Congratulations to both for making the final. Tough scheme to work with but both did fairly well. Shodan had a couple outthe box concepts and Lockhart had his trademark hard hitting simplicity and smooth delivery. I feel like Lock was a bit more concise in his execution, allowing him to rhyme with the given scheme a bit more effortlessly and frequently while not sacrificing anything in the punch department. Good luck to both and congratulations to whoever gets crowned champ but I’ve got his Low 8 low 7 for Lock. 

Welcome to the 2019 Text Scheme Finals!

Congratulations to both for making it to the last leg of the tournament. This is shaping up to be a classic as we have 2 of the dopest on the site throwing hands for the Title.

The scheme is: SIGNING THE BACK OF A CHECK 

The deadline is: Friday, April 12th at 11:59PM EST.

Good luck to both! 

Either way it's LB, both are bound to bring FIRE & KILLER shit, dabs to both ahead of time

Expo:

Hannibal crossed the Alps mountain range, during which a bunch of his soldiers died of starvation.

In Egyptian mythology, Isis was the brother of Osiris, and Set chopped Osiris into a bunch of pieces, after which Isis had to find all of them pieces and put them back together to resurrect Osiris like some 3000 BC fetch quest.

ukno its KILLERS

KILLERS, bitch.

4-8reiper,had some.punchez knocked his oppenent down and some stream of rapz.put on the top like.flawless he got the win,w,here in this battle,gb

Seriously this is heat! Hats off to you both I really appreciate the hard work that you put in to these verses so if no one else told you THANK YOU! this is so final worthy it's not funny I mean you both suck to the scheme exceptionally all other categories are virtually even except one and that's aggression felt like Lock was alot more aggressive with his punches and he had some standout lines like the Ganesh line fire some of y'all might not have caught that but I did it's lines like that which led me to my winner shodan take nothing away from yourself because you did impress me here felt like your Hannibal line was superior I like ya style of writing cuz I can catch all the references and understand them conceptually you are one of the most talented writers I've seen on letsbeef so with all that said I'm Rollin wit Lock on this RESPECT to both and congratulations to the winner

Meant to say stuck y'all definitely do not suck my bad

Venom of the Red Lotus

Wordplays - Shodan, by a very fair margin

Metaphors - Shodan, in terms of quantity and quality too, rieper had filler metas here and there and few good ones in a few places.

Multis - Shodan's were smoother and more direct, Rieper's felt broken sometimes.

Punchlines - Shodan again, Rieper's felt a little rushed here and there and also reaching like the ganesh one for example.

Shodan just had a more consistent, smooth and hard hitting verse here than Rieper and gets my vote and wins this by a fair margin too IMO. 

Good Battle.

This was a pretty even match-up in my eyes.. Im leaning this way cuz i felt my choice had a couple lines that stood out a little more to me..

Read this shit over & over cause it deserves the best votes possible. Both showed out & did their thing, making this a tough choice tbh. Sho - Overall, I think you had a little more issues w the scheme. Some of it didn't match up as well as the other verse. That's what hurt your drop here, imo. The execution & most of the punches were actually pretty solid w some fresh concepts. / Rieper - IMO your 2nd half of the drop is what won this for you. While being able to stick to the scheme SLIGHTLY better than Sho, you delivered around the same amount of impact w your punches. You also had some fresh concepts & a few that were a bit light but that's common w the scheme battles. Your wording was a little cleaner, as far as consistency goes. This was a tough one yo, could go either way but I got my vote. Salute to the both of you for this shit though! 

I felt that Shodan's verse here was really a step ahead of Rieper's in terms of wordplay/metaphors/flips. The Isis/Set bar was conceptually one of the best punches I think I've ever seen on LB. This is maybe the first time I've seen Rieper get beaten in terms of ideas and concepts, so well done Shodan. I felt Rieper's opener was comparatively weak, whereas Shodan opened with a hard-hitting narrative-type bar. That being said Rieper's Ganesh line was really conceptually strong, but the level of intelligence and wit he normally brings to the table weren't really there in many other lines imo. The weakest concept from Shodan might be the NASA line; I still can't decide whether I love or hate how obvious yet complex it is.

Rieper, on the other hand, had scheming/execution ahead of Shodan's. Firstly, Rieper used the scheme 18 times to Shodan's 14. Normally that wouldn't mean much, but in a scheme battle the point is to rework one scheme as many different times as possible and so in this case I thought it set Rieper ahead of Shodan on the scheming front. Also, in Sho's "ISIS challenge set" multis, basically the same words were used to build two consecutive multis; I didn't think it took away from the verse per se because I see what you were trying to do and the Isis and Set ones were both two sets (pardon the pun) of homonyms, but I do think it meant you lacked the level of execution Rieper could bring to the table. Rieper's best lines were the diving for gold ones; as far as execution went they blew Shodan out of the water (again pardon the pun).

At this point I've said Shodan was ahead conceptually and Rieper ahead on execution. I feel this could go either way. Honestly right now when I'm writing this conclusion to my vote expo I still haven't decided who I'm going to vote for; whether Shodan's conceptual edge was significant enough to outweigh Rieper's superior scheming in a scheme battle. Good luck to both, great final.

Damn this battle was fire! My fair is tossed

GONNA HAVE TO BREAK THIS ONE DOWN TO HELP ME DECIDE HERE........ SHODAN - VERY FUNNY OPENING PART AND NICELY CONNECTED, MY ONLY GRIPE HERE IS THA ''IF I HEARD A NOISE I DIDNT WANT TO I ADJUSTED THE TAPE'' THAT DOSENT REALLY MAKE SENSE AS A SENTENCE IMO, MAYBE YOU WROTE IT OUT WRONG OR SUMMIT I DUNNO, REALLY MESSED UP THA BAR THO FOR ME IF IM HONEST.  HANNIBAL PART WAS FUCKIN INSANE THO, AND I WAS DIGGIN ALL THA LINES BEFORE IT TOO ESPECIALLY THA ''NATIONAL DEBT'' PART.  EGYPTIAN PART WAS CLEVERLY WORKED, I DIDNT LIKE HOW YOU RHYMED ''ISIS'' TWICE THO I GOTTA TAKE POINTS OFF FOR THAT, THA NASA FINISH TO THAT BAR THO WAS VERY NICE I REALLY DIG YOUR SET-UPS IN THIS VERSE TOO.  CLOSER WAS OK.  VERY GOOD FUCKIN VERSE THO, VERY CLEAN........ RIEPER - OPENER WAS OK AT THA START BUT I REALLY LIKED THA ''SINUSES CHECKED'' FINISH.  NEXT BAR IS REALLY GOOD, WOAH!, GREAT CONNECTING MULTI AT THA END, LOVED THA ''SEARCH FOR GOLDS GOIN UNDER'' TEASER AT THA START TOO, REALLY FUCKIN NICE!.  LIKED THA SKYPIN HIS E PART, ALSO LIKED THA ''EARTHBOUND'' LINE AND THA BLEU LINE MADE ME LOL.  ''NIT PICK'' CLOSER I DUG ALSO........ WOW WHAT A BATTLE, CONSIDERIN THIS IS A SCHEME Y'ALL KILLED IT....... I THINK SHODANS WORDIN WAS CONSISTANTLY CLEANER THROUGHOUT, BOTH HAD HAYMAKERS BUT I FELT RIEPERS CAPTURING CHESTS LINE WAS BOTB...... RIEPER TOOK A FEW LINES TO GET GOIN BUT THEN KILLED IT, SHODAN WAS MORE CONSISTANT THROUGHOUT BUT HE MADE A COUPLE OF ERRORS WIT RHYMIN ''ISIS'' TWICE AND ALSO THAT PART AT THA START THAT DIDNT REALLY MAKE SENSE..... I GOTTA EDGE THIS ONE TO RIEPER I THINK, BUT SERIOUSLY THIS BATTLE WAS SICK, PROPS TO BOTH OF YOU FOR MAKIN IT ALL THIS WAY...... FAIR IS DROPPED!

First of all congrats to the both of you for making it to the finals, y'all didn't have an easy route getting here. Alright, on to the breakdowns:

Shodan: Long intro, not my taste, but you pulled off the horrorcore approach perfectly, liked seeing a longer set-up where most punches are only 2 multi sets. National Debt line was Bananas and my favorite of your verse. Iron Pants bar was funny, good structure. Obscure concept with the Hannibal line but it was executed on point. Didn't get the relation between these two lines because the multis but maybe you left it open on accident, either way the bars themselves were good. ISIS line was okay but it needed the expo to explain it and the multi's were very similar, I think this could've been worded a little bit better for the wordplay to work both ways. NASA line was hilarious, you're 2nd best, wouldn't change a thing. Microsoft Word line was great but first part contradicted the previous line. Finisher was great too, 3rd best. Overall this was a strong showing from you. You brought the heat and utilized the scheme flawlessly, you had some minor wording issues and even though some of the concepts were obscure, everything was technically proficent. High 8 from me.

Rieper: Good opener, concept was good and punch was unexpected. Sinus line was a nice jab, not that hard hitting but still worked with the scheme. Chests line was FIRE! it was smooth & direct. Camera line was okay, thought the 2nd multi set didn't need to be there, even though it added depth to the punch. Gygas/Ness was really obscure, I had to look it up to fully grasp and even then I'm half-way into getting it, first part, Match w/ a Tech was nice, just didn't fully grasp the final punch, would've liked an expo even if you thought it was obvious, we're not all into anime lol. Ganesh line was BOTR imo, personal and concept was just fresh. Finisher was kinda a let down even though it was all there, just expected more after some of the earlier punches. Overall you utilized the scheme perfectly, had no critques with multi sets and while the Gygas/Ness line was obsure it was still overall a very solid verse, smooth flow and the self explanatory method was good to see. Felt like you had more punches throughout and were complex and hard hitting at the same time, good showing here, giving you a mid-9

Overall: Both schemed the hell out of the given scheme, which wasn't an easy one but I felt like one was a small step ahead in terms of punches while the other had slighter more complex concepts so they took more chances but while both had some wording issues, felt like my winner was more consistent and kept his execution slightly tighter. Both were great but there can only be one winner, dope reads here from both, appreciate the drops, this is definitely in contention of LB's best battles from 2019.