Welcome back to the Beat! Last time out, we learned that Senorita Weaselo’s two favorite bots (and two of mine) are a combined 0-2. But hey, the NYC bots are 2-0, and people I’ve met are 3-0. So, clearly it means something and I am a good luck charm. Right?

Anyway, we got some shit today, and I’m not happy about the fact I’m starting writing this about 11 1/2 hours before post time, but I had to get people’s gifts with my afternoon times. Plus, I’ll get to play Persona 5 Strikers after Senorita Weaselo. And also after I finish Persona 5. Which’ll be after I finish Spyro Reignited (namely Year of the Dragon and remaining skill points).

Tangenting again. Onto the the fights!

Copperhead vs. Gigabyte
The snek returns! They’ve doubled the power in the drum, and more importantly, nearly halved the time it takes to spin up. 4 seconds is a lot better than 7-8. The latter is an eternity in robot combat time. We can’t forget, this is a team that has made the quarters with Poison Arrow.

As for Gigabyte, the current full-body king returns, now with flames on the shell! They’ve similarly upped power, looking for more of what made them one of the most feared robots during the King of Bots competitions rather than a bot that’s been just short of bracket material these last few years. Like, it’s been in the conversation, but just on the wrong side of the cut line. Things such as a shock-resistant motor should also be imperative—Newtonian physics, equal and opposite reactions.

Copperhead sort of box rushed, and from that initial exchange Gigabyte was unbalanced. Zach Goff noted that Gigabyte’s teeth seemed a little bit higher on this shell, and that could be all the difference in the unbalanced nature. With that Copperhead actually got the first hit, and that immediately knocked off Gigabyte’s directional/srimech pipe. It really ties the robot together, y’know? They can’t tell where it’s going without it, as Copperhead was gyroing about looking for another hit.

And yes, it got another hit. And by another hit, we’re talking shades of Tombstone. For the second time, Gigabyte got de-shelled, though this time it also took out a light in the corner, so there were glass shards everywhere too.

That’s also the part where Gigabyte wisely stopped moving because otherwise “hit the unarmored robot until it stops” ends very badly for the unarmored robot. Copperhead wins by KO in 1:12.

JackPot vs. SubZero
It’s the robot you hadn’t heard of vs. the robot you always forget about! JackPot is a rookie bot based out of Las Vegas (duh). Credit to Jeff Waters and team, they built JackPot in four weeks and spent about $4,000 on it, ground up. Robots are expensive, in case you forget. It’s a vertical spinner with some big double bars, rather than disks.

SubZero is not a ground-up project, but longtime driver Logan Davis now gets to captain the ship after all the events last year with longtime captain Jerry Clarkin. All I have to say is watch the fight with Cobalt. But, new team and captain, maybe new mojo?

It looked like it from the get-go as after the early box rush SubZero actually got a successful flip! It didn’t hurt that JackPot was having some drive issues, possibly from traction problems. But those problems were SubZero’s pleasures as it kept pushing and lifting and flipping the debutante bot all over, though failing to get them in a spot where they couldn’t use the weapon to self-right, especially because it seemed that the bars were no longer lined up, and also not moving.

And then SubZero stopped. And JackPot, dead to rights, wriggled out of the corner and onto a 1-0 record. JackPot wins by the least deserving KO, but one nonetheless, in 1:47.

Uppercut vs. Gemini
Uppercut, the goofy-looking vertical spinner whose team dabs, is back. And with a snazzy graphic segment to show the difference between their single-ended vertical spinner and double-ended spinners (see, End Game, most of them). The height/length doesn’t hurt either. After last season’s surprising top 16 run they’d like to show it’s not a fluke, and be this generation’s addition to the annual MIT wars (SawBlaze, Valkyrie, Overhaul and/or Brutus when they compete). They broke the accelerometer Kenny Florian strapped onto it for testing, which is good for their targeted 2 second spin-up time.

On the other hand, there’s the masters of friendly fire, Gemini. The weapons work, but the problem is hitting the other robot and not themselves. They did scrape to a 2-2 record in 2019, but one of those fights were the Science Channel fights that went unaired—yes, it’s a travesty.

However, they’ve never been knocked out due to having to dispatch both robots—rules state you need to incapacitate 60% of the robot by weight to win by KO, and since they’re split 50-50, one Gemini bot going down is insufficient weight-wise.

Uppercut responded to this by knocking the black Gemini bot into next week. Yes, they’re at or around 125 lbs. apiece instead of 250, but Uppercut managed to send it out of the arena from halfway across. That’s Wheely Big Cheese-Axe Awe territory. The second one did not go out of the arena, but they knocked the batteries loose.

Fight over. Uppercut wins. In 25 seconds. Or as it was put, “That wasn’t a fight, they just knocked two guys out.”

BETA vs. Rotator
BETA is back. Resident accidentally memeing old man John Reid returns to BattleBots because Tánshè wasn’t allowed back in China. And unlike the King of Bots variant, it’s back to hammers. And back to pneumatic hammers. Which means BETA, which was already probably the resident hammer-bot king, got a power-up of approximately three times the power. If they properly wait for a good hit, it’ll hurt.

Rotator used to be a double spinner. It normally isn’t these days, opting for one or the other instead of both. For this fight, for instance, they just put the top bar on. All in all there are eight potential configurations, and they want to go for what Tombstone accidentally did in the classic quarterfinal and take out the hammer arm. BETA, not wanting that, has a full metal jacket for the occasion instead of the usual armor and polycarb. It’s a lighter hammer head as a result, but I’m pretty sure they don’t even need a head for that arm to still hurt like a motherfucker. But of course, what would be better would be to get that spinning overcutter to stop spinning, because otherwise they’d have to be exact with that hammer head or else risk getting it sheared off.

So that’s what happened for three minutes. BETA bullying Rotator around the Box trying to have the bar hit the wall and kill the motor or slip the belt and have it stop. And so they waited. And waited. And slammed Rotator into every wall. Multiple times. And the pulverizer I think? And waited.

And then Rotator hit off the wall and spun into the hammer head and sheared it off anyway.

So BETA continued to slam it into the wall for the remainder of the fight. And so it went to the judges. Where they’d have to answer a question: Can you not use your weapon a single time and still win the fight?

Legally, yes. Though BattleBots has an active weapon rule, it doesn’t say you have to use the active weapon. There is a note in the judges’ guide however that states:

“If a Bot has a functional weapon but never uses the weapon (or uses it only with little effect near the end of a Match) that Bot should not receive all of the Aggression points, regardless of how much Aggression it showed.”

So with that in mind, Judge Senor can’t give aggression to BETA 3-0. Fine, 2-1. It would be 3-0 though. Rotator didn’t have a chance to be aggressive, and was manhandled the entire fight (so obviously give control 3-0 to BETA).

Damage would have been my question. There is no real guide to 5-0 vs. 4-1 vs. 3-2 in the judges’ guide, though there is a guide based on functionality, effectiveness, and defensibility. It also says that damage is through “deliberate controlled action,” which Rotator being flung into BETA’s hammer head wasn’t. So I normally go by the Robogames scoring (although it was 6 points for damage). Rotator suffered trivial to cosmetic damage. There was no real loss of functionality, effectiveness, or defensibility, but some scratches and bumps here and there. It held up remarkably well for being sent into walls for pretty much three minutes straight. BETA losing the weapon head (but the arm being fine) I’d call significant damage, as partial loss of weapon functionality—the hammer still works, even if it would be hitting with the arm rather than the head. It would just hurt a lot less. According to Robogames this would be scored 5-1—one robot has suffered cosmetic damage and the other has suffered at least significant damage. So, with only 5 points to dole out, I guess you score it 4-1 damage?

So, 4-1, 3-0, 2-1… I have it 6-5, BETA. And more importantly, on the eye test, BETA won that fight.

It went to a split decision, and in a surprise considering Kraken vs. Black Dragon, it went for BETA.

The pits had a field day with the questionable consistency and the fact that in BattleBots you have to have an active weapon (led by Will Bales, who’s been getting a lot of screen time this season, gotta say). Even if it says nothing about using it. It probably should though. But again, I think it’s the right decision. I look forward to the debate in the comments.

Oh, and the cards are here, if you’re curious. I have no idea how Jason Bardis gave Rotator 2-1 in aggression. 5-0 in damage I understand, and I just went with how it went 4-1 from Lisa Winter and Derek Young.

Valkyrie vs. Tantrum
Hey, Tantrum’s arms got a glow-up. They act as the srimech and shoot fire! And the punching disk aims downwards now to get a little more bite into the opponents. Valkyrie doesn’t look vastly different, but with more weapons and more under the hood tinkerings, maybe this is the year they make a deep run.

They still take an eternity to spin up, and Tantrum, knowing that, went for the box rush, sending Valkyrie spinning. That’s good, but Valkyrie proceeding to do the hydroplane thing and land on top of Tantrum’s a little less good, as the arms took some damage. But apart from that, this fight was acting a bit like the previous one, with Tantrum and Valkyrie playing the roles of BETA and Rotator, respectively. Except Valkyrie’s weapon has never been the most sturdy, as was shown here as it petered out. And Tantrum at least attempted to use the punching disk, though it still wasn’t doing much in terms of damage. I’m not sure if it’s the geometry of it or what, but as great of an idea as it is, kind of like the hammer saws of Skorpios and SawBlaze, it hasn’t hit its mark just yet. Also not hitting the mark was Tantrum, which was doing fine… until it wasn’t and totally stopped.

Valkyrie gets the come from behind KO in 2:44.

Atom #94 vs. Big Dill
Another country gets onto the list! Atom #94 (that’s plutonium, BTW) is from India, the first BattleBots entry from the country. Okay, it’s India via Canada, with advice from Ray Billings on whatever robot-building forum, but still counts. They have a double disk spinner.

Big Dill is another offshoot of WAR Hawk, even though that original bot isn’t competing. It’s a grabber and lifter, and the plan’s for some suplexes. Also its minibot’s name is Spicy Meatball. That’s probably worth something.

Atom #94 had some traction issues from the get-go, and that meant Big Dill could come in and get the lifter working. And it did work. Atom #94 could drive inverted though at a much worse position—I believe its srimech is the ol’ “run into the wall weapon-first and let that flip you back around.” It’s tough to do that though when the weapon’s not working great, and the traction’s not working great, and also something’s smoking. Meanwhile Big Dill kept getting lifts, I believe properly righting Atom #94. Eventually it got the lifting forks jammed into the weapon well. You have 30 seconds to lift and get out of there, but with the forks stuck that deep in they couldn’t get out on their own power, leading to an unstick.

It didn’t look to the naked eye like it was that tough of an unstick once everything was powered down, just grabbing it and getting the forks out of the weapon well, but the CrewBots (the official term for the BattleBots crew) didn’t see it that way, and the match was called before the full three minutes had elapsed. It went to the judges, and in the first clear-cut fight of the season, Big Dill wins by unanimous decision.

Yeah, 3-0, 3-0, probably 5-0. This one wasn’t going to be an agonizing decision.

Main Event: HyperShock vs. Gruff
Recently appearing on the “People You May Know” on Senor’s Facebook page and definitely not his man crush Will Bales and actually officially rebranded Team HyperShock (formerly Shenanigans & Co.) always wait until the last possible minute to actually build the robot. It’s fantastic procrastination and it’s impressive that it hasn’t led to tragedy, but probably doesn’t help in terms of the reliability standpoint. I mean, HyperShock when it’s working is a top-tier caliber robot—twice it’s given Bite Force its toughest fight of the season, in both grappler (Season 1 tournament) and vertical bar form (last season). And then other times it’s just not working, such as its srimech all last season, nearly losing to Breaker Box, the end of that Season 1 Bite Force fight, the Season 3 Bite Force fight… I’ll stop.

The robots that have been to all five seasons of rebooted BattleBots: Tombstone, Witch Doctor, Bronco, Lock Jaw, Captain Shrederator, and HyperShock. Okay, the Naves have struggled too in the reboot, but my point is four of those six robots have made the semifinals. HyperShock’s good enough to make it five—if everything can just work for an entire season.

Gruff’s a hell of a stress test for them. Because Gruff is about as tough as they come. That fight against Tombstone was a war of attrition, and actually pretty close to BETA-Rotator in terms of how it played out, though in that case the spinner won by the narrowest of margins. (Tombstone was definitely more aggressive and controlled than Rotator was, and that made all the difference.) Sure, it’s a lifter and clamper, but the twin flamethrowers get to 3600° (I assume Fahrenheit). It will be three minutes of grueling-ness. End Game was the only one to score a KO on it last season, and even that was in 2:59.

From the get-go we saw what makes HyperShock a contender as it scored solid shot after solid shot on Gruff, getting it airborne a couple times, flipping it over. We then saw what prevents HyperShock from being a true contender as it quickly then suffered from drivetrain issues since it was just kinda driving back and forth in circles. Gruff, given a second wind, took this time to grab HyperShock with its jaws and torch the ever-loving fuck out of it, and also take it to the screws because, sure, why not? Will Bales takes a seat that reminded me of Squidward going into the “FUTURRRRE” sequence and the Weaselo couple’s favorite three bots are a combined 0-3. And Miami’s a combined 0-3, for that matter (Witch Doctor, Rotator, HyperShock). Gruff wins by KO in 1:41.

This takes us to Senor’s Sixteen.

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. Skorpios (0-1)
13. Uppercut (1-0)
14. Copperhead (1-0)
15. Bronco (0-0)
16. Shatter! (1-0)

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

Dropped out: HyperShock (0-1), Rotator (0-1)

I can’t put BETA in because it didn’t use the hammer, y’know? Otherwise, it’s probably in there.

As for tonight, there are Christmas Eve robots. Fights include Tombstone taking on rookie Slap Box (in a fight we thought was in that Bounty Hunters series), the battle of people I met as Shatter! takes on Malice, and the main event is Bloodsport vs. End Game as both of them look to catapult to serious contender status.

I don’t know when I’ll watch them but as I’m pretty sure there’s no New Year’s Eve ep, I’ll find the time in the two weeks, and there’ll be a new Beat… at some point. And in which case, I’ll see you then.