Scarlet Witch vs the Ancient One: who wins in the MCU?

The Scarlet Witch was destined to become more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme, to rule the world or destroy it. She showed that off in the way she handled Doctor Strange. So what happens against a Sorcerer Supreme with more life experience, more wisdom and more practice? My verdict: the Ancient One can make it a contest, but the Scarlet Witch wins.

Both characters are part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Wanda Maximoff's power has grown from telekinesis and telepathy into the full Scarlet Witch, while the Ancient One has been the Sorcerer Supreme for an incredibly long time. Here's how each side stacks up.

The Ancient One's long run as Sorcerer Supreme and her combat magic

The Ancient One has been Sorcerer Supreme for an incredibly long time. You have to have been around for a while if people start calling you the Ancient One and you're fine with that nickname. In that time she has learned to do some remarkable things, and she's particularly good with combative magic.

She fought Kaecilius and his zealots, and she can unleash fans and weapons made out of Eldritch magic. She can also manipulate her own spirit and astral form, as well as other people's. Even as she was dying, she was able to throw her spirit out of her body and make time slow down all around her, which is one of the more moving moments the character gets.

She was able to push Bruce Banner out of the Hulk and then bring his spirit back in, and she did the same thing with Strange. She's skilled with her sling ring and teleportation magic too. She was easily able to send Doctor Strange, or at least his spirit, through countless dimensions, sending him down the rabbit hole on the craziest trip he'd ever experience.

The Ancient One's control of the Mirror Dimension

She can tap into the Mirror Dimension. In fact, the Ancient One has been tapping into the Dark Dimension for centuries, which means she has all of its power available to her. She can transport herself and others into the Mirror Dimension with little more than a thought.

Inside that dimension, it's essentially hers to control. She can shift buildings, shift gravity and throw things around, and it doesn't seem to be all that hard for her to do. The whole place turns into one giant kaleidoscope under her control. As I'll explain at the end, this is the ability that gives her a real chance in this fight.

Wanda Maximoff's powers ran on autopilot for most of her life

Then there's the Scarlet Witch, the one destined to take down the Sorcerer Supreme, and possibly any Sorcerer Supreme. For most of her life, Wanda Maximoff's powers were essentially operating on autopilot, running in the background and surfacing in the form of telekinesis, telepathy and some energy powers. That's shocking to think about, given what those powers alone could do.

Her telepathy was enough to incapacitate half the Avengers and force them to live out twisted nightmares. It was enough to control whole cities several times over. It was enough for her to overpower and tap into the Mind Stone, one of the most powerful objects in the universe, and enough to get into the minds of other witches and sorcerers.

Her telekinesis held up a crashing air traffic control tower. It overpowered Leviathans and peeled back Ultron's impenetrable vibranium body so she could tear out his heart. It blocked attacks from Thanos and then completely overpowered him, leaving him helpless and in her control.

Her energy powers were enough to destroy the Mind Stone while simultaneously holding back Thanos and the five other Infinity Stones. We should have seen her power coming all along, because none of this was her operating at her full potential.

The Westview hex showed Wanda's reality warping on a huge scale

So what is Wanda's true potential? We don't know for sure. I don't even know if we've fully seen it yet, and I bet she's got more to show us. But we do have a pretty good gauge now. She performed reality warping feats on an enormous scale with no known skill and no preparation, where other sorcerers would have needed master level skill and weeks of preparation to do something like that even on a smaller scale.

Through a surge of chaos magic, Wanda placed a hex around the town of Westview, New Jersey. She transmuted it back to the 1950s and brainwashed all the residents into acting in her sitcom world, WandaVision. With a cast, crew and location at her disposal, she could live out the life she dreamed of with Vision, mimicking her favorite TV sitcoms and shifting from one decade to another.

Inside the hex she had complete control, to the point of creating a new Vision and new children who only existed inside Westview. She could manipulate reality at will: introduce color, rewind time, edit things out, manipulate the cameras, roll credits and even pause everything.

She mind controlled everyone in town, forcing them to act out their parts while they went through the same pain and anguish Wanda was feeling. Residents in background roles were forced to do the same thing over and over again, and people living on the edge of town were left motionless but still alive. For the most part, all of this was the Scarlet Witch's magic running on autopilot.

As the full Scarlet Witch, Wanda beat Doctor Strange, Wong and the Illuminati

If all of that was barely tapping into her powers, what can she do as the full embodiment of the Scarlet Witch? For starters, she can beat Doctor Strange. She can beat Wong. She beat two Sorcerer Supremes at once and took down Kamar-Taj, all the forces of the Mystic Arts combined.

She was destined to either rule or destroy the world, which essentially makes her a planetary threat. She started casting spells like dreamwalking so she could jump from universe to universe, and Doctor Strange was pretty well convinced that Wanda was becoming, or had already become, a universal level threat.

Then she went up against a team like the Avengers, the Illuminati, and ripped them all to shreds, some of them in the most literal sense. She manipulated reality at will, threw chaos magic all around and telepathically broke necks, going all out. This wasn't a weak team by any means. They beat Thanos before he could snap, something the Avengers couldn't do.

Why the Ancient One has a genuine shot but the Scarlet Witch still wins

Doctor Strange and the Ancient One are similar in many ways, so it might seem like Wanda could beat her just as easily. I don't think it's that simple, because the Ancient One did something Strange never did. She fully tapped into the Dark Dimension and was able to use all its powers, so she can manipulate the Mirror Dimension extremely well.

Doctor Strange did trap Wanda in the Mirror Dimension, and Wanda got out. But Spider-Man beat Strange in the Mirror Dimension, and "he didn't even use magic he just used math." I think the Ancient One has better control over it, and I think Wanda would have a harder time getting out. I also think the Ancient One could layer tricks and traps on Wanda faster and more effectively than Strange, potentially even quicker than the Scarlet Witch can break out of them.

So the Ancient One has a genuine shot here, but I don't think she actually wins. I think she can hold the Scarlet Witch off, confound her for a while and keep her guessing. At the end of the day, though, Wanda is more powerful. "Wanda is just too powerful."

Besides, the Ancient One always said Doctor Strange would become more powerful than her, that he was destined to be the best and most powerful of them. Being able to fight a four stone Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet makes me think he reached that level, and he isn't playing second fiddle to the Ancient One. I think she knows things about the Mirror Dimension that Strange doesn't, and so she can do things to trick and trap Wanda. But I don't think she's inherently more powerful than Strange, and I definitely don't think she's more powerful than the Scarlet Witch. The best she can do is prolong the fight. Wanda has already beaten two Sorcerer Supremes, and here she takes down another one. The Scarlet Witch wins.