Welcome back to the Beat! Last time out we covered the right side of the round of 32, so it’s only fair that next we get the left side. Then after that, two weeks to go—the round of 16, then the quarters, semis, and championship. And then we wait for Champions II and whatever it may entail, or actually be called. In the meantime, the round of 32 is about to become the round of 16, so let’s get it. To the fights!

(12) Ripperoni vs. (21) Black Dragon
Ripperoni: 3-1 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Gruff; W, KO vs. End Game; W, KO vs. HiJinx; W, KO vs. Copperhead)
Black Dragon: 2-2 (W, KO vs. Monsoon; L, JD* 3-0 vs. Quantum; W, KO vs. Beta; L, KO vs. Riptide)
Well, who would’ve expected the pizza bot wasn’t a meme, was for real, would knock off the preseason #1, and would get an upper-16 seed in the bracket? Preseason? I can say I was not one of them. Black Dragon being where it is, sure, but the upper seed in this one? First off, it wins Rookie of the Year via process of elimination of being the only rookie to make the tournament. Second, as we said, it beat freakin’ End Game.

Meanwhile, Black Dragon had the proverbial “Oh, he was one fight away from XYZ.” In this case, one fight from the longest string of fights without being KO’d. Alas, Bite Force, which hasn’t competed in three years, keeps the mark, and we all continue to root against Riptide.

Ripperoni came in to avoid Black Dragon’s wedge and drum combo, and it worked in their favor because the extra time meant that they could win the first exchange and flip Black Dragon over. Black Dragon didn’t try and flip over, instead tanking another hit from the big pizza cutter, which didn’t even flip it back over. It took another hit to do that, which at least meant Black Dragon could get away and attempt to spin up.

Ripperoni kept winning the exchanges, to the extent that Black Dragon’s beater died, making it a wedge at this point. And Black Dragon could try to push, but the weird thing about Ripperoni is it’s almost an anti-push bot, because it would fall over instead of getting pushed. Which still worked out because it hit the flamethrower on Black Dragon and exploded it.

This turned the tables in the fight as it unlocked Black Dragon’s ace in the hole: Being on fire. Because while it was on fire, the rear flywheel’s motor on Ripperoni came off, meaning it was no longer stable. Black Dragon kept pushing, trying to claw back whatever points possible, pushing Ripperoni to the screws on the Upper Deck, where it got itself stuck.

Huh. Well that happened. Black Dragon wins by KO in 2:57, surviving and advancing.

(9) Cobalt vs. (24) Monsoon
Cobalt: 3-1 (W, KO vs. Death Roll; L, KO vs. Minotaur; W, KO vs. Overhaul; W, KO vs. Lucky)
Monsoon: 2-2 (L, KO vs. Black Dragon; W, KO vs. Horizon; L, JD 3-0 vs. Whiplash; W, KO vs. Death Roll)
Hot take, Cobalt could have arguably been seeded higher than this. After all, they were winning the fight against Minotaur for the first, say, 2 1/2 minutes. Not top 4, but you can argue squeaking them over SawBlaze. SawBlaze was the higher ranked robot preseason though, so there’s probably the difference.

Meanwhile, Monsoon had a good win (Death Roll), an easy win (Horizon), and two tough losses (winning the fight against Black Dragon until Tom Brewster drove over a bolt and it got sucked up and broke shit; a close judges’ decision against Whiplash). It’s the battle of British verts! And it’s the Fight of the Week, I hope if it embeds.

In one of the bigger tourney upsets, Monsoon wins the battle of Brit verts by KO. I swear, one of these days Cobalt’s gonna make me look bad by not picking them and then winning the Giant Nut. This shit is guaranteed.

(1) Minotaur vs. (32) Fusion
Minotaur: 4-0 (W, KO vs. Tantrum; W, KO vs. Free Shipping; W, KO vs. Cobalt; W, JD 3-0 vs. Witch Doctor)
Fusion: 1-3 (W, KO vs. Emulsifier; L, JD 2-1 vs. Witch Doctor; L, KO vs. HUGE; L, KO vs. Rotator)
Fusion lucks out by being a 1-3 bot that had a close split decision loss, which counts as half a win, I guess. The big thing will of course be a game of “how long can Fusion go until it nukes itself?” Against Minotaur, that’s not the best strategy, as they’re the current #1 seed and showed mettle withstanding punishment against Cobalt and Witch Doctor.

Both bots spun up their verts, and Fusion actually won the exchange, flipping Minotaur over. They tried to press, which flipped Minotaur back, but also cost them their vertical spinner’s belts.

Also the fire. Yeah, that’s a problem. The horizontal actually helps manage the fire, but not moving doesn’t help. It almost happened, but not quite.

Minotaur wins by KO.

(4) Hydra vs. (29) Death Roll
Hydra: 3-1 (W, KO vs. Rotator; L, KO vs. Tantrum; W, JD 3-0 vs. Free Shipping; W, JD 3-0 vs. SawBlaze)
Death Roll: 2-2 (L, KO vs. Cobalt; W, KO vs. Switchback; W, KO vs. Mammoth; L, KO vs. Monsoon)
Well, it’s a bot that needs the ground game to do anything vs. a bot that has absolutely no ground game. Let’s see what happens!

Well, in short, because I can’t watch the fights while at work (hey, it’s my last week of the semester and the students are doing final projects), Jake Ewert finally achieved his dream when he designed Hydra: Death Roll might have actually kissed the ceiling. Not hard, because I imagine that would have brought down some lights and led to a very pissed Greg and Trey, but they got the height. Buuuut, Death Roll needed one or two hits to get its Aussie disk in Hydra’s skull, and the bots had to be separated and both were clearly worse for wear. In the end, Hydra wins by unanimous decision.

(5) Quantum vs. (28) Ribbot
Quantum: 4-0 (W, KO vs. Captain Shrederator; W, KO vs. Gruff; W, JD* 3-0 vs. Black Dragon; W, JD 3-0 vs. Emulsifier)
Ribbot: 1-3 (L, KO vs. Witch Doctor; L, JD 3-0 vs. Claw Viper; L, JD 3-0 vs. Jackpot; W, KO vs. Skorpios)
Ribbot was a Skorpios not breaking two minutes in from going 0-4 and missing the tournament, and it would have been unfortunate and not necessarily an indictment of the robot or team. Sometimes it just be like that, or, to paraphrase from John Sterling, “That’s BattleBots, Suzyn.” For this fight they’ll go with the vert over the undercutter.

(Like John Sterling knows what robot combat is, considering the most modern home run call pop culture reference is “Like a good Gleyber, Torres is there!”)

Quantum, on the other hand, is the class of the crushers. Which is admittedly between it and pre-WC VII Kraken, but hey, 4-0 is 4-0, and so is 2/2 in the tourney and a FaceTime call from previous crusher king Ian Lewis (as in, Warhead and more topically, Razer).

Quantum wanted to Roger Dorn olé this one, but alternately, Ribbot could drive right into the killsaw slot and get the forks stuck. Quantum got a bite in, but made the decision to leave them there rather than go for a second bite at the froggy apple.

This has widely been regarded as a bad move, as Ribbot got out of the toaster and was able to keep the crusher at bay until Quantum was a little to cavalier and paid dearly. Wedge damage, fine, but then also losing a tooth and dislodging the entire hydraulic piston from the jaw, and a little underside damage to add to the flipped over Quantum.

Could they have self-righted? Yes. Did they? No, they knew the fight was over and I guess try to prep for the Golden Bolt.

Ribbot wins by KO and will face Black Dragon in a rematch of an absolute classic. You know, the first one where Black Dragon was on fire for two minutes and won.

(16) Switchback vs. (17) Malice
Switchback: 3-1 (W, JD 3-0 vs. Banshee; L, KO vs. Death Roll; W, KO vs. Ominous; W, KO vs. HiJinx)
Malice: 3-1 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Lock-Jaw; W, KO vs. Emulsifier; W, JD 3-0 vs. Valkyrie; W, KO vs. Gruff)
It’s the ol’ mid-bracket showdown! Switchback gets the benefit of the upper seed here, thanks to their dismantling of HiJinx. Malice is 3-1, thanks to the lone overturned appeal of the season against Valkyrie, and a Pyrrhic victory against Emulsifier. The Gruff fight’s really what punched Malice’s ticket, and now Bunny’s calling in for backup, like, hey, that’s Ray Billings! Here without Tombstone of course, because he’s been busy healing up from a severed tendon. (He should be in for this coming season, as he built two bots, middleweight Mortician and heavyweight Stink Eye, for Robogames.)

Switchback had its articulated weapon raised to let it spin up and hopefully tank Malice’s first spin up (and/or box rush). This didn’t work, as Malice’s forks got under and it was certainly winning the exchanges, hitting the plow instead of Switchback going weapon to weapon, and the force of this killed the drum anyway. So it was a strategy by Greg Needel and co., but it didn’t work, as Switchback’s weapon chain got ripped out and Malice had pretty much free rein to do whatever.

It went the full three minutes, so props to Switchback there, but no qualms here, Malice wins by unanimous decision and gets top-seeded Minotaur next.

(13) Beta vs. (20) Whiplash
Beta: 3-1 (W, JD 3-0 vs. Kraken; W, JD 3-0 vs. Shatter!; L, KO vs. Black Dragon; W, JD 3-0 vs. Bloodsport
Whiplash: 2-2 (L, KO vs. MadCatter; L, KO vs. HyperShock; W, JD 3-0 vs. Monsoon; W, KO vs. Tantrum)
Apparently Whiplash, in lifter-spinner form, works well enough for John Reid to go with the “ugly armour,” because he’s British. I mean, they consider themselves a lifter first, and as far as anti-verbs go, the ugly armor still needs… something. Beta vs. verts is a bad thing.

Whiplash went wide and Beta went straight ahead. John Reid, the wily vet, looked to get around, but as good of a driver he is, Matt Vasquez is one of the tops, so the maneuver was unsuccessful. Beta could hit the lifting arm, which as a little off-balance due to the extra top armor, but Whiplash could get itself around to use the lifter and push Beta onto the Upper Deck, and something killed Beta’s drive. Going to the Hardox wedge might’ve been able to limit the lifter, but Beta couldn’t gameplan for both.

Whiplash wins by KO and gets a rematch with Hydra, after that brilliant 2020 fight that could’ve gone either way.

(8) SawBlaze vs. (25) Blip
SawBlaze: 3-1 (W, JD* 3-0 vs. HyperShock; W, KO vs. Lock-Jaw; W, KO vs. Skorpios; L, JD 3-0 vs. Hydra)
Blip: 2-2 (L, JD 3-0 vs. End Game; L, JD 3-0 vs. HUGE; W, JD 3-0 vs. Tantrum; W, JD 3-0 vs. Banshee)
SawBlaze is on that short list of bots in waiting to win the Nut, but between Bronco and Hydra, it’s never beaten a flipper. So something’s gotta give here.

Blip is your current Giant Screw leader, I think. After all, it lasted the max 12 minutes this season, including the fights against End Game and HUGE. If things go tits-up here but it survives the full three minutes against the hammer-saw, it could clinch that. Which, I know, gives you nothing because only occasionally do bot-builders read this dreck (at the least, Nick Nave, so… a resounding one).

Blip got under the first time, but not enough for the flipper to actually get under. This is the one thing I think a future rework of Blip might need, is the flipper works, but it’s deep up the wedge. And I know that protects it because you need the wedge lets to wedgelet, but maybe it’s too far? Granted, I am not Aren Hill, I do not have a Giant Nut, and this has almost definitely been thought of. But it worked against Blip against Banshee, and did here. It was winning the pushing battle, but not getting the first flip, and then took a hit from a pulverizer and lost a fork, and that was big. Now SawBlaze had an angle to work with and work it did, scooping Blip up, landing hammer-saw hits, and knocking off the other side’s fork. Blip had some middle forks but those are not the ones to be using.

From here, SawBlaze could dominate the ground game, pulling off the other forks on Blip, and starting to just put gashes in the top armor. But, it went to the judges!

Yes, of course, SawBlaze wins by unanimous decision, but Blip cinches the season-long Giant Screw, and that counts for almost something!

SawBlaze gets a rematch with Monsoon from waaaaay back.

So, 16 bots remain. We have our last eight-fight night tonight, as we cover the round of 16. So, with that, see you next week!