CaV: Reiner Braun (ValorKnight) vs Sorin Markov (Manaman)

Sorin Markov is probably the most prominent vampire in the multiverse. He was born as a human but his father made a deal with a demon that granted him the knowledge of vampirism. His father turned Sorin into the second vampire to ever grace the plane of Innistrad. This process also ignited his planeswalker spark, allowing Sorin to travel through the multiverse. Over the centuries Sorin has taken control over Innistrad and maintains a balance between the blood thirsty vampires and the human cattle, allowing each to survive and thrive despite each other. His goal is to protect Innistrad, the rest of the multiverse can be damned for all he cares. He is thousands of years old and one of the few planeswalkers remaining that lived during the age before the Mending. As such he is one of the oldest, most knowledgeable, experienced, and dangerous beings in the multiverse.

Sorin Markov is very powerful physically, and has all of his bases covered. Vampires already have super human physical stats that put humans to shame, but Sorin Markov puts his own kind to shame in physical stats. In strength its hard to say an exact tonnage but it is definitely in the double digits.

His casual strikes crack marble and turn masonry to dust, and he does this by ragdolling angels who are super powered magical beings who can casually rend steel. Clearly not fodder by any means.

But he fights back, and his blows are terrible. He impales one angel with his sword and slices through the wing of another. He throws one angel to the floor, cracking the marble, and another through a column, turning the masonry to powder.

-Magic the Gathering: I am Avacyn

Not only can he ragdoll the namesless angels Avacyn brought with her, but he has utterly dominated the Arch-Angel herself in strength. When she was tangling with him in the air he physically forced her downward, and through a thick marble floor. They were airborn, Avacyn can fly but Sorin cannot, and Sorin had nothing to brace himself against. He had to overcome the strength of Avacyn keeping them aloft, and smash a thick marble floor yet with 100% upper body strength!

When we fall, it is not from gravity, not from a weakness in my wings. We fall because he drives us down, his strength slamming us from the height of the Cathedral down to its floor.

Through its floor.

When we slam to a halt, we lie in the cellar of Thraben Cathedral, a ragged hole of marble above us. Markov's sword balances on the edge of the hole, then falls beside us, sticking point-down in the stone.

-Magic the Gathering: I am Avacyn

Speed wise he is right at sonic. I think this one feat says it all. When he suddenly attacks his attack comes almost faster than the sound does.

His attack comes at once, almost faster than the sound reaches me.

We grapple, clamping our hands into each other's shoulders. We slam each other through pews. We lift each other up into the rafters, fragmenting the beams, and our struggle is clouded with plaster dust and feathers.'

-Magic the Gathering: I am Avacyn

Endurance wise Sorin is clearly far more durable than high quality steel. A dying angle raked his face and chest with her claws, tearing open his steel chest plate, but apparently not breaking his skin.

He holds another by the neck as she attacks him with furious claws, buffeting at his face and shoulders. I will my strength to her, but I can see her essence flowing into him, dark liquid strands from her eyes and mouth into his own. She seizes into a hunch, like the rictus of a crow.

He turns to me, his leather torn and his chest plate raked open.

-Magic the Gathering: I am Avacyn

What really makes him hard to deal with is his very high level healing factor. Basically the only way to kill him is decapitation or to destroy his brain, anything less he will heal from in seconds. Here his impaled through the heart until the weapon comes out the other side of him...he is fine.

The mouths in his eye sockets drool words. "Avacyn. I must do this."

"And I, this," I say, and I sink my spear through the gap in the monster's chest plate, so deep that the blade hits the granite of the cathedral wall on the other side.

He roars and I am blasted back. I skid to a halt. Markov clutches the spear handle and yanks out the blade, and for a moment I can see the slimy animal that must serve as his heart. Squirming lampreys flow from the wound. He drops the spear and his own sword, and they clatter alongside one another. He clutches his wound closed with one claw.

-Magic the Gathering: I am Avacyn

Then he gets a spear shoved into his neck until his spine is cracking. After a few seconds he is healed from the wound.

Avacyn—" he begins through a leech's mouth, and I slash my spear through his neck, cutting deep enough to hit bone.

He roars and leaps back, grasping his neck. Rotting ooze gushes from between his fingers, turning to sickly fungus on the flagstones.

He leaps at me, sword aimed at my heart, and the blade sparks along my spear as I parry. I pivot to strike him, but I must duck his claw, and the blow severs tendons in my wing. When I lunge to push light through him, it is met with a blast of blood magic that scatters my spell. I shriek and dive into him, breaking a column with his body, crashing him through glass and splintered wood until he is shoved against the wall of the cathedral.

The monster's head tilts and I hear bone crack against bone. His neck wound has begun to scar over.

-Magic the Gathering: I am Avacyn

Now this is a particularly brutal spear that attacked him, very jagged, and serrated. Meaning that it most certainly causes more damage than the run of the mill spear.

Not only is Sorin a domineering fighter physically, but he has super human senses. Im not sure if your character is prone to use stealth or not, but any attempt to do so will fail. His eye sight, smelling, and hearing are turned up to a thousand. Ill display his best feat for hearing because I believe that is the most important sense when it comes to detection. Sorin listened into a whispered conversation from half a mile away.

Nissa’s trap had worked: Sorin had been listening. He had good ears for a human, as she had been at the end of the line and he’d been the first. She would have to watch him closer. Humans did not have ears capable of hearing a whispered conversation from half a mile away. That was an elf’s ability … or a vampire’s.

-Magic the Gathering: In the Teeth of Akoum

I'm uncertain how well he compares to your character physically, but he sets the bar very high. He is well rounded with great detection, strength, and speed. His damage resistance could be higher, but due to his healing factor his damage soak is fantastic and Sorin is overall just a very well rounded character physically.

Before we get into the meat of what Sorin is capable of lets talk about some of his other magical abilities.

Firstly Sorin is reasonably skilled at necromancy, able to raise two-three undead minions to fight for him at a time. This ability is likely not to come into play because there aren't dead bodies around.

Secondly Sorin is a very powerful telepath, which we disabled for this contest. If your interested in seeing how good he is at telepathy here is his best feat. Just please disregard this showing because Sorin will not be using TP in this contest.

Gallery

Now with some of his secondary magical abilities out of the way, lets talk about his main form of magic...sangromancy. Basically sangromancy is an umbrella term for a large school of dark magic, but Sorin uses sangromancy to wield magic of decay and death.

The power of this magic is astounding. Sorin casually turns people to ash all the time. Here is a visual depiction of him turning someone to ash casually.

-Magic the Gathering Card: Vindicate

And here is another example where Sorin non-nonchalantly scatters someone to ash just by clenching his fist.

Then he raised his hand, and as the duelist lunged for him, Sorin curled his fingers into a fist, and suddenly, his assailant's body burst apart in a scattering of ashes.

-Magic the Gathering: Promises Old and New

Instead of just using a blast of power to perform these attacks, he can channel this dark magic through his voice making it a sonic weapon of decay. Sorin himself notes that the effects would be devastating were his voice to echo.

Sorin took a deep breath. Nissa saw what was to happen, and she just had time to clap her hands over her ears. A moment later a string of rasping, somehow vile sounding words emanated from Sorin’s open mouth. Many of the words came with a guttural boom from the back of his throat. Sorin snapped them off in such a way that his tongue clicked wetly in his mouth.

The effect was instantaneous. The elves fell dead and rotting a moment later. Nissa found herself on the basalt floor as well. The very room vibrated when she stood, as did the contents of her skull.

-Magic the Gathering: In the Teeth of Akoum

But wait it gets worse. Instead of a directed burst of magic at a single individual Sorin can cast this magic in a massive AOE creating a death field around himself. He did this and destroyed an army of what was described as atleast200 Eldrazi which are very large creatures.

With no obvious signal, the creatures began to charge. Nissa looked at the man. He raised his arms, and in a moment she could feel the air rushing past her ears, drawn toward him. Rivulets of dim energy condensed on the orbs suddenly blooming around each of his hands. And then he began to speak in the most booming, deep voice she had ever heard, but in a language she had never heard. The air between the stranger and the charging horde refracted and bent, and then each of the creatures fell to the ground in a lump, simply falling into a rotted mass.

As amazing as that spell was—and it was one of the most amazing and disturbing things Nissa had ever seen—still more startling was the reaction by the remaining creatures. Perhaps six of them were, apparently, out of the range of the man’s spell. With their compatriots lying at their feet, the creatures continued charging at the dark-clad man. He said a few more grim words, and the remaining creatures fell.

-Magic the Gathering: In the Teeth of Akoum

Now this feat did leave him exhausted afterwards so it was pushing the limit of his power, but I so no reason why a smaller death field could not be sustained for a longer time. This is a lethal option Sorin has up his sleeve should the need arise.

Long story short, Sorin is a very powerful wielder of magic who can turn his opponents to ash easily, channel his decay magic through his voice, or cast it over large areas of effect. Not someone to be messed with.

Sorin wields a steel two handed sword named the Parasite Blade. The Parasite Blade is a magical sword enchanted long ago to be just as thirsty as Sorin himself is. Being cut by the Parasite Blade is a death sentence because it behaves very similarly to Sorin's own magic of decay. As soon as a victim is cut by the Parasite Blade the sword starts rapidly decaying the victim with as much efficiency as a blast of Sorin's power.

“I thank you,” Anowon said.

“Yes, you do,” Sorin said, sheathing his blade. “And the Parasite Blade.”

Anowon felt for his metal cylinders before smoothing his hair.

“It is called that?” Nissa asked, making a face as though she’d bitten into an unripe nectarpith fruit.

“Quite,” Sorin said, patting the weapon’s pommel. “It draws the mana from whatever it cuts. It can drain creatures to their doom, as you saw.”

-Magic the Gathering: In the Teeth of Akoum

Here the sword is displayed in action. Sorin uses it to kill a group of attacking elves, within moments their bodies are withered husks.

A brace of elves charged out of a room to Nissa’s right, and Sorin drew his sword and cut them down where they stood. Their bodies were withered husks when Nissa stepped over them, and Sorin’s sword pulsed deep and black. He sheathed its hungry blade, and they ran after Anowon.

-Magic the Gathering: In the Teeth of Akoum

Clearly a very dangerous blade that has the capacity to one shot should he land a strike when your guy is normal size, and potentially when his is giant size. Due to having such a powerful weapon I believe Sorin takes the edge in equipment in this match.

I can't say too much about this match because I know very little about Reiner. However, from what I do know it seems that this match will come down to the age old question. What is better, To be a massive naked armored giant, or to have magical attacks that instantly turn people to ash?

Your go