Sorcerer Face off: 30 of TV’s Best Mages Compete For Dominance

Sorcerers have been a staple of fantasy television, and every fantasy-adjacent genre that has emerged over the years.

They make for versatile characters, constantly being tweaked to be as useless or as powerful as the story needs them to be. Admittedly, the manner in which that effect is achieved can be contrived in the best of circumstances and outrightly stupid in the worst of them (we’re looking at you, Charmed).

We’ve decided to take a break from the usual scenarios that leave you wanting to pull your hair out and instead have tried to imagine what all your favorite witches would be like if they were at their best, or at least something close to it.

We’ve drawn from the crown jewels of multiple shows, pitting them against each other in what is our treatment of Mortal Kombat, but if all the fighters were different versions of Shang Sung and Quan Chi.

So, without further ado: Round One. Fight! and to the victor, the spoils — or something like that.

1. Magnus Bane (Shadowhunters) vs. Katrina Crane (Sleepy Hollow)

Magnus: Despite his many responsibilities and The Clave’s incompetence, he somehow managed to keep his faction of the shadow world above water.

Magnus is no schemer, but his quick thinking makes it almost impossible for anyone to catch him resting on his heels. At over 400 years old, he has had centuries to hone his magic — he wasn’t appointed high warlock for nothing.

Ok, the downside: Magnus wears his heart on his sleeve, and, contrary to what you’d expect of a half-demon mage, he doesn’t lean towards extreme violence, which might prove to be his undoing.

Katrina: Before she reunited with her husband in present-day Sleepy Hollow, Katrina was a nurse working on the side of the patriots, using her magic where she could to help the injured soldiers.

She got sucked into a purgatory not long after her husband died where she remained for over 230 years until she got out. Suffice it to say, the couple of centuries she spent locked up with Moloch wasn’t a picnic. She had to use every drop of wit she had to stay alive long enough to get out.

In the end, the kind nurse turned on her husband and his partner, choosing to side with her evil son Jeremy. It was at that time that we got to see just how powerful she was as she posed a genuine threat to our heroes at every turn.

That said, her challenger didn’t spend his centuries scurrying around in a hell dimension. He was out in the real world kicking butts and taking names.

Winner: Magnus

2. The Charmed Ones (Charmed) vs Bellweather Unit (Motherland: Fort Salem)

Charmed ones: Macy, Mel, and Maggie continue to grow into their roles as the charmed ones, with each of them gifted with a distinct ability that has continued to evolve since they discovered them.

Though their sisterhood hasn’t been without a rough patch here and there, they have forged a solid emotional bond and are more in sync when taking on bad guys on account of the amount of time they’ve spent fighting evil together.

Together, they are quite the formidable trio, but individually, they don’t match up. In spite of their impressive gifts, progress towards their utmost potential has been slow, and they more often than not need Harry to bail them out of trouble.

Bellweather unit: Though they didn’t start out liking each other (one might argue they still don’t), they are smart enough to put any animosity aside when the need arises. Each one of them can do a bit of everything, but have wisely chosen to focus on an aspect of magic they excel in, giving their unit a more well-rounded feel to it.

Plus, they have spent months being professionally trained in hand-to-hand combat and military tactics which should come in handy in a situation like this. They’d probably edge it in an individual matchup, but teamwork and communication is the name of the game when they’re going up against another team, and none of those is their strongest suit.

Winner: The charmed ones. They simply have a better understanding of each other’s abilities and limitations, and together they have access to extremely powerful spells that very few can withstand.

3. Shadow Weaver (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) vs. Sypha Belnades (Castlevania)

Shadow Weaver: Mysterious and deadly in equal measure. Shadow Weaver (Formerly: Light Spinner) practically ran the operations of The Horde while Hordak sat menacingly in his chair and occasionally screamed threats at her. Always looking out for number one, Shadow Weaver is ruthless in disposing of anyone who dared jeopardize her plans.

After serving as a tutor for many magic users in Mystacor for years, her dedication to scholarship has made her knowledge of anything magic unmatched in all of Etheria. For all her knowledge, Shadow Weaver, like all of the other princesses, requires a runestone (The Black Garnet most especially) to fuel her magic, and without it, she is practically harmless.

Sypha: Her disarmingly charming demeanor belies the considerable punch Sypha packs. At first, Sypha traveled inconspicuously among her people, the speakers, but then she left her pacifistic upbringing behind to join forces with Trevor Belmont (and later Alucard) in the hopes of beating back Dracula’s forces.

In a trio made up of Dracula’s dhampir son and the last descendant of a monster-slaying family line, Sypha more than holds her own anytime they go up against creatures of the dark.

She’s also agile and adept at utilizing the spectrum of elemental magic available to her in explosive and ingenious ways. She’s also not as prone to charging into a fight unprepared like Trevor usually does.

Her youth, in this case, is something of a double-edged sword. While she is nimble on her feet, it doesn’t allow her a great deal of magical experience, nor the hardiness that comes with years on the battlefront.

Winner: Sypha Belnades. Unlike Shadow Weaver, her magic is innate and doesn’t require her to draw from an external source. That’d more than make up for the gap experience differential.

4. John Constantine (Legends of Tomorrow) vs. Jennifer Blake (Teen Wolf)

Constantine: From his self-titled show to his entrance to the larger Arrowverse, one thing that has stayed the same is Constantine’s douchey swagger and a habit that would otherwise be debilitating alcoholism.

His sobriety (or lack thereof) notwithstanding, Constantine has stepped in the ring with the nastiest demons in the game and came out with the collar of his trench coat still popping.

He has accrued a vast amount of magical knowledge, and what he doesn’t know he can find out from a plethora of sources (most of which hate him).

Magical knowledge aside, he isn’t the most proficient physical combatant. Usually, that won’t matter (and it usually doesn’t) when facing a regular person, but when up against an adversary that could match and even nullify his magical abilities, his poor fighting skills could have him come unstuck.

Jennifer Blake: Also known as The Darach, she is a druid turned dark that came to Beacon Hills to take on an entire pack of alpha werewolves led by the power-hungry Deucalion. After being mauled to near death by Kali whose pack she was an emissary to, she swore revenge by undertaking a series of rituals that imbued her with powerful abilities.

As a druid, knowledge of the arcane is her forte, and she has proven to be as wily as the best of them by masquerading as a mild-mannered teacher at the local high school, even getting Derek to fall for her.

Though she might’ve caused irreparable damage to the alpha pack by the time she was done, she never managed to take down the alphas’ alpha, even after timing her attack to coincide with a full moon which heightened her already impressive powers.

Winner: Constantine, by sheer ability to cheat death time without number. Ability-wise, there really isn’t anything between the two. Jennifer has had a couple of brushes with death herself, but she can’t quite measure up to John’s relentless desire to stay alive at all costs, which should stand him in good stead here.

5. Rowena (Supernatural) vs. Melisandre (Game of Thrones)

Rowena: When it comes to characters whose allegiance we’ve seen shift multiple times across Supernatural‘s record-breaking run, none hold a candle to the mother-son duo of Rowena and everyone’s favorite demon, Crowley.

At some point in the show, she managed to get her hands on The Book of the Damned, which made her a threat the Winchesters had to sit up and take notice of. She helped them imprison Lucifer in his cage once and repelled him after he had broken free.

Melisandre: She’s never one for flamboyance, unless you count the matching hair and outfit. Subtlety and vagueness is more her style, but that probably has more to do with the fickle nature of The Lord of Light.

We’ve seen the red priestess birth a smoke demon whose ultimate goal was to murder Renly, and then she burned a child at the stake for a war Stannis ultimately lost. But, her crowning moment, no doubt, has to be bringing Jon Snow back from the dead, which isn’t a feat many magicians can lay claim to.

Winner: Melisandre. Depending on The Lord of light’s mood on the day, Melisandre can keep respawning if he so wills it until she has ground Rowena down.

6. Adalind Schade (Grimm) vs. Mary Sibley (Salem)

Adalind: Strictly speaking, Adalind isn’t a witch, but in the Wesen world Hexenbeists and Zauberbeists are the closest things you’re going to get to anything magic.

While telekinesis and pyrokinesis are the baseline powers for this deadly type of Wesen, they can also cook up all sorts of potions and spells to suit their needs. Adalind once used a potion to strip Nick of his Grimm powers.

The powers she can utilize on the fly are limited by comparison to other types of hex witches, and she requires potions and artifacts to augment her abilities.

Mary: After her unwitting pact with the devil to grant her powers beyond her imagination, Mary set about enacting revenge on those who she feels have wronged her, clearing pieces off the metaphorical chessboard with the kind of cold, calculated efficiency that would gladden the dark lord’s heart.

Though she joined the coven late compared to the other witches who had been in Salem, her natural proficiency in the dark arts saw her rise swiftly through the ranks to the very top of the food chain, even going up against the devil himself and proving herself a more than worthy adversary.

She is still human and is susceptible to the type of physical harm that’d hurt a normal human. Her counterpart’s Wesen nature, on the other hand, grants her an increased resistance to physical trauma.

Winner: Mary Sibley. The power she wields is greater, both in its variety and intensity.

7. Hope Mikaelson (Legacies) vs. Hisirdoux Casperan (Wizards: Tales of Arcadia)

Hope: Hope is Mystic Fall’s and the world’s sole “tribrid.” Equal parts witch, vampire, and werewolf, not to mention the daughter of what is essentially vampire royalty.

It might seem Hope peaked as a little girl when she, along with the Saltzman twins, helped banish The Hollow from this plane of existence, but she has only continued to grow and fine-tune her powers over the years.

She makes much better use of her increased agility and strength and is invulnerable to a certain degree.

Being told you’re special from the day you were born can instill something of a god complex if you buy into your own hype, which is something Hope has been guilty of more than a few times.

Then there is her (currently) dormant vampire side that would be activated if she were to die, which will strip her of her magic. Seeing how much of her identity is tied to her status as a witch, its hard not to imagine that is a thought she’d have at the back of her head when she heads into dangerous situations.

Hisirdoux: He put out a bit of an incompetent protégé vibe when we first met him, but his adventures through time served as his long overdue baptism of fire. And if there ever is anyone who can beat the magic into a seemingly obtuse student, it’s Merlin, and that is exactly what he did.

Douxie scaled (almost) every hurdle with flying colors, if not a little grace. His unconventional use of magic infuriated his master at first, but slowly Merlin came to appreciate Douxie’s creative use of the powers he’s been granted, bestowing upon him a master’s staff in the end.

Unlike his master, his hand-to-hand combat skills aren’t exactly top-notch, and he still has an occasional tendency to overestimate his own abilities.

Winner: Hope Mikaelson. Though Hisirdoux might have a better mastery of spells, Hope’s raw power is superior. She can also take way more damage than he can without breaking.

8. Merlin (Merlin) vs. Zeddicus Zul Zorander (Legend of the Seeker)

Merlin: As a servant boy, Merlin is timid, and there is restraint in how he uses his magic, casting spells in hushes and whispers. However, in his Emrys persona, there is no stopping him.

He has mowed down entire armies almost singlehandedly. And in this form, he loves to get piggy rides from Authur and then slap him about a bit for good measure. He might be frailer as Emrys, but that doesn’t make him any less effective.

Merlin and Emrys are one and the same, but we’ve never quite seen Merlin cut loose in the same way he does as Emrys. He gets a significant boost of confidence when he switches to his alter ego, but unfortunately for him, 99% of the time he is just regular Merlin and his spells always suffer for it.

Zedd: Wizards of the first order are hard to come by, and even more so to find one who refined his already impressive spellcasting on the front lines of a long and bloody war and lived to tell the tale.

He has torched hundreds, possibly thousands of enemies, and is still standing without so much as a scar. His age doesn’t seem to slow him down, and if it did and he wanted to, he could simply revert to when he was at the height of his youth.

Zedd is one of the most well-rounded Wizards you’d ever find on TV, and the only fault you can lay at his feet is how taxing some of the more powerful spells seem to be on him. He has to pace himself or he can burn out quickly.

Winner: Zeddicus Zul Zorander. Arguably, Merlin can match him for power, but unlike Merlin’s old man persona being just that — a persona — Zedd has actually lived through the years and earned his grey hair in age and experience, which is what it’ll come down to.

9. Sabrina (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) vs. Christina Braithwhite (Lovecraft Country)

Sabrina: Lucifer’s daughter and heir apparent to hell, Sabrina has all the ingredients necessary to make a powerful sorceress.

If Sabrina can even die isn’t clear at this point, as the one time she was killed, she was reanimated by her father. It’s anybody’s guess if this was a one-time thing or not, but that is a pretty nifty trick to have in your locker when you’re staring down the barrel of another witch’s gun.

For all the power she possesses, Sabrina hasn’t really shown much adeptness at offensive magic, and she doesn’t seem particularly keen on taking anyone or anything’s life which isn’t that surprising considering the big dark cloud of her parentage hanging over her.

Christina: The biggest demon Christina is battling against is sexism, which, it goes without saying, is as tough an opponent as it can get. While her enemy on Lovecraft Country may be the abstract kind with physical manifestations (Read: men), her magic is very tangible and she has utilized it to some gruesome results.

Her father’s estate blew up and took the entire lodge members with it, so she is obviously very mortal and not in any way more harm-resistant than the rest of us.

Winner: Christina Braithwhite. She just has a better handle on her magic that Sabrina doesn’t. Also, judging by the spell of metamorphosis she came up with on her own, she’s extremely intelligent. Though it must be said that everything hinges on the fact that Sabrina can indeed die, otherwise it’s night-night Miss. Braithwhite.

10. Yennefer (The Witcher) vs. Merlin (Cursed)

Yennefer: Abused as a young girl, Yen never really had much self-confidence up until the moment she was sold off to the brotherhood to be trained as a sorceress (or be turned into an eel).

Her time spent training at the citadel forged her into a formidable enchantress, who, beneath all the pain and regret she carried, held a strong moral compass.

It manifested in a lot she did whether big or small, be it helping a hopeful couple with their sex life or standing with her sisters to defend the keep against the rampaging Nilfgaardian army.

Yennefer isn’t really big on restraint. Whenever an opportunity presents itself, you can be sure she’ll jump in headfirst into a situation that usually turns out to be disastrous.

Merlin: We started out with Merlin as a drunk who coasting on his reputation and past glory (and a lot of lies). As the episodes went by, we were shown what he was like when his powers were at their summit, and then we saw him at his weakest, begging for a quick death.

Last we saw him, he had laid hands on the sword of power once more which, we assume, has restored his mojo.

Tying your magic to an artifact is never a good idea, much less an artifact that has almost taken on a mind of its own and would apparently do its best to corrupt anyone who wields it.

Winner: Yennefer. Merlin isn’t what he used to be. At the peak of his powers, Merlin wipes the floor with Yennefer, but he has fallen a long way since that time and will certainly lose a battle with Yennefer.

11. Bonnie Bennett (The Vampire Diaries) vs. Jack Morton (The Order)

Bonnie: Ever since Elena became a vampire, The Vampire Diaries seemed to be at a loss on what to do with Bonnie.

A character that was great just as she was got shoved to the background and then killed off. She came back as a ghost, was then made an anchor, and in the end, she was unrecognizable from the badass witch she used to be.

We’ve willfully chosen to blot out all that mess and focus on the good early days when everything was awesome.

The Bennett bloodline is tied to a lot of powerful curses in Mystic Falls, which shows just how much potential she has, but with all the supernatural hoops she had to jump through just to stay on the show, inevitably, her progress as a witch wasn’t so much stunted as it was brought to a screeching halt.

All that talent went to waste.

Jack: He isn’t particularly the brightest out there, but he does make up for it with a decent heart.

Also, his werewolf side augments his magic in addition to the partial invulnerability and accelerated healing factor it grants him, not to mention being especially attuned to sniffing out magic and vanquishing it wherever and whenever he finds it. 

Parlor tricks are easy to pull off, but magic powerful enough to take on another witch requires a sizeable sacrifice, which he might not always have in hand. And again, he isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

Winner: Bonnie Bennett. Only just. Bonnie’s magic requires no sacrifice unless you count the time she became a dark magic addict (PC term: expression). And though Jack is more durable, he isn’t impervious and can be killed by someone of a decent skill level.

12. Willow Rosenberg (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) vs. Quentin Coldwater (The Magicians)

Willow: Willow took a bit of time to come to grips with her powers, but she got there eventually. The Scooby gang squared off against some powerful beings in their time, but nothing fazed her.

As her prowess increased, so did the type of magic she was able to draw from. Notably, she took on so much dark magic as dark Willow and very few beings were said to be able to match her power level in that state.

By any standard, there is nothing spectacular about Willow’s magic, which is both a blessing and a curse. While she could ascend to a higher level of power, everyday Willow is just your everyday sorceress.

Quentin: He was quite slow to learn at first too, but Quentin caught up pretty fast.

It’d be hard not to, seeing as Brakebills is filled to the brim with talented mages he can learn from, and there is an entire school’s worth of magical knowledge to absorb at his own leisure. He has also had the honor of meeting and fighting literal gods and a ton of other colorful magical beings.

Though powerful in his own right, the ceiling placed on his potential just isn’t as high as one might expect from a show’s leading man.

Winner: Willow. With both operating at optimum power, there is just no way Willow loses this confrontation.

13. Diana Bishop (A Discovery of Witches) vs. Alyssa Drake (The Order)

Diana: After intentionally suppressing her magic for years, Diana’s powers came back to haunt her with a vengeance, breaking through in violent bursts every time she loses the tiniest bit of control.

She, apparently, also has access to elemental magic hitherto unseen in a number of centuries in the magic world, and for that reason, everyone is gunning for her head.

Untrained as she is, she has managed to take down vampires purely by an instinctual desire for self-preservation.

However, she has zero control over what her power does or doesn’t do, and instinct isn’t going to cut it every time she faces a threat.

Alyssa: One minute she was chastising acolytes for doing unsanctioned magic, the next thing you know she has defected to what is essentially a magical terror group. The about-face was jarring, but she has grown significantly more powerful since she left the temple.

No longer restricted in which texts she can or cannot study, coupled with a newfound disregard for human life, she is a threat like none the temple has had to silence before.

Her magic has been shown to be a tad too unreliable. That is never a good thing in a standoff. One ill-timed blip is all it takes for one’s insides to be splattered all across the wall.

Winner: Diana Bishop. Power trumps control. It’s as easy as that.

14. Abigael Caine (Charmed) vs. The Circle (The Secret Circle)

Abigael: Witches ostracize those of among them with demon blood and that is probably born out of jealousy. The very half they detest is what makes someone like Abigael extremely powerful. She leveraged that side of her to become the (now former) demon overlord.

Before she was ousted, she managed to relieve Macy of her demon powers and take it for herself, powering herself up even more.

Her wits are razor-sharp, which, ironically, makes her underestimate her opponents, which has landed her in hot water a number of times.

The Circle: As you’d expect with a coven such as this, their magic is exponentially more powerful when they cast spells as a group rather than individually. They also happen to possess two members in their circle who are descendants of one Balcoin — one in a long line of particularly powerful dark magicians.

They aren’t the most cohesive group. You might argue they don’t even like each other.

Their powers work better in sync but none of them seem to care enough to see past his/her personal issues to work towards that all-important group harmony.

Winner: Abigael Caine. The only thing the circle has going for them is their superior number, something Abigael has some experience dealing with courtesy of the Charmed ones.

15. Davina Claire (The Originals) vs. Marie Laveau (American Horror Story)

Davina: As a harvest girl, she and four other girls were blood sacrifices offered to the ancestors by the New Orleans witches in a bid to replenish their magic. At least that was the plan before Marcel interfered and ruined their witchy rituals.

Davina was left with all the power of the other girls that had been sacrificed combined. She struggled to keep it under control (no thanks to Marcel turning her into a hermit), but she eventually came into her own, amassing an arsenal of lethal spells by necessity.

You can only be so docile when you live in such close proximity to Klaus and his homicidal family.

Marie After she made a trade with Papa Legba — immortality for her soul — she spent years just being a badass queen. Of course, she lost said immortality, but it was only ever a tiny part of a whole lot of power she had.

She made it a point to bring the pain on anyone who has crossed her, and not many dared to oppose her crusade.

Unfortunately, her hubris has been the cause of her undoing before, and if anything is ever going to bring her down, you feel it is going to be the same thing that did her in once before.

Winner: Marie Laveau. The only thing she’d really need to tear her enemy limb from limb is a raggedy voodoo doll, and maybe a strand of Davina’s hair. Everything could be done from the comfort of her couch.

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What do you think of the matchups? Think anyone was undeserving of his victory? Or maybe there are more you’d have liked to see pitted against each other. Let us know in the comments!

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