Everyone still standing? Good.

Welcome back to the Beat, the leading BattleBots wall o’text that gets written and formatted the day before because it’s important to put the pro in procrastination! Anyway last week was the premiere, where Fusion nearly achieved it, Malice still didn’t do the D-X Crotch Chop, and End Game booped Tombstone over the wall for a six. (I think that’s how cricket works.) This week some of the other tiers of contenders compete. Early betting favorite in the Senor Weaselo Brain Casino Witch Doctor takes on Hydra, and HUGE takes on Mammoth. If you scroll to that one I understand.

Onto the fights!

Ghost Raptor vs. Shatter!
Oh hot damn, Chuck Pitzer and Sabertooth Cat Ghost Raptor are back! The surprise Season 1 (or 6) semifinalist returns with a bar spinner that hopefully won’t break this time, connected to a lifter. I wouldn’t consider it a lifter-spinner in the same way as Whiplash—maybe a spinner-lifter? On the other side, the Brooklyn crew returns, though there’s no party in Fort Greene these days. Shatter! is more colorful this time around, sporting pink and blue ablative armor. Also they apparently hit hard enough when testing in the Box to break the color bits off the robot when making sure everything works. I’m not sure if that’s really impressive or a bit of an indictment of the armor. I guess we’ll find out, though.

Shatter!’s hammer landed solid shots early, and from them Ghost Raptor’s bar stopped. Well, not great for “Will the bar spinner not break this time?” The good news is, again, the lifter portion of the weapon, which was so effective in that semifinal run, did still work, and was able to get some lifts on Shatter!, but was unsuccessful in flipping the hammer bot over. It became a bit of a pushing match for Ghost Raptor, which was a mixed success until it wasn’t. The way to tell that one was the smoking. And then the burning. That would be bad. But Shatter! was trapped between Ghost Raptor and the screws and also not able to move, so it could have potentially been a double KO, which would go to the judges. Until they were able to use the hammer to free themselves and leave Ghost Raptor as the only motionless bot. Shatter! wins by KO in 2:12.

Tracer vs. Ribbot
The frog returns! Now with less foam! At least no legs. The WPI squad returns after a fairly successful first campaign and hopefully fixed any flies in their ointment. (Sorry.) As for Tracer, it’s a bulky looking vert with a similar to Bite Force color scheme, and who Chris Rose mentioned people were worried about in the pits—builder Jason Woods last competed in BattleBots in the 2009 High School Championship with middleweight Slingshot. It also has a minibot, named Clean Cut.

It was a good start for the new bot, as the first strike between the two took off one of Ribbot’s wheels. Ribbot was undaunted and the two clashed again. This time it wasn’t quite weapon to weapon, but Ribbot hit just a bit to the side, on Tracer’s front end. This flipped Tracer over, and it had no srimech. That’s not the end of the world if the wheels are still touching the ground (they weren’t) or the bar can flip it back over (it wasn’t moving). Meanwhile, Ribbot went for Clean Cut. And it was a clean ending. Ribbot wins by KO in 43 seconds.

Black Dragon vs. Kraken
The battle of the mythical beasts! Of the two, lone Brazilian squad this year Black Dragon probably has the bigger notoriety, winning the Desperado tournament last year, knocking off Minotaur in the final of that. Kraken has improved, but has been just a nibble away from the top 16. With the bracket expanding to 32 I expect both these robots to be there, but first fights and impressions are important after all. The fight will primarily be a question of feeder wedges, as both bots went for their thinner wedges to counter each other. Black Dragon wanted to show as much of the weapon, while Kraken wanted to get in between the wedgelets to get a bite down.

Kraken didn’t box rush, and Black Dragon pretty much drove right up the crusher’s wedge. So wedge geometry question answered, as Kraken bit down. The new tooth structure was rumored to offer more clamping opportunities, and they were showing it, along with the flamethrower in the mouth. Yeah, clampers and crushers with flamethrowers is probably the best option there.

Black Dragon could push back, but you could quickly see a belt lost. That would be one of Black Dragon’s weapon belts, but the redundancy showed why it was important as they could keep attacking and get some points back, delivering shots rolling Kraken onto its head, or arguably the biggest blow, bending and then tearing off one of Kraken’s fangs.

It remained a back and forth fight. Kraken wasn’t entirely toothless, still having one tooth left and being able to take Black Dragon to the pulverizer. And back and forth they went, as it went to the judges.

Not a Judge Senor had it 3-2 for damage for Black Dragon and 2-1 in the other two categories for Kraken, so 6-5 for Kraken. The judges had a split decision, and after Derek Young and Lisa Winter split for Kraken and Black Dragon respectively, Jason Bardis’s card went for your winner, Black Dragon by split decision.

It was a mixed reaction from the gantries, who I’d say most had Kraken winning the fight. And a mostly Kraken reaction from the livethreads on the social medias. Post-airing, Lisa Winter showed the cards so we could see who gave what.

Jason Bardis gave damage 4-1 to Black Dragon, which I guess I can see if you determine that due to redundant belts losing one is negligible, but I still think that’s relevant weapon damage, even though less major than Kraken losing a tooth which hampered the weapon’s ability more than the lost belt—armor damage was fairly minor for both bots. I can’t say I see the 2-1 Lisa Winter gave Black Dragon for aggression, but I’m sure she has her logic.

I’d love to see the judges’ cards after the fight, on the show. And maybe after split decisions cut to the judges giving the reasons for their scorings. Even the builders don’t get to see that, and I feel like that they should be able to see that post-decision, for transparency’s sake. Regardless, Black Dragon gets the win, but as noted, the all-seeing Selection Committee sees the fights and knows that that’s probably the best-looking loss you can have, so it won’t be a massive mark against Kraken. Minus the fact they’re 0-1.

Mammoth vs. HUGE
Make way for the big boys. Which in the case of Mammoth are somehow bigger. It’s now 6’4″. Original meta-breaker HUGE’s biggest change? I think it’s the reversible bar because of the way they hit. They might be the only robot where hitting downwards could be advantageous. They’re doing it for this fight, for instance.

Now. YouTube this fight right now. Just search for it. I’ll wait.

We good? Good.

What the fuck did we just watch? I mean, it was awesome, but I have no idea what it was. So let’s attempt to break it down.

The first hit they managed to topple each other. It’s like a tackle almost. Then they did it again, breaking off one of Mammoth’s tusks. And then, it got even weirder as every time the two bots met they started doing flips and twists that would get points deducted in pairs figure skating for dangerous maneuvers. But somehow, even though Mammoth was the one who had the more violent looking… whatever it is, the recoil—does it count as recoil?—was working to drive HUGE back enough to cut off the arena as Mammoth cornered it. And HUGE, trying to fight out of it, just kept cornering itself, and it can’t turn on a dime so Mammoth persevered and kept using its crazy spinning lifter to put one of HUGE’s wheels over the wall. And it was wedged enough that it couldn’t get it out. So, Mammoth wins? Yeah, Mammoth wins by KO in 2:17.

HUGE just missed the load-bearing parts of Mammoth’s piping, just missing the triangular bit, or the bit that holds the weapon, or countless other bites. But yeah. I don’t know if I can call it a Fight of the Year candidate, but it was definitely something of the year.

Claw Viper vs. HiJinx
It’s a pair of rookie bots offshooting from other teams that you know and like! Claw Viper is from the part of WAR Hawk (not competing) that worked with WAR Stop and can apparently do 0-20 in 0.5 seconds. So what you’re telling me is Claw Viper vs. HyperShock confirmed, if not in a fight, then in a drag race. It’s a clamper/lifter, so it’ll be going for as many suplexes as possible. HiJinx is an offshoot from the team behind Skorpios. It is an undercutter. It’s a 3-second spin-up from the undercutter, so expected as much olé-ing as possible.

Because Claw Viper box rushed (obviously) and made it across the box in 1.1 seconds. The lifter wasn’t working great and there were no suplexes, but the speed meant that it could corral and harass and make sure HiJinx could never get to full speed. HiJinx looked pretty good but could never get it together as a result, and whether a shock from the hits, or something, lost its mobility. So Claw Viper wins by KO in 2:07 and definitely looks interesting.

Perfect Phoenix vs. Extinguisher
I’m excited about Perfect Phoenix. Tyler Nguyen (aka DoomKid) is 11 years old. He’s apparently been MENSA since he was 4, and fighting robots since he was 5. Captain Doom, his beetleweight, went 5-1 in the inaugural season of Bugglebots, finishing 3rd. So then he bought Paul Ventimiglia’s Brutality. Which, as I’ve mentioned one or two dozen times, won the 2009 Pro Championship, and retired BioHazard in 2005 (okay, it was a forfeit after the damage from Megabyte, but they did fight later). So it didn’t suck. After buying Brutality, Tyler called on noted horizontal weapon expert and guy his mom is dating Ray Billings to help renovate and update the robot. It’s an overhead bar spinner (think Bloodsport). But yeah, the robot is older than him. And Ray couldn’t lend them the remote cart. You have two kids pushing the 250-lb. robot themselves. Come on, Ray.

Extinguisher returns! And the builder is the old man of the matchup! That’s a surprise as John Flaacke is 18, so in most match-ups, he’s the younger captain. The hammer returns, looking a little less like a fireman’s axe, and hopefully with a little more oomph. Gone is the fire siren. It was not missed by many. It looks good but the big question is going to be reliability.

As per necessity, Extinguisher went for the box rush, but whiffed. Perfect Phoenix, up to speed, landed a fairly glancing blow on the wedge, which tanked it, but something inside got rattled from the get go (John Flaacke says the box rush and hitting the wall), and it killed the drive. Perfect Phoenix wins in 59 seconds, and Tyler Nguyen uses the S1 championship to convey his strategy. The kid knows his robots, in case you were wondering.

Main Event: Hydra vs. Witch Doctor
Flipper king vs. voodoo queen, jostling for early favorite with End Game in Senor’s Sixteen and all the absolutely nothing it stands for! It’s episode 2, after all, and these are entirely non-binding as I have no say in anything. But power rankings make you look professional these days!

Anyway, Team Whyachi claims Hydra has twice the force of last season. Might we see a robot hit the ceiling at some point? I’m not sure, but if they fight Gemini at any point, then fuck it, sure.

Witch Doctor won a Giant Bolt and was runner-up. So unlike previous runners-up, they didn’t blow it all up! No major robot changes like Bombshell, no major weapon tweaks that mess up the geometry like Minotaur. Just things like making the srimech better, and making everything more reliable. And they’ll probably need that srimech working, because if they escape without getting flipped I’ll be impressed. And also they probably won.

They did not escape without getting flip. One basically started the fight. And then a second sent Witch Doctor 15 feet up. Most robots can’t take themselves falling from a second-story window, but Hydra had Witch Doctor survive two in about 10 seconds. Witch Doctor could pick and pop, but Jake Ewert was able to keep the wedge in front and keep flipping—3, 4, 5, 6, 7. At this point Witch Doctor was wobbling because their weapon had a piece break off, making the whole thing unbalanced and smoking the weapon motor—8, 9, 10. The eleventh flip put Witch Doctor on the screws, and the familiar screw mojo once again worked in their favor to get Witch Doctor off the screws.

And then Hydra wasn’t moving too well. It was crab walking. The ref told them to show some movement. The ref started the count. Hydra jumped back to life, somewhat. It was holding on, whether high-centered or something else—it was something else, as Jake Ewert said the speed controllers were overheating.

Witch Doctor could push and take bits off, but couldn’t spin up steadily enough to get that big hit to really turn the tide. It went to the judges, and… was a split decision?

Judge Senor had it 3-2 for Hydra, because of that motor issue. It looks worse than it is, but it adversely affected mobility, so it counts for something. That being almost totally dead for 45 seconds or so meant instead of 3-0 and 3-0 I’d give 2-1 and 2-1 for Hydra in control and aggression. That’s still 7-4 for Hydra, so I was surprised by the split. I saw Jason Bardis posted somewhere the cards, but this one I can’t find. He went for Witch Doctor, but Lisa Winter and Derek Young went for Hydra, who wins by split decision. Again, I have some questions on that split and would want to see the cards more clearly.

That takes us to Senor’s Sixteen! There’s no real point to do +/- stuff, but dropped out robots are noteworthy, so they’re added as a separate thing.

1. Hydra (1-0)
2. End Game (1-0)
3. SawBlaze (1-0)
4. Witch Doctor (0-1)
5. Tombstone (0-1)
6. Lock Jaw (1-0)
7. Icewave (0-0)
8. Son of Whyachi (0-0)
9. Bloodsport (1-0)
10. Black Dragon (1-0)
11. Whiplash (0-1)
12. Rotator (0-0)
13. Skorpios (0-1)
14. HyperShock (0-0)
15. Bronco (0-0)
16. Shatter! (1-0)

Also considered: Claw Viper (1-0), Perfect Phoenix (1-0), BETA (0-0), Valkyrie (0-0), Gruff (0-0)
Dropped out: HUGE (0-1)

Tonight’s main event will be HyperShock vs. Gruff, a battle of Florida that isn’t a Miami Cup-sanctioned fight (that would be anything between HyperShock, Witch Doctor, and Rotator). As for me, I’ll see you next week, just in time for the Christmas Eve fun! (I have no idea about the next couple weeks of BattleBots, ask me later.)

But yeah, see you next week.