Welcome back to the Beat! Last time out, we had our first stoppage of the season. And by stoppage, I mean “fight stopped due to unable to separate robots/something happened to something, let’s go to the judges.” And the Rule 34 part of the fandom probably rejoiced. But on the other hand…

Will, Jamo (can I call you Jamo?)… HyperBlaze was lovely, but “Shock & Saw” was right there.

Also, Blip survived three minutes with End Game (yay!) by doing zero flips (aww…). As for this week, the other premier flipper in the game makes its season debut, but first, returning international (non-Kiwi/Brazilian) bots!

Cobalt vs. Death Roll
The Triple Crown hopefuls are back. Yes, the original Team Carbide returns to run Cobalt, though it remains officially under the Robotic Death Company flag. John Mladenik, team head, will be with them throughout the season.

And, the killer croc is back too. Death Roll, if you recall, was last seen in Season 4, where it was the bot that just kept coming and wouldn’t die until Witch Doctor dispatched it in the semis. It’s been three years though, so how much has the croc picked up? The landscape has changed, and the ground game is key now. And Death Roll doesn’t have the ground game.

This was evident by Death Roll charging and going right up Cobalt’s wedgelets. And then up in the air about 8 feet. And as long as Cobalt kept those wedgelets down and didn’t hit seams in the floor, this continued, with Death Roll bouncing onto the Upper Deck, or into the short corner and Cobalt’s controlled pulverizer. Cobalt had them pinned at this point and didn’t let the croc out of the corner, stopping the disk and forcing the actual srimech to get used (best srimech in the game, it’s a bloody arm with a knife). Unfortunately it was so in the corner that it didn’t have the space to roll over. Fight over.

Cobalt wins by KO in 1:27. They get Minotaur next, while Death Roll will face Switchback.

Claw Viper vs. Ominous
Another returning European team, though this one has a new bot. Ominous is from Tim Bouwens, best known for the robot Reality, which was here way back in Season 3 where it went 3-2, finishing out of the playoffs. It’s a vertical spinner on omniwheels.

Claw Viper is back to being a full participant! So that’s good. Kevin Milczewski’s bot continues to be a speedy boi, but more importantly can it be sturdy enough to withstand a season? Like the claw part. What will hopefully help is a bar at the beginning of the arm, called an “idiot bar” by the builder, to prevent overbalancing from suplex. Also, full suplexes, unfortunately.

Claw Viper looked like it slightly turned down the speed, getting across the box in a second instead of, like, half a second. And it used this speed to try to corral Ominous to the short corner and tanked a hit well enough that it was Ominous sent flipping over. That means they had gotten under when taking the hit.

Ominous was trying to find the right angle to self-right, but that angle ended up being “scooped up by Claw Viper.” Claw Viper got around and took Ominous to the screws, where even reversing it would get down. The srimech pushed Ominous down, right into Claw Viper to push it back on the screws, but Ominous came back down.

Claw Viper continued to get under Ominous and every frontal hit had Ominous skittering back and over, and taken around the Box back onto the Upper Deck. Claw Viper got it over again and looked for the right angle before depositing Ominous, weapon down, srimech out, and as a result, doing the thing.

Once again, Doing the Thing means somehow put in a precarious non-side place where zero wheels are touching the ground that you can’t get up from, normally weapon down. In two words, fight over.

Claw Viper wins by KO in 2:46. They’ll face Ribbot next, and Ominous gets Shreddit Bro.

Bloodsport vs. Copperhead
Bloodsport had a bit of a down year last year, and the overhead spinner’s had a big retooling. Like, to the point the weapon motor is on top now, being closer in appearance to Icewave (even though it remains all-electric). For this fight, they have their key-shaped weapon, one of their many different bars.

Snek good, and snek back. Copperhead the sturdy brick is back, with another new captain (name) at the helm. It remains the brickest bot in the game. For this fight… they have their drum.

The two bots jostled for position before finally coming together in the center of the arena. The weapons collided and both bots went back, but from the first frame you could tell Bloodsport got it worse because it had already lost its self-righting pipe.

Zoom out to see the two robots and it was also tipped over and already on fire. Yeah, that’s probably bad. Also, sans pipe, that’s already it.

Copperhead wins in a KO of the Year candidate in one hit, or officially 35 seconds. Triton is next, while Bloodsport will get Gigabyte in must-wins for both.

Lock-Jaw vs. Malice
Lock-Jaw had more than a bit of a down year last year. Going 0 for 2021’ll do that. 0-3 in the regular season, plus a loss as the gatekeeper, not what you want. The big thing is the internals and Donald Hutson hopefully being slightly less of a madman to super-overclock everything, which is great from a power standpoint but not from a reliability standpoint, as seen by Lock-Jaw smoking in most of its fights.

Malice has a new look—forks! It’s an interesting look because the weapon leads, but we saw from Death Roll, ground game is king. And unfortunately Malice has been known for weapon reliability issues.

And unfortunately there’s one fight that if I miss parts the ep, it’s not available because I still don’t have Discovery+. And, this one’s it. Well, let’s read up from other places and paraphrase.

Lock-Jaw led with its rear plow, giving respect to Malice’s horizontal flywheel. It worked well enough but lost a chunk of wheel, but in the next exchange Lock-Jaw had more success, taking Malice towards the pulverizer. It took time for both bots to get into it from there, but Malice then damaged the already damaged wheel some more, before Lock-Jaw responded with its first offensive barrage sending Malice in the air. At this point the weapon on Malice was toast.

Lock-Jaw had the advantage to try and press, but its weapon also died midway and the result was a pushing match for the last minute or so before going to the judges.

But hey, Lock-Jaw wins by unanimous decision. It’s a win! Now good luck fighting SawBlaze next. Malice will face Emulsifier.

Triton vs. Lucky
Out of all the new bots, this might be the one everyone’s been the most excited about. Deep Six was, let’s say, not allowed back, due to safety concerns, like the continuous fucking up of the floor. So, the logical thing was… put it on its side! With no Tombstone, the big bar of Triton is the most fearsome thing going into the competition. We’ll see what happens here.

Lucky, meanwhile, had itself a solid showing, going 2-1 last year, probably could have gone 3-0 if they kept Tantrum on the rails. That’s not gonna happen again! The flipper hopes to continue that steady improvement. For this fight they have on the big wedge. Because obviously.

The good news is Lucky still could flip as they did just that from the get-go. Triton went up and over and was definitely having some rookie bot jitters—it’s still Team Overboard but I don’t think Dustin Esswein was at the event so I believe it’s Bradley Hanstad at the controls. Also, because those wheels are tiny. It’s like they’re caster wheels and they don’t have the traction to handle all the power. And power it is, because that’s not a death hum, that’s a death turbine sound. Sweet holy fuck.

Control bots are fine with big spinners having rookie jitters, because Matt Olson last year showed hey, being an RC champion makes you good at driving combat robots. It meant Lucky could keep the wedge on Triton and try to limit the damage. Yes, chunks were being taken out here and there, but that’s its job.

Triton was able to get the whiparound but the wedge held firm and  Lucky and Matt Olson continued to be methodical. Eventually they were able to pin Triton on the wall and get just enough flip to have Triton doing the thing, weapon unable to spin. And it’s not like the Tantrum fight, they know better than to let that behemoth off the wall.

Lucky wins by KO in 1:12. Lucky faces Kraken next, while Triton will take on Copperhead.

Jackpot vs. Skorpios
Quick, there are two robots who have had multiple seasons of Fight Night rounds and have never lost. One is Bite Force, going 8-0 in Seasons 3 and 4 en route to two Giant Nuts. The other… is Jackpot, at 5-0. Sure, it hasn’t gotten beyond that, getting beaten in the first round by Rotator and then in the second by Blip last year, so all that’s gotten it into the top 16. But hey, that’s also still pretty good. It included a tournament win over Tombstone last year, that counts for something. And now, a lifter doubling as a srimech. Man, everyone’s going for that this year.

No fun trivia like that for Skorpios, which went 1-2 last year in Fight Night play, gaining themselves a play-in (which they won) for the right to get trounced by End Game (which they lost). They did successfully defend their bounty, or gatekeeper status, in the Sin City Slugfest, so making the Golden Bolt tournament is something, even if they lost to HyperShock immediately via OOTA. More importantly, they have a new serrated fork setup against verts that they get to try on.

Jackpot’s minibot (Ace) nearly got some friendly fire, but they hit Skorpios too, and there was almost immediately some wheel damage from overcorrecting into the hit by Zach Lytle, as Skorpios pushed and flipped Jackpot against the short wall. (Upon second view, Jackpot did it to itself since Skorpios was under it and the recoil of Skorpios getting hit flipped Jackpot.) Skorpios was smoking, but that was weapon belt friction. But Jackpot wasn’t self-righting. Or moving. And a shot to the belly from Skorpios really didn’t help that.

A pog flip on the minibot was all that mattered before the count, as Jackpot then combusted.

Skorpios wins by KO in 55 seconds. They get Big Dill next. Jackpot gets a rematch of its Season 5 tournament loss, against Rotator.

Main Event: Rotator vs. Hydra
Jake Ewert still thinks he won the fight against Tantrum, and there’s a laundry list of rule changes because of it. Like “What is aggression?” Or the steward. What’s changed? Not too much for Hydra.

Rotator is running the overhead, interestingly enough. I would have thought undercutter against the flipper arm, but that’s where Hydra’s armor is. It’s an all-new Rotator, and it was having some radio issues. And weapon issues. The fight actually got postponed and Rotator had to either fight or forfeit, so good luck Victor Soto and crew, hope the transmitter works when the robot is in the air. As always, parentheses of what truly count as flips.

Rotator led with the forks as Hydra got the early mini flips (1, 2) but the forks were getting under when angled correctly. But not the overhead. (3, 4, 5, 6, 7). Basically it was a five-flip combo to get Rotator in the corner. (8) got the forks caught on the rails, and one of Rotator’s wheels was ominously turning. But both wheels were off the ground, so it didn’t matter if one looked cockeyed.

Hydra by KO in 1:24. Fun fact, with that KO Hydra now has the modern series record for most KOs by a flipper, surpassing Bronco. No, I have no idea how many fights Toro or Bronco won by KO.

Chris Rose said 11 flips, but I don’t know if some of those really counted as flips or just the wedge working and Rotator spun off. I can’t give those credit. The high was 14 feet.

As we mentioned, Rotator gets Jackpot next, but Hydra’s next fight? Oh, this’ll be fun, a rematch of that semifinal with Tantrum. Get your popcorn ready for that.

Also get your popcorn ready for your main event tonight, HyperShock vs. Whiplash. The loser goes 0-2 and is in a lot of trouble. (Especially if it’s HyperShock, as End Game looms as fight #3.)

See you next week!