I'm not sure what my favorite animal is. Let's decide it by a market! The game will play out in phases. Aside from the Setup phase, expect each phase to last about a day, but I reserve the right to speed up the clock as I deem fit.

Setup phase:

Traders add animals to the market. After the setup phase is complete, traders will no longer be able to add animals to the market. Expect this phase to end some point after this other market resolves. Traders can add as many eligible animals as they wish to the market. To be eligible, add a real, non-microscopic, non-humanoid animal by following the provided formatting:

[common name] - [scientific name]

Example: Goldfish - Carassius auratus

Selection phase:

The animal with the highest probability (the “Frontrunner”) and the lowest probability (the “Underdog”) will be selected to do battle. I will declare when the approximate cutoff time for when this selection is.

Discussion phase:

Traders can convince me why an animal should win the match up. DO NOT paste an AI / LLM output in the comments. However, I might read an AI / LLM conversation if you paste a link to it. 

Battle phase: 

• The selected animals will appear on “The Field of Battle” in my imagination, but the animals won't necessarily feel that they are supposed to fight each other. At the very least, one should notice the other one.

• By default, “The Field of Battle” will be the native habitat of the “Underdog”, and the boundaries of "The Field of Battle" will vary at my discretion. If the probabilities were miraculously a tie, the default habitat would be decided by a coin toss. Other animals may also be present as part of the habitat.

• An animal wins the battle if they are last to be incapacitated, or if they are last to be capable of moving, or if the other contender flees “The Field of Battle”. I myself will be the sole judge of how this plays out.

• If the result doesn't seem manifestly obvious to me, I will use these attributes to guide my decision: temperament, weaponry, armor, body mass, speed, fight style, physiology, and motivation, all relative to the battle's habitat.

• I will not take kindly to bribes. Don't even try.

• I expect many matches to end by asphyxiation or by an animal wandering off. They won't know where the boundaries are, and they won't know they are in a tournament. They just want to survive and thrive.

If an animal loses a battle, it will be marked as "defeated". If an animal wins a battle, that animal will continue on in the tournament, and that animal will have its memory wiped of the battle. We loop back to the Selection phase after a Battle phase if we're not at the last animal. The last animal on the market that isn't defeated and isn't ineligible resolves YES. All others, NO. "Other" will not resolve YES, but it may be a useful answer during the Setup phase. I cannot resolve market answers until the game is over.

I will award at least 100 mana to the person who adds the animal that wins this tournament. I guarantee no refund of your mana of you add an ineligible animal.

There will be no AI clarifications added to this market's description.

I will not trade on this market.

The close date is a placeholder and has no bearing on this market.

This will be a very subjective market. Expect that something will be scuffed, and I will have to fix things on the fly.