Quote Originally Posted by Lauront View Post
Thordan could only pull that stuff off because you had already weakened the Ascians in question and he had the eye of Nidhogg at his disposal, and he was an eikon and able to manifest an aetheric sword to go along with it; it was an ideal set of circumstances. Bear in mind several of these things alone would not ordinarily suffice to slay an Ascian overlord. For Varis to pull off a similar feat would be rather incredible.

If you mean outsmarts, he may have greater chances there but again, Elidibus is a very skilled/gifted manipulator. Igeyorhm and Lahabrea were much more direct in their intentions.
I feel like it would be within the capabilities of the Garleans to design some manner of weaponry that's able to focus aether effectively enough to destroy Ascians if they've gone so far as to be able to artificially replicate the Echo (Though there's a rather large chance the Ascians were involved in that).

For that matter, I'm curious as to whether or not the Shadowhunter has been actually killing off lower ranking Ascians somehow, since even those require an extremely powerful aetheric force to destroy completely (If the HW SMN quests were any indication).