Agumon vs. Dark Magician vs. Pikachu: a battle royale

polygon.com:

In 1996, the world was introduced to a juggernaut.

That unstoppable force was the Pokémon series, and its global popularity gave rise to what can now be dubbed the “Monster Collecting” genre. Valiant challengers such as Beyblade, Medabots, and Monster Rancher tried to swipe as much money as the Pocket Monsters did from parents everywhere, but had nowhere near the same staying power. Yet among the competition, two staunch outliers, the Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card Game and the Digimon series, have managed to survive — and even put up a good fight — against the undisputed king.

Pokémon, Digimon, and Yu-Gi-Oh are now the global “Big Three” of the monster-collecting genre. As such, each series’ mascot has garnered fame of their own: Digimon’s Agumon, Yu-Gi-Oh’s Dark Magician, and Pokémon’s omnipresent, effortlessly cute Pikachu have all stepped up to the plate. And fans, as they do, have long debated which mascot would take home the W in an old-fashioned slobber knocker.

So, in the spirit of Polygon’s Who Would Win Week, we decided to put that speculation to rest. Let’s start by breaking down the monsters and their abilities.

Dark Magician is a spellcaster who was made famous as the ace monster of the original (and most popular) Yu-Gi-Oh protagonists, Yugi Moto and Yami Yugi. Dark Magician can transform into several powerful variants, including the Dark Magician of Chaos, Dark Magician Knight, Dark Eradicator Warlock, and Dark Sage. However, each of these transformations requires items that aren’t normally equipped with the base character in the card game, anime, and manga. For the purposes of this battle, we’ll abide by the same rules. (We’ll also avoid the blatant rule-breaking the Magician sometimes does in the anime.) So,