Toph Beifong

"I am the greatest earthbender in the world! Don't you two dunderheads ever forget it!"

- Toph to Master Yu and Xin Fu after trapping them in a metal box

Toph Beifong is an Earthbender from the Avatar series. She appears in the forty-second episode of Death Battle, Gaara VS Toph.

Biography
Toph Beifong was born into the wealthy Beifong family. However, she was born a blind child. Her parents became extremely overprotective of her. One day when she was 6 years old, Toph ran away, upset that she was essentially trapped in a cage. She went into a cave and met some badgermoles. She took a liking to them, as they were also blind, and learned to Earthbend from their ways by "seeing" with her other senses and her "seismic sense" where she senses the every vibrations in the ground to know where everything is. She eventually returned to her home, and because she had left unannounced and by herself, her parents put a tighter leash on her and didn't even permit her to leave the house. Years later, she would constantly sneak out and compete in bending tournaments under the alias "The Blind Bandit". One day, she met Aang, the Avatar, and his friends Katara and Sokka. After Toph helped them defeat some criminals, she revealed to her parents her bending skills and they put an even tighter leash on her. Not being able to stand the overprotecti on any longer, Toph joined Aang on his journey and taught him Earthbending.

Bending Skills
Toph is undoubtly an amazing Earthbender. She claims that she is in fact the greatest that ever lived and given her feats, it isn't too hard to see where she's coming from. Toph can use her bending in a variety of different ways, such as throwing boulders, creating shields or other barriers, an elevator of sorts and many other ways. She even created Metalbending, a sort of sub skill to Earthbending. The user bends metal, as it's simply purified and refined earth, by bending the unpurified bits of earth.

Toph also becomes proficient in sandbending, a more common earthbending technique, to the point where she can swiftly produce a detailed sand sculpture of Ba Sing Se. At the beginning she finds it hard to bend sand as it's loose and light. In the second season, it's revealed that she is unable to navigate effectively on sand as it makes everything look fuzzy and blurry to her. Ultimately she gained some mastery of sandbending, as she mentioned working on it during Team Avatar's beach party and was able to create a miniature version of the upper ring of Ba Sing Se in rich detail. Apparently, her ability to sense vibrations had improved, which may be how she was able to produce the very fine details of the city and did not show the same helplessness she had shown when previously walking on sand when the gang stepped onto the beach.

Trivia

 * Toph is unique in the fact that she was announced to participate in a Death Battle episode long before her opponent was revealed.
 * Toph's sprite sheet was actually created for this Death Battle by "The Toph Sprite Sheet Project", meaning that Death Battle will be the first people to actually use them.
 * The sprite sheet also happened to have started by Akumath, who is a part of Death Battle's official research team.
 * She is voiced in DEATH BATTLE by Kira Buckland who is well known for having the role of a female that from the first glance, looks like a sweet and innocent girl but is highly aggressive and will mock anyone besides her best friends - Hiyoko Saionjii. Typecasting anyone.