Marvel Telepathy Ranking Tournament

Marvel Telepathy Ranking Tournament

In this tournament, we are going to determine a ranking of the main telepaths from the 616 Marvel universe (in ascending order). It would be determined by eliminating the WEAKEST telepath in each round until we have a top 20 ranking based on the votes.

*Concept and format by @aystarr*

Rules

• To vote, comment on who you think is the WEAKEST telepath for each round.
• Only one vote per Viner is allowed per round. In order to avoid the issue of alt voting, votes from accounts with less than 100 posts will not be counted. Mods will be notified if there is any suspicious voting activity that goes on.
• Rounds will take place every 1-2 days.
• I will only vote in the event of a tie.
• When voting, please consider all aspects of telepathy, such as raw power, skill, defence, wins/losses, statements, etc.
• This is based purely on telepathy or telepathy-based powers, so other powers like telekinesis are not to be considered.
• Do not consider feats or versions of characters that involve amps. Only use their base/standard versions.
• Only 616 versions, so no alternate universe or future timeline stuff.
• Assume that each character is fighting at their best, in character but not holding back.
• No prep.

Feel free to provide reasoning and debate, but keep it civil and respectful. If your vote includes a lengthy reasoning, please bold or underline the telepath's name to make my life easier when counting the votes :)

Respect threads will be linked for each character, but note that many of these RTs are not updated. For scaling purposes, you can find a RT directory for most of the Marvel telepaths here: https://comicvine.gamespot.com/x-men/4060-3173/forums/x-men-psychics-respect-threads-2015730/

Telepaths

1. Apocalypse
2. Betsy Braddock (Captain Britain)
3. Cable
4. Cassandra Nova
5. Emma Frost
6. Exodus
7. Jean Grey
8. Madelyne Pryor
9. Mastermind
10. Moondragon
11. Mister Sinister
12. Nate Grey (Pre-Shaman)
13. Professor X
14. Quentin Quire
15. Rachel Summers
16. Red Onslaught
17. Selene
18. Shadow King
19. Stepford Cuckoos (5-in-1)
20. Xemnu

To vote, comment on who you think is the WEAKEST telepath for each round.

Tags:

@thevoidofdeath@marygcrisostomo

Mastermind. When all of your most well known tp feats are because of a mind-tap machine, you're garbage.

Mastermind

Oh brother this'll go well

I'm going to go for bat for Mastermind here. For one, his "mind-tap machine" only extended range as per handbooks (so that he could project his illusions without being right next to the person). The fact that he recreated this feat when he was dying of the Legacy Virus on Jean/Rachel again showcases that it wasn't a amp.

Mastermind's record is solid. He's stalemated Emma, fought Xavier for a short amount of time, fooled numerous telepaths on this list fairly effortlessly, bypassed Sentry's mental defences (which no one else here has done either) and even recently has been a effective spoiler-tier mental opponent by getting one over Empath and Kwannon.

What does Quire have in contrast? Fooling Wolverine for a bit? Mastermind did that better and wasn't in a catatonic mess during it. Getting wrecked by Nimrod? Blocking Emma once and then getting jobbed out the next time? No-Girl scaling? Lol

Like TP-wise he's nowhere near as impressive. I vote for him.

The legacy virus is apparently a massive amp. So whatever he did with it was not within the normal parameters of his power back then, just like Pyro below.

Pryor blasted Post with a fire blast. His dead body doesn't appear to have on his flame throwers and I didn't see any fire before the blast. It appears he's generating a fireball. Seems the legacy virus amped him far above just manipulation. I'm assuming he and Mastermind had the same strain of the disease. The issues are Uncanny X-men 362 and Cable 87 respectively. You can check em out see if I missed something regarding the virus amping powers. I mean if it can ramp up Pryo to full on Firestarter then it could amp up Mastermind into a full telepath since his power telepathic in nature. Yeah he can stuff now, but it's new.

I agree Quire is a scrub. I'm saving him for later.

Mastermind

Hmm. Scratch that, I'll go with Selene

well...since it's purely tp...imma say Apoc. Insane defense, but nothing much else. It's either him or selene, but probs apoc

Lol, so I may have to break the stalemate. I will also say Apocalypse because of limited feats.

Great TP resistance. Meh feats.

Apocalypse

The Apocalypse or Selene..I go with Apocalypse

Selene, she isn't impressive at all at least mastermind has some feats to his name.

Apocalypse did not run away from charles, his defenses are better.

Yeah ask for clarification on that. So he had Legacy 1 like Illyana and Pyro had type 2 like Revanche. He still didn't have tp and what he did in that was only possible because the disease rendered him catatonic. So just we can disagree about that, because this is him explaining the mind tap, above. He definitely was using it to be an electronic telepath. He couldn't focus his powers on one mind nor read their thoughts without it, and like I said his most well known feat (Dark Phoenix, as even casuals know about it) were with the machine. There are multiple scrubs on this bitch though. He's just the first one I picked because of Dark Phoenix.

apocalypse due to limited actual telepathy

great defenses but you don’t even need telepathy to have a good defense in the first place

Nice idea, Geek.

OT: Apocalypse.

Apocalypse’s resisting psionic intrusion is not exactly his telepathic defense. It helps in it, but Apocalypse didn’t use telepathy until the recent decade.

And I would like to know where Apocalypse stood against Charles that didn’t involve being amped that could be used against Selene.

This.^^^^^^

I'll go Quinten. He's less impressive to me than mastermind. Also, for the people saying Apocalypse, doesn't TP resistance still count as a telepathic ability? Apoc is way too tanky to be going out before Quire or Mastermind.

There are many non-telepaths who have impressive levels of psychic defences, like Magneto, Storm, etc.

Apocalypse's defences come from him being a telepath himself. It's up to each voter to decide how much value to put towards defence as opposed to offence.

Got it. Thank you!

@pyrofn:

Apocalypse’s resisting psionic intrusion is not exactly his telepathic defense. It helps in it, but Apocalypse didn’t use telepathy until the recent decade.

Really i just assumed that he used TP i don't really remember those old X-comics. If so then apocalypse is the weakest and selene should be second.

@mage101: Are you switching your vote to Apocalypse then?

I agree with pyro and marvelfan. Apocalypse has great defenses but has not much to show for other aspects of telepathy. I am not sure how much of his TP resistance is even due to his telepathy

It's crazy how tp resistance is a bad thing in a telepath thread considering telepaths are usually in threads with specifications that include giving their opponents all kinds of defensive measures against tp. But go off.

It’s not the act of tp resistance per se.

It’s more of how it’s being done. Apocalypse isn’t putting up a mental shield to block it. He moreso just tanks and resists. Like, we have cases like this,

Why would Apocalypse need to prepare for it if he already has the power to do it? Like, if it was merely Jean being more powerful, then he would mention needing to get something to increase his own powers. But the dialogue comes off as if he is just experiencing telepathy for the first time.

That’s how I see it, anyway.

@pyrofn said:

@lordofallhumans said:

It's crazy how tp resistance is a bad thing in a telepath thread considering telepaths are usually in threads with specifications that include giving their opponents all kinds of defensive measures against tp. But go off.

It’s not the act of tp resistance per se.

It’s more of how it’s being done. Apocalypse isn’t putting up a mental shield to block it. He moreso just tanks and resists. Like, we have cases like this,

Why would Apocalypse need to prepare for it if he already has the power to do it? Like, if it was merely Jean being more powerful, then he would mention needing to get something to increase his own powers. But the dialogue comes off as if he is just experiencing telepathy for the first time.

That’s how I see it, anyway.

@lord think it depends on the context of the thread. In this case, I believe it isn't actually fighting each other but just gauging them overall as telepaths? Coz in that case, TP defenses not derived from telepathy wouldn't really factor into gauging how good a telepath a character is. Now as to whether apoc's TP resist/defense feats are telepathic in nature or not is another thing

@marvelfan1992: I get what this about. Geek said overall and people are arguing non telepaths against actual telepaths. So if everybody on nick picky shit me too.

@pyrofn: well, Classic Apocalypse wasn't really much of a telepath (couldn't astral project to the astral plane without cables help), so it seemed like his tp defenses came from somethingelse.

But modern Apocalypse uses telepathy more and has stuff like blocking betsy from getting into Rogues mind, projecting messages and communicating across the continents etc so some could make the argument that his resistance stems from his TP.

I rank Apocalypse higher than selene because i consider his resistance Telepathic in nature (stuff like resistingthe annihilationhelm that controlled a planet of demons, or resisting Lifeseed nate grey or Fighting rachel in his mind while dying). I could be wrong though. He just seems like a telepath that maxxed his stats in defense or something. Then theres that one outlier feat from the twelve where he knocks Xavier out with a psi blast

Mastermind has crazy high ends from using his powers on phoenix rachel, The stranger, Sentry. Psychic fights against classic xavier and classic Emma, trapping 90s jean in his mind while dying (depending on if you accept the legacy virus as an amp or not) and other stuff like city wide projections. Basically oneshot Empath and Kwannon. Which is why I'd place above him Selene.

Selenes best feats are against young emma when she first joined hellfire club, starving teenage rachel, amnesic Madelyne pryor with no powers, kid Dani moonstar. Her best feat is losing to phoenix rachel, doesn't have any ranged tp and thought an astral form was a ghost despite having lived for thousands of years (I'm guessing the telepaths Apoc and selene met in their thousands of years were probably ass, seeing as they didn't know about/couldn't access astral stuff till the xmen era)

If we're not taking Apocalypse psi blocking/tp defense as tp based then I'd place him below Selene as a telepath. But since I'm taking that into consideration, I'm placing her below him.

Eliminated

Apocalypse has been eliminated and takes the 20th spot in the ranking.

Round 2

• Apocalypse
• Betsy Braddock (Captain Britain)
• Cable
• Cassandra Nova
• Emma Frost
• Exodus
• Jean Grey
• Madelyne Pryor
• Mastermind
• Moondragon
• Mister Sinister
• Nate Grey (Pre-Shaman)
• Professor X
• Quentin Quire
• Rachel Summers
• Red Onslaught
• Selene
• Shadow King
• Stepford Cuckoos (5-in-1)
• Xemnu

To vote, comment on who you think is the WEAKEST telepath for each round.

Tags:

Now that the first round is over and Apocalypse is out, please refrain from any further debates regarding him.

selene OUT

Quire

@purplehairedni1: selene rarely ever uses telepathy. quire isn’t great but selene should definitely leave this before him

@emmafrostxmen: But imo the feats she has is actually better than Quire if we're not counting psychic weapons.

@purplehairedni1: hmmmm. fair enough.

i’m keeping my vote selene but i respect your choice

@geekryan: Does Betsy's psychic knife count since it's pretty much almost part of all her psychic fights

Y'all stay hating on Apocalypse :(

OT: Quire

Selene is definitely next.

I would say she has some notable feats like trapping early Rachel in her own mind, various illusionary feats, and some mind-control. But they are very basic and rudimentary in the grand scheme of things.

Considering young Dani Moonstar was able to trick Selene with her worst fear, X.S.E. Rachel obliterating Selene after being entrapped in Selene’s darkness, and her overall feats being against foes lacking in psi-defenses shows the limits to Selene as a telepath.

Nah, just hating on wank. Apocalypse is great in the areas of physical power and survivability. But the sheer reality of having too many powers means one area will be lacking.

@purplehairedni1: It can be taken into consideration for feats that can also apply to her telepathy.

Mastermind LMAO

Mastermind and it’s not close to me.

Quire worse

Oof, Apocalypse got thrown out.

Well then, Selene for this one

Why when Selene still exist.

Selene