A blurb in one year of my high school’s yearbook had the note about the debate team “You too can become a triple-octofinalist.” Which I guess would be a round of 64 of whatever big debate tournament there is. I don’t know, I wasn’t on the debate team.

But anyway, welcome back to the Beat, where depending on who you are, P1 got robbed in favor of someone else, most people saying HyperShock. Listen, will it make you feel better knowing that P1 probably wouldn’t have won it all? No? Fine, fair enough, nobody’s expecting HyperShock to actually work as intended through five fights. We’ll get back to that later.

It’s tournament time! You know, that thing I have to figure out pretty soon because March 1st is next week and I still have no idea how to find the 12 most plus 1’d comments of the previous calendar year that didn’t also get a banner. (Banner Madness ’21 may or may not start on March 1st, I’ll try and figure it out and start it ASAPish.) But anyway yeah, in four weeks we’ll have a BattleBots champion. Granted, everyone’ll consider it some sort of interim title because Paul Ventimiglia and Bite Force aren’t there, but that means you have a main event for Episode 601, right? There’s a full slate of eight fights since the whole left side of the bracket is covered, so let’s get to it. To the fights!

12. MadCatter vs. 21. Tombstone
MadCatter: 3-0 (W, KO 2:05 vs. Fusion; W, JD 3-0 vs. Ribbot; W, KO 1:02 vs. Malice)
Tombstone: 1-2 (L, KO 0:39 vs. End Game; W, KO 1:19 vs. Slap Box; L, KO 1:58 vs. Skorpios)
One of these bots is 3-0. Now, if I told you that at the beginning of the season you’d expect Tombstone right? Well it wasn’t. Even if, without Son of Whyachi or Bite Force, Tombstone is the only former championship robot in the field.

As for set-ups, for the “underdog” (as if), Tombstone has a shorter AR500 bar to try and deal with whatever punishment MadCatter’s wedge might tank. And generally to “start sucking a little less and turn up the kick-ass,” a thought that Will Bales can probably be proud of that Ray Billings is talking about sucking less. For MadCatter, they’re going with the wedge and the vert. It’s a 36-lb. bar that only has a tip speed of around 125 mph, but as Peter Abrahamson put it in his pre-fight analysis, it’s similar to a Bite Force setup. Well, Bite Force is not a crappy robot, so good strategy.

Tombstone was spry enough to avoid any potential bull rush as the two bots circled each other in the middle of the arena looking to get to the other’s sides. The two-wheeled robot’ll normally win that exchange, and Tombstone’s bar caught the back edge of MadCatter’s wedge. But MadCatter was undaunted and attempted the same strategy. Get to the sides, get to the wheels. It did hit the side of Tombstone popping it up, but also got a bar to the side. That dance stopped and Tombstone drew some sparks from the cat wedge and the vertical bar already looked down, as Tombstone took a piece from the side of the wedge. With that I guess that meant the only option was charge, which looked successful, sending Tombstone skittering on its side, but Tombstone was game enough to keep working the sides of the wedge and take bits off. Also the screws, which was a less brilliant move. But you could see small white shards from every impact and MadCatter’s drive was having issues where the ref called for controlled movement, not just circles.

Tombstone was having slight problems as well, but was fine enough to continue hitting the wedge (less good, being sent headfirst into the wall) and the sides (more good, unless it freed the wheels). Which it might have, as MadCatter slowly lurched forward. There was a little uncertainly where the count started and Ray nicked the side, but that lurch meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. Tombstone wins by KO in 2:08 and moves to the round of 16.

4. Uppercut vs. 29. HiJinx
Uppercut: 2-1 (W, KO 0:25 vs. Gemini; W, KO 1:08 vs. SawBlaze; L, JD 3-0 vs. Hydra)
HiJinx: 2-1 (L, KO 2:07 vs. Claw Viper; W, KO 0:39 vs. Tracer; W, KO 1:49 vs. Chomp)
My upset special of the night! Since it seems a team can’t win the Giant Nut and a Giant Bolt in the same season, Uppercut’s a shoe-in for some hardware even if we don’t know what yet. But the fight against Hydra showed they might have difficulties turning. It’s a very north-south bot due to the narrow chassis and super-powerful weapon, but that means it also gyros a lot. HiJinx is low to the ground so I’m not sure if Uppercut will get its ideal angle (would it be a yeet angle? I’m officially an old so I can’t say for sure) and if it tries to outflank it could be a successful strategy.

HiJinx doesn’t have much to box rush, so both bots spun up. After the two slightly turned around, Uppercut pursued until the wall and popped HiJinx in the air with the first hit and combo-juggled them over the inner wall with the second. Fight over, Uppercut wins by KO in 33 seconds with count-out and all, because in nine seconds HiJinx was out of the arena.

Well, now I just look like a dumbass. Also the look on Orion Beach’s face was priceless and I wish there was a screenshot.

5. Black Dragon vs. 28. SlamMow!
Black Dragon: 2-1 (W, JD 2-1 vs. Kraken; W, KO 1:33 vs. Claw Viper; L, JD 3-0 vs. Copperhead)
SlamMow!: 2-1 (W, KO 2:52 vs. Pain Train; W, KO 1:11 vs. WAR? EZ!; L, KO 2:40 vs. Witch Doctor)
Well, two 2-1 bots make sense. Black Dragon’s 2-0 against grappler/crushers, and SlamMow!’s in that same vein. SlamMow! fared mildly well against Witch Doctor but just missing the weapon chain and/or trying to stick the forks in there to test the weapon was a costly mistake. But Craig Danby has a bot that works, after the Team Danby vexations of Apex, and Foxic, and Foxtrot, and Predator. So thank goodness for that. And look at that, SlamMow!’s even got a cross of St. George on it as it tries to slay a dragon!

But surprisingly there was no box rush. Which might have worked in SlamMow!’s favor because they immediately got under Black Dragon and started to lift… but it was with the claws down and without that Black Dragon just slipped off the wedge. And then Black Dragon got under with the wedgelets and could go to work on the underside of SlamMow! and… oh no, it was starting to go wrong, as Black Dragon hit the side and back. No real damage, but Black Dragon was winning the ground game now. SlamMow! was winning the backflip game though, as Black Dragon caught the wedge and sent it into one. And you could see the damage on the wedge, bent up where Black Dragon had struck it and could strike it again to invert the grabber, which self-righted to get back.

SlamMow! tried to keep the wedge in front, but the damage meant it got stuck in a seam and Black Dragon took advantage to get to the side and grind away at a wheel guard before another shot to put SlamMow! on its back. And maybe catch the weapon chain too, since it was now hanging on the ground and SlamMow! couldn’t get all the way up before Black Dragon bumped it, shunted it, and turned on the flames. Black Dragon used the flamethrower and got in position should SlamMow! move out of its spot, but it was on its back and the flames singed something enough to smoke, probably a tire? And a Craig Danby “back off!” also meant that yeah, it was over. SlamMow! had its one shot, but Black Dragon slipped off the wedge, and Black Dragon moves on with a KO in 2:08. They get Tombstone in the round of 16, and I think they match up pretty well, considering I have them in the finals and all.

13. Beta vs. 20. Ribbot
Beta: 3-0 (W, JD 2-1 vs. Rotator; W, KO 1:49 vs. Rusty; W, KO 2:33 vs. Grabot)
Ribbot: 2-1 (W, KO 0:43 vs. Tracer; L, JD 3-0 vs. MadCatter; W, KO 0:47 vs. Axolotl)
Okay, we all know Beta had the softest schedule of the 3-0 bots and due to the pneumatics and the hammer and John Reid’s waiting for a good hit that some feel it might be overseeded. Apparently it’s due to the way the magnets are deployed—it can’t move while said magnets are deployed, and without them we’ll see Newton’s third law in action like we see with Shatter! and Chomp. It’s a bit of a dilemma.

I actually think the foam on the foam frog that is Ribbot could be a problem. Because foam. And also because it would be beyond foolish for them to not use their vertical disk. Which is what they used. Beta’s wedge is absolutely brilliant against horizontals (see Beta vs. Rotator; also see Beta vs. Tombstone in Season 2) but verts give it more of an issue. So Team Hertz decided to go with a flat front. Or as they called it, the mullet armor. Definitely looks weird. But also there’s a complete lack of forks or wedgelets, so it feels like Beta’s giving up the ground game. If Ribbot can get under with the forks it could be problems for the British basher.

Ribbot almost immediately got its forks in under that mullet armor and pushed Beta back. Well, this wasn’t looking good for Beta, as then seen seconds later as Ribbot punted it several feet in the air, then almost immediately again so Beta had to get off the screws. Right into Ribbot’s waiting spinner. Also Beta’s hammer was now stuck in the screws. As they unstuck Ribbot was again waiting for a hit, then another while Beta’s hammer finally fired. But it looked like that one shot was all it would get as it didn’t re-cock, and besides, Ribbot was basically playing hacky-sack with the screws until Beta wasn’t moving and you could see the bot bent since the rear wheel was no longer touching. Ribbot wins by KO in 1:10, and flat armor against a vertical spinner did not seem like the greatest choice. (Tale of the Tape went into detail about this in probably better detail considering actual robot builders with actual vertical spinners.) Ribbot gets Uppercut in a battle of Massachusetts schools, MIT vs. WPI.

8. Whiplash vs. 25. HUGE
Whiplash: 2-1 (L, KO 2:30 vs. SawBlaze; W, JD 3-0 vs. Gruff; W, JD 3-0 vs. Valkyrie)
HUGE: 1-2 (L, KO 2:17 vs. Mammoth; L, JD 3-0 vs. Hydra; W, JD 3-0 vs. Kraken)
Man, they’ve really given HUGE the worst draws this year. Okay, maybe not Hydra, that was just brilliant ingenuity to the letter by Jake Ewert, even if not to the spirit. But Mammoth, the only bot that’s bigger than it, and now Whiplash, which last year took HyperShock’s Rakening 2.0 idea, which was a great idea in theory, and paired it with actually having a weapon on said catching device (Whiplash’s lifter) to do damage to HUGE. It becomes a driving battle, but Whiplash might be the best counter to HUGE out there, save the big horizontals that have enough energy to rip through the wheels. But the reversible spinner (now spinning down for this fight) could change the angles and do damage to Whiplash’s lifter, as is HUGE’s plan.

The best strategy for Whiplash would be to get in there and, yes, jam HUGE up. And they did, cartwheeling the large bot and though HUGE’s bar made contact and was taking bits out of the lifter HUGE was getting spun around. It was interesting to see at this point what would give first, as Whiplash was trying to get HUGE stuck on the screws or hanging over the wall like in the Mammoth fight.

The real question would be if and when Whiplash would try and go weapon on weapon. Or better yet, their weapon on HUGE’s central pod. Because they could and then in a brilliant move no matter how this sounds, Austin Powers themselves between HUGE’s bar and a wheel, with the lifter up so it could score into HUGE’s stopped bar. First off, not expecting that but they were flexing one of HUGE’s wheels to get in there (bonus). It wasn’t enough to cause more than some dings to the bar but it’s a fantastic maneuver, HUGE recoiled into a corner, and then Whiplash had ring control. HUGE could drive over/around but again, that’s aggression and control and HUGE’s two forks were starting to bend a little more than preferred.

Whiplash was still taking damage from that first hit whenever they came in, but by limiting the damage and causing control at the least they were scoring the bulk of the control/aggression, and though it seems minor, those black bits on HUGE’s wheels, starting to come off, are for traction, which could potentially pay dividends later in the fight. Plus the forks were now very bent making HUGE even less stable.

Whiplash was taking a little bit of tread damage but considering a tire would go in the first minute last year that meant very little as HUGE’s weapon wasn’t spinning as fast, probably. It definitely wasn’t getting up to speed with Whiplash smothering the bigger bot and the bar catching wall more often than opponent as it went to the judges. To my unofficial card:
D: Due to the forks being bent I give it 3-2 Whiplash. HUGE’s damage didn’t debilitate the way the forks being bent and destabilizing HUGE did.
A: Either 2-1 or 3-0 Whiplash.
C: 3-0 Whiplash

Whiplash wins by unanimous decision and will face the winner of the next fight.

9. Valkyrie vs. 24. SubZero
Valkyrie: 2-1 (W, KO 2:44 vs. Tantrum; W, JD 3-0 vs. Rotator; L, JD 3-0 vs. Whiplash)
SubZero: 2-1 (L, KO 1:47 vs. JackPot; W, KO 1:13 vs. Grabot; W, KO 1:28 vs. Sporkinok)
Hey, if Valkyrie wins this she gets a rematch with Whiplash! As for SubZero, which was my one 2-1 bot on the outside, a good performance here proves me wrong and that’s always nice. On a big note, they traded offense for defense, running reduced air in the tanks (and possibly one fewer tank) for a titanium rear wedge and side armor. The wheels are still exposed but the armor’s supposed to be chunky enough to make it a tough angle for a bot to get to them. As for Valkyrie, they go with noted fun-named disk Dr. Teeth, which Leanne Cushing says has the power of a bar and the reach of a disk.

SubZero went wedge first, but without a decent box rush Valkyrie could spin up and hit more on the side. But once SubZero got the wedge square they could push Valkyrie and get that box rush, right over the screws and the Lexan wall!

Even crazier, unlike HiJinx which stayed in the slot, Valkyrie, hitting it wheels first and staying square, stuck the landing. So no surprising OOTA for SubZero. At least not yet.

Valkyrie wisely got back to the middle of the Box as SubZero charged in an attempt to break the weapon. It worked well, but an unlucky carom meant the front was also exposed to a hit. Fortunately the flipper arm was still okay, but that’s a dangerous proposition.

Also a dangerous proposition? The state of the wedge. One of the sides was now detached from SubZero. A couple more hits from Valkyrie and it came completely off, which meant now SubZero had to use its front to stop the blade. It worked for a first attempt, as Valkyrie popped up and SubZero could get its first proper flip of the match, though Valkyrie stayed upright.

This was the high point of the fight for SubZero, because about a second later Valkyrie ripped the entire front wedge off, and a wheel was bent, and… yeah that was it. Valkyrie gets that rematch thanks to a KO in 1:39.

16. Malice vs. 17. Gigabyte
Malice: 2-1 (W, KO 1:15 vs. Axe Backwards; W, JD 2-1 vs. Shatter!; L, KO 1:02 vs. MadCatter)
Gigabyte: 2-1 (L, KO 1:12 vs. Copperhead; W, KO 1:13 vs. Extinguisher; W, KO 1:15 vs. Claw Viper)
Bunny Sauriol thinks this is a terrible matchup for Malice due to Gigabyte’s sloped shell. I’m not sure, because Malice is pretty tanky and Gigabyte isn’t. Simply, if anyone stops spinning, they lose. Also there’s a bit of bragging rights on the line! Malice captain Bunny Sauriol’s friend from grade school, Thy Phi, is on the Gigabyte team, so winner gets to rib the other for the next year I guess.

Out of the two, Malice is the one that needs to stop the other’s weapon more. So it was Malice with the… not really a box rush, but it was the one coming forward. But once Gigabyte was up to speed, you could see what Bunny meant, as Gigabyte could get under Malice and there wasn’t enough reach in the horizontal drum to neutralize it without Gigabyte getting a lick in as well. As seen by Gigabyte sending Malice a few feet in the air. Gigabyte was running on all cylinders and not stopping, taking bits of metal off of something (we learned it was Malice’s weapon). I’m surprised at this point Malice didn’t decide to go in rear first and play tank because though they were occasionally getting to the stability pipe, it was off the carom so not doing much. And Gigabyte was staying in the center, so the pinball shot was unlikely, until a big hit finally sent both bots spinning a bit. But Gigabyte remained remarkable stable, and Malice’s drive looked gone on one side. Gigabyte went for the tires as a result to try and take the other one out, and Malice was clinging onto mobility, if that. Gigabyte might’ve gotten a bit too greedy, hitting the back of Malice, but kicking around across the Box and hitting the screws. But Gigabyte recovered and the ref had finally seen enough. Gigabyte gets the win and the bragging rights via KO in 2:42.

Hydra vs. 32. HyperShock
Hydra: 3-0 (W, JD 2-1 vs. Witch Doctor; W, JD 3-0 vs. HUGE; W, JD 3-0 vs. Uppercut)
HyperShock: 1-2 (L, KO 1:41 vs. Gruff; W, KO 1:36 vs. Mammoth; L, KO 0:53 vs. End Game)
Apologies for formatting being a bitch and any time I put Hydra as 1. it wants to make a list. Which we obviously don’t want here.

Anyway, I’m still a bit surprised Hydra got the 1 seed due to 0 KOs and the snoozefest/flame war that was the HUGE fight, but it took down two bots that were, at the time of the fight, presumptive #1s—Witch Doctor as the defending runner-up and therefore best returning bot; and Uppercut on the strength of its two dramatic KOs. Meanwhile HyperShock you can argue until the cows come home whether they deserved to be in but they’re here. And Will Bales is… taking the wedges off the robot. While they’re in their pre-fight shot.

Never change. Also interesting decision that I guess means they’re conceding the ground game. And considering Will Bales’s face pressing the button, this might go well, but it’ll probably suck for fans of the rabid little yellow thing.

No, not The Cheat. Though him too because The Cheat is GROUNDED.

Anyways.

HyperShock did not charge headfirst, so that’s the highlight of Will Bales being patient. And they got sparks with the first hit. Hydra got under and got a lift, but I’m not counting flips unless the robot does at least a 180. Which means of course HyperShock tempted fate by running across the flipping spatula to try and get around and get a bite in on the sides. And even going up the wedge got a hit on top. Maybe this fight could be more interesting than previously thought, as HyperShock continued to run in circles to find an attack angle and Hydra just kept the wedge in front. HyperShock did get another good hit in as Hydra missed a flip and gave HyperShock the split-second to get an angle, but with Hydra also against the wall, there were no circles to run, and finally Hydra could actually land a flip (1).

Also it looked like the srimech was still broke. Apparently the guy who was originally in charge of it broke his ankle really badly and that hampered progress. But out of all the times to need it, against the flipper might be the biggest one.

Which actually, according to Jake Ewert, made HyperShock more dangerous because then there’s even more chaos, assuming the weapon spins up. I mean it wasn’t, but if it was it would change the angles enough to be really dangerous to Hydra. But it wasn’t so HyperShock just charged to run in and get re-flipped (2) and re-inverted. Gotta say it stuck the landing too.

HyperShock was down to normal speed and had to still try and find an angle to push with the weapon down, but a charge was unwise (3) as you could see the missing belt from HyperShock’s weapon. But they tried again to charge to find a pushing angle (4). But with HyperShock in a corner the fun, and attempted arena tosses, could begin (5, 6, 7). Some of them weren’t full-bore but hey, as long as it gets over the wall there’s a chance. But HyperShock could get back to center to attempt the push again (8). But the flips were bringing them to the arena sidewalls for more attempts to end the fight (9). HyperShock was stuck on the screws, and that would have probably done it because I don’t know if the reversal would have spat HyperShock out, but Jake Ewert asked if Will Bales and crew wanted to continue. With a “go for it” (10) the fight was back on and HyperShock was still slightly mobile (11) but the antennae were also bent so it wasn’t driving well when inverted anymore. Of course it wasn’t always inverted, like when it was on the screws for I think the third time? (12) They did get spat out and (13) Hydra finally got a ricochet off the Lexan, about 10 feet up, and while HyperShock had just started the descent. That was, I believe, enough to officially kill any last mobility, but hell, at this point both teams are just there for the show (14), as HyperShock had now started to smoke. At this point it was get ’em over (15) and get ’em out (16). Chris Rose counted 13, but my math speaks for itself.

So yeah, Hydra wins by KO in 2:58. Gigabyte’s not a great matchup but they already have shown an attachment which we’ll go into more detail next week.

With that, we’ve gotten through the left side of the bracket! Let’s break down the fights for this week on the right side. Senor’s winners in bold:

Bloodsport vs. Gruff: Gruff is nowhere near as tanky this year, as seen in the Whiplash fight and the Extinguisher fight. It’ll still be a good fight but I don’t know about them outlasting.
Fusion vs. Tantrum: Oh, I poured over this fight. I had Fusion as a dark horse preseason. But that robot looks just as likely to break itself and Tantrum is a tank. Remember the fight against Tombstone where it lost a fist? It took the hits as well as it could and it’s an even better bot now. (Watch as Fusion now wins the Giant Nut.)
SawBlaze vs. Kraken: Two very similar bots in that they’re both overhead attackeds, but I think SawBlaze wins the ground game, and therefore, the fight.
Skorpios vs. Witch Doctor: Another fight I wondered about because we know Skorpios can tank it all. I expect a three-minute fight and maybe a fight of the year. Why Witch Doctor? Eh, call it a hunch that they’re on the way back.
Copperhead vs. Mammoth: See HyperShock vs. Mammoth. Only Copperhead’s more powerful. Slower, but more powerful.
Lock-Jaw vs. Shatter!: Tough fight to call, but I have to go with the wily vet.
End Game vs. Perfect Phoenix: A podcast compared it to a possible BioHazard moment for Brutality, coming full circle considering Brutality was that for BioHazard (okay, it was Megabyte, but Brutality was the final fight). I just think that End Game’s wedge can tank it.
JackPot vs. Rotator: Rotator’ll have some configuration and tank what JackPot’s throwing. I’d guess undercutter and forks.

So that does it for this week. Next week we’ll have a breakdown of the entire round of 16, since that’s where we’ll be up to. There’s only three weeks left! (Unless we do Bounty Hunters, but if so can it be after the Banner Bracket?)

See you next week!