Welcome back to the Beat! Yeah, the title I could have gone multiple ways with, so I decided on… none of them! So enjoy Skorpios vs. a car.

As you’d expect, Skorpios wins. Anyway, to the fights!

Starchild vs. HUGE
Starchild: 0-3 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Overhaul; L, JD 3-0 vs. Mammoth; L, JD 3-0 vs. Gigabyte)
HUGE: 3-0 (W, KO 2:00 vs. Shatter!; W, JD 3-0 vs. Blip; W, KO 0:44 vs. Fusion)
These two similar, large robots have had two very different years. First, the vet. HUGE, with a win, could be the second bot (and second non-meta bot) to go 4-0. That’s, well, huge, after the tough years the bot’s had. The schedule wasn’t amazing (best fight is Blip), which would be the biggest potential knock against a top-4 seed, but I think top-8 is certainly not out of the question.

Meanwhile, top-8, or 16, or 32, is out of the question for Starchild. The thwackbot hasn’t quite worked out the way Brandon Zelinsky’s hoped. It’s been plenty stalwart, not having been KOed yet. But a win would go a long way to not just bringing back P1 next year, for instance.

And good news, it’s on Youtube so less work for me. Watch the fight:

You’d think this is actually a meta advantage for Starchild, as the thwacking portion should be able to hit HUGE’s body. Until HUGE damaged the part that keeps the disk off the ground when not in the air thwacking. From there it was a lot of academics.

HUGE wins by unanimous decision and joins Quantum at 4-0. Starchild goes 0-4, but hey, they survived the maximum 12 minutes, so they automatically win the season edition of the Giant Screw award! Will we see it next year? I’m gonna guess no, P1 comes back if anything.

Ominous vs. Shatter!
Ominous: 1-2 (L, KO 2:46 vs. Claw Viper; W, JD 3-0 vs. Shreddit Bro; L, KO 1:14 vs. Switchback)
Shatter!: 0-3 (L, KO 2:00 vs. HUGE; L, JD 3-0 vs. Beta; L, JD 3-0 vs. Horizon)
It has not been a good year for non-traditionally wheeled robots. And here are two of them, with a combined one win between them.

Bots FC has two of those robots! And neither will advance, unfortunately, due to jumping around, or terrible, awful, horrible luck. Mostly the latter. Ominous has a win, but it was enough of a snooze fest that they were highlighting the main event AT THE SAME TIME. Shatter!’s had two tough fights, but that loss to Horizon hurts and ultimately is why this isn’t a win and in fight for the Brooklyn crew.

The bots came in, but Ominous’s weapon was intermittent to start. Which meant Shatter! could start burying the hammer into the top of Ominous, both the armor on top of the armor and the srimech. Ominous responded by knocking off one of Shatter!’s forks (yes, that’s correct punctuation), but Shatter! kept working on that top armor, managing to rip off one of the UMHW panels covering the main armor on Ominous.

The two retreated and circled each other for a bit, but Shatter! overcorrected and Ominous charged for a side shot. This didn’t do very much, and Shatter! could continue to bury the hammer up top. Ominous clipped off the other fork, but that was kind of the gist as it went to the judges.

Shatter! wins by unanimous decision and has, maybe a shouting shot at the bubble? Probably not though.

Triton vs. Horizon
Triton: 1-2 (L, KO 1:12 vs. Lucky; L, JD* 3-0 vs. Copperhead; W, KO 1:46 vs. Glitch)
Horizon: 1-2 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Shreddit Bro; L, KO 0:51 vs. Monsoon; W, JD 3-0 vs. Shatter!)
Could this be a win and in? Eh… maybe for Triton? Namely on account of still being “We have Tombstone/Deep Six at home”? Mainly because the losses were better. It’s a potential win-and-in though, so sure, let’s get to it.

Triton’s weapon spun up, but it wasn’t giving the death whirl. So something was up. Horizon came in and hit with its own rotating disk, which ended up being a draw, as it did stop Triton’s weapon. It killed that disk too, so that’s why draw and not advantage Horizon. But the tacobot kept coming in and lined up a shot on the slow-spinning Triton in the drive area, and that did some drive damage. Not that Triton’s had the best mobility, but now, it was even worse.

Horizon kept bumping with its disks and tried to get to the other drive side to no avail. Triton finally decided to work and spun Horizon out, as now this had become a war of attrition. Which Triton won because Horizon had stopped moving.

Triton wins by KO in 2:02, but it’s not the best win. Well, they’ll be on the bubble. If there’s a play-in, I expect them to be there.

Bloodsport vs. Beta
Bloodsport: 2-1 (L, KO 0:35 vs. Copperhead; W, KO 2:02 vs. Gigabyte; W, KO 1:47 vs. Rotator)
Beta: 2-1 (W, JD 3-0 vs. Kraken; W, JD 3-0 vs. Shatter!; L, KO 1:10 vs. Black Dragon)
Well finally, we have a “winner gets a good seed, loser is in but not gonna love it” fight. Also it’s the real Fight of the Week, so yoink. Unlike verts, fighting horizontals is Beta’s wheelhouse, so good luck, Bloodsport.

There is one thing Beta can fight really well with the big Hardox wedge, and you saw it here. Hell, you saw it against Tombstone and if it hadn’t popped up in the final seconds and hit the weapon back in Season 2, Beta beats Tombstone and moves to the semis, and Ray Billings never wins a Giant Nut.

Believe it or not, that giant wheel of pain is Bloodsport’s lightest weapon. My guess is it has to be thinner material. And John Reid not being in charge of the weapon means slightly less waiting for a good hit, but still capitalizing.

Beta wins by unanimous decision. As long as it doesn’t get a vert (easier said than done), they’ll be okay. 

Mammoth vs. Kraken
Mammoth: 1-2 (L, KO 1:45 vs. Valkyrie; W, JD 3-0 vs. Starchild; L, KO 0:48 vs. Death Roll)
Kraken: 0-3 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Beta; L, JD 3-0 vs. Lucky; L, KO 1:26 vs. Copperhead)
Kraken has not won a fight in two years. Well, that’s what they’re staring down, and that’s not good. The robot is beloved enough to have a spot in the Destruct-a-Thon, but you gotta produce.

Mammoth could be making its last stand. Ricky Willems said pre-season he was kinda eh on bringing Mammoth back but decided to make one more go.

Mammoth came in to push with that big rotary lifter, and the first thing to notice is Kraken had the mouth closed. The plan seemed to be to act like a vertical spinner and try and attack the wheels. It also was an attempt to unbalance Mammoth, but thus far it hadn’t been working.

Eventually, Kraken got tipped over, and one of Kraken’s weaknesses, in whatever iteration, is it’s slow to self-right. It can, but there might need to be a little more of a tweak to the head geometry or something. So Mammoth could position itself to chain it together and keep Kraken from attacking by being on its lid. Lather, rinse, repeat, fight ends.

Mammoth wins by unanimous decision. At 2-2 they’re probably in, though the strength of victory is a combined 0-8. Probably not a super-high seed.

Valkyrie vs. Glitch
Valkyrie: 1-2 (W, KO 1:45 vs. Mammoth; L, JD 3-0 vs. Banshee; L, JD 3-0 vs. Malice)
Glitch: 0-3 (L, KO 0:47 vs. Riptide; L, KO 0:52 vs. Lock-Jaw; L, KO 1:46 vs. Triton)
Valkyrie went through some team stuff, and it’s showed. Lucy Du’s more than capable, and her robot Hot Leaf Juice is an undercutter as well. But I think there was more in terms of availability those two weeks and who was or wasn’t available. Regardless, a loss here and Valkyrie may not make the tournament, and that loss to Banshee would hurt.

Oh, Glitch. What is there to say other than, you know, getting a srimech? Let’s see if they can make it 4/4, and then we all bow our heads in shame.

Valkyrie spun up, and Glitch started wheeling around. They met and Valkyrie came in… and Glitch just died. Nothing to to but wait for the count-out, apart from what Kenny Florian was saying about… wait, Glitch is alive again. And knocked a fork off Valkyrie because as much as the mobility ranges from mediocre to occasionally nonexistent, it packs a wallop. Hmm, maybe this is going to start having people add the coup de graces that Riptide did and everyone else specifically doesn’t.

Wait, hang on, the two just met weapon to weapon and now there is a giant crack in Glitch’s weapon. Down the middle. So now, there’s nothing for Valkyrie to be worried about. With that, they gave chase to the still mobile Glitch to do more damage until time ran out. I’d give a blow-by-blow, but we’re already late and one more fight to cover.

Valkyrie wins by unanimous decision. At 2-2 they’ll be in.

Main Event: Black Dragon vs. Riptide
Black Dragon: 2-1 (W, KO 2:05 vs. Monsoon; L, JD* 3-0 vs. Quantum; W, KO 1:10 vs. Beta)
Riptide: 3-0 (W, KO 0:47 vs. Glitch; W, KO 1:01 vs. MadCatter; W, KO 1:09 vs. Captain Shrederator)
So, they’ve been foreshadowing that Black Dragon has 1) never been knocked out and B. are on the cusp of breaking Bite Force’s record of most fights without being knocked out (which is easy to do when you’ve lost one fight in four seasons).

So naturally they get Riptide in the fight that could tie it. And we could go into detail about Riptide. To put it briefly, the robot the majority of the robot combat community is now actively rooting against… is Riptide. Tombstone and Hydra, or I guess Ray and Jake, are heels and have played into that over the years. People don’t feel that about Riptide and Ethan Kurtz (or actually, especially his father, Stan).

In conclusion (and thanks to time concerns since at post time I’m 35 minutes late and definitely not “not wanting to write about Riptide” concerns)… Riptide wins by KO in 1:01. That’s four wins, four KOs, all in under 70 seconds. They’ve locked up the #2 seed, unless Witch Doctor/Minotaur is a super dud (which would move them up).

Yeah, that fight’s next week. Speaking of controversy, a fight that literally rewrote the rulebook, both by reverting the unstick rule (which is fine, the change in the unstick rule last year was an attempt but didn’t work, I prefer no unsticks unless something in the arena has fucked up. And now let’s make it for the #1 seed! The other highlight, at least to me, is Lucky, looking to go 4-0, against Cobalt. It could go well! It could go badly! We’ll find out next week, along with the entire bracket!