Yes, we have fighting robots. There is much rejoicing.

The 2020 season of BattleBots, delayed by *points to globe* all this shit is up and running. It won’t be as grand as originally expected back in April, again due to *points to globe again* all this shit, but there are robots fighting in 2020, a Giant Nut will be awarded, and we will lose our collective shit about a fight that former 2-time Giant Nut winner and current judge Jason Bardis has proclaimed “Best. Fight. Ever.”

Bot fans are already trying to extrapolate. Also of note, it was a split decision, so the red square bot was not necessarily the winner (we don’t know and Bardis probably won’t say if he was in the majority or the dissent).

Other thing to note from the scorecard, by the way: A revised scoring system. It’s now an 11-point scale for each judge, with 5 points for damage and 3 for aggression and control. BattleBots was debating this last year, and finally made the change. It gives a little more leeway than just the 2 points for aggression—there can be a bit more give here, which is useful.

Anyway, here’s the news involving notables attending, or more likely, not.

The big one? No Bite Force. The two-time defending, and four-time (or five, depending on whether R3 counts) Giant Nut winner Paul Ventimiglia is sitting this year out due to covid. However, he put the previous version of Bite Force up for sale (name not included), and though it might be a bit late for them to come to the party this year, could we see Bite Force 3.0 vs. the robot formerly known as Bite Force 2.0 in 2021? That would be pretty cool.

We will have one former Paul Ventimiglia robot though. The robot formerly known as Brutality, Paul Ventimiglia’s 2009 heavyweight champ and the robot that had the honor of retiring BioHazard (okay, I guess it was Megabyte, but it was slated to fight Brutality next, forfeited, and then they had a whiteboard match later that night, which was the four-time champ’s final fight) returns. DoomKid, aka Tyler of Team Doom Robotics, is… I’m tempted to say nine years old. He bought Brutality, Ray Billings (of Tombstone) helped him refurbish it, and a former champ returns over 10 years later, re-named Perfect Phoenix.

The other more obvious news: Almost all international teams are declining to come this year, because quarantine. The notable foreign teams in? Black Dragon, BETA, and End Game. End Game’s notable as it will headline the season premiere fights vs. Tombstone.Because of the uncertainty, there are a host of new bots, including offshoots of other teams. These offshoots include undercutter HiJinx and horizontal flywheel Malice.  Falcon was shelved in favor of returning Hydra and a new Whyachi bot that’s become an immediate betting favorite, Fusion. In Senor’s local rooting interests, Bots FC Shatter! returns though probably no parties in Fort Greene. Team Flight Plan, another city team, enters with their robot SMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (I think that’s the correct number of E’s). SMEEEE… takes on Sharkoprion in the premiere as well. And that’s just a sniff of it all, as I’m sure more news will trickle out between now and the first episode being shown… tonight!

Before then, here is the unofficial Senor Weaselo tier list, in case there’s such a thing as GAMBLOR for BattleBots. Other than Team DFO building a robot named GAMBLOR.

Tier 1: Betting favorites (returning robots only): Witch Doctor, Tombstone
Tier 1A: Most promising newcomer/potential favorite: Fusion
Tier 2: Maybe a step behind the favs: Whiplash, SawBlaze, Hydra, Son of Whyachi (surprisingly returning!), HUGE (it’s just such a meta breaker), Icewave, Lock-Jaw
Tier 3: Dark Horses: BETA, Black Dragon, Bloodsport (the new one looks sharp)
Tier 4: Top 16-looking bots: Skorpios, HyperShock, Bronco (also surprise!), End Game, RotatoR
Tier 5: Rumors of a 32-bot tourney mean they should be in: Gigabyte, Gruff, Ghost Raptor, Kraken, Perfect Phoenix (how much has needed to be revamped?), Shatter!

Assume with the others that there’s not enough information or the information we do have means “meh” (sorry Axe Backwards, at the moment this means you). This is of course very fluid, as the last trailer saw such things as Witch Doctor getting sent many feet high by Hydra, End Game putting HyperShock on the screws, a fight between Tombstone and newcomer SlapBox (which might be part of a new format called bounties, where 8 bots fight each other for the glory of fighting a top tier bot to potentially win some money). It looked like Tombstone hit it hard though did get sent spinning as per being Tombstone and Newtonian physics.

Anyway, as I said, holy shit the season premiere is tonight. Discovery, 8 Eastern, check local listings otherwise.