Clamp-Verse Strategy Guide

How to be OP in the CLAMP Multiverse.

Local to City Scale:

Before I go into strategies there's one strategy that comes up that I want to bring up because it's central to this whole verse and fighting it.

Do not pick a character that's strictly a magic-user and try and out-magic the CLAMP verse. I know it seems thematically appropriate but tactically it doesn't work. All CLAMP mages have a level of magic resistance and are really good at winning in slower magic fights. 

Stat-wise the verse at this tier is generally speaking in the building to city range. This generally the range of warriors, mages and spirits. Sprites like Ame-Warashi can control the weather, The Dragons of Heaven and Earth can wipe out many wards of Tokyo with their attacks and can create roughly town size dimensions, the mage Clef was able to create a magic explosion, individual clow cards can create city-wide snow, flowers, fire etc. Speed at this tier is generally MHS due to an absurd amount of lightning-timing feats. 

Given the earlier point you might ask what could be used against the verse. It might sound like the caveman answer but strange as it sounds: raw force. The Magic Users of the verse might be magically resistant but they rely on magic shields to protect their very fragile bodies, meaning if some brawler on their level got in close they could take down most of them very quickly.

What about the warriors and melee fighters of this verse? Honestly they sort of prove the point. Most of them are actually relatively weak in terms of destructive capacity compared to the wizards, most of them being only about building to city block level at best yet can merc wizards just by hitting their shields and then hitting their body. Especially at this tier, the strongest are the Dragons from X/1999 who are only town level at their best. So a strong brawler at the peak of stats allowed would work well. 

Does that mean the best option is just any character with MHS City Level stats that is gonna go brawl them? Not necessarily. The big problems for someone like that are range/hax (being brainwashed, soul-swiped, petrified, instant death magic etc.) from afar before they can get in close and the spirits which generally require some anti-intangibility to work on them. Ways you could circumvent this including science or mutation based powers to give a wider arsenal and range without having to use magic.

What about stealth? Surprisingly while the High Tiers of this verse absolutely destroy any stealth strategy due to their insane pre-cognition and fortune telling feats (Clow Reed could see centuries into the future with nigh-complete clarity including the very spot that his descendant would be when they traveled into the past to meet him), Stealth would actually be quite helpful for the lower tiers. Caveat: Magic based stealth is basically as useless as magic is here from an invader since any mage of any note whatsoever can detect magic nearby to them. 

My first counter pick comes from a magic verse but uses biological abilities in conjunction with stealth and MASSIVE range to win at the local tiers' own game. That would be

Pandora from Sailor Moon.

Pandora easily has MHS speed, scaling from Artemis who brought Minako from Venus to Earth in one night. More importantly she can disguise herself as a completely normal human with no trouble and her abilities are actually not magic, but instead come from her nature as a non-human. 

The big advantage Pandora has is range. She has country-wide energy-draining (stamina is another weakness of the Clamp verse in general) and brainwashing all while being weaker then the limit (she's only building level). No one in the verse would theoretically be able to get even close to her and any who were would not be able to tell where the threat is coming from. 

Another character who could do really well, who technically has magic but isn't the main focus of their powers

would be Salem from RWBY.

Salem is a lot stronger then the Maidens who could create town level storms. She's also easily as fast or faster then characters who can lightning time in the verse suggesting she should be comparable speedwise to the Clamp verse tier.

Salem is a more defensive strategy then Pandora. Her immortality and regen factor would make her nigh-unkillable at this tier meaning only hax magics would able to work on her. However not only can she create her own shields, she has enhanced perception not bound by magic but can make it almost impossible to see her by creating a massive storm that blocks vision. 

She was also the one that made Cinder's arms which could drain magical power, suggesting she could drain the magic of any mage she came across. As a being of "limitless life" she could also likely outlast them due to the Clamp Mages not having very high stamina feats.

Her aura could also hypothetically allow her to imbue objects she touch with enough power to hypothetically crack a CLAMP mage's shield.

As a mutated human her powers would likely not be affected by magic resistance. Mutate Humans and other scientifically made individuals would be a good choice in general I think which is why I would also suggest as a counter

Alex Mercer from Prototype.

Alex Mercer is basically John Carpenter's "The Thing" as a comic book supervillain. He's a little slow for this tier, though still able to blitz 8 evolved equal to his earlier self, who was able to move as fast as a mach 4.6 tank shell. He's also on the lower end of the power bracket being only kiloton. But if killing Salem was hard, killing Mercer would be impossible.

Not only can he regenerate from being vaporized but he can infect humans and use their cells as carriers. While Chobits shows that the Clamp multiverse does get advanced technology, they have nothing advanced enough to detect Alex's position, which given that he can assume the memories and physical appearance of anyone he has absorbed would make him impossible to track, let alone stop the Mercer virus.

Mercer would be able to spread without the Clamp verse having anyway of stopping him. He can also pull others close to him with a warp vortex, which would be especially dangerous since those close to him can become infected. In melee combat not only would he be supremely dangerous to get close to but he has massively more versatility then the verse due to the myriad ways he can shift his biomass ranging from long tendrils to giant muscles to oversized claws. 

You might be wondering about the spirits, however Mercer is not only an advanced psychic that could fight them in his psychic battlefield, but can also just assimilate the knowledge and abilities of people in the Clamp verse in order to seal them. 

I have one more counter for this tier that I think would be good, namely

Emma Frost from Marvel Comics.

Scaling from other X-Men suggests Emma should be in the MHS range meaning she should be able to avoid blitzes. However she probably doesn't need to worry much about it as her diamond form would be almost invulnerable to anything on this tier in terms of physical damage.

But it's her psychic abilities that make her so dangerous. Emma is a planetary tier psychic and as a mutant magic resistance would not help at all. Not only can Emma just mentally attack anyone even remotely in range, but she can do things like turning invisible, making illusions, creating a mental duplicate all of which meaning even if found out she would be extremely hard to track.

Oh and she also has the added little trick of TURNING PEOPLES' POWERS OFF, something the verse has no resistance too.

Planet to Stellar Tier:

This verse includes potentially The Light and The Dark from CCS based on The Dark making the sun go dark, and the various Powerful Summoned Spirits for Magic Knight Rayearth who scale to the Pillar of Cephiro who was able to maintain a world with her desires and could have warped it to her desires. Speed for this tier is roughly Lightspeed to FTL speeds. 

So what is needed primarily are FTL Planetary characters. For the most part this tier is fairly similar to prior ones otherwise, though intangibility is more common so anti-intangibility is fairly helpful. Also the characters on this tier are spirits and the Pillar of Cephiro meaning magic is a more practical tactic then earlier since there is a lack of magic resistant mages. 

It would also be helpful to either at fight massive range (inter-planetary), have teleportation, or have some way to avoid being hit at massive range. Speaking of which, the first counter is 

Cure Moonlight from Heartcatch Pretty Cure

Cure Moonlight should easily scale to Baron Salamander who was capable of destroying the planet using her Heartcatch Super Form. Yet in the All-Stars Movie, she was as strong as her Super Form in her Base Form, capable of matching the casual strength of Cure Black shown by her being able to harm Fusion, Cure Black's casual strength being enough to shake the planet. This suggest Cure Moonlight should have a power advantage against this tier. She should also have a speed advantage as she was faster then early Cure Marine who moved comparable to a flash of light from a Camera, and Cure Moonlight's original Base Form was stronger then Cure Marine let alone Cure Moonlight's Super Form in All-Stars.

Cure Moonlight's attack Silver Forte Wave can hit intangible beings and can break spacetime, giving her a one-shot attack against any of the verse's strong spirits. 

She is an extremely skilled and smart fighter, moreso then anyone on this tier, which would give her an advantage in coordination and in a melee fight.

You might think she could get hit from range however she has her technique Moonlight Reflection which reflects attack meaning they would need to get close to even harm her.

For a character that can fight at even farther range

You can use Darth Vader from Star Wars.

Darth Vader even as the younger Anakin Skywalker was considered strongest of his time which would make him superior to Yareel Poof who maintained the planetbusting energy of the infant of Shaa. He was also able to react to and freeze in midair explicitly lightspeed laser fire. 

Darth Vader's force senses allow him to sense things at an inter-stellar distance and using Force Secret to affect things with the force on a solar system wise scaling meaning he would actually have the range advantage not to mention that he can just reflect energy attacks thrown at him. His force lightning is able to harm intangible entities and further he can simply memory wipe his enemies.

He's also likely never tagged since he has precog and can sense the massive spiritual auras the spirits emanate and in fact are, and even if he was he can actually regen which means only lots of attacks would be needed to bring him down.

Also outside most of the Light and the Dark most of the spirits at this level are created and controlled or at the very least from within by a much weaker mage and Darth Vader could telekinetically fling them around, dissipating the spirits. 

For another villain that would do very well, this time from a Shojo Manga

You could use Queen Reine from Wedding Peach.

Queen Reine was above 1, and likely above 3 of the 4 Sacred Somethings, which together were able to create an energy wave that massively eclipsed a planet, purified three worlds, and can power an entire world for many years. She is also comparable to her good counterpart Aphrodite who maintained a planetary sized barrier. Queen Reine is also faster then Celeste, an Angel who without her memories was able to fly inter-planetary distances. 

Reine is also a spiritual entity but she has the advantage of vastly high versatility. She has corruption and mental manipulation ability, and can draw enemies down to Hell, which would be extremely dangerous in Clamp, as inter-dimensional travel is an extremely rare ability. 

She can also absorb energy, taking advantage of Clamp's relative lack of stamina feats, and can create darkness to obscure her position.

But the best counter is actually a much more noble character. The best counter at this tier in my opinion would be 

Blue Beetle from DC Comics.

Jaime has a planet busting weapon and has absorbed planet level energy before, suggesting he could outright absorb the power of his enemies at this tier. Not only can the scarab allow for FTL travel, it allows for time travel, something highly rare in Clamp, giving him the ability to flank his opponent in the fourth dimension.

The Blue Beetle also has a magic detector and anti-magic weaponry which would absolutely nullify any of this tier's magical abilities which is essentially all of them. Considering the Scarab can nullify even the magic of Eclipso, it's possible it could nullify any magic of the Clamp verse.

Not only is Blue Beetle capable of hitting intangibles, he has an implicate order annihilation field which hits on the absolute plane.

If he got overwhelmed by numbers (unlikely) he could also create scarab drones to use his various weapons at once, to counter the numbers advantage.

Universe Tier:

At this stage are the Gods, like the Ashura, gods of war and destruction who can destroy heaven, hell and earth, or the creator god Mokona who created each universe and gave them their rules. Also at this scale are the greatest magic-users. Scaling from Yui whose magic power was capable of collapsing a universe, the mages at this tier are universe level. Such mages including Yuuko the witch of dimensions who has powerful reality-warping and spacetime manipulation, existing outside spacetime as well as the devious Fei Wang Reed with powerful passive spacetime manipulation, conceptual manipulation, and multiversal awareness/range. 

At this level powerful levels or at least answers to spacetime manipulation, reality-warping and cosmic awareness and fortune-telling are neccesary. Speeds need to be quadrillions of times ftl or lower which is the reaction speed scaling from Clone Sakura and Syaoran protecting their original counterparts.

Does this tier have any weakness? Well yes. Firstly there is still some level of physical fragility for the physical beings though the verse has a number of non-physical beings at this tier so it's limited usefulness. More useful is soul manipulation. Beings in Clamp share the same soul with every alternate version of the same character meaning if you take the soul from a weaker version of the character you're fighting you kill every version of them, something that has been used as a tactic before.

Thirdly, the verse relies a lot on the natural laws and symbolism to remain intact. Fortune Telling requires the laws of nature and it's metaphysical underlying rules. In other words, Chaos Manipulators or beings that don't make sense and warp nature or rationality with their presence are really strong at this tier. 

Fourthly, the verse has no instances of absolute manipulation. Despite getting up to infinite conceptual manipulation with prep time, the entire verse has no known cases of manipulating the medium or hitting being itself. This means absolute plane beings are functionally invulnerable in verse and there would be no resistances to metafictional manipulation.

The first counter is not just a good chaos manipulator, being moreso Chaos itself

That being Eris from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.

Eris power via usage of the apple could endanger all of existence, which at least a universal feat. Her chaos manipulation would make her extremely unpredictable to anyone in the verse.

She also has the ability to not only teleport herself across dimensions but duplicate as she did to Billy, which would make catching her nigh-impossible especially given her previously mentioned unpredictability. 

She also has the ability to dimensionally BFR anyone to her puppet dimension which turns them into puppets. Even ignoring how hard it would be for most people to leave said dimension, this would be a likely one-shot against most of the verse at this tier given it's non-magic transmutation. 

The only really threat to Eris would be a large amount of the verse attacking her immediatly all at once. For an even more versatile goddess who could avoid this

one could use Lolth the Spider Goddess from Dungeons and Dragons. 

Lolth is strong enough to take her own layer out of the abyss creating her own universe giving her power comparable to anyone in the tier.

Lolth is a powerful chaos and evil manipulator which would make her similarly unpredictable and uncontrollable. Lolth is highly magic resistant making her nigh immune to most things in the verse. Even if she was hit, D&D gods can regenerate from being destroyed body, soul and mind. 

Lolth has massively more versatility then the verse, with a large myriad of abilities. Lolth is also a talented manipulator and inter-dimensional inter-time traveler that could turn the Clamp multiverse into her web, to catch the strong mages, as all cleric spells can be granted at will by Lolth including reality warping, dimensional bfr and sealing, and many curses. 

As her true form is a conceptual only Fei Wang Reed at this tier would even be able to harm her at all, and she has natural control of all evil beings like him. 

For a very different tactic you could use

God from the Divine Comedy.

Far more casual level of universal power, having just emanated the universe. More importantly Divine Comedy God is an absolute being, and can create 9 rings of armies of angels which are all also absolute plane conceptual manipulators meaning he can create armies of beings that are invulnerable to the verse and which can one-shot the verse.

Divine Comedy God compliments this with a greater level of cosmic awareness then anyone in the verse save arguably Fei Wang Reed and greater conceptual manipulation then him without prep time. 

However there's actually a trio of characters that I think would combine these advantages of the last few counters together. These would be

The Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister) from Animaniacs.

The Warner Siblings are chaotic beings whose cartoons in-universe made no sense, and are infamous for the impossibly of catching them. As Chaos Manipulators this would likely be also true for Clamp. They compliment this with highly casual time travel, an ability that is difficult for the Clamp-verse.

The Warners have advanced absolute manipulation abilities. Fei Wang Reed's ability to repeat time only works because it's in normal time. Wakko has consumed episodes of the show, showing he could just consume the absolute time Fei Wang Reed is in and one-shot from outside of even his multiversal range by eating it from before it happens.

The Siblings can also manipulate absolute space, leaving the page of paper they are drawn in, a place no one could attack them at. Using this they could even attack Yuuko outside spacetime by simply attacking the part of the paper she is drawn on, same way Wakko has put a room inside of a bag. 

The Warners have also manipulated the plot more directly, mixing up the scripts of the episodes to match the characters with characters they normally wouldn't, something the Clamp-verse has no defense against. They have also manipulated the subtitles for the episode, which suggests that in manga, they could alter the words of a spell cast, changing what it does. 

Yakko was also able to spatially manipulate a great big universe into a little jar inside his hand, showing that in a direct fight the Warners would also be comparable in raw power. They also have another helpful advantage in a raw fight. Most of the verse in the Clamp verse are beam-based or otherwise not a direct effect. Given that, the Warners could use their force reversal ability to cause the magic effect to hit the casters instead making them functionally un-hittable even if they stayed still unless enough attacks were coming in at once for them to block something the verse would very likely unable to do. 

Multiversal Scale:

At this scale are the strongest characters of the verse, most notably the Clow Reed, the great sorcerer who saw "everything" and warped the multiverse' concepts with a thought, Sakura Kinomoto, his descendant and the one who transcended him and The Nothing/The Hope, the spirit meant to counteract all the energy of Clow Reed.

Speed range is same, power range is multiversal.

At this range, some answer is needed for multiversal conceptual warping, multiversal existence erasure, and insane levels of precognition. You might think a manipulator build could manipulate Sakura and The Nothing, and while that's possibly, it's highly unlikely to work against Clow Reed.

Strangely here, there are two opposite strategies that seem relevant.

One is just a highly physical strategy, overwhelming their shields quickly and then hitting their squishy bodies. This has the problem of how to deal with The Nothing, since anything close to her gets erased from existence and she can't be physically affected.

The other tactic is the exact opposite, to use absolute scale manipulation to simply transcend the verse's planes.

While the first counter has some level of the first, she presents a third counter.

Kronika from Mortal Kombat.

Kronika as a Titan, is stronger then the Elder Gods who could destroy realms so large that even divine perception considered them unending (as well as having the capacity to reset the multiverse), and her speed by scaling should be in the FTL range at least.

Kronika not only has vastly more experience then even Clow Reed (as Clow Reed is "only" hundreds of years old)  but her abilities are uniquely well-suited to defeat the Clamp-verse.

Kronika has the ability to summon evil versions of her opponents from other timelines to serve her. Recall how alternate versions of beings in Clamp share the same soul. It would be hypothetical child's play for her to incarnate an alternate version of one of her opponents in front of a soul-stealing attack anywhere in the multiverse to instantly kill them.

Even if she was killed she can auto-revive even stronger like a Saiyan or a Phoenix Saint, meaning if she was killed would return, something no one in the Clamp verse would possibly foretell as returning from the dead is supposed to be impossible in the Clamp multiverse and from there she could kill them before they realized she had returned. 

Kronika also has the ability to age or de-age opponents at a rapid rate. Sakura is only a teenager and could be de-aged into non-existence almost instantly by divine power (not magic) and Clow Reed would also die by being rapidly aged into non-existence since by his own desire to live as a human he was not an ageless immortal. Also because Clamp Mages rely on magic shields, it's possibly Kronika could simply rip them apart with her telekinesis like her fatality, let alone using her immense strength as a Titan against them.

The Nothing/The Hope seems like it would be the hardest fight since there may only be one version of the Nothing as it's not a normal human but a concept, and it's an unaging entity. However Kronika also has the ability to reset time or rewind time suggesting Kronika could send the Nothing back to the point where it was sealed away.

If Kronika is a good example of using the first strategy, a counter using the second strategy could be

The Essence of Divine Art from The Stanley Parable.

Transcending Timelines and with plot manipulation, The Essence of Divine Art can simply write the characters of the Clamp verse into it's artpiece "the story of how the entire Clamp multiverse was defeated by a single essence of divine art".

They would have no way to percieve this being, just as with Yuuko in her cursed state, while with plot manipulation it could defeat them without them ever realizing it's presence. 

Granted this counter is a bit speculative and a bit dangerous. If it is realized it's possible it could be affected and if so it would essentially instantly die, but it acts the cosmic equivalent of a stealth option I suppose.

The best counter in my opinion however would be 

Swamp Thing from DC Comics.

Swamp Thing via manipulation of The Green is a multiversal warper similar to someone like Clow Reed. The difference primarily is in defense. Swamp Thing can regenerate from the absolute, something that no one in Clamp can affect making Swamp Thing essentially unkillable.

Besides that Swamp Thing with the Green has multiversal levels of stength and duraiblity meaning he could crush everyone in the verse physically without noticing.

Also notable is the Green controls the forces of nature, meaning that Swamp Thing could likely manipulate the source of all magic in the verse, rendering the verse into powerless humans and spirits around it.

Swamp Thing is vastly more experience and intelligent due to it's cosmic nature as well as vastly more versatile. Not only that but he has cosmic levels of magic resistance, can casually bfr across space and time (and in fact has done both without even meaning too), and can regrow the entire multiverse across space and time as he likes it as just a part of himself. 

Swamp Thing would be unkillable to the verse, and he could kill anyone in the verse without even trying, or the entire actual verse if he was trying.

And that's how to be OP in the Clamp-verse.