Mages also have the option of using their magic in combination. It is suggested that the magic of multiple mages is greater than the sum of its parts and that multiple mages can combine their magic into a Unison Raid, a stronger spell than either could do individually. However Jellal claims it's incredibly difficult citing a monk who attempted all his life to perform one but failed to do so.
In addition the Spriggan 12 are all obviously expert or master mages being the greatest of the Alvarez Empire that dwarfs all the mages of the nation of Fiore and many of them also have master level or superhuman level fighting skills in terms of feats.
In terms of weaknesses, many of the Spriggan 12 have psychological weaknesses. Brandish for example is comically lazy while Jacob has a phobia of women in a state of undress. They also collectively have a sense of arrogance, used to being uncontestably strong.
On a broader level, the Spriggan 12 were never meant to work together, rarely ever gathering, and it shows. As compared to Fairy Tail which is meant to represent a family the Spriggans, the Grotesque Fairies, have very limited connections with each others and many of their powers, especially their strongest powers, are just as much a hinderance to nearby allies as they are to their enemies.
So what would happen if the Twelve Guardians of the Holy Goddess of Wisdom Athena stood across the battlefield from the Twelve Guardians of the Black Wizard Zeref?
As you might have noticed there's a lot of powers here, and a lot of things that could happen so the best thing to analyze both sides is go through both sides back and forth member by member and what possible counters the other side could offer. This isn't a measure though of just if each side has a counter, it's a measure of how many possibilities they have, trying to understand broadly how dangerous each member is to see what trends might emerge.
Starting with the Gold Saints Base Abilities:
The Saints as wielders of Cosmo fight by manipulating the enemy atoms, which can be used to strike on a conceptual level and a subatomic precision. To what degree can the Spriggans protect from this?
So obviously this would completely bypass Logia Intangibility from Ajeel, Bloodman, August, and potentially God Serena as it doesn't just hit their atoms but hits on the conceptual level. Antimagic or Copy Magic also wouldn't work as Cosmo is not magic. Brandish and Irene can both use forms of stat reduction and while that might prevent their atoms from being destroyed, it's unlikely it would protect them on a metaphysical level as even much weaker cosmo wielders such as Black Saints Arc Phoenix Ikki can tear apart someone's soul with one blow. Obviously they can try to dodge their blows but do they have more sophisticated counters?
Well first Elemental Based Counters should still apply. Aiolos and to a lesser extent Aioria use Light Based Powers, Aioria uses Lightning Based Powers, and Camus uses Ice Based Powers. Even if the attack would hit them on a conceptual level that God Serena could absorb the Light Based Powers from Aiolos and Aioria, both God Serena and Wall could absorb the Lightning based powers of Aioria, and Bloodman and Invel could absorb the Ice Based Powers of Camus. Because they're absorbing the elemental that is the manifestation of the cosmo before it reaches them, this should allow them to nullify the attack even if their normal resistance wouldn't let them tank it like normal due its conceptual nature. Functionally it would be similar to Natsu consuming Zancrow's God Fire even though it bypassed his normal resistance. Granted this only helps with three but Bloodman hypothetically could do this with any attack due to the Absorption Curse which steals the "soul" of an attack.
They could also try to just keep the power from reaching them. August would be especially potent as this as not only can he create barriers of equal potency to their attacks, but he has Midnight's Reflector ability which can turn attacks that are non-living back on their opponents. This wouldn't help against being punched but would against cosmo based ranged attacks. Invel can also create the True Ice Kamui which similarly would create a barrier against being hit by a cosmo attack. Irene may be able to protect the Spriggans via Deus Corona. Deus Corona is stated to give resistance to all types of abilities and as enchantments can affect things on a conceptual level it's not a stretch to suggest it can protect against Cosmo attempting to destroy people on a conceptual level. Some of the characters also have various forms of stealth or precog/mind-reading individually that may help.
Defensively, the Gold Saints all boast both Atomic Regen and Godly Regen. Can the Spriggans fight this?
Well yeah, Irene has the ability to grant people to fight immaterial souls so fighting their souls is plausible. Now granted, this would still probably mean killing them twice to find out this and they would need to know what's going on but it is at least possible for Irene to allow pretty much any of the Spriggans normal powers to affect the Gold Saints and kill them permenantly though they would still need to get past Atomic Regen. Beyond this the Spriggan powers that at least hypothetically can bypass Astral Existence and Atomic Regen.
Brandish, Bloodman, and August all have forms of existence erasure with Bloodman and August's explicitly working on souls. Bloodman and and Invel via Command Spell and Ice Lock which can at least hypothetically get the Saints to kill themselves as can August via Attack Reflection. Jacob's powers explicitly work on ghosts, and both he and Bloodman have BFR. Bloodman has astral absorption, Lacarde and August have sleep manipulation, and Irene has numerous abilities that would work. Each of these methods can be tested in the Spriggan's section, but there are hypothetical win cons against the Gold Saint's regen.
While the other Gold Saints abilities will come up mostly in whether they can resist the Spriggan's abilities, the other big one to keep in mind is their Reactive Evolution. A Gold Saint that experiences a power gains resistance and this can include even just seeing it or experiencing a power like it. This means that if a Gold Saint witnessing one of the Spriggans fight another Gold Saint, they may gain resistance to their ability. The Spriggans with the smaller arsenals of abilities are likely to do worse against the Gold Saints in general.
The First of the Spriggan is Ajeel. So how would the Gold Saints do against the sand powers of The Desert King?
For the most part he has no way of killing anyone with the Eighth Sense. If Irene grants him the ability to hit on the spiritual plane, that does obviously change things. His sand monsters would basically be throwing sand monsters of relative stats at the Gold Saints and while mildly annoying can be dispersed by any exertion of their cosmo on the atoms of the creatures. His Ant Lion Pit is unlikely to work as the Sixth Sense grants the Gold Saints the power to levitate in the air and obviously his Logia Nature wouldn't do anything to Saints who wield cosmo that hits the conceptual atoms. His transmutation of things that touch him to sand might work though as the Saints can regenerate themselves on the Atomic scale, it's rather dice-y if it works fast enough for them to not replenish their own atoms.
His Sand Tsunami is a bigger trouble, as draining the water from the Saints bodies should actually work, assuming that Irene's enchantment allows it to work despite their Eighth Sense nature and the water-draining is fast enough the Gold Saints can't replenish themselves via their Atomic Manipulation. Though the Saints still have numerous counters. Mu, Saga, Deathmask, and Shaka have all shown spatial manipulation such as creating dimensions, warping spacetime, or BFR-ing people through spacetime so as to help the Gold Saints avoid the attack. In addition Mu and Shaka have powerful telekinesis that might let them push the sand wave away, stronger than their own attack potency. And of course multiple usages wouldn't work as they would gain resistance to the technique.
Ajeel can also use the Sand World technique but he's less inclined to as it would hamper the other Spriggan, and it wouldn't hinder the Gold Saints that much. The Cosmo-Sensing of the Gold Saints, even with their Cosmo diminished, would be still enough to sense people across dimensions, and with just the Sixth Sense can fight without any of the five prior senses, meaning that having their vision obscured wouldn't help that much. Ajeel being able to quickly adjust his position would be a bit annoying, but it's not that strong a defense when the Saints have plenty of large scale attacks.
The First of the Gold Saints is Aries Mu. So how would the Spriggan 12 do against the Psychic of the Gold Saints?
Aries Mu's basic combat style involves using his psychic powers. This allows him to create illusions that can fool even the Silver Saints with the Sixth Sense, allows him to use telekinesis and paralysis along with Crystal Net to paralyze opponents on his own level of power, and use telepathic sensing and telepathic attacks strong enough to deliver a jolt to the mind of Gemini Saga. So how would the Spriggan 12 deal with these powers?
The Spriggan 12 have numerous information-gathering powers to deal with illusions. The Dragon Slayers God Serena and Irene as well as the Demon Slayer Bloodman have enhanced senses to the point of mild precognition and August has similar with his Sound Magic. Though admittingly this is similar to the Sixth Sense, which Mu has fooled before, although he may not be focusing as much on illusions if he's not fighting Saints. Beyond that Neinhart and August have outright mind-reading, Irene has Clairvoyance with her Eye Magic, and Ajeel can gain information from the sand. Beyond that Wall has Weakness detection and all the Spriggan have magic detection if Mu tries to disgust himself as one of them. Finally Irene's Enchantment might be able to grant the other Spriggans enhanced senses.
Against Mu's Telekinesis which is strong enough to paralyze or bind someone equally strong as him completely and hold back a Meteor far greater than him, the Spriggans have a few options. This telekinesis is never shown to work on immaterial things so the logia entities meaning Ajeel, Bloodman, August, and potentially God Serena could potentially slip out of it. Irene can likely grant physical states to not get crushed by the telekinesis with Deus Eques to the other Spriggan and potentially grant them similar logia by imbuing them with the essence of natural forces like light as she can imbue things with another fundamental force like gravity.
Mu's Telepathy is also extremely potent, strong enough to give a jolt to the mind of Saga's mind who's mind would be as durable as his body. The Spriggan don't have a lot of good counters to this but August could create false markers of where the Spriggans are in Mu's mind, which could at least keep him from instantly crushing their minds. Beyond that Bloodman could possibly use the Macro Curse on a Spriggan who's mind has been destroyed to make them keep fighting by giving them "orders" to fight. Natsu was able to fight without using his mind such that the mind-reader Erik couldn't hear his thoughts. If this is derived from his Dragon Slayer status, it's possible the Dragon Slayers could use this naturally and possibly that Irene could imbue the Spriggan 12 with this ability.
Mu's more serious abilities including his teleportation and BFR. Mu can teleport eight people at once, and can teleport at least two people at once through dimensions. To be honest, while being spatially teleported would be annoying for the Spriggans, Mu's dimensional BFR would be a much bigger trouble as no one save maybe Jacob could return from being dimensionally BFR-ed outside of generous interpretations of August and Irene. He also has Crystal Wall which reflects attacks. This is functionally a weaker version of Midnight's Reflector Magic and while it might be a little annoying for some Spriggan, it wouldn't be that troublesome.
Mu's strongest techniques are using his Stardust Extinction to absorb a space into his cosmo and Starlight Revolution to create his own dimension to rain shooting stars upon the enemy. Protecting against Enemy Projectiles wouldn't be that hard and the Spriggan have plenty of ways avoiding the projectiles. The bigger part is spatial absorption and trans-dimensional warfare. The Spriggans do have their own spatial manipulation through Bloodman having Ezel's Tenga Goken Curse, Jacob having reversible dimensional BFR, Irene having Universe One, and August having Crush Magic from Gildarts which can let them avoid being in the space that's being destroyed, and attempt to access the dimension Mu creates around him potentially destroying the dimensional barrier between them.
The Second Spriggan is Brandish the Country Demolisher. Brandish has a rather simple power and tactic here. She can shrink the Gold Saints to reduce their cosmo further, weakening their power level. How would the Gold Saints deal with this?
So the Titans who the Gold Saints can resist the powers from do have Size Manipulation, resizing planets and able to shift the size of individual limbs like Brandish. That said the Size Manipulation of the Gold Saints is far smaller proportional to their power level than Brandish's is compared to her power level, meaning that with their cosmo reduced Brandish's power should still be able to affect them. If Brandish tries to physically erase them immediately, their soul could just reconstitute their bodies. Even if Irene granted Brandish the ability to shrink their astral bodies via Enchantment, the Saints do have some level of existence erasure, though it's arguable if it's on their level.
The better tactic for Brandish is reducing them to small so their attacks are weaker. This wouldn't stop the secondary effects, like the sixth sense psychic powers or cosmo's ability to threaten their concepts, but it would give the Spriggan 12 a stat advantage.
The Second Gold Saint is Taurus Aldebaran, the physical specialist. How would the Spriggan 12 deal with him?
Pretty easily with stats equalized. Many of the Spriggans are themselves fairly physically adept and they can all be made such by Deus Eques. The Spriggans have plenty of abilities to make trying physical combat a bad irene such as Bloodman's toxic bane particles passively emitted by the first seal or Invel's True Ice Kamui as well as plenty of ways to avoid letting Aldebaran getting in close range or using his fairly basic attacks against the Spriggans.
The Third Spriggan 12 is God Serena, the Eight Dragon God Serena. So how would the Saints deal with his 8 Forms of Elemental Manipulation?
Without that much difficulty. Even if Irene allows him to bypass the Eighth Sense Regen. to God Serena can absorb the lightning and light powers of Aioria and Aiolos and as a Dragon Slayer can get an advantage against Dohko's cosmo dragons, but even something as simple as the Gold Saints' attack reflection would mess with most of his strategies. God Serena is a Dragon Slayer which means he should have the ability to predict opponent motions via hearing their muscles, but this is functionally similar to the mild precognition from enhanced intuition the Sixth Sense grants anyway, if not lesser.
God Serena can try to swallow with their inner darkness which could probably have some effect on at least Deathmask and Aphrodite but the Saints cosmo can destroy the Dryads, which are humanity's sins as a whole so I think they could fight back pretty easily. He could also summon eight spectral dragons or use eight seals to cause a massive explosion and while they would probably be his best attacks here, Dohko can create 100 Dragons at once from his cosmo. Eight Dragons' Glorious Death would probably be his most effective attack here, though he would need to get into dangerous melee with them for it to work.
The Third Gold Saint is Gemini Saga the Godslayer, one of the biggest threats of the Gold Saints normally. How would the Spriggans be able to do against the legendary Godslayer? He wouldn't have his normal overbearing cosmo to use against the Wizards, but his arsenal is still very strong.
Saga has much of the same psychic powers of Mu and what was said about Mu's telepathic attacks and illusions would still apply here. Saga's telekinesis wouldn't be as much of a threat here but he has his own advantages mentally. Saga has numerous ways of making the Spriggan fight among each other with Phantom Demon Emperor which instead of just destroying their brain like Mu could do, brainwashes them to serve him and can create illusory duplicates of himself or of others like he did to Aiolos which can use their normal attacks that do real damage. Some of the Spriggan would have a little resistance to this in the form of resistance or invulnerability to their own abilities but against each other, these would be highly potent. Saga can also create illusory battlefields that loop in on themselves infinitely but tbe Spriggans can handle this much better. Bloodman can cut through iut with Tenga Goken and August can destroy the warped space with Crush Magic. Irene can also use Universe One to rearrange their placement on a far wider space and if there's sand in the area stretching to outside it, Ajeel might be able to escape via merging with the sand and slipping out the illusory area. An attack on Saga's person causes the illusion to drop, so as long as one of the Spriggans attacks him with something, the others can escape.
Saga can also remove a person's senses one by one with gestures. Some of the Spriggans can deal with this: Neinhart and August both have mindreading, Irene can probably Enchant Senses back onto her, and Ajeel can information from the sand depending on how it works, but this would still be dangerous if Irene can't just Enchant Senses back onto them.
Saga can use the Another Dimension as a Dimensional BFR Technique as well as a spacetime warping defense move. As mentioned the only Spriggans can that protect against Dimensional BFR are Jacob and maybe Irene and August. This would protect against any of the attacks from the Spriggans that has to travel across space to hit its target though they do have some abilities that seem to bypass the space in between such as Irene's Enchantments and Bloodman's Curses.
Finally Saga has of course the Galaxian Explosion, the strongest attack of the Gold Saints individually. If its full power hits any of the Spriggan they would be destroyed. If its' power is enough to then CRONOS than even Stats Equalized it would bypass most defenses. For instance August's Reflector Magic wouldn't work as the Gods passively reflect non-divine attacks and the Galaxian Explosion can threaten even a god. The Spriggans do have two options against it though. Brandish could shrink Saga's cosmo, which would weaken the Galaxian Explosion. She'd have to shrink it a lot but she absolutely can do that. The Galaxian Explosion is a bursting of sheer power and cosmo and if Saga was reduced in power, the Explosion's power wouldn't be haxing them in any particular way. The other way by a similar metric is that Bloodman can use the Absorption Curse to absorb the soul of the Galaxian Explosion, rendering it inert. Granted in both these cases, Saga would still have his Divine Golden Dagger which would still have the same power but it would require him to get into melee range to use.
The Fourth Spriggan is Wall, The Judge. How would the Gold Saints do against his various weapons and magical technology?
Most of his weapons would be fairly ineffective. While they would have ultra-high attack potency, pretty much any of the Saints could do things like reflect conventional attacks by atomic manipulation. Even his nuclear fusion is only just reaching the level of atomic manipulation that any Saint can do.
Wall's bigger assets are his Weakness Magic and his Alchemy. His Weakness magic definitely helps his teammates as he can inform them of the Saints' biggest weaknesses, namely that they have normal human bodies for the part and their Clothes are what they rely on for their defense, as well as individual weaknesses.
Whether he could transmute the Saints with his Alchemy is an interesting question. The Saints can resist the matter manipulation of the Titans which could create dimensions of "countless" stars. This either gives them matter manipulation resistance on the level of their attack potency, or a matter manipulation quadrillions of times smaller which in this scenario would give them either continental-planetary matter manipulation resistance which with their proportionally lower cosmo would give them resistance to matter manipulation somewhere in the range of a person or a bus. Wall's Alchemy allowed him to transmute matter on such a scale that he was able to create a magic cannon notably bigger than a person, albeit probably smaller than a bus. So it's possible his alchemy may be able to affect the Gold Saints, though if Irene doesn't buff him, he can't bypass the Eighth Sense Regen.
The Fourth Gold Saint is Cancer Mephisto, the Deathmask. How would the Spriggan deal with his underworld themed powers?
Deathmask's main form of attack are his Underworld Waves. Bloodman can create a portal to the underworld at will though whether he can retrieve someone is more speculative and unlikely. It's possible with the Necromancy Curse of Keyes he could functionally do this though Deathmask can bypass this by sealing their souls in the Cancer Temple instead. Interestingly Jacob's dimension is called "Death's Door" and could arguably be equivocated to Yomotsu Hirasaka, the entrance to the underworld. If that was the case, Jacob might be able to teleport to and from Deathmask's dimension. Any of the Spriggans there would have to be wary of Deathmask using his Underworld Waves and destroying their souls, though they could avoid this the same way they could avoid any other random form of attack.
Deathmask also has the advantage he can attack from another dimension. This would cause some trouble for the Spriggans since they would have no way of knowing where the attack is coming from. Now granted, Deathmask's attack didn't even kill Shunrei so whether it would actually threaten any of the Spriggan is in the air, but random attacks coming from another dimension could potentially put them off guard for another Gold Saint.
The Fifth Spriggan is Dimaria the Warrior Queen. How would the Gold Saints deal with her time warping powers?
Dimaria's base Time Stop would be completely counterproductive. In Saint Seiya Omega the God Saturn stops time and anyone with even basic cosmo completely resists it. If Dimaria froze time, the only thing that would happen is keeping any of her allies from doing anything.
In her god form, things become more interesting. Assuming the anime description the Age Scratch would probably be a very effective attack. The Saints do have enhanced endurance such that most can survive at least the first few blows of Milo's stingers, but this is a higher level of pain hax than they have dealt with. She can also possibly temporally BFR them. Time Travel in Saint Seiya is extremely difficult and the only one who would be able to return from that if she can do that is Virgo Shaka who can project himself across time and enter a space outside space and time traveling through all of space and time.
Also the Saints would likely be intimidated by the implication she is possessed by Chronos.
The Fifth Gold Saint is Leo Aioria, the The Fierce Lion. He's like a giant electromagnetism wielding human-y cat. How would the Spriggans deal with this?
Aioria's primary attack is a lightning based danmaku attack of 100,000,000 blows at once as well as a few variants. The Spriggans have numerous defenses against this. Both God Serena and Wall can just absorb lightning based powers, regardless of the number of them. August can use Reflector Magic to protect himself, and Irene could imbue the Spriggan with the properties of rubber. This is along with all the normal means of protecting from attacks they have.
Aioria's ultimate move is the Photon Burst which has similar power to the Galaxian Explosion and a lot of same threatening properties. Bloodman probably couldn't use Absorption Curse on it as it being the Holy Light of the Sun would absolutely mess up his weakness and it just spawns on his location. On the other hand, God Serena can potentially protect himself and others from it if he acts fast enough as he can absorb the light.
The Sixth Spriggan is Jacob, the Assassin. How would the Gold Saints deal with stealth magic?
Jacob's imperceptibility to the five basic senses wouldn't be that much of a trouble for the Saints who regularly fight with their higher senses anyway. He does have the unique benefit that he can actually hit their Eighth Sense souls and potentially bypass the Eighth Sense regen though he would still have to get past the Gold Saints atomic activate-able regen.
More notably Jacob has Dimensional BFR. The Gold Saints do have numerous counters with Mu, Saga, Deathmask, and Shaka showing dimensional abilities.
Also he's extremely afraid of women in a state of undress. If the Gold Saints find out about this Mu, Saga, and Shaka can all create illusions of this, and Aphrodite can threaten to reveal himself while in disguise as a woman.
The other of the big threats of the Gold Saints is the Sixth Gold Saint Virgo Shaka, the Man Closest to God. How would the Spriggans deal with the Enlightened Powers?
Shaka's lesser powers like his barrier creation, drowning people in his blood or summoning hordes of angry spirits could be countered pretty easily. Irene can grant the Spriggans the ability to hit spirits, and most of the Spriggans can avoid being drowned by logia existence or spatial manipulation etc
Shaka is a powerful psychic with Telekinesis strong enough to aid Mu and with his own illusory powers that can be layered on each other to be extra deceiving or summon illusory creatures that are relevant threats. The summons would be a threat but some of the same anti-illusion abilities should still be helpful. He also has memory erasure as he did to Ikki which the Spriggans don't have resistance to.
Shaka has very potent spacetime manipulation able to enter an area outside spacetime as well as project himself into the past. While there are abilities in Fairy Tail that would be able to reach him here in Natsu's fire, none of the Spriggans have the ability or they'd be able to kill Zeref. It's unknown if Shaka can fight from there but if he goes there, he's essentially invulnerable.
Shaka has Tenma Kofuku which is a technique that can reach the same power as Galaxian Explosion though is much slower to buildup power. Similar tactics of Brandish shrinking his cosmo or Bloodman absorbing the attack's soul would be even more effective here. Shaka's Angyo Technique which is a light based attack could also probably be absorbed by God Serena though if it's not he can start creating a procession of realities which would be a difficulty.
Shaka can use the Rikudo Rinne to split any of the Spriggan's consciousness among the six realms of rebirth and should their fall into one they are reincarnated there. How well the Spriggans would deal with this kinda depends on which one. Finally he has the Tenbu Horin. I don't know if any of the Spriggans can be said to have enlightenment as all of them are still quite clearly limited by Death, represented in Zeref as well as their material drives. Beyond that the sensory removal, paralysis, and dimensional bfr combination is something I don't any of the Spriggans can deal with particularly.
The Seventh Spriggan is Bloodman, the Grim Reaper. How would the Gold Saints do against his curses?
Well firstly his bane particles are no trouble for the Gold Saints to hit and the Gold Saints have the ability to literally attack curses directly. That said assuming Bloodman can get hits off with his abilities which would be of particular notice.
The First Seal would work pretty well against anything save maybe Pisces Aphrodite as the Pisces Saints have greater resistance to poison. The Second and Third however can be hard countered by Deathmask who can banish the dead or the undead to other dimensions and teleport people at will from the underworld to the living world. The Eighth Sense in general also kinda nullifies the Third Seal. Deathmask would also nullify the advantage of the Necromancy Curse if Bloodman tried to resurrect fallen Spriggans with it.
Some of the other Demon Curses would act as alternative ways of attacking and wouldn't really be countered or provide a huge advantage. That said of the more notable ones would be:
Macro: As Macro doesn't use mind control it's possible it would work on the Gold Saints despite their resistance. The Gold Saints have ways of temporarily disabling each other with things like Paralysis but that's obviously still a major difficulty. Also they can technically punch the curse if it's effecting one of them.
Tenga Goken: Basically the same as Shura's Excalibur Technique and would be similarly a threat
Absorption: The Gold Saints don't have absorption resistance so assuming he can get close to one, this should work.
Tenchi Kaimei: The Black Waters of Hades and it's biological manipulation should work though it's not instant if not consumed and the Gold Saints would probably have at least a better ability to fight it due to things like dimension shifting and such
Enhancement: Having ones senses removed is not a problem for the Gold Saints as each higher senses replaces the lower ones. That said being in excruciating pain might cause them some trouble and while they could suffer it better than most due to the Saints having enhanced endurance, it would still likely be troubling
Memento Mori: The Existence Erasure of Memento Mori where one is neither alive nor dead does seem like it would negate the Eighth Sense regen. This might work on the Saints though they do arguably have some degree of Existence Erasure resistance. Whether it's on par in this scenario would be unclear.
Of course the big problem for Bloodman is that Aiolos and Aioria naturally use his weakness and would be included to use it against him in the form of holy light which is not just his weakness but counters some of his powers.
The Seventh Gold Saints is Libra Dohko, the Saint of Justice. How would the Spriggans do against him?
Well he has quite strong telepathy, enough to be called out as one of the two saints that could give a jolt to Saga's mind, which means he would have a fairly strong telepathic attack. Other then that his other abilities could be handled fairly reasonably. Summoning 100 Cosmo Dragons sounds scary but the Spriggans have at least two Dragon Slayers in God Serena and Irene plus Irene can grant dragon slaying abilities onto people.
Beyond that Dohko carries the Libra Weapons and Libra Shield. While the Libra Shield would be conventionally invulnerable and the weapons would be massively damaging if they get a hit in, the Spriggans have plenty of ways of fighting powerful weapons. Bloodman can use command to control them, Irene can enchant them to lose their properties, Brandish could shrink them to non-existence etc.
The Eighth Spriggan is Invel the Winter Wizard. How would the Gold Saints deal with his ice powers?
Well Invel is said to reach Absolute Zero, the cold that even the Gold Cloth freezes. I think the obvious match people will want to happen is Invel vs Camus for obvious reasons, both having Absolute Zero colds. Against another Saint, fighting Invel would be pretty similar to fighting Camus.
Invel has mind manipulation though he's never shown the ability to use it on many people at once and even Bronze and Silver Saints have shown some mind hax resistance before. He also theoretically can create constructs including his True Ice Kamui which would give him an added layer of defense though it wouldn't help against Gold Saint powers that don't travel through space.
Invel can also obviously create a blizzard but this would moreso inconvenience his own team rather than the Gold Saints as their Cloths only freeze at Absolute Zero.
The Eighth Gold Saint is Scorpio Milo, the Golden Stinger. How would the Spriggan do against his pain and madness powers?
Well I think the non-biological members Wall and Bloodman would be able to resist pretty handedly. This is how Orion Rigel was winning against Milo since he couldn't feel anything regardless as a ghost. Similarly Invel's ice could freeze the poison as it tries to reach him similar to Cygnus Hyoga vs Hydra Ichi. And if need be Irene can grant anyone there Berserker State with Berserkers not feeling any pain.
That said Milo shouldn't be counted out despite that as he is quite inventive and was able to absorb Orion Rigel's own fire into his Scorpion Stinger to beat him. Against opponents that use energies based powers (Wall, God Form Dimaria, August), Milo could absorb the energy of their attacks to use against them.
Milo also does have a few other techniques. The Crimson Stinger would probably work on most fighters here due to it being a raw power type attack and Restrict is probably his strongest move here as it's simply a paralysis type move, though the Spriggans do have a few abilities they can active without moving.
The Ninth Spriggan is Neinhart. How would the Gold Saints fare against the Historia of the Dead?
Neinhart can bring back any Spriggan who's died. It's possible Deathmask can immediatly banish them against given the Cancer Cloth's dominion over life and death but as Neinhart's powers are giving life to memory it's not exactly clear if this would work.
He can also summon people from the Gold Saints' memories. This would include the Dryads, the Gladiators, the Giants, characters of similar power but not really the same level of hax which would be troublesome but not the worst......
except Episode G the Gold Saints fight the Titans. Worse still Saga fought....
Cronos. The Mad Titan King. The Father of Zeus. One of the Strongest Beings in Saint Seiya.
There are reasons to assume that Neinhart couldn't summon Cronos. Cronos like all the Titans is a conceptual entity and Neinart has only ever shown the ability to affect memory and life rather than concepts. Neinhart has trouble maintaining powerful characters. It's not clear if Cronos would have the seals on him if he was brought back by Historia of the Dead. However I made this it's own section simply to say...
if Neinhart can bring back Cronos, that's it. The Spriggans technically win though they may also die in doing so. Cronos is a multiversal deity who's powers completely control time and can threaten every timeline. His passive power is far greater than anyone else here, even if stats weren't equalized. His presence was turning back time on a planetary scale quickly which means that the Spriggans would technically win as their oldest members (at least 400 with Irene) is older than the oldest Gold Saint (Dohko at 261) and that's without Cronos even fighting though in fairness if Cronos does not shield Neinhart from the effect, Neinhart would be wiped out earlier, leaving just the people older than Neinhart left
The Ninth Gold Saint is Sagittarius Aiolos, the Golden Archer. How would the Spriggan 12 deal with his holy bow?
Similar to Dohko, the Spriggan 12 have numerous ways of messing with Aiolos bow such as animating it or changing its properties conceptually. While they can't rely on staying out of range like they could with Dohko they have the additional benefits of anti-ranged abilities such August using Reflector Magic on his arrows.
The Tenth Spriggan is Lacarde, the White Dragneel who primarily uses three kinds of magic.
The First, Pleasure Magic, is probably not very relevant here. While it's not know what activities the Gold Saints do in their spare time, they're broadly focused on the protection of the Goddess Athena as well as mostly on the younger side, so it's unlikely to be of importance.
The Second, Hunger Magic, is probably going to be more of a problem, not so much that it would cause them to try to eat each other, the Gold Saints enhanced endurance is probably sufficient of that, but it would diminish their fighting strength some.
Finally his Sleep Magic would also be pretty good and while they can fight the Drowsiness, they don't have special resistance.
Granted, this would also effect any Spriggans in the area so that's a problem. Plus the Dimensional Travelers of the Gold Saints can simply leave the area if it's effecting them, and someone like Shaka who has attained Buddhist Enlightenment might be unaffected by the first two regardless. Also Lacarde has no way of bypassing Eighth Sense regen unless Irene enchants him.
The Tenth Gold Saint is Capricorn Shura, the wielder of the blade Excalibur. How would the Spriggans do with this?
So if Shura gets a hit in on any of the Spriggans with Excalibur they die pretty instantly. Excalibur is a blade that can cut the arm of Zeus' astral body. As such they would have to avoid Shura getting into close range though they do have plenty of ways of doing that. Excalibur is functionally just a stronger form of Tenga Goken, which is just one of Bloodman's Curses.
The Eleventh Spriggan is Irene, the Scarlet Scourge. She's one of the Big Two Threats of the Spriggan 12. How would the Gold Saints do against the Grand High Enchanter?
So ironically Irene's most flashy and highest techniques wouldn't be that helpful here and instead it would be her more normal tricks that would help.
Universe One wouldn't be that helpful in most cases as the Gold Saints have people that can communicate and teleport across dimensions to gather together again and would only come in handy of the Gold Saints willingly tried to fight whoever Irene put near them which isn't entirely OOC. Deus Sama is also basically the meteor that Eris used and could be similarly stopped by Mu and Shaka's telekinesis.
On the other hand Irene is the one who provides the ability for the Spriggans to broadly win via Conceptually Enchanting them to be able to hit the Gold Saints' souls and not have them resurrect themselves endlessly. Deus Corona along with other abilities can provide resistance to a lot of the Gold Saints abilities via scaling as well.
Her strongest move however would be Personality Enchant. Not only does this give her a way to bypass the Gold Saints' mental resistance, it can also be used on their Gold Clothes to bring them to life. If she can deprive the Gold Saints of their Clothes, it would remove much of the Gold Saints' protection.
Broadly speaking her conceptual manipulation is so versatile there are assuredly ways she can use against any particular Gold Saint they don't have resistance too.
The Eleventh Gold Saint is Aquarius Camus the Ice Saint and... yeah the obvious question is how well he'd do against Invel.
Both have Absolute Zero Cold and resistance on roughly the same level. Camus has the advantage of being a skilled warrior moreso than Invel as well as the general advantages of the Sixth Sense while Invel has the advantage of making ice-based constructs with neither probably being able to affect the other's mind to control with Ice Lock or to put them into eternal sleep with Freezing Coffin.
The Aurora Execution would probably work on most of the other Spriggan 12 though Bloodman can probably absorb with Silver's Powers and August could probably reflect the freezing air with Reflector Magic.
The Twelth Spriggan 12 is August, the Wizard King, the other Big Threat of the Spriggan 12. How would the Gold Saints do against the ultimate copycat?
The Ability to immediately gain enemy magic wouldn't work on the Gold Saints powers and similarly Ars Magia's ability to nullify all magic in the surrounding wouldn't work on the Gold Saints making it more of a threat to his own team than a threat as the Gold Saints have multiple dimensional teleporters. While the raw energy of it would be a threat here, the other Spriggans wouldn't have escape methods except maybe Bloodman while the Gold Saints would have methods of escape. As such much like with Irene, it's not so much August's biggest and flashiest techniques that would help against the Gold Saints but instead but some of the less impressive spells.
When August fought Crime Sorciere he happened to gain several abilities that the Gold Saints have never shown resistance to including mind-reading, time slow, and attack reflection, all of which would make it extremely difficult for them to hit August conventionally. Their telepathic attacks might still be a threat but August has probably the best matchup against it via his illusions and his ability to throw off telepathy with false markers which would be the mental equivalent, forcing them to guess where he really is.
That's on defense. On Offense August has several very potent offenses. He has Fairy Glitter, a form of existence erasure that would work on hypothetically all the Gold Saints at once. Now it's possible that they could resist however only a possibility and Brandish or Irene could help by weakening their Cosmo and thus their resistance. Though if he tries it once and it doesn't work the Saints might develop resistance to it and they might be able to sense and affect the cosmic energies drawn in by the spell for its casting, similar to their own Cosmo. Besides this he has Crush Magic which would let him basically do what Excalibur does but at range even if the logia intangibility doesn't really help him here, and he has sleep magic which is another form of magic that the Gold Saints haven't shown resistance too and with sleep manipulation being treated as a very potent ability in Saint Seiya. August really is a grab-bag of abilities that are treated as very high tier abilities.
August does have a potent psychological weakness, but without knowledge of it, someone like Shaka wouldn't know to create the mental image of Mavis as an illusion.
The Twelfth Gold Saint is Pisces Aphrodite, the Beautiful Poison. How would the Spriggan 12 do against his poisonous powers.
His poison powers would ironically be his weakest asset here as the Logia Users can resist it through becoming something without blood, Wall is a machine, and Brandish can make them grow so much that the blood the white rose drains is insignificant. His roses poison gases would work similarly as it would probably knock the biological members of the Spriggan 12 out but many of them can create counters since it doesn't seem to work immediately or non-biological in the first place. Granted it did work on a giant so Brandish becoming giant probably wouldn't protect against this so it's a bit more potent.
His more effective weapons would be the Black Rose which eats at opponents like Piranhas though would still be tanked by the Logia Users and probably most his vines which can bind and would be similarly effective to the telekinesis binding of characters like Mu here, though not quite so much. Still numerous characters here can control fire (God Serena), Explosions (Bloodman), or both (Irene, August) and could free themselves pretty evenly from strong vines.
The Gold Saints:
- All the Gold Saints have regen that most of the Spriggans would struggle to get past without assistance due to being able to regen from their soul as well as regenerate their atoms at will
- The Saints attack hit on the conceptual level which give them one-shot potential against any of the Spriggan
- The Saints have reactive evolution and so would be getting harder to fight over the battle
- Much Better Teamwork as a lot of the Spriggan's abilities would also trouble the other Spriggans which isn't really a weakness of the Gold Saints
- The Saints are all psychics who's sixth sense equal the awareness of a Dragon Slayer
- Their Psychic Powers also give them numerous offensive options especially Mu, Saga, Shaka, and Dohko who can attack opponent's brains, telekinetically paralyzing or crushing them, or others. Only August can really stop them from doing so
- Scorpio Milo and to a lesser extent Pisces Aphrodite have other forms of Paralysis they can use
- Better Dimensional Powers overall (Mu, Saga, Deathmask, and Shaka vs Jacob and arguably Irene and August) Arguably better spacetime combat capabilities overall
- Shaka's Rikudo Rinne and Tenbu Horin Techniques should work on most or all of the Spriggans
- Deathmask can nullify Bloodman's and arguably Neinhart's ability to revive the fallen Spriggans
- Saga's Another Dimension can protect from most ranged attacks of the Spriggans
- Galaxian Explosion and Photon Burst can bypass Reflector Magic
The Spriggan 12:
- Neinhart can possibly summon Unsealed Chronos which, if he can, would be checkmate
- More Wide Area Attacks that can hit multiple enemies at once
- Can nullify any elemental based cosmo attack
- Brandish and Irene can lower the Saints power level
- Numerous forms of biological attack the Saints don't resist
- August can protect against ranged cosmo attacks except Galaxian Explosion and Photon Burst via Reflector Magic
- August and to a lesser extent Neinhart can read the Saints' minds and Wall can analyze their weaknesses giving them info on their enemies
- Invel can reach the level of cold needed to freeze a Gold Cloth
- Irene can make all the Spriggans potential threats via Conceptual Enchantments
- Irene can mess with the Saints' equipment via Personality Enchantment
- Some of Bloodman's Curses are things the Saints don't resist
- Memento Mori and Fairy Glitter are forms of existence erasure the Saints probably can't resist. Likewise Brandish's Reduction to Nonexistence if Enchanted by Irene to affect the soul as well would likely do similar.
Obviously with so many factors there are so many ways this fight could go that you have to speak somewhat in generalities. However comparing both sides offensives vs the other sides defenses:
The Spriggans don't have that many defenses that would be especially strong against the Gold Saints, especially if you include passively. The Spriggans are mostly normal wizards and their only passive defenses like logia intangibility or anti-magical abilities would do almost nothing against the Gold Saints.The only exception is their elemental absorption which only works against specific Gold Saints.
Actively speaking they do have some defenses of note. August's Reflector Magic can protect against any of the Gold Saints projectiles outside of specifically Galaxian Explosion and Photon Burst which bypass Divine Attack Reflection. August can throw the Gold Saints off telepathically with his false markers. Irene can imbue the Spriggans against resistance to a large swath of abilities via Conceptual Enchantment. Brandish can reduce the power of an attack as well and Jacob can potentially teleport the Spriggans back from Dimensional BFR.
In contrast the Gold Saints have a few passive defenses. They have numerous resistances as Saints of Athena with High Cosmo. They actively develop and evolve from experiencing and seeing attacks. And from the Eighth Sense they regenerate from anything less than their soul is destroyed. For some of the Spriggans the Gold Saints would be invulnerable unless Irene actively buffs them. The ones who naturally have the capacity to stop a Gold would be August and Bloodman due at the very least to existence erasure not even including their other abilities, Irene due to Conceptual and Personality Enchantments, Invel due to being able to freeze them, and Neinhart due to summoning relatively enemies from their past.
The Saints also have several types of active defenses. All of them have some attack reflection, and Saga has Another Dimension which can protect from functionally any projectile, giving the Saints broadly the mirror of August's Reflector Magic.
The Saints do seem to have an advantage in most of their defenses being passive and having collectively a lot of defenses including a lot of resistances, regen, and attack reflection making it hard for most of the Spriggans to kill most of the Golds one v one while most of the Golds do have at least the option of conceptual attacks allowing them the ability to kill most of the Spriggans in one blow. Now granted the Spriggans do have the advantages of having more abilities that are multi target at once. Irene can easily enchant all the Spriggans at once and both Memento Mori or Fairy Glitter can threaten hypothetically all the Gold Saints at once.
If you look at their other abilities which can be used to get hits on the others easier, the Gold Saints all possess the Sixth Sense, equivalent to the senses of the Dragon Slayers in Fairy Tail, telepathic communication with each other, and greater teamwork. In comparison the Spriggans have two Dragon Slayers, Weakness detection from Wall, sand information gathering from Ajeel, Memory Sensing from Neinhart, and Mind-Reading from August. As seems to be the broader case for this matchup the Gold Saints have more consistent information gathering abilities while the Spriggans have more diverse information gathering abilities.
Because the Gold Saints share more powers and there's not such a bottleneck in the strongest abilities, it seems that the Gold Saints are more likely to act more consistent. Every Single Gold Saint is always at least somewhat of a threat to every single Spriggan but no Gold Saint presents a threat to every single Spriggan. In contrast August and Irene are major threats to the Gold Saints as a whole via things like Fairy Glitter or Conceptual Enchantment, but some members present no real threat to the Saints by themselves. So in my opinion what this fight actually comes down to is how well the most relevant members of the Spriggan 12 can multi task in offense, defense, and support at once. If August and Irene can help protect and bolster the other Spriggans with telepathy blocking false markers and conceptual enchantment, protect them, and launch their dangerous attacks at once, the Spriggans can definitely overwhelm the Gold Saints. If they have to focus on just one at once, they would get overwhelmed. The truth is certainly going to be somewhere in between.
Overall my general sense is that the Gold Saints probably would win if both sides have no information. While August and Wall can quickly gain information on their opponents, the Sixth Sense would give the Saints an intuitive sense of the danger level of their opponents. The Gold Saints are also very used to fighting opponents on their level, something that's clearly not common for the Spriggan 12 whom are used to fighting individually and lording their superior magic over them. Something as simple as Dimaria freezing time thinking she can solo the enemies while time is frozen can give the Gold Saints the crucial opportunity to attack their frozen opponents.
Beyond that the Saints have a more limited version of a lot of the Spriggan's strongest advantages:
-August has Reflector Magic but the Saints can reflect attacks
-The Spriggans have existence erasure and conceptual manipulation but all the Saints have conceptual attacks and numerous of them have instant kill moves themselves with psychic attacks
-Invel can reach Absolute Zero and while Bloodman absorb Camus' cold, if Bloodman is not with Invel at the moment Camus can also reach Absolute Zero
This is also true in reverse as well, the Spriggans do have their spacetime hax, dimensional hax, etc. but often the Saints have some resistance to these things and more counters.
There's also a thematic reason I think the Saints might win.
Mashima took clear inspiration from Kurumada in the creation of Fairy Tail. And one of the clearest examples is in their final arcs. The final villain of each series is a character representing Death, either Hades the Lord of the Underworld or Zeref, the Black Wizard, both the bringer of death wherever they go. And in both series the thing that triumphs over death is friendship and the passions of idealistic youths.
In the final arc, The Gold Saints awaken the Eighth Sense, reaching symbolic triumph against death. They reunite at the Wailing Wall. There the Bronze Saints remark that the Gold Saints are like their older brothers. The Saints of Athena are a large dysfunctional order of knightly brothers. With all their fights and inner struggles, they still come together in the face of a greater threat. In this way they are like the the dysfunctional guild of Fairy Tail and the ideal Mashima was trying to evoke, a family where people can fight and be apart yet always have a home within, and will come back together someday when they are needed.
The Spriggan 12 are described as the Grotesque Fairies. They don't have the sense of camaraderie with each other, and many of their powers are actively harmful even to their allies nearby. They regularly try to do things on their own and are clearly not used to fighting together. It's the lack of cohesion and teamwork that I believe would let the Gold Saints beat them both literally and thematically, the family who, in their bonds that overcome death, also overcome Death's presence in the form of its minions.
Or at least that's my take. With this many characters and such a huge range of abilities I can easily imagine a lot of opinions on this matchup. If you have any particular thoughts on it, feel free to say ☺Maybe Neinhart just summons Cronos.