History Main / MageKiller

* ''BaldursGate 2'' has 'Inquisitor' speciality for Paladins and 'Mage-hunter' speciality for Fighters (the first is decent enough, the 2nd completely sucks due to the inability to use magic items without insane twinking).
** The Inquisitor is an exceptionally powerful character; once paired with [[InfinityPlusOneSword Carsomyr]] they're [[GameBreaker practically unstoppable]] when facing magic users. Mage-hunters can still use magical swords and armour which are the things most useful to a melee fighter anyway. They're just not as awesome as Inquisitors.

* The [[ShoutOut Huckebein]] family in ''[[{{Nanoha}} Magic War Chronicles Nanoha Force]]'' all have powers which make them very good at fighting mages.

** The Inquisitor is an exceptionally powerful character; once paired with [[InfinityPlusOneSword Carsomyr]] they're practically unstoppable against magic-using enemies who are by far the hardest opponents anyway. Mage-hunters can still use magical swords and armour, making them resilient enough to close with an inconvenient wizard and cut his head off with a [[ImpossiblySharpBlade Vorpal Sword]], or something. Both are quite competent against mundane opponents.

[[folder:Manga and Anime]]
* ''ToAruMajutsuNoIndex'': Touma has the "Imagine Breaker", both a PowerNullifier and an AntiMagic, which he uses in one way: fist to face.
* There are [[BashBrothers a couple of characters]] in ''FairyTail'' who fit this trope to a T. Didn't help them to deal with Natsu, as they chose the worst possible tactics.
* [[spoiler:Jeremiah Gottwald]] in ''CodeGeass'' - in the second series, he is given a Geass Canceller, which allows him to [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin cancel a geass]] active on anyone else, as well as making him immune to all geasses.
* Every character in ''WitchHunterRobin'', with a couple of caveats. Only [[WitchSpecies witches]] can naturally resist each other's powers, blocking attacks and GeoEffects are perhaps the only shared abilities by all witches other than having a special ability. This is how Robin and Karasuma [[HunterOfHisOwnKind fight other witches]]. The rest of the human cast has to make do with wearing vials of Orbo and using [[WeaponizedWeakness bullets filled with the stuff]], which naturally cancels witch powers and weakens them on contact.
** In season 2, when the enhanced Orbo suit witch hunters hit the scene we find out that [[spoiler:using living witches as HumanResources to make the stuff]] has very detrimental effects on the humans using the stuff.
* The [[ShoutOut Huckebein]] family in ''[[{{Nanoha}} Magic War Chronicles Nanoha Force]]'' all have powers which make them very good at fighting mages.
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* The Spell Breakers in ''{{Warcraft III}}''.

** To a lesser extent, fairy dragons.

* ''{{Warmachine}}'' has the Mage Hunters of Ios, a group of elves specialicing in asassinating enemy magic users. Most of them don't actually have anti-magic powers, but they are highly trained to fight againt mages.
* ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' has blanks, who are humans with a negative warp presence, which disrupts psychic powers and warp-based entities within their vicinity; assassins from the Culexus Temple are all blanks. Daemons and mortal champions of Khorne are often blessed by their patron with resistance or immunity to psychic powers, as Khorne loathes sorcery; Flesh Hounds (daemonic beasts of Khorne) always wear collars blessed this way, and Khorne often sends them to hunt for psykers.

-->"When in doubt, shoot the mage."
-->--[[TortallUniverse Keladry of Mindelan]]

A MageKiller is basically a BadassNormal whose capabilities of dealing with mages are somehow improved. He can [[AntiMagic resist harmful spells]], [[PowerNullifier prevent enemies from using them]] or [[AttackReflector reflect them back to enemies]], for example. Anyway, enemies can't possibly defeat him with magic, and as a BadassNormal the MageKiller has a major physical advantage over [[SquishyWizard mages with no combat prowess]] (that is, 95% of mages). His additional ablities may involve detecting magic or tracking its users. Sometimes he may even use magic, but very rarely, and not the usual earthquakes and meteors, but something subtle or [[ManaBurn affecting only mages]]. If a MageKiller is a member of an order who specializes in hunting mages, his anti-magic abilities are very likely to be [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower a result of specific training]]. Anyway, a MageKiller is usually very similar to a MagicKnight, only with anti-magic instead of magic. When they run into {{Magic Knight}}s or {{KungFuWizard}}s, they've got problems.

[[TropesAreNotBad Sometimes]] is a part of normal arms race or a niche -- if there's a threat, everyone want to get countermeasures, and if there's something, some critter sooner or later will eat it. [[TropesAreNotGood Sometimes]] is added as an element of FakeBalance (situational advantage): instead of {{nerf}}ing down superpowered entities in question, make up a selectively fearsome enemy for them, so they would not look best in ''all'' situations.

* There are [[BashBrothers a couple of characters]] in ''FairyTail'' who fit this trope to a T. Didn't help them t deal with Natsu, as they chose the worst possible tactics.

* SCPFoundation has Dr Clef, who specializes in killing {{Reality Warper}}s, and, to a lesser extent, everybody else who have to deal with superpowered humanoids.

* Isaak Friels from ''FateNuovoGuerra''. Luciano's [[TheDragon dragon]] Evgeniya is more or less a DistaffCounterpart of Kiritsugu above, only replace "[[DepletedPhlebotinumShells Origin Bullets]]" with "[[AttackDrone Predator Drones]]".

** The Monk base class is a competent mage killer. They're generally the hardest characters to hit with touch attacks (the type of attack roll spellcasters are most likely to make), they have the best advancement in all three saving throws (used to resist spells that don't require attack rolls), and about half of them are going to be good at wrestling (one of the most difficult attack forms for many spellcasters to resist).

* ''BaldursGate 2'' has 'Inquisitor' speciality for Paladins and 'Mage-hunter' speciality for Fighters.

-->--[[TortallUniverse Keladry of Mindelean]]

* {{TheBartimaeusTrilogy}} has the Resistance, humans who are born with a varying degree of Resilience to magic and are using their Resilience to slowly overthrow the Magician Government. Except for the Mercenary, whom has the greatest Resilience to the point of being set on fire and being dubbed an Implaccable Man, uses his resilience to make money.

* ''BartimaeusTrilogy'' has the Resistance, humans who are born with a varying degree of Resilience to magic and are using their Resilience to slowly overthrow the Magician Government. Except for the Mercenary, whom has the greatest Resilience to the point of being set on fire and being dubbed an Implaccable Man, uses his resilience to make money.

"When in doubt, shoot the mage."
->-[[TortallUniverse Keladry of Mindelean]]

See also CapeBusters, for the anti-superpower (rather than anti-magic) version.

* MistBorn has Hazekillers, warriors specifically trained for taking on the titular magic users. They aren't very effective, though.