Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25436862-20151111171940/@comment-5004454-20151119152307

First off, Jiraiya did awesome for a guy who had so many disatvantages going for him, fighting an opponent with a legendary doujutsu like Nagato. The only 2 mistakes he ever did was that he focused too much on fighting Pein with small scale ambush tactics in the man's own territory and that he let his emotions get the best of him at certain points in the battle. He should have prepared more long term strategies and exercised more patience, but considering the shitstorm he was in, the stakes of it all and what he was forced to deal with, I guess you can say that's too much to ask for.

Jiraiya was detected the moment he got in the village, via Nagato's rain technique. He also didn't know nearly as much about his enemy's techniques, combat style and mindset. Nagato, on the other hand, had much more prior knowledge due to their history. There goes half the battle.

In the case of Minato, both of them start of with a blank slate when it comes to information. They also don't know each other and thus, none of them any particular advantage over the other.

So I would go with Minato. Not just for the speed, but his impressive repertoire of unorthodox ninjutsu, fuinjutsu, and a mindset that can calmly, in the heat of battle, analyse and breakdown an enemy's techniques all the while reacting to their effects as though he has seen them before. That, and he has a whole lot more experience than Nagato. He did fight in a world war after all. I mean, Obito is a far more tricky opponent than Pein with his space-time ninjutsu and Minato wiped the floor with him. Obito also had much bigger advantages over the Yellow Flash, like holding his son and (technically) his wife hostage, the Kyuubi, and even a personal connection.

The only way for Pein to win, is through terrain advantage. If he fought inside the village, took hostages or somehow managed to grab ahold of our blong Hokage; chances of each being fairly slim.