pushback option to opponents, knocking them away from the user to lessen any potential damage made to them if needed.

Minify

Turning into a very small creature, the Pyro can shrink themselves with Minify. This spell gives Pyro increased speed, reload time, etc. as well as decreasing their size, making it very difficult to properly hit them. Even worse is the Pyro’s ability to jump infinitely- allowing them to have a great deal of mobility with this spell including with their very small hitbox. The only vulnerability Pyro holds is their head- which is as big as the rest of their body, meaning that there is the potential to headshot them if the opportunity comes. Another benefit with this spell is the healing ability, healing over a half of Pyro’s overall health when this spell is used allowing it to work as a great escape option if needed.

Ball o’ Lightning

By throwing a ball of lightning, the Pyro creates an electric field that travels through the air pulling in opponents as the ball bounces around, constantly dealing damage and working especially well against grouped up opponents. 

Meteor Shower

With this spell, Pyro throws a fireball forward which brings a storm of meteors down onto opponents, setting them on fire and dealing tons of damage being able to cover entire chokepoints with its sheer size and range. This gives Pyro an absolutely devastating weapon especially towards enemies, allowing them to easily shut down opponents.

Skeleton Horde

Being able to raise the dead like a common necromancer, the Skeleton Horde spell brings the dead back to life. This brings several small skeleton units who will target enemies, including even invisible ones, dealing constant damage if they get in melee range. While not necessarily powerful, the distractions given by this horde are comparable to none.

Summon MONOCULUS!

By summoning an intangible and invincible eye monster (an avatar of the MONOCULUS, the Demoman’s haunted eye), the Pyro can devastate enemies in its path. This monster will constantly shoot out eye rockets at enemies, dealing damage in quick bursts which can easily kill enemies and shut down entire areas at a time. 

Bomb Head

Releasing a kamikaze, the Bomb Head is an explosive spell that puts a bomb on top of the Pyro’s head (duh), leading to them being able to clash into opponents to blow them up or otherwise blows up on its own over a set time. It has the ability to deal, usually no matter what, half of both the enemy and Pyro’s healthpool, making it a very potent ability to weaken opponents or deal a final blow although it could do the same to Pyro.

Boxing Glove

A small rocket that Pyro can use which blows back opponents, the Boxing Glove is a shorter range projectile that can be used to hit opponents consistently. 

B.A.S.E. Jumper

With this ability, the Pyro can jump to a far height before equipping a parachute from their back which can be deactivated any time. While this spell acts very similarly to the Blast Jump, including its pushback effect, it brings more height to the Pyro’s jump than the Blast Jump normally would although the effects of the B.A.S.E Jumper make it easier to land blows on the Pyro.

Power-Up Canteens

The canteen is a Mann vs. Machine exclusive action item that the Pyro can wield into battle- gathering up to three charges of a unique perk which can be activated until requiring a recharge. Due to its nature, the Canteens can only hold one perk at a time, having four unique usages which can be taken into battle against the machines. 

Übercharged

With this canteen, the Pyro can gain a short-term 5-second invulnerability effect akin to the Medic’s Übercharge effect. This allows Pyro to resist certain effects and generally takes no damage from any source- however the Pyro is able to be knocked around, since this canteen is suited for defense or mowing through enemies without taking damage.

Crit Boost

With this canteen, the Pyro gains the Kritz boost effect, allowing them to deal three times as damage as normal. While normally present randomly or on demand with the Phlogistinator, all Flare Guns, and the Reserve Shooter, this canteen allows Pyro to activate critical hits at any time allowing them to increase their damage output at any time, easily overwhelming any opponents defenses as a result. 

Refill Ammo

With this canteen, the Pyro can simply refill all of their ammunition in a fight, including their secondaries, flamethrower canisters, etc. Simply put, this item allows Pyro’s ammo reserves (which are already massive) to increase threefold, causing them to struggle running out of ammo than actually struggling to keep it maintained. 

Teleport to Spawn

With this canteen, the Pyro can take a teleport back to their spawn- allowing them to refill ammo, heal themselves up, restock weapons, change canteens, etcetera. Although not particularly useful in direct combat due to Pyro needing to track their way back, with the help of a friendly Engineer this makes the work completely obsolete. This allows it to be useful in Mann vs. Machine missions, covering the bases of other canteens if need be for a cheaper cost.

Grappling Hook

Appearing in the Mannpower mode, the Grappling Hook is an action item which the Pyro can use to travel around quickly. Another benefit of this weapon is that it is actually able to hook onto enemies- dealing bleeding damage overtime and bringing Pyro in a very close range to an opponent. This is the quickest and most reliable transport tool for the Pyro, requiring no ammo to use and, as a result, can make it very easy for them to travel longer distances with it. 

Soul Gargoyle

Gifted by Merasmus, the Soul Gargoyle is an artifact which can absorb souls from players who are killed, allowing them to later be transmutated during Halloween with other artifacts to curse them- granting them unusual and haunting effects. While it holds generally no combat utility, this weapon is almost always present when Pyro kills an enemy, sealing away their soul in the artifact.  

Bumper Carts

Being special vehicles the entire Team Fortress 2 cast can drive, these Bumper Karts are vehicles that can simply be driven around- usually casted by Merasmus however they can be used on their own. While Pyro cannot explicitly attack during a taunt, they are able to wield certain spells in this vehicle.

Broomstick

Being a magical flying broomstick, the Pyro can hover all around a fight with their broomstick, although it does reduce Pyro’s speed. 

Hot Wheeler

This motor trike is a specialty, being one of Pyro’s own. This vehicle can perform cool tricks- which is one of the only things it can really do.

Piano

The Pyro can rock out with a cool miniature piano which they can play- usually amidst combat. Not sure what it’d do beyond that, but it’s cool!


Something Special for Someone Special

Sweet Tooth… will you marry me?

Abilities

Sweet Tooth

The Flames of Hell

Due to a curse placed upon the Preacher during Needles’ execution in Black, the clown’s head is constantly on fire, bringing headaches, delusions, and brings never-ending pain. While this is only one of the few tales of Sweet Tooth’s neverending flames- others situated upon him setting alight his own scalp or his hair being formed to become flames- it is one of the most known causes for it. While it used to overwhelm him when he was in his asylum, Needles decided to try to cure it with help from Calypso- at the cost of losing his urge to kill… a limit he simply wouldn’t pass, returning back to his killing ways which led to the flames coming back, yet this was something he was fine with when he immediately started killing- beginning with Calypso, who he decapitated with a single movement of his knife. Despite the neverending pain this curse brings him, Sweet Tooth aspires to be the greatest murderer of all time.

Contestant Physiology

As a contestant of the tournament of Twisted Metal, Sweet Tooth is subject to the many limits of the tournament… a groundwork of ‘rules’, if you will.

  • As a contestant, you are selling your soul off to Calypso and Satan.

  • You must face all opponents and kill them in order to ascend to the next level.

  • Your wishes made when winning are taken literal, however can also be twisted to work off of your greatest desire should Calypso, prefer it.

  • You will come back every year during every tournament, even if you die!

However, at the catch of these rules, many contestants across the series have displayed numerous abilities when working in the Twisted Metal tournament.

Shields

 By amplifying the vehicle, Sweet Tooth can protect his cars in a shield to block attacks, and can be further upgraded to the Absorption Shield which allows Sweet Tooth to take any projectiles shot at him as his own, as well as reflect back with his own missile passively. However, while the blue Absorption Shield lasts shorter, the red Shield is longer and can defend more easily.

Energy Attacks

Besides 2012’s shield ability, one of the primary abilities in the game, Twisted Metal has had numerous different types of Energy Attacks across the series.

  • Invisibility: Sweet Tooth can turn invisible, allowing him to sneak up and attack opponents without being seen.

  • Freeze Missile: A free Freeze Missile (or in other cases an AoE effect) which can freeze opponents which can also be shot behind Needles.

  • High Jump: With this energy attack a high jump can be performed allowing Needles to make gaps with height.

  • Hyperspace: With this energy attack, Needles is able to teleport out of sticky situations to a random spawnpoint, preventing Needles from getting stuck in the environment.

  • Flak: A shockwave that destroys any projectiles around Needles when used.

  • EMP Blast: Similar to the Freeze missile from previous games, Needles can launch out missiles that stun enemies, shutting down their cars and weapons forcing them to restart them.

  • Mine Drop: Needles can drop mines around him which can be used to destroy enemy cars, as well as in 2012 able to be upgraded.

  • Massive Attack: Another ammo-less attack which releases a barrage of missiles upon any unsuspecting enemy.

Reality Warping

As crazy as it sounds, Twisted Metal Black portrays a heavy cosmic degree to Twisted Metal, in particular relating to Needles Kane. In particular, one of the secret characters known as Minion has secret messages in regards to unlocking him which can be translated. Many of these reference the story of Black taking place in Needles’ mind, trapping everyone inside of it in a dark world that hurts them and how he must hide to prevent being discovered. By beating the game as Minion, Needles realizes the identity of him and the entire ending for Minion ends in… nothing. Trapping people into Needles’ conscious puts you in a loop where you will constantly die and come back, your soul seemingly bound as your memories shift and repeat themselves. Needles is the only one unbound by it all- showcasing that he can kill Calypso, retaining power beyond any other contestant within his mind. 


Fate Manipulation

Revealed in Twisted Metal 4, Needles’ wish when he was first a part of Twisted Metal’s tournaments was to be the ‘star of Twisted Metal’, a wish that while at first did not seemingly come true Needles was fated to take over Calypso’s power, an event that would happen when he invades Calypo’s home and seemingly takes him down, a feat normally unaccomplishable when Calypso has laid waste (in 989’s telling of Twisted Metal, at least) to anyone who has attempted to usurp his power, and once the tables turned Calypso displayed physical superiority having taken down all of Needles’ minions even without his ring and physically matching Needles with the ring. Needles would inherently have the similar nature to Calypso’s own fate with Twisted Metal; Calypso’s life was constantly surrounded with bloodshed, such as when he killed his own sister and his family, yet however many attempts Calypso performed to kill himself it wouldn’t work. This, according to Calypso in his current time, was ‘fate’ leading events such as him being shot or statements in his past explicitly lining up to his current self. Yet, in the past, no matter what Calypso did when he wanted to kill himself he was constantly brought to accidentally kill people yet he himself was unable to die, a fact he became accepting of however even when he was pushed to kill himself and his daughter by psychotic delusions he would reappear in Hell and came to be Satan’s worker, being the ‘right man’ for the job. This wish of being the star has gone to such a degree where it prevented the all-powerful Calypso from denying his wish, despite having the ability to do so and this being shown by Sweet Tooth with his power, forcing Calypso and Needles to switch bodies in Needles’ ending for Head-on.


While this is subjective as to whether or not it’s a powerful ability due to coming up to sole interpretation with the vast story of Twisted Metal, the nature of fate in Twisted Metal has shown itself to be a constant and Sweet Tooth is no exception to those being dealt the proper cards of fate. 

Pyro

Fire Projection

Through various means, Pyro is able to create fire mid-air, typically through taunts. For example, they can perform a ‘Hadouken’ through fire, summon massive explosions through the Rainblower taunt, and many other cases. 

Physical Upgrades

In Mann vs. Machine, there are various upgrades Pyro can upgrade which passively affect them, although they are also able to upgrade their weapons, too.

  • Blast Resistance: Resistance to explosions, such as rocketes.

  • Bullet Resistance: Resistance to bullets from weapons, such as shotguns.

  • Movement Speed Amplification: As it implies, increasing the speed of Pyro on foot.

  • Health Regeneration: Regeneration that Pyro gains passively overtime.

  • Fire Resistance: Resistance to flames, such as flamethrowers.

  • Crit Resistance: Resistance to critical effects, such as crockets.

  • Jump Height Amplification: Allowing Pyro to jump higher on foot.

Spectral Projection

Pyro can become a ghost when they die, being able to roam the world as a spirit as of the Gravel Wars. By touching a teammate or equivalent, Pyro can come back from the dead and reform their physical body to fight once again.

Mannpower Powerups

In the Mannpower mode, Pyro can wield various different power ups in the usage of a fight. While only one can be used at a time, Mannpower powerups allow access to a vast ton of resistances or special usages. When Pyro is considered ‘dominating’ as an advantage, the effects of these various power-ups are reduced.

  • Strength: This power-up doubles Pyro’s damage however does not stack with critical hits.

  • Resistance: This power-up halves incoming damage, nullifies critical and mini-crit blows, and prevents the user from being instantly killed. This also offers resistances to (later mentioned) Reflect and Plague power-ups.

  • Vampire: This power-up allows the Pyro to gain health from all damage dealt, increases health, and gives a damage resistance. This also offers resistances to (later mentioned) the Reflect power-up.

  • Reflect: This power-up reflects 80% of all incoming damage, increases Pyro’s health nearly three-fold, and deals knockback equivalent to damage made to Pyro.

  • Haste: This power-up doubles firing speed, reload speed, airblast re-fire rate, clip size, and the refire rate of (specifically) the Manmelter. This also increases movement speed by 30% and increase the refire rate of other Flare Guns besides the Manmelter to five times.

  • Regeneration: This power-up constantly recharges and refills ammo as well as heals Pyro passively.

  • Precision: This power-up reduces the spread of bullets up to 90%, increases the radius of blast explosives, and makes the Pyro immune to self-damage.

  • Agility: This power-up increases speed by 50%, increases jump height by 80%, makes the switch speed of weapons nigh-instant, as well as making Pyro immune to fall damage. 

  • Knockout: This power-up locks Pyro to melee options- however increases Pyro’s melee hit strength by 190% of its base power, as well as making Pyro immune to knockback effects while they themselves deal increased knockback per hit. This power-up also forces opponents, if wielding one, to drop their power-ups or captured intelligence. 

  • King: This power-up increases Pyro’s health, regenerates Pyro’s health overtime, and increases reload and firing speed. This effect is shared with all nearby opponents, giving it much more potency in team fights.

  • Plague: This power-up gives Pyro a ‘Plague’ effect, causing enemies to bleed to death after ten seconds if they don’t heal themselves and gives Pyro a 50% resistance to damage done by opponents inflicted by the Plague.

  • Supernova: This power-up gives Pyro a one-time-use ‘Supernova’ attack that paralyzes all nearby opponents, dropping wielded power-ups, the intelligence, and pushes them back. However, upon charging this ability up and using it, it causes the ability to disappear.

  • Revenge: This power-up gives a crit boost for thirty seconds and allows Pyro to deal double damage to Engineer buildings. 

Rock, Paper, Scissors!

By playing a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors with the enemy, Pyro can (up to change) kill an enemy team member by winning causing them to explode, or Pyro themselves can blow up if they lose the game. Simply enough, this taunt kill relies on chance and comes from at least some form of supernatural source… 

Support

Sweet Tooth

The Clowns

Being the large cult dedicated to his means, the Clowns are a gigantic gang that fight for Needles in vehicular combat under his control. All of which having their own vehicles, they all fight for Sweet Tooth’s attention as they kill any opponents, in particular including rivalled teams or general enemies.

Henchmen

Appearing in Twisted Metal 4, Needles has an entourage of small clown men to fight for him, such is the case when he used them to overtake Calypso. Usually fitted with small clown weapons and general gags, they often act as the firing squad behind Needles and support him whenever as he is their leader. 

Crazy Harold the Wacky Lunch Snack

Being Sweet Tooth’s first original motive for joining the Twisted Metal contest, Harold is a lunch bag that is Needles’ best friend. If it were to be destroyed… well, I don’t think Sweet Tooth would be too happy.

Pyro

Halloween Spells

Using their spooooooky magic, the Pyro is able to summon units for their control. This includes skeletons, a horde of several skeletons which target enemies on their own, as well as bat swarms, etc. The most powerful, however, is the…

MONOCULUS!

While normally a boss who takes the form of Demoman’s cursed eye, the Pyro themselves has their own miniature MONOCULUS that they can summon with magic, being a stationary turret-like summon that will constantly fire at the enemy team until none are left. 

Feats 

Sweet Tooth

Overall

  • One of the most constant contestants of Twisted Metal, reocurring every contest due to his willingness to kill.

  • Has fought all across the world and areas using his truck.

  • Has won the Twisted Metal contest multiple times with his prowess in vehicular combat and mastery.

  • Has tricked and deceived Calypso occasionally to steal his powers and become the owner of Twisted Metal.

  • Became a renowned serial killer and strikes fear into the hearts of many as a result.

  • Also a successful ice cream man… somehow.

  • The leader of the Clowns and the Circus participating in a large scale gang war.

Power

Speed

Durability

  • Constantly withstands the pain of his head being set on fire, including in Black when it was set alight for three entire months constantly.

  • Can withstand extensive gunfire and several missiles in his truck, including against Calypso’s nuke.

  • Able to withstand being frozen, hit by EMPs, hit by satellite lasers, mortars, hit by mines, etcetera.

  • Withstood his eye being gouged out by his daughter and attempted to chase her afterwards.

  • Easily comparable to Axel who…

    • Can withstand the weaponry of other characters targeting his body without intense injury.

    • Withstood being electrified by his contraption.

  • Comparable to Calypso who…

Pyro

Overall

  • A member of Team Fortress, one of the most skilled and powerful mercenary teams in the world.

  • Has fought all across the world taking on many missions.

  • Fought in the large Gravel Wars alongside their mercenary teammates.

  • Took on the role of a CEO after Team Fortress dissipated.

  • Alongside his team, took down threats such as Merasmus, Gray Mann and his robots, the Classic mercenaries, the Horseless Headless Horseman, Monoculus, etc.

  • Threatening enough to strike fear in anyone- including their own team.

Power


Speed


Durability

Weaknesses

Sweet Tooth

While Sweet Tooth is a devastating killer, his insanity comes at a toll. Not something that would make him get out of his car in a fight, but Sweet Tooth is an obsessive murderer who is unwilling to let anyone who hurts him leave free without death. Not only is this the case of his daughter, who would later be resurrected under the Clowns, but Sweet Tooth has applied this to other people such as Calypso or even Marcus himself. Beyond his mental weaknesses, Sweet Tooth’s general arsenal comes at a supply which he must resupply himself save a few examples of weapons which either hold infinite ammo or don’t need to replenish. 


As mentioned with ammo, a lot of Sweet Tooth’s weapons are not constantly usable, although they can replenish automatically or he holds a vast stockpile. For example, Sweet Tooth’s special weapons have ammo limits and can be wasted, however they can regenerate overtime should Sweet Tooth run out. 


Plus, he loves ice cream. If you don't pick up his ice cream and pay for it, you'll get the Kratos treatment...

Pyro

The Pyro is an insane individual with their love for pyromania, with their most obvious delusion being the fact of Pyrovision. While this might be unique, the vision may corrupt Pyro in combat (although this obviously doesn’t stop them) and this insanity has caused them to pop in and out of their hallucinations when met with anything that opposes fire. Most importantly, though, Pyro is a very ammo-reliant character despite their ability to replenish themselves, leaving them being able to burn through (pun intended) certain arsenals if they aren’t careful. Plus, while Pyro is naturally immune to afterburn, they are not immune to fire damage, which means that an overwhelming amount of fire could potentially overwhelm their resistance. 


One of Pyro’s more miscellaneous weaknesses is the randomness and unpredictability of their spells- even to themselves. While they can tear out pages and use any spell realistically, many ways to access spells include unlabelled potions which can give potentially useless spells amidst combat, including those that could be devastating to Pyro’s wellbeing in a fight if they didn’t already help. Even more often, rarer spells are a lot less reliably pulled and have their own separate potions which need to be found, however Pyro only being able to wield one spell at a time forces them to hold off on using tons of spells should they need to.


In addition to other ‘one at a time’ rules, Pyro’s various power ups and abilities such as those in Mannpower or the usage of Canteens are only able to be used once and never again- such is the case with the Canteen- or otherwise can only be wielded one at at a time- such is the case with the Mannpower Power Ups. 

Before The Verdict

FTL Twisted Metal

While it might seem a bit funny, we saw legitimacy with all of Twisted Metal’s weaponry and such that would be considered lightspeed, which even furthermore we know characters can move in tandem with. Such ideas came with Quatro’s special ability, the Microwave. This ability is stated to be a ‘pulse of microwave radiation around his hover trike that severely damages opponents’ who’s statement lines up perfectly with gameplay, being a pulse sent omnidirectionally around him. Not only does its namesake being a microwave explicitly mean electromagnetic radiation (this is further supported in its description) which is light, but the pulse of electromagnetic radiation follows the description of an EMP, further supported by its increased vehicular damage and general attributes of being an area-of-effect pulse stated to be microwave radiation. Simply put, Quatro’s special weapon is explicitly FTL and, due to not being a frame one movement, means that characters are innately able to move in tandem with it… The issue with this of course comes from the lack of proper dedicated visuals, hence why he haven’t used any explicit calculation for the value. 

Black Holes instead of Potholes

As referenced earlier, Twisted Metal 4’s Pizza Boy ending displays the character driving out into space and encountering a black hole. While we know that the black hole in this scene has the potential to not be the full distance, we saw that there were means to argue against this idea. Visually, we do see that the character does travel from Earth to a blank space, which could imply a distance lesser than one used in the calculation. However, in Twisted Metal 4, Sweet Tooth is shown granting wishes off of their literal wording with (unlike Calypso) them having made specific rules to prevent words from being used in ways only to usurp their control, supporting the idea that the wording here used by Melvin would be taken literal. With the likelihood of this statement being literal when Pizza Boy needs to look out for a black hole, the innate inability to display actual universal distances, and any distance that could be measured (very unlikely with the framing, mind you) likely being more destructive to the planet than we know in the series, we believe that there is enough likelihood with the feat to where the black hole distance can be used as an end.

Calypso Scaling

While this isn’t exactly contended on, we saw Calypso and his feats being scaled towards Needles as being legitimate for several reasons, of which we wanted to dedicate a portion to in case others were confused by this idea given Calypso’s whole ‘superiority complex’ thing in his series.


Generally speaking, we should note that while Calypso is treated as the highest order in the series, Calypso is not the strongest character. We’ve seen this many times, such as Mortimer wielding the spirits of former Twisted Metal contestants to overpower Calypso and drag him around, or characters have explicitly been put in the same boat as Calypso or those adjacent to his powers, such as Sweet Tooth in Twisted Metal 4 who’s matched by many opponents throughout the endings such as Quatro or Captain Grimm despite him winning in the latter and having an off-screen fight in the former. With this general display, we know that Calypso being physically scaled to isn’t out of the picture, especially with people being able to physically fight Calypso and even in his vehicle. We’ll elaborate on this in a moment, though.


Throughout Twisted Metal, there have been explicit showings of people overpowering Calypso, not just in the case of Sweet Tooth. For example, one of the entire aspects of Black both in Twisted Metal 1 and in Twisted Metal: Black is that he’s meant to be stronger than Calypso- which characters can explicitly match him, as he wields the vehicle Darkside and makes explicit combat appearances in the games. Another key example is Minion, the former demon who Calypso depowered in the Twisted Metal 2 comic book via defeating him in a race, which as seen in the actual game, he was able to overpower him even afterwards. Other examples of characters include the likes of Sweet Tooth’s henchmen who explicitly overpowered Calypso even with his powers or Sweet Tooth himself in Twisted Metal: Black having killed Calypso with his own two hands (albeit it wasn’t the same body as previous entries, it was the same soul).


One of the biggest aspects of this, though, comes from Calypso’s own ending in Twisted Metal 4 where Calypso and Sweet Tooth explicitly match one another with their powers. As mentioned earlier, Sweet Tooth and his henchmen overpowered Calypso at the beginning of the game with his powers, while Sweet Tooth and Calypso grapple one another in the ending of Twisted Metal for Calypso- resulting in Sweet Tooth and Calypso being hit by the full power of the souls escaping from the ring, which empower it. While we did at first believe the ending of this part showed us that they died, it was far more likely that the two were sealed inside the ring- having needed to actually take the power responsible from the souls in order for this to happen. This is even more explicit when Sweet Tooth and all of his henchmen including Calypso were being hit by an AoE of the blast which did destroy the building- which proves that Calypso and Sweet Tooth were on equal physical grounds even if they had powers from one another, meaning that Sweet Tooth physically matches Calypso’s powers and vice-versa. 


This wasn’t all, though. Characters like Mr. Grimm, such as the man who first went by Mr. Grimm, showcase that their powers are able to physically amplify themselves and they use said powers for attacks, with that said Mr. Grimm having overpowered Calypso originally with his powers being unable to overpower his mere grasp over his soul. Other Mr. Grimms are innately comparable, having displayed all across the series such as Head-on that the role of a grim reaper is simply applied to one’s soul and shifts if the original Mr. Grimm dies or is replaced. With Mr. Grimm being comparatively one of the weakest physical characters in the series, and having generally high scale stuff with his own powers that would make sense for this standard (such as absorbing all of the souls across the planet). While this does have the grounds for being ‘hax-based’, even if it was, the whole idea that a character could overpower Calypso’s abilities with their own displayed to us that it was very likely characters have legitimate scaling- and with Mr. Grimm being able to explicitly use his powers in other ways in physicality, it was unlikely that Mr. Grimm was in a vacuum for what he scaled to. 

FTL TF2

One of the many contended statistics for Team Fortress comes from the idea of the usage of weapons which move at lightspeed- with there being various arguments towards it. While this has been a statistic many parties have argued over, collectively we found these arguments to be legitimate and accurate for various reasons. With the vast collective of statements or mechanics that are considered lightspeed or near it, alongside supporting ideas, we did feel like it would be fair to dedicate a portion of the Before the Verdict to tackling these common arguments against it and why we decided to use each premise.

Weapon Statements

The big cases for Team Fortress’ speed comes from the statements between weapons- this comes from either item descriptions, item types, item names, or extensive details from other references. While many people have tried to oppose these arguments, namely in their nature as statements, we’ve found that these statements have several frames of legitimacy and most arguments usually force nitpicks towards them more than bring a standard for using these statements.


To begin with, we do not agree with item statements being ‘inaccurate’, ‘false’ or act as meaningless ‘blurbs’ of misinformation. Many of the references come with stating that ‘item descriptions are jokes’ however this premise comes with bringing up specific examples in their description that force unreliable narratives. Other item descriptions are very specific, too, being reliable statements towards the nature of the items or these ‘joke statements’ are literally in-character or are explicit references more than actual jokes in the weapon’s description. In total, the idea that these statements are unreliable come from the basis that all descriptions are made jokingly- which is untrue- and this applies even to cosmetic apparel, such as the Cross-Comm Express. In other cases, these statements aren’t even from the item’s “description” but rather the type of the weapon, such as being called a ‘Focused Wave Projector’ or ‘Indivisible Particle Smasher’-- these types do not follow the same standards of description and are completely legitimate in nature, as this innately describes what a weapon is. Even with the singular referenced item to use a name, with the C.A.P.P.E.R., it is referenced as an Electromagnetic Raygun in its acronym and displays properties of lasers (with Rayguns in Team Fortress already being treated as lightspeed, more on this later).


However, there is more evidence to these weapons being lightspeed more than just a word or two. In weapons such as the Righteous Bison, an ‘Indivisible Particle Smasher’, it is also referenced as a Raygun that shoot out oscillating waves, with said description being the general reference towards Rayguns (including that of the Manmelter). Waves, in this regard, are basically just forms of light on the spectrum, with other Grordborts weapons like the Cow Mangler being referenced as a ‘Focused Wave Projector’. With these weapons constantly referenced and shooting out waves as their projectiles, with Rayguns in this notion generally using wave projectiles, we found the notion of them being lightspeed to be very inherent and the legitimacy of moving in tandem being more accurate. These Rayguns even fell into the standards of lasers, such as lacking any high mass properties, not causing explosions on contact, etc. The only lackage of easy evidence comes from refraction off of certain surfaces, however this only comes from issues stemming from gameplay mechanics in the Source engine and the vast number of proof in every other department is simply more reliable. Even if you weren’t to agree with in-game scaling, we know that the mercenaries are superior to their weapons before Mann vs. Machine and there are various reasons for them to scale to their weapons both in speed and reacting to them. Both of these factors will be brought up later. However, in regards to in-game scaling…

Projectile Speed (hu/s)

A common way of measuring speed for these projectiles comes from the measurement of hammerunits- that being, how fast a character moves in hammerunits in tandem with another character or projectile, and we scale these off of a certain medium. Many cases of scaling that have been accepted in this department come from the Air Strike and air-to-surface missiles or the usage of the Ball o’ Lightning, however a big grounds for using it came from the Righteous Bison or Cow Mangler- both being weapons with statements that coincided with them shooting out lightspeed projectiles or at least those who reached similar measurements, such as 0.9c. However, we have seen arguments made against the premise of using hammerunits in general, as many arguments in general otherwise came from attacking the actual weapon statements which we mentioned earlier.


One of the primary arguments for hammerunits usage comes with that they have an actual grounds for measurements- however this is not true. Both the wikipedia article that references these measurements notes that each game holds a different value of measurements and the actual game for Team Fortress uses entirely different ratios for all objects. Even if we were to use hammerunits as a literal measurement when it is just (in this case) used as a way to measure the speed without an exact measurement, we have nothing to explicitly judge the ratio of hammerunits to other measurements as Team Fortress explicitly has no grounds for a ratio beyond going off of models which simply isn’t an accurate way to work with because of how modelling is done. 


Because hammerunits are meant to be a unit meant specifically in the engine and has no actual real ratio, used for specific object measurements or projectile speeds, with HU/s specifically being how fast a projectile moves around, we found it to be accurate to use the grounds of speed scaling with canon projectile speeds to be the most accurate- an established medium of measuring walking or running speed values in various other games for scaling and explicitly established within TF2.


Another grounds for the opposition towards hammerunits is that it’s seen as ‘nitpicky’ because we are only using the highest speed value and nothing else, such as using those previously aligned measurements for Soldier’s rockets or other measurements like the Huntsman and average arrow speed. However, we completely disagree with the notion. First off, items with ‘FTL statements’ are the only items in the entirety of Team Fortress with confirmed projectile speeds, and while we can assume that a projectile that’s made to be x is equivalent to the average speed of x, it is far more accurate to use confirmed speeds for projectiles if anything. Even if these projectiles had confirmed speeds, which neither the Huntsman or Air Strike have (and only vaguely in the case of the Ball o’ Lightning), these would be contradictory factors against a higher speed medium with constant references both in actual speed statements for movement, explicit wording and descriptions of items and their projectiles, as well as the fact that arguing for the measurements to use a slower comparison is to innately lessen the values of speed. 


Furthermore, while we can argue that these projectiles are lesser in nature thus they can’t move at speeds comparable to light, we have zero evidence to prove such. If anything, Team Fortress’ tones akin to a science fantasy story with the nature of Australia which Mann Co. explicitly gets its weapons and shipping from such as its entire weapons catalogue where the cast gets their weapons from. With Australia being treated as being in a futuristic era beyond the rest of the world, Mann Co. working with its offices in Australia which is this complex, and all of the mercenaries getting weapons from them, we found it to be more egregious to argue Team Fortress 2 is too grounded to where the assumed measurements meant to be more ‘realistic’ than use a ratio of speed that comes from various canonical statements and uses confirmed speed measurements that other weapons lack without assumed averages.  

Bonk! Atomic Punch

With the nature of projectiles being lightspeed, we felt it was fair for Bonk! Atomic Punch’s value for dodging bullets to be applied in the same regard- with it getting up to 23 billion times the speed of light. With other statements explicitly giving Scout speed that does exceed the speed of light, rather than a calculated value, we used said end for the exact value of Bonk! Atomic Punch’s speed. While it was ridiculously high, we do think that it’s fair to use if we give both characters similar grounds for what they’d scale to, whether or not it felt like an outlier… although we didn’t agree with these feats being complete outliers overall.

The Yeti

Introduced through the Merceny Park update and A Fate Worse Than Chess, the Yeti is a creature who’s seen as the most dangerous- overwhelming anyone in his way and requiring years to overcome the innately destructive habits of these creatures. However, one man named Saxton Hale was able to kill these creatures with his sheer power- grappling with them or taking them on in extensive combat. The most iconic reference in Team Fortress’ scaling comes from the Yeti’s zookeeper in A Fate Worse Than Chess where she references that, if the Yeti went rampant, nothing in the world would be able to stop it. This is in explicit reference to the Yeti’s destructive rampage that they could only take over through emotional support- however Saxton Hale shrugs off this statement and punches the Yeti and grapples with it. Later on in Mercenary Park, Saxton takes on the Yeti and finally kills it, blowing it up with a hard enough punch having killed them all.

General Scaling

With the nature of this statement, we saw that it was innately legitimate with the general view of Team Fortress. Mercenaries, at the start of the Robot War, were displayed as being lesser than the Yeti with their general firepower being useless against it. However, Saxton himself was able to kill it, showing that he himself is physically superior. As a result, and due to the nature of Saxton in comparison to the cast, the Yeti and Saxton himself relatively upscale everything. However, far past the war (where the mercenaries have increased in power), the mercenaries were able to fight alongside Saxton Hale with characters like Heavy being able to somewhat match others comparable to Saxton like Margaret (and Scout even being able to hold himself back from Margaret’s grasp who had the intention to kill). With this, we can immediately tell that they should be much more closer in power and more than likely comparable- including when mercenaries from before were able to actually physically take on Saxton after the events of Mann vs. Machine and vaguely during the events of Ring of Fired but before the mercenaries were fired forcing Saxton to flee the country. 

Iblewupthemoon

A common premise with the Yeti upscaling all weapons comes with weapons in Team Fortress 2 with extensive properties- such as the Iblewupthemoon. With its first and only appearance made in A Visual History, we saw the Iblewupthemoon as a one-off item which blew up the Moon in the comic in question, leading to immediate news coverage and such. While this might sound ridiculous, we found there to be enough grounds for this being used feat-wise for Team Fortress.


First off, we’d like to begin with going against the common premises made against this feat. One of the most common ideas is that the comic is non-canon, an idea that simply isn’t true to any capacity. While the wiki states that it is ‘non-canon’ because it brings the characters to the ‘future’, this concept simply has no grounds for being true and it is the only reason for why this comic is mentioned as being non-canon when we look solely at the wiki. With Team Fortress’ nature having a science fantasy aspect to its story as explained in previous sections, the existence of Apple technology and especially this complex is not out of the question as we know that technology to this degree was all created by Australia and verbatim are innovations for the entire world. Another common idea is that this comic is non-canon because ‘the Moon isn’t destroyed outside of the story’ however this concept is generally baseless as the only visual showings of the Moon come from Halloween events and events during the Gravel Wars- which means this comic likely could have taken place at any time within it where the Moon was destroyed that doesn’t appear in the exact grounds of gameplay.


Another common argument comes from the fact that, if the Yeti were to be ‘hit’ by the explosions, the square area of the Yeti would nerf the explosion’s value far below the means of Moon level. While this may be true, even with the explosion likely exceeding the GBE of the Moon, we know that simply because the Yeti is referenced as unstoppable in regards to actual strength from a highly knowledgeable person on the field which would definitely be referencing an event with tons of news coverage of a commercial device that the argument isn’t that the Yeti was hit by it or anything. Rather, we know that the Yeti would be stronger than the explosion from this statement and, at worst, would just be unharmed from it (which Saxton was able to exceed the Yeti’s durability). Even if there was the validity of an argument of square area when the argument is upscaling the explosion and being unable to be stopped by it, there were other means of arguments to support the notion.

Moonhater Deathray

With Team Fortress’ vast array of weapons, the confirmed existence of Grordborts weaponry has came across the series- including those such as the Righteous Bison, which canonically exist within Team Fortress as Dr. Grordbort’s inventions. With Dr. Grordbort’s inventions being treated as canon, this includes one of his less famous weapons known as the Goliathon 800 Moonhater Deathray, a moon-murdering Raygun. With Dr. Grordbort’s popularity being big enough that he’s recognized as a large-scale inventor of the very idea of the Raygun and being imported globally by Mann Co., the sheer popularity and scale of this kind of weapon is likely to be known by many people across the world.


As a weapon explicitly referenced to be able to light up or murder the moon, with similar events being referenced and the general commercial sell of objects on these scale, we found it quite ridiculous to argue the average Joe wouldn’t be aware of people with weapons on this scale- and even more ridiculous to assume the Yeti wouldn’t have any reference as an unstoppable force with weaponry placed upon this scale in Team Fortress 2. With this weapon being a pinpoint laser that performs such large-scale feats, this lacks the arguments to be made when we took the statement at its innate face value and we found to support the idea that the Yeti and Iblewupthemoon held with the Yeti being able to withstand and generally compared as being higher than any other weapons- something that the mercenaries would scale to. 

Saxton Hale

With Saxton Hale being one of the strongest people in Team Fortress 2, we were generally conflicted on scaling the mercenaries to Saxton directly- as the main instance came from the final arc of the comics where the mercenaries all fought alongside Saxton with Heavy and Scout having scaling to Saxton through the two being able to match Margaret with their strength although they’d get overpowered. However, with the addition of VS. Saxton Hale, which takes place after Mann vs. Machine and thus during the same timeframe as Ring of Fired, we agreed that the scaling was absolutely legitimate. Mercenaries can fight Saxton, trading blows with him and moving alongside him. 

Bonk! Atomic Punch

This is more of an implication but we felt like it supports other arguments which come from similar premises. In it, Saxton just non-chalantly references the Bonk! Atomic Punch- giving it to Pauline to drink which Mann Co. has referenced with its speed, the value of which is touched upon in Pyro’s stats. With Saxton’s general non-reaction to the cola with one of his employees who would’ve retaining the speed, it’s very likely Saxton himself actually didn’t notice this change in speed. While we didn't use this for the sole grounds of scaling, we did agree that the notion of Saxton upscaling could be very likely, although to what degree we truly don't know.

Mann vs. Machine Stats

One of the general factors that came with scaling comes from the basis of mercenaries never lessening in power over the years- only upgrading themselves but being nonetheless comparable to their base forms in Mann vs. Machine, which results in a general idea where the mercenaries power has been stagnant- thus, them getting any higher in statistics randomly such as in the case of scaling to Saxton Hale wouldn’t make sense. However, as touched upon in the blog in Pyro’s stats section, we explicitly think that the mercenaries had gotten stronger past the war as far more than just upgrading their base selves- explicitly being much higher than anything before through their upgrades.

Gravel War Stats

At a general glance, the main focus we’re going with this idea is how we know the mercenaries are just effortlessly stronger than the robots in Mann vs. Machine by the end of the war. As we said once before, the mercenaries are completely superior to robots who, at the start of the Robot War, were built to be faster, stronger, and smarter than any combination of any mercenary including their weapons however by the end mercenaries fought off the robots for a year and amassed tons of cash due to having no difficulty taking down robots, easily slaughtering them when Gray Mann gave up due to the stalemate and attacked Mann Co’s profits. We see this even further when by the ending arc of the comics, robots are easily torn down by the cast even when given random Mann Co. weapons via Saxton. Knowing this idea, we can tell that the mercenaries are just innately much more stronger than anything they’d been before- explicitly being able to take on robots who were outclassing any combination of any mercenary effort. 


An argument we do know about this which is why we wanted to dedicate a portion was the idea that this gap isn’t big enough to reason a strong enough gap to argue the cast scaling to Saxton Hale- despite the gamemode giving more than enough reason as to why- since one of the big points in the story is Scout’s death after facing a few robots. Although we don’t know what robots, we found it important to note that one of the robots that Scout fought was one of the robots intended to mimic the Spy- someone who normally can completely bypass durability. Of course, while Scout hadn’t been backstabbed, knowing that there were explicit sharp weapons and Scout had to fight off multiple robots is an important takeaway from this scene as it likely hadn’t been blunt force (such as with Scout robots) that would’ve hurt him how he was. Plus, with the vagueness of what robots he fought, we simply cannot assume Scout was fighting targets who were equal to him- rather multiple targets who had to dedicate their entire power to taking him on and requiring weapons that could harm Scout with something easier than blunt force. Either way, even if Scout had been taken on by multiple robots, this wasn’t something that could somehow remove the notion that Scout was upscaling robots heavily granted he took on all of these robots all at once and still pulled through.


Even so, this doesn’t take away from the idea that the mercenaries upscaled them to such a degree despite losing in an unfair numbers advantage. Speaking of which…

Bonk! Atomic Punch

While this might sound a bit weird to argue, we found this premise to be completely fair. In Mann vs. Machine, the team can fight off Bonk! Robots, which are the same Scout machines however they wield the same Bonk! which Scout uses- allowing them to dodge weapons in the same way. What makes this important is how we know the robots were meant to exceed any combination of any mercenary- including speed and strength. With this logic, we think it is absolutely fair to argue that the robots in Mann vs. Machine were upscaling characters in speed like Scout who’s Bonk! Atomic Punch allowed him to get to really high degrees of speed- a form of scaling even more supported knowing that the mercenaries can easily take down Bonk! robots, being that they were exceeding the robots in the same way these robots were exceeding them prior to the war’s end. 

Verdict

Stats

Let’s start with their strength with these two characters. Their more lower showings came around with Sweet Tooth’s 0.4 to ~20 tons of TNT value, whereas Pyro could get around 0.7 to 1.073 tons of TNT, but up to 46.93 tons of TNT at their lower ends, giving Pyro a difference nearly twice as strong as Needles. However, Sweet Tooth’s higher end could get up to 534 megatons of TNT through Calypso’s plant creation feat. Pyro could get around 1.88 kilotons to 2.38 megatons- with the highest value for Pyro coming from destroying giant robots on the sub-atomic level, which got him up to 1,572.5 megatons of TNT. This gap put Pyro nearly three times stronger than Sweet Tooth at this point, showing his consistency taking the stat edge. This hadn’t been all of their feats, though, as at their highest Pyro could get to 29.63 exatons through the Moon-destroying feats… which paled in comparison to Sweet Tooth scaling to Calypso, who got up to 1513.86 yottatons, making the gap between stats being over fifty million times over. 


With Sweet Tooth taking the strength edge, it was likely both could be comparable in speed to at least close this gap. In regards to this, while Pyro and Sweet Tooth both had overall similar feats, the stats themselves weren’t as similar. Both at their lowest got around Mach 2.54, but Sweet Tooth could get up to 0.03-0.62c, while Pyro at his highest without reaching into lightspeed ends got only up to Mach 43.6 at the absolute best ends. At minimum, the gap in speed was over six-hundred times over, and even if you used Bonk! Atomic Punch, which got up to Mach 1,000, the speed gap was still over 15 times faster. However, both were able to generally scale to similar values of FTL, granted they could both move in tandem with waves, putting both of them at similar value. With Calypso’s Earth speed feat, Needles could get up to around 1,700 times faster than the speed of light, giving him an easy speed advantage with Pyro’s less contentious speed end as FTL, and with his highest speed, Needles could get all the way up to 4.9 millon c through PIzza Kid’s black hole speed end. In comparison, Pyro could only get up to 2.5c however their highest speed end could get them up to 23 billion c. This makes Pyro over 4684 times faster than Sweet Tooth. 


With this general stat advantage, we saw that their stat ends generally made a big difference. Pyro could get two to three times stronger until their highest strength ends, while Needles could get six hundred times faster and, at best, only fifteen times faster with the highest ends for Pyro. At their absolute highest ends, though, Needles was over fifty million times stronger than Pyro, while Pyro’s highest end could get up to thousands of times faster than Sweet Tooth. As a result, depending on what value you agreed upon, both parties could generally on-and-off hold this advantage over one another. 

Arsenal and Abilities

At a first glance, both were very similar in arsenal and capabilities. Both had massive arsenals over one another that could take big advantages and had many abilities that worked off or counteracted one another. Needles had a large arsenal of missiles, many cars with special abilities, various melee and ranged weapons, as well as a ton of energy abilities including shields, invisibility, teleportation, projectile destruction, EMP blasts, and massive barrages of attacks. Pyro themselves had a similar arsenal, with their vast numbers of different flamethrowers, flare guns, shotguns, spells, secondary weapons, and canteens which allowed them to gain their own advantages. Both had similar attack reflection abilities allowing them to deflect projectiles, with Needles being able to absorb projectiles from Pyro that were shot back and reflect a duplicate of said projectile while Pyro’s Airblast could be used to shoot back projectiles- however with this nature, Needles likely held the better option of reflection as it gave him more projectiles while Pyro had a more constantly usable Reflect option although it came at the cost of wasting Canteens. Even with reflections, though, Needles had a ton of ways of using means of attack that Pyro couldn’t reflect easily- such as gunfire or attacks from his Sweet Bot or barrage missiles- and the usage of weapons such as the EMP Missile could shut down specific canteens if need be.


Both also had similar large-scale abilities, with Needles’ various weapons including his missiles, detonated mines, bombs, and his special Henchmen or Cone Napalm missiles, and Pyro’s magic spells, which allowed the two to generally match one another in variety. However, while Pyro had strong abilities such as summoning MONOCULUS or large hordes of skeletons or becoming a small agile freak, Sweet Tooth held counters to relatively all of Pyro’s magic spells and overall arsenal, with certain spells that were meant to overcome and dodge moves such as the Minify or Shadow Leap being counteracted by Homing Missiles, and Sweet Tooth generally being able to counteract MONOCULUS through sheer environment control or deflection and Skeleton hordes with Sweet Tooth’s massive AoE. Plus, with the Henchmen, Sweet Tooth holds an ability that can completely end the fight, as said Special Weapon can constantly suck in Pyro, launches tons of missiles that Pyro simply cannot reflect in enough time, and constantly hits Pyro with fire that likely won’t be completely resisted (although MvM upgrades help Pyro a lot here in this regard). Even if Pyro were to attempt to teleport or jump out, the Henchmen can constantly target Pyro, being able to travel through walls and through the ground in order to hit Pyro. This weapon alone offers Sweet Tooth a great win condition in the short run.


In the overall long run, Sweet Tooth held a massive advantage, too. While Pyro being able to return as a spirit was good for usage, Sweet Tooth’s ability to seal souls and affect spirits (as he can destroy vehicles driven by spirits, killing them, such as Mr. Slamm or Grasshopper) allows him to completely shut this down assuming Pyro even had the means to come back. In comparison, while Pyro’s ability to seal souls in the Soul Gargoyle could in concept affect and seal away Sweet Tooth if he was killed, his ability to regenerate in Marcus’ consciousness alone and being able to innately resist his soul being taken away allows him to completely counteract this, and even if Pyro could harm spirits, there was no grounds for Pyro being able to actually kill Sweet Tooth when the same durability he holds as a physical being would remain the same and this didn’t take away from Sweet Tooth’s cognitive regeneration, either. Plus, Pyro’s own soul sealing was counteracted by Needles’ much superior soul sealing, as it could seal your entire physical body inside of it on a large scale. Even if Needles used this as a sacrificial maneuver to seal Pyro, assuming he couldn’t kill him normally, he could still exit the ring by going through Marcus’ conscience in the real world or with his subjective reality. Speaking of which…


Pyro’s biggest roadblock came from Sweet Tooth’s subjective reality where he holds control over all of reality as it’s encased in his mind, allowing him to trap others in his mind and erase them if he wants to. Even with people who’d have enough range, such as Calypso, they can’t even overcome it- and Pyro definitely doesn’t retain any ability on this scale. With this ability alone, it’s almost impossible for Pyro to do anything to Needles, making it completely impossible to kill Sweet Tooth because he can regenerate in his consciousness, as well as being able to permanently loop Pyro in a loop where he constantly dies unable to do anything. This wasn’t even touching into Calypso’s ring powers, which can lock Pyro out of the very story, seal Pyro in a permanent coma and fake reality, send Pyro to a universe where he can’t interact with Needles, or seal Pyro inside of objects or to places like Antarctica.

Tertiary Factors

There weren’t many tertiary things to cover between these two, but it felt important in regards to their mental states to bring up the general tension between their mindscapes. While Pyro had a ton of experience, we weren’t one-hundred percent if Pyro’s skill was truly great despite being a part of the (through technicality) the most powerful mercenary group on the planet- however the sheer experience dealing with large numbers and general combat showed that Pyro was definitely a threatening combat. Sweet Tooth himself has also shown generally comparative skill in vehicular combat, so they didn’t particularly overwhelm one another in areas of skill. 


Although Pyro was skilled though, we weren’t one-hundred percent if Pyro alone would be good enough to take on the larger numbers Sweet Tooth held, both with the Clowns and his seven henchmen. While Pyro has dealt with large numbers and could absolutely fair well, it was very likely they could be overwhelmed- although through enough stat advantages it could be possible for Pyro to also easily take down these opponents. Pyro’s intangible MONOCULUS could offer a great advantage against these numbers, admittedly, and the skeleton horde could offer a distraction to net the advantage on Sweet Tooth, but beyond this, there were not many ways for Pyro to close this sheer numbers advantage.


Overall, both characters were generally comparable and took advantages depending on what exact ends you were willingly to buy. Overall, though, we saw that Sweet Tooth held an easy statistic edge in power and a much greater arsenal with various abilities that could shut down Pyro, while Pyro held a generally higher speed edge and could hypothetically overwhelm Sweet Tooth with his own attacks allowing many of Sweet Tooth’s big weapons advantages to counteract and hurt him.

Conclusion

Sweet Tooth

“When they captured me, all I could think was, "What a waste!" All those people I hadn't killed yet. Come the night of my execution, there must have been over a thousand people gathered outside to watch me fry. I was upset about that. There should have been more.”


Advantages:

  • Far more stronger and durable.

  • Generally much faster than the Pyro.

  • More powerful arsenal and abilities, including stronger reflection abilities and counters to Pyro’s own reflection.

  • More powerful vehicular combat and usage.

  • Much larger range and far more powerful ranged weapons.

  • Fate manipulation, subjective reality, and powers offered by Calypso’s ring far exceed anything Pyro can do.

  • Survivability cannot be counteracted by Pyro, including mental regeneration, spirit creation, and longevity.

  • Larger numbers advantage.

  • The show.

   Disadvantages:

  • Less ammo supply, although can regenerate ammo.

  • Slower at highest ends.

  • Less experienced in close-quarters combat.

  • Far more insane (which is saying something…)

  • Would get out of his car in-character. TRUST. 

  • Likely won’t get another game… womp womp.

The Pyro

“One shudders to imagine what inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask... What dreams of chronic and sustained cruelty?”

Advantages:

  • Faster at highest ends…

  • Bigger arsenal overall with tons of variety that Sweet Tooth likely wouldn’t be always equipped to deal with.

  • Far more experienced and powerful in close quarters.

  • Intangible summons cannot be easily taken down by Needles.

  • Gas Passer could bypass Sweet Tooth’s potential fire resistance.

  • Can reflect missiles to prevent or redirect damage…

  • Resists Needles’ soul manipulation…

  • INFINITE AXTINGUISHER CRITS WINCON!!!

Disadvantages:

  • … but Pyro is slower in every other stat end.

  • … but can be easily overwhelmed and run out of ammo without the Ammo Refill canteen, especially with any other Flamethrower.

  • … but can still be sealed inside of Calypso’s ring or his remaining spirit can be destroyed by Needles.

  • Cannot take down Needles due to his extensive regeneration or survivability. 

  • Cannot match any of Needles’ higher scale abilities. 

  • Cannot reflect attacks from vehicles like Dark Tooth, Boss Sweet Tooth, or Tower Tooth, making it impossible to avoid damage from these vehicles.

  • Jungle Inferno.

Final Tally

Sweet Tooth (6) - hade, iceking, Spycrab, DoRitto, Sr-Fish, StarManatee

The Pyro (3) -  Rei, Fiction, Dimentio (pity votes..)

Indecisive (1) - LwqwydUuz


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