Considering he end up out fooling Gaara (when the genjutsu was taken care of already), scouting ability, who has environment range attacks, plus Onoki's, I find it possible.
The Genjutsu being taken care of doesn't matter, it still gave him time to get out of his opponent's field of vision, making it much easier to hide. What you are suggesting is that he runs away in plain sight and tries to hide, as if Gai won't be able to stop him or find him.
His attacks he relies on it will end up blowing on his face.
Considering he'll know which one isn't the original, he has no reason to go for it.
Potentially sniping is all the matters
There is no "potentially". Without Gai being disabled, they simply aren't hitting him.
and the fact that using gates will just conduct heat for them to explode on him.
Water Clones don't explode. Joki Boy does. Not to mention there is zero evidence that Gates creates enough heat for the clones to explode just by being in contact with him.
Keep in mind Im not talking about in infinite process version.
There is only one version of Joki Boy. That's it.
Considering it was stuck in between sand, not much body movement is needed to explode.
Irrelevant. It exploded because it fully expanded. Movement isn't even relevant here.
Then he notices it expanding, and ignores it, and takes out the original.
@Bold, base on what? Last time I check Guy is not the best being analytical with these type of stuff.
Lol, yes guys. When Gai's goal is to take out the original, he'll waste time with a
clone that is
expanding uncontrollably, which usually constitutes some kind of explosion. Lmao. Gai not being "analytical" is an extremely weak argument considering it doesn't take any analytical ability to stick to a simple plan of "Defeat the original, ignore unnecessary clones, and not to hit the giant expanding thing that is also a clone, which he doesn't even need to deal with to beat the original".
Plus stop hitting it isn't going to stop it from absorbing heat still and explode.
Whether or not it explodes is irrelevant, because Gai won't be near it when it explodes, he'll be killing the original Gengetsu.
The same thing on the original, since he is an Hozuki...
Water clones are made of water. They die with a single hit. The original's body isn't going to matter.