cbc4 prediciton thread

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patrickrowberry
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cbc4 prediciton thread

Post by patrickrowberry » Mon Jan 13, 2020 2:00 pm

predictions will be locked in on Wednesday

fw:

Puffy Cloud
Vindicator
Black Dog III
Angry Bird: Seed Killer Gen II
NRG II
SPINNERFOOD: BITES THE DUST
Padoru Machina
Finishing Move
gabrial
Chinesium II
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Tanto
Nikkousen
Taipan
Irritant
Wasp 2
Black Salvo
2WD speed wedge
Lil' Yeetums
Final Mecha Catbot
Gas Gas Gas

lw:

Magnolia Pico
Apeirogon
Paddle Faster, I Hear Banjos
Broken Tooth
National Security
Ori
Mastodonsaurus
25 or 6 to 4
Scrapper
Voltaic
Shade Fist
wheelosaurous
Blood Eagle
Golden MADD 2
Bluetooth
TSA 2.1
TRILOBITE
Acrid
Boring Gray Wedge
Fork Factor
KILLER QUEEN
diamond head

mw:

Pressure Flop II
Carapace
Paradox
Remi 4
Hoarfrost IV
Unnamed & Untamed
Glacier III
DRAGONFIST
Skoll
The Act Of Being Polite
linkinparknumb.mp3.exe
Tower Of Grey
Diablo Genesis III
Pizza 2
V-Trigger
space bee
Lilly frog and jack hammer

hw:

Petaflare
Defenestrator
long arm of the law
KILL EM ALL
Xtreme pneumatiX
Fork Bomb
Electro-Death
Swamp Thing
Mecha Pufferfish Prime
pink wedge 2020
Dreadnought Mk.4
Icebreaker
Wallop
KING CRIMSON
TABOR MARK 4!
Astronomy
Santangelo
Untitled Goose Robot
Outrage 3
no fun machine
Mass Destruction
dat boi
Last edited by patrickrowberry on Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Cherry Bomb Classic IV Featherweight Predictions

Post by Trihunter » Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:32 pm

Alright, let's make something. I'll try to keep it concise.

FEATHERS

TOP OF THE BOTS

Black Salvo - It's a well designed wedge, and I see it dominating.
Ori - Tried and true, and I reckon it matches up solidly with the field this year. Pair it with solid RPs, and it's got a shot at the championship.
Chinesium II - Controversial, I know, but I see it doing some serious damage to the opposition and going through. There's not that much in the field with high enough armour.
Black Dog III - I feel Black Dog's losing its relevance, and Laz knows it. Still a solid contender, though. Best to go out on a high note, right?

WORTHY CHALLENGERS

Nikkousen - Tried and true design.
Puffy Cloud - Only saw in the division, I think it's got a chance to upset with the control heavy format.
Untitled Goose Robot - Overused AGDQ joke
Irritant - Decent enough little flipper, I can see it causing some upsets.
Taipan - Defenestrator clones are all the rage these days.
I Can't Believe It's Not Tanto - Bog standard wedge.
Wasp 2 - It's Gas Gas Gas but actually good.
Seed Killer - Could be a dark horse, but that would require good RP, and I'm uncertain on that.
Mass Destruction - Bit of a wild card. Could do well or could not. All comes down to RP.
Vindicator - It's Gas Gas Gas but actually good.
CIRCUITZ - It's Gas Gas Gas but actually good.
Gabrial - Pat has forgotten how thwack stats work. Never mind, turns out the Gabriel link is stronger than we thought and it's an actual powered axe. Still probably too wobbly to do much.

JOBBERS

Lil Yeetums - It's a power flipper, but I don't see it doing too well here. Those wheels are exposed as hell, and springs have a horrific combat record.
NRG 2 - I feel it's a little too weak to pull off any serious damage.
Finishing Move - Very fun design, hope it does something sick.
Gas Gas Gas - Ok zoomer
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Venice Queen
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Re: cbc4 prediciton thread

Post by Venice Queen » Sat Jan 18, 2020 12:36 pm

OFFICIAL ‽ ROBOTICS PREDICITIONS: FEATHERWEIGHT EDITION

1. Black Dog III – this is literally the best field for Black dog I’ve ever seen
2. Lil’ Yeetums – definitely thought this was a multibot till I read closer. Should actually shit on most of the field – damages low armor wedges, destabilizes fast things while keeping up well enough, and potentially tanks very well. Could also shit the bed, but frog is usually on another level when he’s using a meta-breaker.
3. Nikkousen – multibots are VERY good in wedge divisions. Instaloses to spinners, but there’s only 2.
4. Puffy Cloud – I see no image of an anti-hs wedge so I’m guessing he’s just using the forks, which is a major weakness. Otherwise strong.
5. Untitled Goose Robot – you fuck you moved this out of HW
6. Chinesium – don’t get me wrong – the design is mediocre at best: it’s a midcutter with no lower support. The thing is, that’s literally only a relevant issue vs black dog, and its matchup against the speed wedge contingent of the division is incredibly in its favor
7. Gabrial – so yes technically speaking a thwack shouldn’t work with weapon stats blah blah blah it’s a hammer if you actually read his description, and it’s a hammer that deals a fuckload of damage, doesn’t care about wedging its opponents, and has enough drivetrain to turn in place.
8. Finishing move – no points are allocated to the flipping mechanism so it’s assumedly the usual 2/3 split, which is a bit wonky – or at least not what I thought he was gong for in this design originally. It still makes a good deal of sense, but the design is still incredibly weak to spinners in a way that other bots of that style (notably Endless Clowns and Electro death) are not. Still, artbot awards are ready for this thing if nothing else.
9. Gas Gas Gas – well it memes on the tankier wedges
10. Circuitz – this, GGG and Finishing move are more or less interchangeable, she doesn’t have a render or stats so she’s lowest ranked (and should probably be dqed for not having stats up?)
11. NRG II – this has objectively awful stats and will still win 2-3 fights on load-in because no one has armor
12. Vindicator – dear lord yall entered a lot of wedges in this class. It’s almost like this ruleset almost entirely discourages interesting control bot designs because of how high the spinner damage is or something dear LORD we need a damage scale that lets you damage opponents with more armor than you. Worse than the other weird fast wedges because it has no weapon
13. Ori – falls into the exact same gap Irritant does, but the good control gives it the edge. Notable: the 4-bar flipper is actually a disadvantage here – it would be better if you could actually get under someone and drive them into something. You have worse speed than them. You won’t be doing that much, should have had a rear-hinged for maximum airtime instead.
14. Irritant – far too much armor to be optimal for the division, but it has an active weapon that breaks opponent contact with the floor immediately, and good enough drivetrain to keep up with the dumbfuckwedges so it should be able to do decently. I say should because PLEASE TBR proofread your rps and make them not read like they were written by an algorithm spitting out random ARC related words I know you’re capable of good things.
15. Black Salvo – no longer fucked by wedge rules, is fucked by the division
16. Tanto – it’s a tanky black salvo
17. Wasp 2 – way worse control than the other tanky wedges, tries to make up for it with a lifter. Does that still work with the wedge hierarchy changes? Rinz better hope so, he bet his success on it
18. Angry Bird – as usual with hammers, this bot falls into the trap of putting too much in to weapon, and will probably lose to most things. Or would, usually. Thing is this division is so stupid that it basically one-shots half the cast, and thus gets a half decent rank since it’ll at the very least rng into a win or two
19. King Crimson – congrats you set the tone for the division and then didn’t update your stats to adapt to it
20. Taipan – it’s not particularly relevant that GF is a good RPer when his stats are this bad for the division

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Re: cbc4 prediciton thread

Post by Venice Queen » Sat Jan 18, 2020 5:46 pm

OFFICIAL ‽ ROBOTICS PREDICITION THREAD LIGHTWEIGHT EDITION

1. Magnolia Pico – it’s alex with a hammer, it’ll win. Also obligatory when the fuck are we banning having 3 configurations with literally 1 stat number changed between them
2. Final Mecha Catbot – I’m predicting this gets fucked by shock damage in one of the non-box rush arenas once but it’ll do fine otherwise
3. Golden Madd – most of the division is weird shit or spinners, so a shell does well
4. Blood Eagle – Laz has the obligatory config with extra weapon armor to barely beat all the other spinners in a stat war because literally all that matters to spinners is 2 stats and that’s unhealthy for the game
5. Mastodonsaurus – there’s absolutely no way you fit a weapon motor in there, but I appreciate you demonstrating how ridiculous the +4 armor bonus to everything buff is
6. BGW – as usual with the bots that unabashedly steal the hellhound plow, wedge is too steep. Also bro really you’re gonna steal that plow and stick it on a rectangle after going off on Hide for doing nearly the same thing? The fuck is this hypocrisy
7. Bluetooth – Snijmachine
8. Shade fist – I *almost* entered Cuddle Time! Again, could have kicked your ass again. RIP. Not sure how this will do against deathspinners, could do a lot better or worse than this position but I’m erring on the side of it usually losing to them for now. Prove me wrong
9. Scrapper – its wedge might be ass but 16 weapon is 16 weapon
10. Broken Tooth – I’m a lot less confident in this than I was at 8:59 Wednesday night but it’s still gonna do better against all these hses than Paddle Faster would have so eh
11. TSA – definitely doesn’t get weapon armor bonus on all of that, and I forget how forgiving the rules are for this thing if you don’t specify where the weapon armor bonus is going. If it gets it on the front, put it 6th instead of here
12. Apeirogon – not convinced it hits the right breakpoints for weapon and armor
13. National Security – it’s stupid and I love it but that doesn’t make it good
14. Fork Factor – I’ve never been a fan of mecanum forkbots personally – it’s a stylistic choice though, I rp too aggressively. Honestly this might be the perfect bot for tbr with his style, except for the part where it has not anti-spinner wedge in a division full of hses
15. Eagle’s hawk – this… might actually be able to tank hits and destabilize spinners. I’m not that confident because dear lord those are some easy to hit fork corners, but the idea is getting close to working.
16. 25/6/4 – everyone entered deathspinners this sucks now
17. Trilobite – 9 armor in this division?
18. Diamond head – classic newbie spinner where he hasn’t realized that spinners only have 2 relevant stats yet because our meta is that degenerate
19. Wheelosaurous – on today’s edition of Pat Doesn’t Know What Armor Is, a saw with 5 body armor
S: LIGHTWEIGHT EDITION[/size][/u][/b]

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Re: cbc4 prediciton thread

Post by V900 » Sat Jan 18, 2020 6:59 pm

Lists are in no particular order aside from the category they are in. I didn't include any bots that don't have a pic as of writing.

== EL GRANDE PADRE ==
Bots that will easily make playoffs and have a good chance of winning the entire thing.

FW
* Black Salvo - This gets 23-22'd by one of the other 9+ speed memebots but otherwise should do fine.
* Vindicator - 7 torque bitch are you fucking kidding what the hell
* Nikkousen - Tons of bricks in bracket + multibot = fun times
* Black Dog III - Tons of bricks in bracket + anti-brick drum = fun times, except chinesium is totally gonna snap it in half.
* Ori - All HFL has to do is catch the speedbots once and he gets to control them for free. Will probably lose to one of the 9 speeders that can actually take a hit.

LW
* Mastodonsaurus - "every weapon with 10 or more power gets +4 armor!!" Monsterworks says, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.
* Blood Eagle - see above, at least Laz doesn't have to pretend that bar is shorter than the wheelbase any more.
* Final Mecha Catbot - I hate Mondays.
* Golden MADD 2 - This has more-or-less 16 weapon and 13 armor everywhere on the robot except for underneath. I'm sure there's at least 1 robot that can get underneath, but who will it be? That is the question.

MW
*

HW
*

== PRETTY FLY FOR A WHITE GUY ==
Bots that will likely make playoffs but probably won't get past semis.

FW
* I Can’t Believe It’s Not Tanto - Not sure if I trust Boto's strategies. Bot itself is okay, but lacks any sort of gimmick to push it over the edge.
* Gas Gas Gas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcIpCNRxVtk
* Untitled Goose Robot - I was kinda banking on people entering ~7 speed bricks, but what can you do, right?
* Wasp 2 - This would be right next to Black Salvo, except I'm pretty sure none of the tournament's Rinzler's competed in have actually finished, so idk how well he does in a playoff setting.
* Irritant - Probably craps its pants when TBR decides "oh I can flank this guy" to the wrong opponent in R1 or 2 playoffs.

LW
* Magnolia Pico - 4/2 drivetrain WILL be exploited at some point.
* Shade Fist - I forget who wins the drum versus vert matchup, but that'll decide how far this gets in playoffs.
* Apeirogon - Would've gone 4 arm/0 weapon armor but you do you.
* Bluetooth - I think there's enough verts and drums for this to get an easy ticket to playoffs, but what happens from there is anyone's guess.
* Broken Tooth - IDK what the hells going on with your statline, but I'll trust that you know what you're doing.
* TSA 2.1 - hey wait isn't this liam's bot from like a bajillion years ago
* Fork Factor - Your mechanums seem a little stretched out there.

MW
*

HW
*

== DON'T KNOW ABOUT THAT ONE CHIEF ==
Bots that may or may not get into playoffs.

FW
* Finishing Move - I'll be 100% honest, this would've done better than it's gonna do if you kept the 2/3 split that you were having a fit about. Maybe 10/1/9/7 (5-5)/3? Either way, an 11 weapon spinner on a 1 weapon arm just isn't gonna cut it in a brick-heavy division.
* Puffy Cloud - Saws are supposed to hold the opponent in place and inflict damage. You got the first one, at least.
* Chinesium II - Too many 13 armor plows to really make an impact, nor does this have any way of bypassing those plows.
* Taipan - 9+ speeders and Black Dog are gonna eat this and it's narrow forks up. It'll need some real lucky draws to even get into playoffs, let alone get far.
* NRG II - mmmmmm this probably gets flanked hard enough to fall into bottom tier, but there are a suspect number of bots with sub-7 armor here. I'll throw you a bone here, w0lf. Maybe you can make something happen.

LW
* Boring Gray Wedge - It's okay. Make a boring bot, get a boring description.
* National Security - I tried this in R4 and it went okay-ish. This will do less okay-ish because of how small the teeth are.
* KING CRIMSON - I didn't think ARC would start doing the Sonic recolor OC thing, but here we are.
* Scrapper - Slow and narrow is never a good look.
* Eagle's Hawk - Weapon is way too high to do much.
* wheelosaurous - A patbot that's escaped bottom tier? Haha just kidding... unless...? 😳😳😳 12 weapon saw(?) could lead to some quick wins over the bricks here. Problem lies in Pat being able to utilize said saw.

MW
*

HW
*


== NOT LIKE THIS ==
Will end up with more L's than W's for one reason or another.

FW
* Lil' Yeetums - Square Wave btw haha oopsie
* Angry Bird: Seed Killer Gen II - Normally deathhammers can get away with 4/2 drive if they have enough ground clearance and/or range to negate bricks. This does not.
* gabrial - I thought armor bonusing your weapon to avoid self-damage wasn't allowed? Either way, that axe has no support behind it.

LW
* Diamond Head - I think this statline could work if it were 2WD and if he made the disc way bigger. As is, though...
* 25 or 6 to 4 - This isn't going to work the way you think it will.
* Voltaic - Only down here because Hoppin won't RP for it, as usual.
* TRILOBITE - Rocket won't RP for this either.

MW
*

HW
*
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Re: cbc4 prediciton thread

Post by Venice Queen » Sat Jan 18, 2020 11:54 pm

OFFICIAL ‽ ROBOTICS PREDICTION THREAD MIDDLEWEIGHT EDITION

1. Hoarfrost – this is literally always good in every division but its wedge is worse than 4wd hinged now, if the 4wd hinged is done right. No one did it right so yall fucked
2. Acrid – this is really cool and smart.
3. Skoll – does the stats thing with the weapon and stuff
4. Dragonfist – in much the same vein as pressure flop, this kills most things but struggles vs armor stacking
5. Magnolia Grande – does the stats thing with the weapon and yay unoriginal horizontal that has no way to be original with its stats
6. Diablo III – this will die to shock damage once but otherwise do fine
7. Pressure Flop II – this is going to be stupid vs spinners, and its 360 degree coverage lets it have a better chance to hit stuff – and pretty much everything takes decent damage from it. Pretty much everything.
8. Space Bee: bzz
9. Pizza 2 – mate I haven’t been able to load like half of your images how hard is it to make an imgur account. Bot doesn’t do thing with the stats so it’s strictly worse than magnolia and skoll but hey a spinner’s a spinner if it has decent stats
10. Unnamed & Untamed – I just saw 2 horizontal spinners and then I saw this and that’s all I have to go on for this division as of yet so right now this is ass but hey the design and stats are solid. K I saw some wedges later so this gets a decent ranking now
11. Momma Bear (again is she actually competing?) - this will struggle against most of the spinners around here
12. Lilyfrog and Jack hammer – this bot’s entire season is rng based on how many spinners it runs into.
13. V-Trigger - this bot’s entire season will be RNG. Beat the first spinner you face, and people will take you seriously. Lose to the first spinner you face, and you’re treated as a joke. I’ll put it right in the middle, but it’ll either be like, 5th or 15th
14. The Act of Being Polite – I absolutely love the shape of this thing but it’s not exactly built to fight other spinners. It does have a better chance against wedges though
15. Remi 4 – Have fun with spinners. Also have fun with wedges. One of those is ironic.
16. Tower of Grey – Plow config with a veeeery tiny 13 armored portion? Check. 1 torque check. Yep, it’s gamer time
17. Carapice – this is a neat design but it’s fucked against spinners
18. Paradox – I’m not really sure if this would actually do well in any division but it does look pretty sick
19. Spinnerfood – ok new rule If you’re gonna do the //// thing without specify what stat is what, you may not also have a 14 line description to hide it in.

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Re: cbc4 prediciton thread

Post by Venice Queen » Sun Jan 19, 2020 12:26 am

OFFICIAL ‽ ROBOTICS PREDICTION THREAD HEAVYWEIGHT EDITION

1. Dat Boi – Makin his way downtown
2. Linkinparknumb.mp3.exe – this will be the proof we need that hammers are quite strong with their buffs
3. Santangelo – this gets to be up here because it can beat No Fun Machine and glacier much more consistently than the other flippers
4. Fork bomb – this could legitimately do well in this division, but there is a risk of it flopping if the flippers do well or Hii does quite poorly against them so imma dark horse it and then rank it high
5. Kill em all – hammers have legit crazy damage because we still aren’t able to hurt things that have more armor than us and that was apparently the other way to balance things so this is scary tbh. Has a lot of match rng so I’m also going to dark horse it. I’m ALSO also going to leave it high because this is a box with a meaty weapon on it which is exactly what shaba knows how to do well with
6. Electro-Death – This just reminds me that I need to enter endless clowns again soon – the design does get a nerf though, since it can’t press any more, which was honestly the main reason for the lifters.
7. Fustercluck – man you are really not going to enjoy shock damage when that comes up are you. Also prepare to never use the ass-flipper and kick the tar out of some flippers
8. Padoru Machina – turns out hypershock clones are more popular than biteforce clones around here
9. No Fun Machine – that’s right now that I entered a shell I’m gonna start ranking them high
10. Glacier – this is a better No Fun Machine than No Fun Machine against specifically No Fun Machine, in the ultimate Russian doll of no fun.
11. Outrage - Strictly less durable than the other horizontals but that only matters in a head to head.
12. Swamp thing – this is good.
13. Xtreme Pneumatix – this remains one of my favorite bots
14. Icebreaker – apparently this is a flipper division. I’m just going to treat them as a unit, they’re all about the same in terms of stats with preferences towards different strategies, I’m not gonna think super hard into their exact order
15. Killer Queen – another member of The Collective, this one actually earns its lowest spot by having the most inefficient flipper arc of the lot
16. Wallop – this is just a vert with one less stat point. That stat point mattered, this division is tough.
17. Dreadnought – front hinged flipper vs other flippers is better for the other flippers. Not enough armor to withstand the shells.
18. Petaflare – have fun with the flippers and verts lmao
19. Defenestrator – this right here is why I stopped entering clamps. What the fuck do you have a good matchup against? Petaflare. Maybe.
20. Long arm of the law – like defenestrator, this ain’t a bad bot, it just like… doesn’t beat anything in the division

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Re: cbc4 prediciton thread

Post by Hooray For Lexan » Sun Jan 19, 2020 2:55 pm

Featherweights:

1. Gas Gas Gas: Very fast lifter. 10/10/3 drivetrain is insane, and it has an actual weapon even if it lacks KO potential. Will probably take a couple Ls from drawing literally anything with a weapon but I think it can make the playoffs regardless and has championship potential.

2. Vindicator: Absolutely insane drivetrain makes up for its lack of armor, and the underall wedge is going to be strong here. It’s armor is low enough to make it vulnerable to hazards

3. Nikkousen: Cluster flipper. A strong contender in Reckoning and should do well here too, but it’s in a very fast field, and unless it does Gemini Style it won’t be able to OOTA except in the final minute of Razor’s Edge.

4. Black Dog: This is a great field for Black Dog; a lot of the really fast control bots here have poor chassis armor and could die really easily, and even the ones with good wedges are in danger if they get tossed around and hit somewhere they don’t want to be hit.

5. Wasp 2: Of the 9+ speed bots, this is the only one that can both fight spinners without getting exploded and has an actual weapon. The control ratio’s a bit lower, though,

6. Finishing Move: This is a true control vert: a drivetrain that can keep up with even the ludicrously fast control bots in this division especially with Mecanums, and a weapon that can actually KO a lot of the field. OTOH I also see a lot of 9+ chassis armor bots here, and I’m not that confident that it can win on control alone.

7. Ori: Ori’s drivetrain’s a little bit on the low end, and it could have trouble against bots like Vindicator and Gas Gas Gas especially. In general has a LOT of even or close matchups. One major advantage it has is that it can take advantage

8. I Can’t Believe it’s Not Tanto: Brick. Can probably get 2-3 easy wins by clowning on the spinners and hammers, and its long forks make it decent enough in wedge fights that it can probably win some against the numerous lifters and pure bricks. Probably makes the playoffs, but I don’t think it’s championship material.

9. Black Salvo: Fast brick with a good Underall wedge. Unfortunately it’s easy to high-center, and as a pure pushybot it’s outclassed in terms of drivetrain by some of the others here. Also has to be careful because its chassis armor is low enough that it can’t afford to have the verts tossing it around.

10. Untitled Goose Robot: Horizontal clamp / stupid duck plow. Wedges don’t really “stack” against opponents with forks in practice. Could pull a TAN with insane torque, but I really don’t trust that against bots that can lift or flip it. Putting it here because it only has a couple of genuinely good matchups in the top 10.

11. Puffy Cloud: Ignore the shitty useless saw and it’s a decent dustpan clamp. Could high-center some bots, but 2 torque is IMO too low for a bot that can’t reliably remove an opponent’s wheels from the floor.

12. Chinesium II: Horizontal spinner – only one here. This has like 7-8 really easy wins if Superbomb knows what he’s doing – all the clowns with <6 chassis armor, NRG, and Yeetums. It’s also got some decent matchups like Nikkousen, Irritant, and Taipan (wedge shape not great against an undercutter). However, it’s an easy design to high-center which is going to make it much harder for it to get breathing room against anyone who’s actually good at fighting horizontal spinners.

13. Lil Yeetums: Slow for a control bot. Does have a decent wedge and an OBSCENELY powerful flipper. It can basically OOTA you from the other side of the box, and because this field is lulzy there are six bots in here it can literally one-shot with a flip and I think it’ll pick up a couple cool wins. However, only three of the group stage rounds are in arenas where it can easily get those long range OOTAs – Asylum has OOTA areas but if you’re getting outdriven it won’t be easy to get in position to use them. And without OOTAs or impact damage it’s a subpar control bot which is likely to flip itself over all the damn time. Also note that two of the bots it can kill with a flip are drum spinners which can kill it just as easily – and Gabrial but Gabrial’s far less likely to actually hit it.

14. NRG II: HUGEClone. 13 weapon 12 armor.
This is actually not that bad of a field for a HUGEClone, in that there are six bots here that basically have to never ever get hit. Black Dog can take some hits on the drum but it’ll take significant shock damage.

15. Taipan: Lifter with what would normally be an okay drivetrain, but here is one of the slowest entries. All it’s got is a lifter and a strong from plow, but with its mediocre wedge that’s not a guarantee against bots like Black Dog or FM

16. Angry Bird Seed Killer: Hammerbot. Slow, very powerful weapon, but not a great shape.

17. Irritant: Irritant’s got an okay drivetrain but not great given how heavily fast bots are stacked in this division. It’s easily high-centered, and a 2-power flipper won’t get people over the walls on Asylum or Hall so it’s OOTA-capable for literally about a minute out of the entire group stage. It’s armor is decent and will let it survive FM, MassD, and stray blows from the hammers, but Black Dog and Chinesium can kick its ass.

18. Gabrial: This is technically a very powerful hammer with a decent drivetrain. However it’s also really tall and narrow and will be ridiculously unstable.

19. Mass Destruction: Quick drumbot but no wedge and limited reach. Anyone with even a passable spinner defense will easily beat it.





LIGHTWEIGHT:

1. Final Mecha Catbot: Jesus it’s so cringe but so fast. Flipper has enough stroke that it might actually pull off an oota with 2 power but it’s on the edge so it’s unlikely except on Razor’s edge. Wedge isn’t the best ever but its overall combination of drivetrain and a decent weapon makes it one of the best control bots in the division.

2. Magnolia Pico: Still as much of an obnoxious fucking exploit as ever.

3. Blood Eagle: UGGH THIS FUCKING THING AGAIN.

4. TSA 2.1: No ground clearance, but it’s an actual power flipper. Easily OOTA capable and can actually get people over the wall on Razor’s Edge all match long. Armor’s enough to do okay against the horizontals, drivetrain’s decent.

5. Bluetooth: Will win weapon-to-weapon against pretty much anyone, but slow and I mean people do build to fight 16-power spinners now.

6. King Crimson: Uglier Hellhound with not amazing drivetrain, but will probably beat up all the horizontal deathspinners in this div.

7. Scrapper: Death-drum.

8. Shade Fist: Powerful drum spinner but not amazing control. Could mess up some bricks’ days, but will inhale a dong against horizontal spinners.

9. Voltaic: This is, like… the best brick-killer of all these verts, but it doesn’t have any answer whatsoever to fighting horizontal spinners, and you can’t do that in this class.

10. Golden Madd: Fun fact: with shock damage rules this statline is actually really good against other horizontals, which this div has a lot of. There’s some uberbricks that could still kick its ass though.

11. Broken Tooth: Decent vert on a stick. Not sure how well the armor bonus will actually work because it’s got 6 chassis armor so the horizontals this class is full of will still beat its ass.

12. Mastondonosaurus: WHERE ARE THE INTERNALS.

13. Fork Factor: Actually decent brick stats and a good drivetrain since this class doesn’t have many fast bots. Good stats in theory but the fork design is corner damage bait against horizontals.

14. Boring Gray Wedge: Wedge. That’s useless inverted.

15. Diamond Head: Not MOE. Drivetrain’s good for an HS but not good enough to offset the lack of weapon power and armor IMO. As it is the other horizontals here will utterly murder it.

16. National Security (soft): You didn’t stagger your tooth heights so now you have to get in the forever box if an undercutter/overcutter shows up. Or if a horizontal spins the opposite way. Or if a good brick shows up.

17. Apeirogon: Weapon power’s okay but not a great drivetrain. Does not have the armor to stand up to spinners; if it wants to stick the up-armored config weapon in somebody’s face it’s going to be super awkward and off-balance and the weapon’s gonna be on a long lever to spin the bot around with.

18. 25 or 6 to 4: Die for making people type that shit. So this WILL die against other horizontals, and 13 power doesn’t hit hard enough to be much use as a spinner against anything but some of the verts. 7 power flipper’s pretty nice but it doesn’t have a great drivetrain and will still be fighting an uphill battle against control bots.

19. Eagle’s Hawk: Stats are okay in theory but it’s gonna either do the thing or drive like garbage when upside-down, and the feeder wedge design is S3 Bombshell levels of bad. And as usual it’s high-centering bait.

20. Wheelosaurus: Oh wow a 9 armor wedge. And no forks. And 5 chassis armor. So basically all the spinners are going to obliterate it, which is… most of the division. It’s a KO threat against anything it can grab, but the saw’s really small in diameter.

21. Trilobite: I don’t think Rocket’s going to actually RP and also spinners will murder this.



MIDDLEWEIGHT:



1. Hoarfrost: Very good drivetrain and it’s actually OOTA-capable now plus has a great wedge. I don’t see how the plow config actually has an active weapon though.

2. Diablo Genesis: This is consistently a really strong contender, and I expect it to do well this year too. OOTA-capable and its only real weakness is hammers.

3. Pressure Flop II: This is actually one of the best-designed deathhammers I’ve seen. Wedgelets are angleable on but the shellturret is scary. I don’t think anyone’s actually gonna be able to just tank hits from this thing besides, like, two bots.

4. The Act of Being Polite: This looks like one of the better of the, like, five spinners here with the same stateline.

5. Magnolia Grande: Wow bruh sweet render. Whatever, it’s Grande with one blade so it’s probably good.

6. Unnamed & Untamed: Decent flipperbot, not really able to high-center opponents and not the best drivetrain ever. Spatula might be free corner damage for horizontals, forks should do pretty well against verts.

7. Space Bee: Can stuff literally every destructive weapon in here. Not much torque for a pure wedge, not the best traction, and I don’t think most of these configs will work that well inverted so kind of a one-trick pony.

8. Tower of Gray: I see what Tri’s going for but I don’t think it’ll be as effective as he thinks because he has to open his jaws before doing it and since they’re super narrow opponents will generally fall out or get launched at a really unpredictable angle.

9. Carapace: Mediocre drivetrain but that wedge is gonna be tough to deal with. Hits hard and its stronk plow config will be difficult for spinners to kill.

10. Skoll: Horizontal spinner in a class where most entries have 12+ frontal armor and a bunch have 13+.

11. Acrid: Bullshit that scoop’s twice the size of its chassis. No way that gets an armor bonus. Will be incredibly obnoxious if it works though.

12. Pizza 2: Decent statline but no reach.

13. Spinnerfood: Nice anti gerbilling standoffs. Can get some nasty hits on people’s tops but very poor armor means spinners can tear it apart with ease.

14. Remi 4: Oh my god with the “verts” that are actually glorified bricks. Good news its its wedge isn’t that good and it can get stuck on its back because no way you’re gyro self-righting with that weak-ass drum.

15. V-Trigger: Basically Cobalt. Hits hard, decent wedge, will get high-centered on literally anything.

16. Lilly frog and jack hammer: Another in Pat’s proud tradition of “auto-loses to any spinner” bots. This is actually potentially pretty dangerous to control bots, but only if it doesn’t get utterly destroyed by arena hazards.

17. Paradox: Major jack of all trades master of none. It’s like, part control vert, part lifter, but with that multiple weaponry, uhh… I don’t actually know how the stat points are spread out but it’s gotta be 9 or less power which can’t really kill stuff, and the drivetrain’s not great for a vert that can’t actually damage stuff. That armor’s really not gonna hold up against the other destructive weapons in here.

18. Dragonfist: It’s Rocket so it’s not actually going to be competing.


HEAVYWEIGHTS:

1. Dreadnought: Not sure it’s gonna need that extra armox plating very often, but this bot’s always a title contender and I see no reason for that not to continue this year. It has a good drivetrain, a good wedge, and a flipper that’s very good at what it does.

2. Santangelo: Uhh yeah basically just Laz being Laz. Token flipper that can actually get OOTAs on Stormhavn and probably Noir.

3. Defenestrator: There’s actually not that many bots faster than this in the division, and it has one of the best controlling weapons in terms of using the hazards.

4. Glacier: “The TO enters an absurdly unrealistic exploit bot, round 98.”

5. linkinparknumb.mp3.exe: Well that’s, uhh… lulzy.

6. Xtreme PneumatiX: Good flipper with a well-designed wedge and decent drivetrain, plus actual good armor.

7. Outrage 3: I can’t believe he brought it back. It’s viable this year, but still not amazing and a lot of people can probably still stuff its attacks.

8. Electro-Death: Uhh it doesn’t have the spread of weapon points clarified for the main config. Decent control spinner but I’m not that confident in its anti-spinner config. But it won’t need it that often.

9. Swamp Thing: Okay flipper, but doesn’t look like the tip actually flips. Also neither of those armor configs will work that well because of how easily people can not hit the flipper / forks.

10. Icebreaker: Not sure about 1 torque on a flipper and the drivetrain isn’t the best, but should murder some spinners.

11. Fork Bomb: Okay this is now a genuinely threatening hammersaw / ass-vert. Can’t really win against other damaging weapons though.

12. Pink Wedge 2020: Doesn’t look like the wedge’ll work inverted, but otherwise a decent contender.

13. The No Fun Machine: Shell spinners are basically death to overhead-attacking weapons, but there’s too many well-armored bots for this to go far IMO.

14. Long Arm of the Law: Dedicated grappler brick. Lots of armor but outclassed in drivetrain by most of the control bots in the field.

15. Killer Queen: Triple Six’s successor in terms of power flippers. Not that confident in the low torque, not a great wedge with those tiny far-apart teeth.

16. Padoru Machina: “Vertical spi-” No. No it isn’t, not a useful one anyway. Insanely fast drive and a good wedge / high armor config, but the weapon’s lame and if it gets flipped over enjoy sucking unless your opponent’s feeling nice and rights you.

17. Petaflare: Crushers lol.

18. Wallop: The only vert here that hits decently hard. But still not hard enough, and has poor armor.

19. Kill Em All: Decent hammer but long chassis with not the best drive means it will get angled in on and there’s a lot of bots here that can stuff its attacks. Anti-spinner config is easy corner damage.

20. FusterCluck: Control vert, as in “will do no actual damage to pretty much anything in this field.” Can hard-counter horizontals but against anything else it’s awkward and mediocre. Also note: “can self-right by firing the flipper” is not applicable if it does the thing since the flipper relies on the disc being spinning. And this looks quite plausible to have happen.

21. Tabor: Not gonna actually fight because it’s Rocket’s.

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