Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-4403232-20140411230237/@comment-24400457-20140510133138

I kinda hope they use the distraction to do something more... subtle. Kidnap Ruby? Poison Ozpin? Recruit Team CRDL? Sabotage Beacon's defenses?

As for the finals themselves, I've always been fond of Miltia, Melanie, Mercury and Emerald entering the tournament with intent to "accidentally" kill Team RWBY (they are far more experienced and, in a tournament in which you are allow to stab, shoot and burn people casualties HAVE to be expected).

The trick to RWBY's survival however is that Cinder's associates need to be careful, they need to SLOWLY whittle down Weiss, Ruby, Blake and Yang's aura, because once it hits the red they lose their chance to deliver a fatal blow (since they'd be eliminated and likely removed from the arena). They need to hit them JUST before their aura hits the red, and they need to hit them hard during that time.

RWBY survive and win because Malachites/Mercury/Emerald cannot go all-out. Of course as I said, the tournament's a distraction more than anything for Cinder/Roman/possibly Adam to do something bigger in the background.