Brought to you by Blake Bortles.

Welcome back to the Beat! Last time out we started asking questions about 1-2 bots. Among them, Tombstone. Could Tombstone be on the bubble? Could Tombstone be out? Well, we’ll find out soon enough. But in the meantime, we’ll find out how big the bubble is, as each fight this past week save the main event had bubble consequences. The main event was a seeding battle between a pair of locks.

Onto the fights!

Captain Shrederator vs. Shatter!
Captain Shrederator: 1-1 (L, KO 2:20 vs. Lock-Jaw; W, KO 1:58 vs. Axe Backwards)
Shatter!: 1-1 (W, KO 2:12 vs. Ghost Raptor; L, JD 2-1 vs. Malice)
As I said, a pair of bots on the bubble. With a win consider either in. With a loss, maybe Shatter! is still on the bubble, but there would be several 1-2 bots ahead of it. Shrederator would not stay on my bubble with a loss here.

After the split decision loss to Malice and the age-old question of “what is damage,” Shatter! came sporting a new look for the fight. No glassy triangles! Just the black plastic ablative armor for this one. Granted you’d think the triangles would also count as ablative armor, or like paint scratches.

As for Captain Shrederator, it still hasn’t gotten up to speed, even with that win over Axe Backwards. But if trading a little bit of spin-up speed makes the oft-maligned robot more reliable, it’s a trade-off Brian Nave and co. are willing to make, considering exactly one appearance in the main tournament in the past 4 seasons (in Season 2).

The slightly lowered spin speed looked good though, taking pieces from that armor off. Yes, that’s what it’s designed to do, but Shrederator was hitting the sides rather than that front wedge (because omniwheels are hard to get straight, who knew… it seemed like Adam Wrigley was overcorrecting a bit). That meant it was better damage.

A minute or so in, a big spin from Shrederator hit that front wedge, sending Shatter! spinning away and Shrederator into the wall. It was going to be things like that that Shatter! would need more of. But Shrederator was still spinning, hitting corners, drawing sparks (which meant Shrederator had gotten through the ablative armor and hit the titanium behind it), but also colliding into the screw casing, slowing down enough for Shatter! to try and drop the hammer, narrowly missing.

Another frontal collision was a little curious since it looked like Shatter! tried to fire right before it. Either way the hammer kicked forward, flipping them over. This was a great chance for Captain Shrederator to get in while Shatter! tried to self-right… but it started smoking and slowing down. And with it the fight had turned and Shatter! started letting loose, trying to find the distance.

After a few errant punches, they finally found it, and started to push. They had Shrederator up next to the screws and four hammer blows came in, and it looked like they had cracked through the shell on one of them and kept pushing the shell spinner towards the pulverizer for Balls’s favorite robot term, double-teaming hammers, pretty much throughout the last 30 seconds.

It went to the judges but it seemed pretty clear to me.
Damage: 4-1
Aggression: 2-1
Control: 3-0

Shatter! wins by unanimous decision. At 2-1 they’ll be in it. At 1-2 though the losses were to bots in it, I don’t see Captain Shrederator as a likely bot. And Adam Wrigley can (literally) let his hair down.

Claw Viper vs. Gigabyte
Claw Viper: 1-1 (W, KO 2:07 vs. HiJinx; L, KO 1:33 vs. Black Dragon)
Gigabyte: 1-1 (L, KO 1:12 vs. Copperhead; W, KO 1:13 vs. Extinguisher)
If there’s a bot to box rush the big full-body spinner it’s Claw Viper, which showed that speed kills against HiJinx, but that you still have to keep it controlled, and the claw hasn’t actually worked all that much. On the other hand, Gigabyte recovered from a second de-shelling by spinning Extinguisher around. And they have a secret weapon, as here comes Matt Maxham! The Stinger builder returns to BattleBots as the weapons operator for Gigabyte for this fight. It’s obviously a very different bot than his usual (since Stinger was a lifter and spinner-killer) so we’ll see how he takes to the other side of the weapon spectrum.

Claw Viper tried to play it cool knowing that Gigabyte would likely turn to one side to prevent the bull rush, so after Gigabyte committed, Claw Viper went that direction and charged. And missed. Olé!

This gave Gigabyte the time to spin up, and it went right up Claw Viper’s wedge and got a full second of airtime, so I’d say it went about 8 feet high, doing some back of the envelope kinematics. Claw Viper went in a little more trepidatiously, and fortunately the wedge worked, even if the claw and lifter were up high to prevent them getting damaged. But you have to keep the wedge in front and they weren’t doing the greatest job of that, getting the corner of the wedge instead of flush. After getting spun around after a hit and being slow to get back around the back was wide open, as Matt Maxham told John Mladenik to get the robot there.

It opened up that side panel on Claw Viper, though it was still barely mobile for a moment. To drive into the wall and the pulverizer, which finished it off. Gigabyte wins by KO in 1:15 and all but punches its tournament ticket.

HiJinx vs. Chomp
HiJinx: 1-1 (L, KO 2:07 vs. Claw Viper; W, KO vs. Tracer)
Chomp: 1-1 (W, JD 3-0 vs. Gamma 9; L vs. Ghost Raptor)
Both bots are coming off untelevised fights. HiJinx finally got a win against Tracer, which after being talked up ended up going 1-2 and lost to a pair of undercutters. Chomp lost a fight to Ghost Raptor (at 1-2 Ghost Raptor is I guess on the bubble considering the losses, but way at the back of it), so both bots stand at 1-1 and need a win to push themselves on the good side of things.

Zoe Stephenson is one of Jen Herchenroeder’s heroes, so there’s a little extra amp to this fight. For HiJinx, there’s extra polymer on the armor to try and absorb the force of Chomp’s hammer blows. For Chomp an undercutter is probably the worst matchup due to possibly getting under the hoop skirt and towards the legs. Plus, the strategy is that there’s only about 3 minutes of air in the tanks to move the legs, so economy of movement is critical. Which is why Chomp’s main tactic is to get to the center of the arena and use the turret to track the opponent trying to get around.

Obviously HiJinx had all the time in the world to spin up, just having to escape Chomp’s flamethrower as it approached and get in and out before the hammer. The hammer didn’t fire at first, or second, but finally fired. But firing was actually just as much harm as good. The jump from the hammer fire meant that HiJinx could sneak under, hit the legs, get out of the way, and as Chomp’s turret had to reset, that delay meant that HiJinx could get another hit in on the hoop skirt.

Chomp’s second hammer shot rang true though, causing plenty of sparks, but HiJinx hit Chomp at about the same time, bending everything enough that the turret function was damaged according to Jascha Little. One more hit from HiJinx’s undercutter pushed the skirt in enough that Chomp was paralyzed to boot. HiJinx wins by KO in 1:49 and looks like a tournament bot to me.

SlamMow! vs. Witch Doctor
SlamMow!: 2-0 (W, KO 2:52 vs. Pain Train; W, KO vs. WAR? EZ!)
Witch Doctor: 0-2 (L, JD 2-1 vs. Hydra; L, JD 3-0 vs. Kraken)
As I said, there was some serious lede burying last week when they mentioned that WAR? EZ! had fought and lost to SlamMow!. Because stop the presses, a Danby bot is 2-0. Considering Foxic/Foxtrot & Predator, and Apex, he’ll take it! Now have fun fighting last year’s runner-up, 0-2, desperate, and hopefully fixed their weapon disk issues.

The alternate name for this week’s column is “It Takes a Village,” and Witch Doctor’s weapon quest is the reason. So, as we all saw in their first two fights, the disks broke. And the reason is because metallurgy. Now, I’m just a casual watcher of Forged in Fire, so I don’t know much, but the harder the steel, normally the more brittle. And the weapon disks were made of S7 tool steel. Which I’m assuming is pretty damn hard. Too hard, though.

So, they went with AR400 for their next fight, still a strong and hard steel, but less so than S7. (Anyone with metallurgy knowledge, please support/refute this.) Problem: It’s hard to get steel in such a short notice without knowing a supplier. So the Gellatlys called Al Kindle (Blacksmith) who put them in touch with his supplier. Buuut, in that short notice all they had was a 600-lb. drop piece. Now, that won’t fit in a minivan. Or it will but the van won’t do a great job of carrying. So they borrowed a truck from the Sporkinok team to pick up said steel.

By the time they picked it up, due to traffic it was after 5, so anywhere you could waterjet the shape of the disks at were all closed. Fear not, since Witch Doctor was stationed next to Chomp in the pits, and since The Machine Corps are a local team, they offered to waterjet the disks since they had the proper equipment in their shop.

So, through three teams, and taking until 5 in the morning, Witch Doctor got their new weapon disks. Which say “Thanks Chomp!” in Sharpie.

You can understand why Mike Gellatly was nervous on the sticks. And you could see a little of it from the first hit, where Witch Doctor popped up and right into SlamMow!’s jaws. SlamMow! got a slight lift but nothing serious and Witch Doctor was right back on all four wheels, but with SlamMow! in hot pursuit. Witch Doctor finally came forward and you could see that it wasn’t getting the same throw we saw from last year, but they hadn’t broken from the first few assaults on SlamMow!’s wedge, so in perspective it’s a win. SlamMow! was undeterred however, and pushed Witch Doctor back into the wall to try and get its hooks in the chain perhaps.

Big mistake, as Witch Doctor took the tip from one of those hooks right off. Okay, the new disks work!

The two bots were locked side to side where Witch Doctor could get some sparks drawn before they separated. And again, SlamMow! game enough to use its wedge to push Witch Doctor back, even though it was taking damage the whole time. A clever spin move by Mike Gellatly was enough to separate Witch Doctor for a charging strike that definitely helped unlock the two and open up the fight more. What’s more, SlamMow’s! arms were down and possibly nonfunctional. At least they were down until another hit from Witch Doctor popped them back up. And Witch Doctor smelled blood as SlamMow!’s side armor had also taken damage to open the wheels up.

And a wheel did come off on that side, though from a frontal attack from Witch Doctor, not one last shot to that right side. SlamMow! still tried to come in there and be aggressive because at this point that was all they could try and do to swing the fight. Witch Doctor had the left side against the weapon delivering sparks until the bot veered right into the wall. SlamMow! was barely mobile, spinning its wheels as Witch Doctor went for the kill and went straight into the aforementioned wall. “I know, that was stupid,” noted Mike Gellatly. The disks were still spinning and Witch Doctor wisely backed off for the count. Witch Doctor wins by KO in 2:40 and upgrades to “probable,” but that same “probable” as Tombstone if not higher. They’re the class of the 1-2 bots.

For SlamMow!, it’s 2-1 with the wins against not the greatest competition, but the loss was a late KO against a previous top bot. I like their chances for a tournament appearance, so more likely than not, but they’ll be waiting to see and won’t get a sigh of relief until they’re there.

Gruff vs. Extinguisher
Gruff: 1-1 (W, KO 1:41 vs. HyperShock; L, JD 3-0 vs. Whiplash)
Extinguisher: 0-2 (L, KO 0:59 vs. Perfect Phoenix; L, KO 1:13 vs. Gigabyte)
Well, Gruff’s job is simple. All but in with a win, and against a bot that it’s a clear favorite against.

Extinguisher’s here to play spoiler. And be quite happy that it’s not facing another horizontal spinner. Hell, now it gets to show off its new toy, a Dalmatian-painted vert! And fun fact, get local area bragging rights. It’s not the Miami Bot Mafia, but it is the very large Florida contingent, and apparently Gruff captain, Sam McAmis, taught and/or tutored members of the Extinguisher team.

Another note, the Gruff forks look even more bent than from the Whiplash fight. Do they have other forks? Might be a time to use them.

Extinguisher was surprisingly quick to come out considering they were the ones that needed to spin up. They got a hit in on Gruff, but then in came the flamethrower and the forks and Gruff was pushing Extinguisher back. After separating, Extinguisher came in and Gruff responded with a very simple flip. Extinguisher backed away to try and crash into something and get back over but the way Gruff pushed them in further, Extinguisher was quickly doing the thing.

The thing is when your weapon is touching the ground and not spinning and your wheels are the opposite, spinning but not touching the ground.

Gruff probably could have left Extinguisher there but pinned them and caught them with the forks, flipping itself over in the process and generally trying to get the suplex. After a few chances (flipping itself in the process) Gruff finally got back over, hoisting Extinguisher and finally getting the suplex.

Cut to Gruff clamping Extinguisher’s rear. Yeah, it was an unstick. Gruff’s forks must have gotten stuck in the weapon, because according to Extinguisher’s John Flaacke they had to cut the chain in order to safely separate the robots.

With any lasting weapon out of the way, Gruff continued to dominate with lifter and with flamethrower, which we were looking to see if Extinguisher could manage to extinguish. So far, no.

And then all of a sudden Gruff started to smoke. Faintly at first as it continued to be able to lift Extinguisher, but suddenly a whole lot more. I don’t know if the self lifts did something, or being stuck for that long, or it was the motor’s time. But in an upset of the year candidate, it’s Extinguisher that gets the KO win. And what’s worse, in 2:55. Another five seconds and Gruff probably wins the fight by dominating control and aggression.

And that might leave them on the outside looking in, to boot. If they are in, even as a low seed, bots better watch out, because they’ll have to earn those three minutes.

Atom #94 vs. Perfect Phoenix
Atom #94: 0-2 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Big Dill; L, KO 1:13 vs. Tantrum)
Perfect Phoenix: 1-1 (W, KO 0:59 vs. Extinguisher; L, KO X:XX vs. Skorpios)
Cue the Evil Emperor Billings references! This fight pits a pair of the teams he’s mentored together. Perfect Phoenix of course, since Tyler “DoomKid” Nguyen’s mom is dating Ray Billings. (as they’ve said one or two dozen times). As for Atom #94, captain Yash Deshmukh and co. asked Ray for advice on bot-building forums, and the old guru’s always more than happy to oblige.

Of course there’s relevant stuff too. Atom #94 may be out of the tournament picture, but Perfect Phoenix’s win over Extinguisher just got a whole lot better, and a win here should salt a tournament appearance. For the fight Perfect Phoenix also has a different, blue, bar. I assume it’s a different material.

Atom #94 got the first nudge, knocking Perfect Phoenix up, but the two both got sent flying, first spinning away, then the big one, where Perfect Phoenix skittered nearly the entire length of the box, a wall, another wall, while Atom #94 was turned aside.

Perfect Phoenix was still spinning like nothing had happened. Atom #94’s vertical disk was toast, one of the disks lopsided.

Perfect Phoenix took the time to score aggression and damage here, as Atom #94 seemed to be having some sort of drive issues, not enough to be worrisome of a count-out, but definitely slowing. So Perfect Phoenix continued to whittle away.

Well, until it started to smoke. That looked like the weapon motor, and it definitely was as Perfect Phoenix started to take the shoving match to Atom #94. The wedge in front definitely made it advantage Perfect Phoenix though Atom #94’s front wedge, though steeper, provided resistance. The highlight of the pushing match seemed to come as Perfect Phoenix spun around and took Atom #94 halfway across into the corner. And so they locked horns to the end, when with a second left, some more smoke started to pour out of Perfect Phoenix, and that could have been drive related. Would that change the judges’ minds? Well, here’s what I have:
D: 3-2
A: 3-0
C: 3-0

The judges had it similar enough. Perfect Phoenix wins by unanimous decision and goes to 2-1.

Before our main event, there was a highlighted, but not aired in its entirety, bubble-important fight:

Mammoth vs. Deadlift
Mammoth: 1-1 (W, KO 2:17 vs. HUGE; L, KO 1:36 vs. HyperShock)
Deadlift: 1-0 (W, KO vs. Bale Spear)
Thank you BattleBots Wiki for reminding me who it was Deadlift fought because otherwise I would’ve had to go through my notes. Chances are Deadlift was actually 1-1 and we don’t know the second opponent but whoever it was didn’t factor into things. But this is what we know so far. It’s a lifter (with a name like that it better be with a front wedge, and Bale Spear caught on fire against it en route to Deadlift’s KO victory.

As for Mammoth, which is I’m guessing the robot that actually matters in this bubble, the win over HUGE in the biggest boi fight was a major step forward, even if it was apparently inches from disaster from where HUGE hit it. But HyperShock came in and absolutely wrecked shit, because that’s BattleBots, Suzyn. So Mammoth was probably in a bit of a rebuild.

Mammoth lost its primary weapon around halfway in the fight, which led it to be predominantly a shoving match since I’m guessing Deadlift couldn’t really get a lift on it. It went to the judges who went for Mammoth.

At 2-1 Mammoth definitely has a decent to good shot, especially with that win over HUGE. But with one of those fights being a lackluster win against a bot that didn’t even get a televised fight, including this fight, they’re no lock.

Main Event: Copperhead vs. Black Dragon
Copperhead: 2-0 (W, KO 1:12 vs. Gigabyte; W, KO 0:38 vs. P1)
Black Dragon: 2-0 (W, JD 2-1 vs. Kraken; W, KO 1:33 vs. Claw Viper)
Okay, first of all, both bots are in. Both bots are locks. And as Zach Goff mentioned their history between UnMakerBot and Federal M.T. (with UnMakerBot getting the upper hand in Robogames 2015 and 2017 by a 4-1 margin en route to two golds), it made sense to make this fight. Ask and you shall receive…

Black Dragon went with its eggbeater again, as it worked so well against Minotaur in last year’s Desperado tournament. So what better to try and kill the drum than with what killed the most feared drum last year? Copperhead does have a cool “snake vs. dragon” paintjob or etching on their drum for this fight though.

Both bots spun up, though Black Dragon took the time to come forward while doing so, getting the first hit on Copperhead. But it didn’t hit weapon to weapon, so the eggbeater slowed down while the drum death hum rolled on, and hit Black Dragon’s side, and more importantly flipped it over. And then hit it on the back very rapidly toward the driver’s booth (which is why there’s more Lexan there).

Black Dragon tried to go weapon to weapon to at least flip themselves over, which they did, but at the cost of their weapon belt(s) which got hit and spat out. So one step forward, several steps back. Black Dragon tried to charge in but it wasn’t helping as Copperhead’s drum was beating the wedge, popping Black Dragon up, down, back, into the screws, flipped back over onto its back. But it seemed that Copperhead had slowed just a little, whether in drive or in drum.

Even inverted Black Dragon was having little trouble pushing Copperhead (into the killsaws which is a nice touch considering how often have we seen them?) And it might have killed the drum. After a possible unstick because why else would Black Dragon be back on its wheels, the two locked horns for the remainder of the fight and we weren’t hearing that Copperhead death hum.
D: 4-1 Copperhead
C: 2-1 Copperhead
A: 2-1 Copperhead (the early aggression with the primary weapon is advantageous)

No major shocks, Copperhead wins by unanimous decision. Considering Hydra and Uppercut, it should be a top 4 seed.

To the final Senor’s Sixteen and Bubble Watch of the season:

Uppercut (2-0)
Copperhead (3-0)
Bloodsport (3-0)
Hydra (2-0)
MadCatter (3-0)
End Game (1-1)
Jackpot (3-0)
SawBlaze (1-1)
Lock-Jaw (2-1)
Whiplash (1-1)
Skorpios (2-1)
Black Dragon (2-1)
Valkyrie (2-0)
Beta (2-0)
Malice (2-1)
Fusion (2-1)

Also considered: Gigabyte (2-1), Shatter! (2-1), Ribbot (2-1), Perfect Phoenix (2-1), HyperShock (1-1)

LOCKS (3 FIGHTS)
Bloodsport (3-0), MadCatter (3-0), Jackpot (3-0), Copperhead (3-0), Lock-Jaw (2-1), Skorpios (2-1), Malice (2-1), Black Dragon (2-1), Shatter! (2-1), Gigabyte (2-1), Perfect Phoenix (2-1)

LOCKS (2 FIGHTS)
Uppercut (2-0), Hydra (2-0), Valkyrie (2-0), Beta (2-0)

PROBABLES (3 FIGHTS)
Fusion (2-1), Ribbot (2-1), Tombstone (1-2), Witch Doctor (1-2)

PROBABLES (2 FIGHTS)
End Game (1-1), SawBlaze (1-1), Whiplash (1-1)

WIN AND PROBABLE/LOCK (2 FIGHTS)
HyperShock (1-1)

BUBBLE (3 FIGHTS) (in order of likelihood according to me)
SlamMow! (2-1), HUGE (1-2), Rotator (1-2), Kraken (1-2), Gruff (1-2), HiJinx (2-1), Mammoth (2-1), SubZero (2-1), Claw Viper (1-2), Big Dill (1-2), Extinguisher (1-2), Ghost Raptor (1-2)

ELMININATED FROM BUBBLE WITH LOSS (2 FIGHTS)
Deadlift (1-1), P1 (1-1), Pain Train (1-1), Rusty (1-1), Slap Box (1-1), SMEEEEEEEEE (1-1), Tantrum (1-1)

DOUBTFUL (<2 KNOWN FIGHTS)
Gemini (0-1), Aegis (0-1), Gamma 9 (0-1), Grabot (0-1), Black Widow (0-0), Rampage (0-0)

Your final fight card:
Uppercut vs. Hydra
SawBlaze vs. Rusty
Tantrum vs. Gamma 9
HyperShock vs. End Game
P1 vs. SMEEEEEEEEEEE
Grabot vs. Beta
Main Event: Valkyrie vs. Whiplash

There are some other things we know thanks to episode 512’s summary, but we’ll leave that for next week, since by tonight’s episode we’ll know the bracket. So with that, see you next week!