Splatfest: Would you rather be a KNIGHT or a WIZARD?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - My answer may surprise you, and my reasoning may convince you.

This may seem like a question of fantasy to you, but it's real for me. And personal.

This month's Splatoon 2 Splatfest, taking place this weekend on a worldwide basis, asks...

“Which would you rather be? A knight or a wizard?”

It's important to note that it's not asking which of knight or wizard you currently are, but which you would rather be. The use of the word “rather” indicates that, if given the opportunity to change your life, which option would you pick to do so?

You may note that the fact I emphasised that probably hints my choice. Before I get to that, I really did just want to make the question clear. This article isn't just about my opinion—but you may find it useful as well.

...I also suppose that my opening sentence is inherently wrong, because “rather” questions are fantasy and not reality, by definition.

I'll get to the core of this Splatfest in terms of a Koopa Kingdom perspective. When young Koopas entering the army as Troopas look at their prospects for military advancement and worldwide fame, there are two prominent paths.

The Koopatrols and the Magikoopas.

(While I think this picture would be better if the Koopatrol was facing the Magikoopa, that strays from the source material.)

Koopatrols are the heavily-armed guards in full body armour and spears. They're awesome and are claw-picked. Koopatrols report to Lord Bowser himself. 

Magikoopas are Koopas devoted to the study of magic. They wear robes and have wands. They're also very important. Kamek, a staffer to KoopaTV, is the leader of the Magikoopas.

Pearl referring to the wizard robes that Magikoopas wear as “battle pajamas.”
They ARE rather comfortable...

As a young'n, Koopatrols were clearly cooler to me. All of the metal! The protection! The obliteration of stereotypes that Koopas are squishy if you just jump at the right place! I've had a lifelong passion for removing the NPC stereotype from Koopa Troopas, and the Koopatrols prove themselves to be above that.

Not that Magikoopas aren't cool, but they sort of promote the same negative stereotypes about Koopas. You know, cowards in the backlines.

Then we, the Koopalings, borrowed some magic wands from some dufus despots as our introduction to anti-plumber warfare. All of a sudden, our paths were forged for us by Lord Bowser: we'd all be wizards.

Ever since, I've gotten really good with the wand. Look, it's in my official artwork! It's my weapon of choice, since we got our own wands to use without having to borrow them from the autocrat of Pipe Maze or wherever.

But I'm pretty sure, given the choice, I'd rather be a knight.

Well, yes. Yes I am on Team Knight.

Way back in the day, I had an Advance Wars By Web account, and by extension, a Fire Emblem By Web account. Both are player-vs-player battle simulators. Fire Emblem By Web was a lot less developed than its Advance Wars By Web counterpart, so that was quickly replaced by Fire Emblem Tactics Online (FETO), another, more advanced player-vs-player Fire Emblem battle simulator hosted by the Fire Emblem Planet site.

We got to have our own choice in what class to make our Lord (main, most powerful character). I chose Knight→General. Mage→Sage was an option that I did not take. This was despite the General class being the worst class you could choose in player-vs-player, due to having a bad stat distribution that lead to being destroyed by the magic-dominated metagame. It was to the point where my Ludwig Lord unit was the most prominent General in all of FETO, and got renamed to “Charitable” by the jerk Bidoof-obsessed admin due to how bad Generals are. But despite all that, I stuck with the armoured behemoth I'd rather be.

(I later got banned from FETO and Fire Emblem Planet due to them really not liking people with traditional views on social issues. That means there's no record of what I just wrote. But that's besides the point.)

As for what I can easily hyperlink to, I gave a whole memorial to the Black Knight of Tellius and how awesome he was. You didn't see me write an article about his wizard master, Sephiran, or even Soren, Ike's Sage companion.

I've been playing Culdcept Revolt a lot lately. I've actually been avoiding using the magic scroll cards. And I really like the card called Knight, which critical-hits opposing monster cards that have a lot of base HP. Very useful guy. Dependable. I can't depend on the squishy spellcasters and their scrolls. They don't have the durability I desire.

Darknuts are cooler than Wizzrobes.

Escavalier pleases me more than Mismagius.

I haven't actually played Hollow Knight yet, but I did open the plushie out of the box now and I like it.

I like Knight Man's theme in Mega Man 6. Whatever robots are sorta based on magic don't compare.

Despite Beam Mage being optimal in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, I like Doctor Healmore more. However, Mirror is my favourite ability, period, and you could say that's a product of wizardry. Still, Meta Knight and the Meta-Knights are my favourite crew in that franchise. Especially Captain Vul.

Despite all of my rationale this whole article has been an awkward exercise where I've been tempted to change my mind a lot, given this quote I left at the end of the Pirates vs. Ninjas Splatfest article:

“The truth is that both pirates and ninjas are inferior to magicians. Gotta put the good word in for our Magikoopas, and the Koopalings' own stints with our magic wands. With magic, we can do anything ninjas can do with a fraction of the effort! And we can do anything pirates can do, but even cooler.” 

I'll put it this way: Given the opportunity to name Koopa Keep's military wing on the NSider forums, I chose Knights of Koopa Keep. Not Wizards of Koopa Keep. Yeah, the latter is a far better acronym, but once more, my natural affinity for knights surpasses what's best for my reputation.


You could read this whole article as “Ludwig regrets the way his life has turned out and given the choice, he would've gone a different direction.” If that describes you too, feel free to join Team Knight. Otherwise, share your own reasoning in the comments section for which team you'd prefer.


The previous Splatfest in February was about food Ludwig can't eat.
The next Splatfest in April was about the hare vs. the tortoise.