User blog comment:Piyush Banerjee/Shin DxD 2 discussion/@comment-2600:1702:3600:12F0:1DB7:CCBE:4F4:B192-20190207160114/@comment-24552694-20190207211617

I think it was because of the 'time' she had. You have to remember that Rias and practically everyone else in the tournament has more leadership experience. A thing i think that should have been mention at some point is the fact that Issei has been at all of this for less than a year. Also, no one really gave him any training in regards to tactics or strategy so he is severely lacking. Sure what Indra said is true but really he kind of should be like that since he has barely started.

On the other hand whilst Rias is a without a shadow of a doubt a complete weakling when compared to Issei but she has at least 3 or so years of experience leading a peerage  and years of high born education to pre-pair her. Issei was an aimless high schooler till he had the worse break up in history.

Also she had a variable army behind her back in Strada and Croum Crauch, who are op even compared to Issei. Also she has 3 Longinus users in Lint, Valerie and Gasper. So in comparison to Issei who is basically the strongest member of hi team and literally only starts like 2 weeks before the tournament starts really gets the fucking shaft.

Plus barely anyone is really supporting him that much, sure he got a wand for Rossweisse and such and some stuff from Ajuka and Tiamat. However Ajuka would probably doing the same for other devils and he is getting data from them. Also Tiamat basically is a vicious debt collector that can breathe fire.

On the other hand Rias has the entire Gremory household baking her, Lint was given to her by heaven and Grigori (BTW does anyone get why she chose to join Rias over Issei given that if she wanted to atone for Freed shouldn’t she help Issei and Asia, since they were the ones who suffered from Freed the most?) and given that Valerie joining her for Gasper she was the only one who even really had a shot with getting strata’s help.

Also if you look at the rest of DxD Sairaorg is has his little brother backing him, Tobio ikuse has the Japanese gods in his corner, Dulio has basically all of heaven on his side and whilst Cao cao Is basically a criminal he still got Guan Yu (Who causes everyone too shit themselves when her shows up for a rating game) from Indra and is allowed to work with all his old soldiers again so he is basically as strong with his team as he was with his faction.

The only other team who has less support than Issei was Team shooting star, who were also like Issei people who seemed to get looked over for lacking ‘talent’ like  everyone else. Issei was lucky compared to them in that, whilst being regarded as worthless he at least has some support whilst they had none at all and that is what really screwed them over.

Now imagine if Roygun didn’t like him enough to help and that Bova didn’t join him. Honestly it is mostly luck that Issei has manged to even put together a team since quite a good chunk of his harem his fighting against him in this tournament (Rias, Akeno, Koneko and Lint (Counting her since she was part of the boob phone network in shin 1) are in Rias’ team, Kuroka and Le Fey are with Vali (though does anyone else think that they will join Issei’s peerage eventually?) and Griselda (maybe harem just because I like her) is with Joker).

If you think about it Issei had basically been screwed over from the start and one of the few issues I have with it is the fact that DxD never fully acknowledges how the other characters kind of screw the protagonists and Issei especially all the time. Issei is basically been rushed through everything and had to survive despite everything is what got him to high class but did anyone even try to really teach him strategy at all or anything before he got promoted to mid class and even then it was only really shoving him of to do his own thing without really teaching him the basics.

While a little long winded that is the general premise of why Rias had the advantage, she had all the support and training to excel in rating games and Issei was never taught how to be anything other than a fighter, not a leader. Like how Ned Stark was in Game of Thrones, Issei need some training in how to be a leader in more ways than he was and they never really gave him any.

In a fight rias will always lose but the odds were Stacked against Issei and he only manged to win because Rias was too hot blooded and prideful. If she ran and waited for Starda’s help Issei would have lost.

It was her personality that lost her the game, she forgot that between her and Issei she was trained to be a leader whilst Issei was trained to be a warrior.