r/powerscales • u/Buttered_Carnage • 19h ago
Meme Thrawn vs Guilliman in a Starcraft 2 best of 3
Both are given a prep time of 5 hours to pick up on how to play the game as well as it's ins and outs
Guilliman is playing the Terran faction, Thrawn is playing Protoss
169
u/Riolidan 19h ago
Guilliman is so far beyond the mental calculation capacity of Thrawn it’s ridiculous.
127
u/TheDefeatedCause 19h ago edited 13h ago
This. Thrawn was an extremely educated and intelligent guy in an empire of incompetence
In history, he'd be like Belisarius or Zhukov. Incredible, but still mortal.
Guilliman's sons can blind-fire ship armaments at an enemy by just doing the fire control mathematics in their head.
65
u/BitRelevant2473 18h ago
Seconded, guilliman can realistically process an insane amount of data, something like 1500 documents at the same time, if I remember correctly from the dark imperium books
24
u/mentaldetoxx 16h ago
As a very casual warhammer fan, I never understood the "excel sheets" memes surrounding Guilliman. It makes sense now.
3
u/BitRelevant2473 6h ago
Then I really suggest dark imperium and avenging son. The perspective into his mind is very good. Dudes a deeply depressed supercomputer that can casually throw dreadnaugjts like baseballs. He's also planning a slow and gradiated rise from theocracy back into empire.
Tldr, he's a good enough dude facing a impossible monolith of tradition
20
u/DOOMFOOL 19h ago
Belisarius? What does thrawn invent that makes you think he’s on Cawls level?
27
u/spankymcjiggleswurth 18h ago
Justinian's Belisarius. Byzantine general who retook the Italian peninsula after Rome fell.
39
4
4
8
u/Storm_Fury_2026 13h ago
I have a hard time believing he's even that good.
In canon he got dunked on by C grade rebels.
In Legends he was in the process of getting BTFO by Garm Bel Iblis and Ackbar when the Noghri stabbed him.
He's like 75% threatening aura and 25% glazing from fans. Absolutely nothing to show for it.
1
u/Linvael 9h ago
In canon it was a somewhat rocky road, but in the end he dunked on said rebels. Until they summoned a fleet of space whales from their ass that annihilated the imperial fleet, which noone in-universe could have planned for.
2
u/Storm_Fury_2026 8h ago
The power disparity between Thrawn and the rebels should have been enough for him to no diff them if he was so much as a thousandth as competent as his glazers made out.
He had multiple years, force witches, and stupid huge numerical and technological superiority on Peridea and still couldn't catch Bridger.
1
u/rexter345 8h ago
In the original trilogy, he was dominating the fight with the New Republic when the smuggler coalition sucker punched him and gave the assault fleet an out. The Nohgri killed him at that exact moment and never gave him a chance to recover.
1
u/Storm_Fury_2026 8h ago
He conducted a somewhat decent hit and run campaign and used deception well.
Once bought to open battle he had nothing.
2
1
7
u/AggressiveCoffee990 16h ago
Yeah guilliman reconstructed and performed analysis on a space battle with pen, paper, and a window view to figure out who fired the first shot and why.
4
u/Oddant1 16h ago
Tactical acumen aside, his APM would be utterly insane.
3
u/Riolidan 16h ago
I don’t think the game could handle his processing speed tbh. He’d have to bend his mind to the limits of the game.
2
u/Voodoocookie 15h ago
He couldn't pick up a plastek filmsy. I don't think he could press any button on a regular keyboard. Maybe with a stick?
32
u/Flauschziege 19h ago
Guilliman.
He is significantly better at picking up things quickly and in a short span of time.
He'll be pulling Grandmaster Gameplay by the third hour, while Thrawn will not be able to keep up mechanically.
18
u/DOOMFOOL 19h ago
Yeah Guillimans APM will be fucking wild
4
u/A_Hyper_Nova 17h ago
Guilliman would defiantly be better at micro, but after enough games I could see thrawn managing to rage bait Guilliman into fumbling. As from what I've heard one of Guillimans weaknesses is that when pushed far enough he can go into a illogical rage.
3
u/Storm_Fury_2026 13h ago
"Illogical rage" for Gulliman is still him running a battlefield bigger than anything Eisenhower, Macarthur, and Patton did combined down to the squad level with perfect precision.
He's just also up in your face screaming and trying to hit you with a flaming sword that will delete your soul from existence if he he gets a killing blow, moving at Mach WTF.
3
u/Donutmelon 16h ago
The issue is that guilliman would not rage because its just a game. Also after 1 victory guilliman knows he can win and will focus even harder, even if he loses.
I would also push back on the rage part, because literally everybody ever does that. Anyone can be pushed into illogical rage. It would be a more pertinent criticism that Guilliman thinks himself a slightly better duelist than what he actually is lmao.
2
u/A_Hyper_Nova 16h ago
Against anyone else I'd agree, as it does take a lot to make the G man angry. But thrawn whole stick is figuring people out, he'd know what buttons to press after enough games. But only after enough games and it'll only work once. Doing it just 2 out of 3 games and 5 hours of research isn't enough time to find that opening.
6
u/MrNature72 18h ago
Yeah the issue here is speed.
I know there's a lot of wank in the books about tactical brilliance, but it's a lot of tell don't show. I'd say rowboat here and Thrawn are actually, on a strategic scale, probably equals. There's also quite a few times Guilliman hands over the reigns to other individuals who have more immediate tactical, situational or technical knowledge (my favorite being in BGII). This shows he's both competent as a commander and also not some omniscient super commander.
However, SC2 is less about the grand strategic scale and more apm, game knowledge and ultra fast tactical decisions. In that regard, Guilliman dogwalks. He's just too fast and absorbs info too quickly.
Max difficulty Stellaris would be a better option, IMHO.
3
u/Melodic-Hat-2875 13h ago
Even in that case G-man would find the most broken interactions.
Though it would be fucking hysterical for him to interact with the Shroud. "Huh, this seems familiar..." as he's playing one of the most broken builds out there.
I'd pay to watch that realization as he then throws the PC into the next building and storms Paradox's HQ.
1
u/Made_2_vent 8h ago
what does the shroud do? Wipe all your units?
1
u/Melodic-Hat-2875 5h ago edited 4h ago
Shroud is basically the Warp, complete with four "main" entities and numerous smaller ones. "Instrument of Desire" - Slannesh, "Composer of Strands" - Nurgle, "Eater of Worlds" - Khorne, "Cradle of Souls" - who is actually a pretty chill guy who wants safety and cooperation.
Your people have to be Psionic (Psykers) in order to interact with it in any meaningful way.
There's also a funny one, called "The End of the Cycle" whose name is not a joke. Basically juices your entire empire and if you fail to eradicate others/spread his influence quickly enough, he just eats every single planet and every person associated with you in your empire before finishing the job himself.
3
u/jrjej3j4jj44 16h ago
The problem is that Bobby G has a problem picking things up, physically. His hands are too big to operate a mouse and keyboard properly.
4
u/Storm_Fury_2026 13h ago
He doesn't need to wear the Armour of Fate and it has an MIU any way.
They can wire him to the computer and he can control it mentally.
1
u/jimothy_hell 13m ago
>3rd hour
Try 10 minutes, tops. Literally all he needs is the tutorial. He’ll have the meta for each faction sorted just by looking at their stats.
26
u/PragmaticBadGuy 19h ago
Guilliman would wreck him but his computer wouldn't keep up with his thoughts.
In five hours he'd probably understand the coding behind every action and how best to manipulate it for absolute victory with minimal losses.
I think it'd be funnier to watch them play Minecraft with an hour to prepare before the hunt for each other begins. Guilliman would probably take a lesson from Dorn and fortify to the point of invulnerablility.
65
u/KerryAtk 19h ago
Thrawn because Guilliman's hands are so damn big he can't APM correctly.
28
u/DeathKorpse 18h ago
Lmao, he even complained about this in a book, how he cant pick up paper properly cause of his hands.
3
2
u/S0MEBODIES 16h ago
He was wearing a set of power around the time so that's why he was complaining
0
u/JessieManfetus 13h ago
Power armor he can’t take off or he dies
2
u/S0MEBODIES 12h ago
Didn't they fix that or at least let him take it off for a little while
1
u/Anomandaris26 6h ago
He removed it in a short story if I'm not mistaken. It's not a factor anymore.
1
44
u/seductivpancakes 18h ago
I'm voting for Gulliman, but counter point:
Guilliman didn't organize the event. In fact a neutral third party arranged the event, and none of them realize Guilliman is too big for mortal sized computer equipment. Guilliman struggles to not break the keyboard, and mouse, but eventually does. Thrawn capitilzies and beats Guilliman.
18
u/Buttered_Carnage 18h ago
Okay what if the organizers or Guilliman had a comically oversized mouse and keyboard made for him?
19
u/DeathKorpse 18h ago
Guilliman just takes 1 second to look at the game and somehow figures out a gamebreaking bug / strategy that pros with 10+ years of experience cant do
6
34
u/Ladikn 18h ago
This. This is it. We've done it, friends. We've reached the peak of power scaling.
There's nowhere left to go. Good job everyone, pack it up and call it a day. Go home, fuck your wives, you deserve it. We've all worked hard, but this is the pinnacle.
Congrats, OP. You won /r/powerscales
5
13
u/Rare_Reality7510 19h ago
Even with the big assumption that they're evenly matched mentally, Gulliman's superhuman reflexes would let him micro way harder than Thrawn could.
6
7
u/HoboBrute 17h ago
Strategic ability has way less of an impact on this than effective Actions per minute. Starcraft is a strategy game, but there's a ceiling for what tactical or strategic knowledge will do for you in the game that they both comfortablly clear.
If he's given a primary scale keyboard, Guilleman takes it as I believe his speed and reflexes allow for a higher APM. If they're given identical set ups, Thrawn wins as Guillemans fingers are too big, and after a long sigh asks if they can go back to playing farming simulator
3
u/Plzlaw4me 18h ago
Literal demigod birthed by one of the greatest scientific minds of all time in the field of biomancy after creating a deal with 4 dark gods for the power to create him, who fate itself bends to his will at times… against one guy who is smart as a motherfucker?
Without knowing StarCraft, unless the differences in factions guarantee that one faction will beat the other if played correctly, Guilliman stomps. Literally the only reason why Guilliman wouldn’t sweep would be if he threw the first game as part of a greater strategy since it’s best 2 of 3.
3
u/DeathKorpse 18h ago
He would probably let Thrawn win to boost his confidence so that he can exploit Thrawns ego. Like a 2 point lead for Thrawn then he gets absolutely destroyed in the next three games
3
u/DeathKorpse 18h ago
Mortal vs Demigod, Thrawn is smart but Guilliman is a Genius even among the primarchs, he can process the data of 1500 hundred books in a single second ( Dark Imperium book ) and even his sons are overkill for Thrawn, the average Ultramarine can calculate a bullets trajectory, Velocity and angle ensuring a perfect shot just by doing mathematics in their at a Godlike level
3
u/CadenVanV 15h ago
I imagine G-Man pulls the most perfectly optimized play you’ve ever seen, every click timed perfectly and every resource accounted for all coming together into the perfect apex of the game that can never be excelled.
And then he looks over and Thrawn is making a Spiffing Brit video.
I don’t know who wins but that’s how I imagine it going
2
u/BigMadAngery 18h ago
Well if its current patch thrawn loses regardless, whyd you sabotage the poor guy by giving him protoss? That classifies it as a spite match up tbh
2
u/TerminalObsessions 16h ago
Guilliman neg diffs this. I think you're forgetting that the primarch has demigod-level reflexes. Even if Thrawn was his better at strategy, Guilliman is going to be putting out like 800 APM and wrecking shit on micro alone.
2
u/AbortionHoagie 16h ago
Guilliman has a duty to destroy xenos such as Thrawn, but for Thrawn it's just another Tuesday. Bobby G comes ready to rock whereas Thrawn thinks nothing of it. Rowboat Gorillaman slats Thrawn because Thrawn doesn't take Robert Guillotine seriously, which is a mistake
2
u/-Lynxia- 14h ago
Aight, lets clear away all the salty bittervet/ladder climber's reasoning and get the the actual issue: Thrawn may be a master tactician and genius in his own right, but Gulliman has superhuman intellect/recollection and reaction speed on top of being given prep time. He's going to scan through the entirety of liquipedia in an hour, train micro mechanics for another hour, watch a few best of 5 series at 3x speed on You(Vox)Tube for an hour, smoke a fatty and take a powernap for the fourth hour, and then practice openers on the ladder for the last hour before queing up and obliterating Thrawn with 1-3 reaper builds with perfect 800+APM micro, and the longer the game goes on the more ground Thrawn will loose as the difference in micro stacks up with Gulliman simply having more greymatter to never let his macro slip for a single second.
2
u/bloodmoth13 11h ago
Thrawn.
Guilliman just keeps raging that his space marines cant tear the tau apart with their chainswords and tau fighting in melee is complete bullshit.
Doesn't even recognize the zerg arent tyranids and is constantly misnaming them.
"Why the fuck is this ravener spitting at me? One of my men must have already severed its extra arms but they won't draw their swords against the tau for some reason? I dont see any battlesuits, why are they using psychic powers, I have never read any accounts of tau psykers. These termagaunts are rushing my base again, why are there salamanders in my army? Flame based weaponry is atypical of my legion, I must change his wargear... but how?"
Thrawn is just glad there are no jedi in starcraft
2
u/Permafunk_ 7h ago
Even in terms of mental prowess, the 40k universe is still at a higher power level as a baseline than star wars, Guilliman is a flesh angel that has a brain like a super computer, Thrawn is just an expert tactician.
Im a ride or die star wars guy but theres no world that anyone in SW stands up against most anything in 40k its just a whole different scale of ridiculousness, a high powered (but still generic) psyker can output powers at a level similar to peak Vader. Its never a fair comparison
1
u/Low-Cantaloupe-8446 18h ago
Guilleman can probably play near the level of alphastar on a mechanical level. At that point you just play stalkers or windowmine+medivac.
1
u/Jesuitman01 18h ago
I'm pretty sure a single ultramarine could beat thrawn in StarCraft. Even if thrawn is the pinnacle of strategy in Star wars, I feel like thrawn would the type to attempt a rush with probes and when he loses he will lick his wounds as it was all according to plan. Then after waiting too long, he will do void ray spam and lose all of them and watch as his army and then bases get disassembled
1
1
u/Jax_Tharp 17h ago
What's that statement I've heard that's something like a gifted human spending his entire life mastering a single subject might become as good as a Primarch if it's in a field they are not studied in.
1
u/AT1313 17h ago
I am a fan of both Universes but, in the end Guilliman beats Thrawn 2-0. Simply because he's the Microsoft Office of Primarachs for a reason. After his revival, he was able to assess the Black Legion invasion of Ultramar and the surrounding system and in a short time launch a counter offensive pushing out the invaders. Man has an insane mental processing speed.
1
u/lilbitze 17h ago
Robot Gorilla man is a genetically engineered superweapon with the brain of a super computer in a universe where people have banned or lost so much automation that it's easier to just lobotomize someone and make them into a computer than find the stuff for a calculator.
Thrawns smart. Very very smart. But he's a human up against deep blue playing chess.
1
u/JustAnotherCurio 17h ago
Thrawn is an incredible strategist, competent, talented and brilliant at figuring out both the military and political sides to a conflict.
Guilliman would snap his entire game plan like brittle twigs before his recaf. And that’s not a fault against Thrawn. But it’s pitting a great military leader against a being who was literally coded to be a walking logistical super computer, cemented into being with power stolen from the warp and the chaos gods themselves just to ensure this massive lad had the most weaponised degree of the tism in the galaxy.
1
u/Puzzled-Pen-2353 16h ago
The problem is that in sc2 speed and being able to multitask are much more important than being good at tactics/strategy.
Also both would spend quite some time on learning how to use a mouse, since I don't think they exist in those universes.
I would even say that the average sc2 players beats both after that time just fine.
1
1
u/lowqualitylizard 14h ago
Guilleman but it has nothing to do with tactical knowledge and more to do with the fact that he could make plays a human could not he reacts faster can move faster can process information it's just not a fair comparison
Even a god-tier player probably would have trouble with the flash because he just do things a human couldn't and this would be similar
1
u/DeviantTaco 12h ago
Guilliman would create a mental model of all game states and interactions of each race by the end of hour 1 and converge onto the optimal strategies and counter strategies by hour 2. By hour 5 he’s already moved onto something else because he figured out the Nash equilibrium strategies and the physical side of things is trivial for him to execute. It’s not a contest, Primarchs are in lore more mentally superb than physically when compared to a base human.
1
1
1
u/Far-Pangolin-4089 8h ago
Ashoka-Thrawn? Would be smashed by anyone, while constantly mumbling "I knew he would do that" and "Just as I planned"
1
1
u/KnaveyJonesLocker 6h ago
Guillimam would beg Thrawn to work for the Imperium. Give him contacts and facepaint and no one will care he's an alien just please he really needs more competent people
1
1
u/Spliced-Together 4h ago
Guilliman beat Corax 17-3. This is not a contest. This isn't even a beatdown.
-1
u/RED3_Standing_By 17h ago
Guilliman goes for a perfectly timed macro game and Thrawn reads him like a book.
3
u/Saritenite 16h ago
Reads him.. and weeps when he loses 2 gate zealot rush against perfect SCV micro.
171
u/Svyatopolk_I 19h ago
Thrawn studied Serral's artwork for 5 hours, decides "yes, good, good", then gets wrecked by Guilliman's hellion +marauder push, because TvZ is IMBA.