Puella Magi-verse Strategy Guide

How to be OP in Puella Magi Madoka Magicka

City Scale Threat:

The fighters for the Puella Magi-verse are primarily the magical girls, born of wishes and the witches, born of curses. These two are very different types of fighters and require different tactics. But first the stat range.

The Witches regularly create labyrinths, personal dimensions that the witches warp to fit their subconscious wills. These dimensions can be rather sizable, reaching several kilometers at least. It's a bit arguable whether this scales to their attack potency but as the witches maintain this dimension I think it makes sense. Besides this there are a number of other feats that would suggest city level stats. Various Witches creating large storms at will, Homura using town level explosives against Walpurgisnacht which it tanked, Mami's massive Tiro Finale in Rebellion...

In terms of speed the most commonly referenced speed feat is Homura vastly outpacing a bullet in Rebellion however as this was performed while under Time Slow so fast that it exponentially slowed bullets in Mami and Homura's earlier fights this feat was likely far slower then the Mach 619 calc suggests. However the verse DOES scale to Momoko Togame who was able to jump into space in seconds, requiring MHS speeds. It's possible the verse is faster scaling to the Alien Witch Itzli who came from the edge of the galaxy, but the timeframe is completely unknown.

So the stat range is MHS City Level, but what are the strategies used by the verse?

Magical Girls are mostly conventional fighters, though they supplement attacking with magically enhanced conventional weapons with numerous other abilities. Magical Girls typically summon large amounts of one-specific weapon which they can telekinetically control to overwhelm enemies. They also possess most famously soul gems, gems containing their actual souls, while their bodies are lifeless corpses. This gives them regeneration and a supernatural ability to withstand damage and pain.

Beyond that Magical Girls also possess enchantment, the power to imbue material objects with magical properties, most famously when Mami turned Sayaka's bat into a magical bat capable of killing a familiar. Magical Girls are telepathic and can speak to each other mentally, as well as heavily resistant to mind manipulation from their many fights with the Witches. Magical Girls can sense magic, and project energy as shown by Elisa in her battle against Lapin.

Their enemies are the Witches, the sources of the labyrinth dimensions capable of warping the reality of their barriers to their warped psychology. Witches also infamously have the dangerous Witches Kiss an ability warping the minds of other beings nearby, though this is not a passive ability and needs to be activated. Witches also have the power to drain the lifeforce of their victims, to the point that it is their food source. Witches also possess the ability to summon familiars, who upon killing 4 or 5 people turn into a witch themselves, as well as invisibility to all non-magical entities.

These two require seemingly different tactics, though there is one tactic that actually would probably be fairly effective against both, and that would be stealth.

While Magical Girls can sense magic, other then that, neither side seems to have vastly enhanced senses, and a sniping strategy would likely be very dangerous. Another reason this would be dangerous is the famous weakness of the magical girls; the soul gems.

Magical Girls rely on their soul gems, and a single strike to them or even moving the soul gem far apart from the magical girl will kill her. As such danmaku or homing attacks that target weaknesses would be very dangerous to the magical girls. Another tactic would be telekinesis, just yanking the soul gem far away from them before they realized what happened.

Magical Girls are also vulnerable to emotional manipulation, supernatural or not. Magical Girls rely on their hope, and if they give into despair, their soul gems will darken and darken until they break killing the magical girl. The only way to recover from this is to purify the soul gem with grief seeds, from fallen witches. Soul gems also darken from magic usage, but Magical Girls have fairly good stamina and can fight many times over many days without running out of energy, so outlasting them is not really a good strategy.

Also while the verse is fairly varied in terms of abilities, there are some abilities the verse doesn't possess (particularly at this tier). My first counter also has one of these, that being

Scanty Daemon from Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt.

Scanty roughly scales to Stocking Anarchy who was able to run around the Earth and into space rapidly as well as survived being sneezed out by the moon, requiring megatons of durability for her surface area. 

Scanty has two demonic guns that have a vast rate of fire and accuracy, suggesting she could pellet any unsuspecting Magical Girl or Witch she comes across with tons of bullets, powerful enough to create a mushroom cloud and kill most of them, or hit the magical girl's soul gem. 

Scanty and Kneesocks have demonstrated previously the ability to travel as shadows, an ability that would give them the ability to stealth across the verse and being difficult to detect and combat. She also has her own form of dark enchantment as she was able to transform a ghost into a more menacing threat with a touch, suggesting she could do something similar with a witch.

However most appropriately Scanty has the demon bad luck. Scanty's bad luck aura can counteract the Angels good luck aura which was strong enough to consistently win extremely unlikely fortune games. The verse does not have anything like this and it suggests if she would get into a fight with a Magical Girl they would be very unlucky and have their soul get hit by something.

That said you could argue if she got into a fight with a witch she could get overwhelmed by them and their raw numbers with familiars or brainwashed. For a counter that wouldn't be as big a problem for I would suggest

Mew Ichigo from Tokyo Mew Mew.

Mew Ichigo in her base state easily scales, especially with strawberry bell version up, to the other mew mews who survived a blast from Deep Blue that vaporized several city blocks, requiring kilotons of force. However with her Mew Aqua she scales to Mew Aqua Mew Zakuro who with a single burst destroyed a city-sized dome that the military couldn't break. She also has dodged lightning and scales to the aliens that can quickly go into space.

However it's the nature of her power that would be really broken. Mew Power restores things to their natural state, and has worked on the genetic level before hitting mutated enzymes, as well as having brought things back to life, up to and including an entire city. If Mew Ichigo used the mew power she could restores an entire-city sized area to it's natural state, which would turn Witches and Magical Girls back into the normal humans they were originally, turning them powerless basically. Even witches that were once familiars would be turned back into familiars which while not powerless, are a lot weaker then Mew Ichigo. Given that this has raised people from the dead before it would very likely work even on the Puella Magi verse characters that have their soul out of their body.

Mew Ichigo combines this with a regen system of her own without a weak point (Since her mew power would naturally be restoring her as well), resistance to mental manipulation as shown in Tokyo Mew Mew A La Mode (was able to resist the powers of Royal Highness who could brainwash all of Tokyo against the Mew Mews) as well as catlike senses to know if anyone is near, and of course....the greatest of stealth skills.

That said you could argue some of the verse's abilities would be tricky for Ichigo if they got in range. However my top pick for the tier I think is even better, that being

Fuuma Monou, the Dark Kamui from X/1999.

Dark Kamui easily scales above the Dragons of Earth who have numerous massively hypersonic (mostly) lightning timing feats and feats of creating kekkai, their own pocket dimension similar to a witch's barrier. Given his claim with the Light Kamui he is potentially city level as well.

However it's his abilities where he really shines. He possess a natural level of Magic Resistance, and moreover, and this is the crazier part, Fuuma can dispel magic as a Kamui. He can simply dispel any magic the verse tries to use against him, which mixed with his level of skill would make him very hard to even get near.

Beyond that Fuuma has the ability to see the wishes of others, which would allow him a limited for of intent reading for other people, as well as telekinesis strong enough that he could telekinetically crush the soul gems of any magical girl that came nearby.

As a Kamui he also possesses the ability to slash through dimensions, which would allow him to easily travel inside a witches barrier and dispel their magic. It's unlikely their witches kiss would even work on him given his magic resistance. 

Basically he can resist or nullify anything this tier can throw at them, and can power nullify their abilities or crush their physical souls at will.

Regional Scale Threat:

There exists stronger classes of Magical Girls, with perhaps the strongest of the Holy Magical Girls being Tart, the Savior of France and Europe. Tart was so strong that she was able to contend with the hybrid of human, witch, magical girl, and incubator Isabeau, a being so terrifying that it's power at weakest encompassed all of France and threatened to send all of Europe into the Dark Age. The two are the strongest fighters of this tier and the main threat. The stat range is MHS Country Level.

Isabeau is a truly horrific creature, able to simply turn off the invisibility of the witches. As smart as the Incubators themselves, Isabeau is a genius intellect. She also can revive herself from death, and absorb the despair from others to grow stronger. She created her own group of Magical Girls, stripping them of their free will to be her slaves.

Tart herself as the Holy Heroine, has her own powerful abilities, including the ability to manipulate fate itself. Beyond that she is a holy warrior capable of opening portals to Heaven or Hell. Her healing is beyond even most magical girls, as she was able to cure the people of the plague, and negated the dark magic of the Isabeau.

Generally required to fight against this tier is someway to put down a creature that can revive itself constantly. Getting in close is probably not a good idea given Tart's ability to BFR to Heaven or Hell, as well as the general ability. Isabeau possesses country scale range, but an even greater level of range might be called for.

Besides this, most of the same weaknesses still applies.

My first counter has a relatively simple powerset, but one I think would be pretty strong on this tier, that being 

Perseus Algol from Saint Seiya.

Algol is a Silver Saint and vastly vastly superior to chapter 1 Seiya who was able to atomize the ground beneath him, requiring country levels of force. He can also move fast enough to be comparable to lightning, as other Silver Saint level entities have.

Algol's most famous ability is his Medusa Shield which turns those who looks at it to stone. This is something neither Tart or Isabeau would have knowledge or resistance of meaning if they get into range, they could be suddenly turned to stone.

Algol as a saint has an atomic scale control of matter-energy as well as sensing and telepathy ability. It's likely he would pick up on the pairs weaknesses and just atomize Tart's soul gem.

A Saint Disciple was able to turn a power plant into a planetary threat. It would be child's play for Algol to hurt his opponents from outside their range as well.

And even if Algol's petrification doesn't kill Isabeau he scales to Bronze Saint Unicorn Jabu who could hit intangible ghosts.

That said Algol's powerset is fairly limited. For someone with more options you could pick 

Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho.

Hiei scales to be vastly stronger then A-Class Beings who could threaten entire countries. He also is vastly faster then B Classes capable of moving at MHS speeds. 

Hiei as a user of Yoki can see invisible entities and hit intangible entities. However more notable is his Jagen Eye which gives him the ability to paralyze entities and warp the minds of others. While his mind warping would likely not work on Tart, being able to flash paralyze others would probably keep him perfectly safe, even ignoring his endurance.

His Eye also gives him telekinesis as well as enhanced senses and clairvoyance, suggesting he could attack Tart's weak point from a farther distance.

Hiei is also a more skilled warrior then anyone at this tier, and would be able to out-melee them, before destroying Isabeau's intangible spirit.

For an even more versatile pick for this tier I would suggest 

Dark Schneider (First Incarnation/Pre Time-Skip)

Dark Schneider easily scales to Gara who caught a light beam showing he has comparable reactions. With his spell Black Sabbath he, while rusty, was able to atomize a large section of the ground requiring country level of energy, and was withstand the same level of energy with his magic shields. This shows Dark Schneider is in the same level of energy and would not get blitzed.

Dark Schneider would easily win via the sheer versatility and hax of his abilities. With his spell "Anselm" he shoots magic bolts that attacks the weakest parts of his opponent, which would be super deadly against any magical girl. His spell Crow Bar is a high level sealing spell that would keep Isabeau from reincarnating. His spell Led Zeppelin is a spell that a spellbound around his opponent and starving ghosts from hell that devour the opponents within which neither side has anti-intangibility.

Really looking down his spell list is just a list of abilities that would take advantage of their weaknesses. They are weak to stealth? Dark Schneider has illusions strong enough to create entire illusory forests. They don't have planetary range? Black Sabbath is a planetary range atomzing spell that also has dimensional bfr capacities which is shown to be broken at this tier.

Even if LZ doesn't take care of Isabeau, Dark Schneider's signature spell is Judas Pain, which destroys opponents on the physical, astral AND spiritual level. There's no way she could revive around that.

Beyond that Dark Schneider has a master of all the normal schools of magic of the Bastard!! universe including light and dark magic, suggesting he could use their own magical type abilities against them. Even if they did try to hax him in return, his all purpose Spellbound would protect against it. 

Planetary Scale Threat

This tier contains some of the strongest beings in the Puella Magi-verse. This includes Hypothetical Max Walpurgisnacht who was going to stop the Earth's rotation and Doppel Madoka who could reduce the Earth to dust and scales to Kriemhild Gretchen who flew to Earth at sub-relativistic speeds. 

Also at this tier are the Madoka Robots, giant robots significantly sized compared to JUPITER.

As such the verse is basically MHS to Relativistic and Low Planet Level to Large Planet Level.

Honestly at this tier given the lack of general range and sensory abilities, I think a cosmic scale sniping strategy would be more effective then ever. 

Starting off with a bit of a raw power counter I would suggest

King Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z Anime.

King Vegeta has shown that he can destroy a planet and two planetoids with a wave of his hand showing not just comparable power but also greater range. Given his small and honestly unassuming appearence (and he doesn't even use magic to be sensed), he could likely blast them a few times and end them before they even know what's happening.

Granted he has no resistance to mind manipulation but he would have to lifeforce draining given his massive ki. Also his ki sensing would likely give him the ability to sense the lifeforce coming from the soul gems and allow him to take them as he would scale to Piccolo who telekinetically lifted a pyramid with ki.

He also speed scales to a lot faster then Piccolo's relativistic beam to the moon giving him a speed edge on the verse.

For a more sophisticated counter then this sort of raw power strategy I would suggest

White Mage of Light from Final Fantasy 1.

From her battle with Gilgamesh, White Mages scales to the Large Planetary and Sub-Relativistic Feats of the Kefka and the Final Fantasty 5 cast, which would put her at relative to the verse.

White Mage is capable of harming even abstract concepts like Chrondia, time itself. She is also able to directly interact with and kill souls, or purify them with her holy magic. White Mage's spell Diaja is capable of exorcing the undead which all magical girls and witches quality as giving her a one-shot against them.

She can also heal herself and has ribbons that give her resistance to all of the haxes of the verse.

White Mage would be an absolute tank against the verse, able to purify and exorcise any of the fighters outside the robots which she can outspeed and defeat in raw versatility and intelligence. That said her strategy is rather defensive and prone to having something unexpected go wrong. For a counter that's a lot more immediatly dangerous I would suggest

Darth Nihilus from Star Wars.

Darth Nihilus scales well into the planetary relativistic range showing he has relative power and superior speed to most of the verse.

Darth Nihilus is a force wrath that passively drains the soul and lifeforce of those near him, like a far more powerful version of the Witches lifeforce drain. He wouldn't even need to take soul gems, though given how strong his telekinesis is he could. Darth Nihilus also has telepathy a lot stronger then the witches, superior to beings with planetary scale mental manipulation.

Basically Nihilus does all the haxes the witches do but on a far larger and more passive scale.

His true form is an intangible spirit as a force wrath, meaning the verse would have very few options against him.

It's safe to say the verse basically couldn't get anywhere near Nihilus at this tier, and he can one-shot basically anyone at this verse, as well as having greater range in a sense via his telepathy which extends across the galaxy.

Interlude:

I didn't want to slow down this blog vastly to explain again why Madoka is not multiversal so I made a separate blog explaining it. Ok back to your regularly scheduled programming. 

Universal to Multiversal Scale Threat:

Here exists the Goddess Tiers of the Puella-Magi verse.

One of the Magical Girl Goddess Madoka is here. Kami Madoka is an abstract concept, beyond space and time, acausal, capable of rewinding time and destroying universes, capable of duplicating via existing beyond spacetime, capable of one-shotting enough despair to end the universe, seeing all universes that could have been or might be, implied to be able to destroy or change a concept of the universe. Kami Madoka can also borrow the powers of any magical girl in existence and can take their souls up to Heaven.

Her counterpart then is the Akuma Homura, who warped the universe, who sealed away Kami Madoka's memories, who reversed time, and made the entire universe her labyrinth (the grief capable of destroying the universe made only Earth her labyrinth). Akuma Homura turned the race of incubators into her slaves and stole a part of Kami Madoka's powers.

These are the two true god tiers of the Puella Magi-verse. The power limit is MFTL (Quadrillions of times) (though speed can't help much here anyway as Madoka is acausal). Do they have counters or weaknesses.

They do. Madoka and Homura still follow the magical girl system technically and still possess soul gems somewhere or other in all likelihood. Or at least Madoka does, as Homura turned into a Witch-Goddess (Demon). Cosmic Scale Soul Manipulation might be able to beat Madoka even though she is a concept by hitting her soul somewhere. 

Madoka is limited in her capacity to affect the physical realm. She could not simply materialize on Earth and be with her friends, but instead was with them conceptually and they will rejoin her in Heaven. She relied on sending her heralds, the Guardians to do her will. 

Homura is only partly a conceptual being, and still seems physical to some regard and could likely be killed by a large enough physical force.

Also both Madoka and Homura are emotional beings. Madoka can be naive and trusting, which is Homura stole her power in the first place. Homura is mentally unhinged and could hypothetically be manipulated that way.

Finally sealing would probably work as Homura "defeated" Madoka, trapping her in Homura's world by sealing her memories away. Similar sealing abilities would likely work, particularly on Madoka as she has no physical component to her being anymore.

This leads me into my counters. My first counter would be

Fei Wang Reed from Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicles.

Fei Wang Reed clearly scales to Fai D Flowright whose magic destroyed an entire universe in seconds giving universe levels of power and quadrillions of times ftl reaction/attack speed. 

Fei Wang Reed can exist outside spacetime easily, creating his own dimension there, from where he planned to warp the entire multiverse, something he can do with prep, including wiping out a conceptual law like Madoka. And it's unlikely they would be able to get close to him to attack as he is capable of ripping the souls out of beings on a cosmic scale and has by scaling good sealing abilities, being able to seal spirits as Sakura did when highly inexperienced. 

Fei Wang Reed has cosmic levels of prediction, able to see at least hundreds of years into the future with ease, and so would be able to play a cosmic gambit with Madoka and Homura until he can warp them away. Fei Wang Reed is also an expert manipulator, and could play on their emotions to stop them, as he did to the TRC cast.

It doesn't hurt that Fei Wang is not a physical entity, being the will of Clow Reed remaining after his death, Clow Reed being a sorcerer so strong he could warp away the laws of the universe by accident. Fei Wang can also clearly affect beings not within spacetime as he did to Dimension Witch Yuuko who exists outside spacetime.

However Fei Wang's capacities are a little bit vague, for someone with more defined capacities I would suggest

Spawn from Image Comics (specifically in his King of Hell form).

In this form Spawn is a universal reality warper with the ability to completely warp his circle of Hell, which is universal in size as well as easily scales to weaker Angels and Demons that can quickly travel the universe.

Spawn has natural resistance to the big abilities of this tier, mind manipulation and time manipulation as he resisted Malebolgia's mind control due to the 6,000 souls within him and has complete resistance to Time Stop.

Spawn is as versatile a being as Kami Madoka but is far more aggressive in combat.

Spawn can trap opponents in hellish mindscapes, and given Kami Madoka had her memories altered with, this seems like a viable tactic. As a Hell King he can manipulate the evil within someone to instantly kill them, and given Homura's sin turning her into a Demon it's likely he could insta-gib her by manipulating the sins inside her heart.

He also has multiversal scale telepathy and soul manipulation suggesting he could find and take Madoka's soul from her soul. Finally he has his famous Sword of the Spirit, a sword that damaged conceptual Satan and could take souls, suggesting strongly it could take away the soul of Madoka. It could also seal away Hell from Earth which would likely be effective against their level of sealing resistance.

However, he does not have resistance to acausality and duplication meaning he would have to win basically before Madoka fires and duplicates.

For a counter that can do that, my ultimate counter, and this is probably going to be the most controversial counter of any of my counters of this entire series I would suggest 

Sailor Moon from Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon scales well above Queen Nehelenia (Her Fifth Arc Self was stronger then her in civilian form), and Queen Nehelenia was capable of maintaining her dark mirror universe until she died. The Silver Crystal can also be used to create a universe and the lambda power remade the entire thing. In terms of speed Sailor Moon scales to the Lambda Power which quickly traveled the entire universe showing she should be comparable to Homura's reality warping speed.

Sailor Moon can also exist outside spacetime via the Pluto Crystal and can ignore causality via the Silver Crystal. She has used this to give her younger self power, knowledge and even to go back and protect her younger self.

Sailor Moon has vast sealing abilites, being able to seal off the Black Hole Nemesis. She is able to use the power of the Lethe crystal which can erase memories as Homura did to Madoka.

Usagi can use the lambda power which can hit conceptual entities, including Chaos, reducing it to infinitesmally small. Usagi's light can affect beings outside of spacetime, while she is within as shown during the second arc when her light reached Mamoru in the spacetime corridor while she was on Earth.

Usagi can resist basically all of the abilities of Madoka and Homura. Silver Crystal negs absolute timestop and first arc Usagi could resist brainwashing on the scale Homura showed on the Incubators (most likely...it's not known exactly how many incubators there are though Kyubey did seem to think Earth's populace was large). She resist power nullification as shown from her fight with Death Phantom.

But most importantly is Usagi's charisma. Usagi's charisma is so high Chaos, the source of all evils did not want to kill Usagi and instead wanted to fuse with her. Chaos, that which hates all of existence. Madoka is at heart a friendly young girl, and a Homura is a confused and scared girl. Usagi would be able to charm and manipulate without ever consciously trying too. She could then either simply destroy or hax them with one attack or more likely just befriend Madoka and convince Homura of the error of her ways.

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