#Round One:

Strictly H2h (No Powers)

Round Two :

Laurel has Her Tonfa and Dinah has her Staff both Thea and Colleen has a sword (No Powers)

Who Wins:

R1: Thea vs Colleen would be a spectacle to watch, and Dinah >= Laurel. I'd back Team 2.

R2: Colleen could probably solo, given her weapon.

Colleen soloing 2 Merlyn level characters?

@bladeoffury: Laurel would get absolutely wrecked by Merlyn.

In a fight, Merlyn would win decisively, but not too easily. Skill-wise, Laurel should be slightly below Merlyn, while Thea is slightly above.

Yeah no, I'll never buy Thea surpassing Meryln, and I don't think the show tried to relay the message either. The only reason people believe Thea > Malcolm is because of their fights. Literally all of them are riddled with context and Meryln holding back.

Laurel being Meryln level (who can comfortably hang with Legends S2 Sara and Darhk) is a stretch as well.

OT: This is a really close fight. I might back Team 2 and based off of what I hear of IFS2, will only solidify Colleen's standing as mid-to-high street level. (On her tier of course)

Thea carries assuming its E1 Laurel.

@angeljax:

Yeah no, I'll never buy Thea surpassing Meryln, and I don't think the show tried to relay the message either.

How do you know that the show didn't try to relay that message? How do you know that the message wasn't that the student reached the level of the teacher? Is there an on-panel statement? Off-panel? Guidebook?

If the show didn't want Thea to be Merlyn level, they wouldn't have let her beat him.

The only reason people believe Thea > Malcolm is because of their fights.

Well, yea. What else to judge by, other than fights. The only reason people believe Malcolm > S1 Oliver is because of their fights. But it's not just her fights against Malcolm, it's also her fights against other Arrow top-tiers, like Anarky.

Literally all of them are riddled with context and Meryln holding back.

What's the context here?

Malcolm is trying to get the idol, he's fighting for both his and his daughter's life. As evident by the end of the fight, he doesn't mind hurting her if it means saving her life.

But before that, Thea beat him, fair and square, disarming him and putting two swords up to his unprotected neck. She could have killed him then, but didn't, because she was the one holding back.

@bladeoffury

How do you know that the show didn't try to relay that message? How do you know that the message wasn't that the student reached the level of the teacher? Is there an on-panel statement? Off-panel? Guidebook?

Everything shouldn't have to be spelt out for you for the viewer to understand. Meryln would never beat the breaks off his daughter, and I don't see their ever being a situation where he would since they made it a point of Malcolm's entire character that Thea is his everything and that he would never hurt her.

If the show didn't want Thea to be Merlyn level, they wouldn't have let her beat him.

Does this mean S2 Daisy > May? Because she technically beat her in this exchange.

Clearly May and Malcolm never went all-out on their protegés.

Well, yea. What else to judge by, other than fights.

How about Thea being treated as a high tier fight in-universe? Or getting clear victories against opponents comparable to Merlyn in fair fights? Because she has neither and nothing that implies it either.

What's the context here?

Meryln not being willing to go all out on his daughter.

@angeljax:

Everything shouldn't have to be spelt out for you for the viewer to understand. Meryln would never beat the breaks off his daughter, and I don't see their ever being a situation where he would since they made it a point of Malcolm's entire character that Thea is his everything and that he would never hurt her.

First, you were saying that the writers' intention isn't to have Thea reach Malcom's level. And I am saying: you don't know that. They had Oliver surpass Merlyn, they had Sara surpass Merlyn, so why not Thea?

Second, he did hurt her. He didn't hesitate to throw that blow to the face, knocking his daughter out. Before that, he didn't hesitate to kick out her knees and kick her in the face either. Why? Because he weighed the options, and knocking Thea out turned out to be better than letting both her and himself die.

Yes, Malcolm wasn't going to kill her if he could, but as evident by Thea wasn't either. She had the chance, but didn't kill him. "Holding back" only prevented the two from killing each other, it didn't prevent them from beating each other. It's kind of like saying that May held back against Ward, so him getting the better of her at one point in the fight can be attributed to that, meaning that there is nothing to suggest that he's on par with her. But just like Malcolm against Thea, May didn't hesitate to hurt Ward, making the fights legit.

Does this mean S2 Daisy > May? Because she technically beat her in this exchange.

Clearly May and Malcolm never went all-out on their protegés.

Training is different. The combatants don't even want to punch each other, it is a much high degree of holding back. There is a reason why I'm not using the instance of Thea beating Malcolm in training.

Just like May training Daisy, Merlyn was the one training Thea, meaning that he can let her win. The opposite is true in their fight in the Arrow lair.

How about Thea being treated as a high tier fight in-universe? Or getting clear victories against opponents comparable to Merlyn in fair fights? Because she has neither and nothing that implies it either.

Except she does. As outlined previously, that fight with Merlyn was fair. But yes, Thea has other showings against Arrow top-tiers to support it. Let's start with another fight with Merlyn.

Now, this fight didn't happen in real life, it happened when the characters were hooked up to the Dominators' mind machinery. However, the fight can definitely be considered legit, as Damien, Slade, Malcolm, etc. came straight out of the characters' minds - just like they remember them. This is supported by Sara matching Dahrk and Oliver wrecking Slade, just like it should be. And yet, Thea swiftly defeated and killed Malcolm. The difference between this fight and their fights outside their minds is that neither was holding back. The Dominators needed the villains to stop the heroes, and Thea didn't hold back either, knowing that Malcolm isn't really here. Any attempt to target the legitimacy of the fake world is invalid, because it didn't stop you from using Framework feats in AoS respect threads.

Moving on from Malcolm, Thea (who was just electrocuted) wrecked Anarky. The same Anarky who wrecked S4 Green Arrow seconds earlier.

The same Green Arrow who stomped Merlyn. The context here is that Thea was bloodlusted from the pit, but the skill still had to be there in order to beat an opponent a league above Malcolm.

This factor isn't even present in Thea's next fight with Anarky, as her bloodlust was gone. Maybe Machin held back against the girl who mutated his face? Unlikely. Maybe she had an unfair advantage? Nope, he was the one with a weapon. And yet,

Despite being unarmed, she threw him around, disarmed him, used his own weapon against him, and knocked him out. And may I remind - Anarky > Merlyn.

So, yes, Thea is treated as a top-tier fighter in-universe, maybe even more so than Malcolm.