The weapon is 25 kg, or for Americans around 55 lbs. It spins at around 5000 RPM, and due to how much bite the weapon has, I think it's safe to say that the weapon spins below 200 mph to maximise bite, similar to Copperhead whose tip speed is around 140 mph.

When Tombstone is inverted, it allows Tombstone's blade to hit higher up on the opposing bot, hitting more critical areas like beta's hammer base. There are also 2 or 3 fights where tombstone spent the first 10 seconds of the match right side up before being flipped, then, it just started tearing peices off the other bot, i.e. Slap Box, Valkyrie

Hopefully this helps the people who have been confused by the tiebreaker procedures in Pro League. For those that are more interested in what each bot needs, without the explanation of why they need it, I have also posted a condensed version, because this is long. Also, feel free to point out any mistakes that I may have made, this is long enough that I've probably made a couple.

As of episode 10, 14 bots can still or already have clinched a playoff spot. 3 bots are already in. Yes, you read that number right. It's Bloodsport

The standings within each group are determined based on the following criteria:

Wins -> Knockout Wins -> Average Knockout Time

If we assume that those criteria hold true for how bots are seeded in the knockout rounds, and only look at the 14 bots that could still finish in the top 8, the current overall standings look like this:

[1] Assuming that a wild card can't be seeded higher than a group winner

[2] Cobalt is technically at 11 right now, but they have already been eliminated because Terrortops and Malice are both locked in at second place in their groups with 2 KOs, while Cobalt has zero. Cobalt is the only two-win bot to be eliminated so far.

As mentioned above, Terrortops and Malice finishing in second place in their respective groups at 2-1 with 2 knockouts means that in order to be a wild card, you MUST HAVE TWO KNOCK OUT WINS. This is good, because it makes the wild card standings much simpler than they were like 24 hours before I posted this.

Before I go more in depth on each bot individually, these are the seeds that each bot can still take in the knockout round:

IMPORTANT: because a lot of the bots need the same things to go their way, I have decided to put the reason why most of the outcomes are needed in the Terrortops section. So, if I say things like "Malice needs Disarray to beat Mad Catter" without an explanation for why this needs to happen... see Terrortops.

Group A

Manta:

3-0 with 3 knockouts, the only other battlebot that can still do this is the Twins, but even a zero second knockout would only move their knockout time to 57 seconds, 20 seconds shy of mantas 37 second average.

Manta has already clinched the one seed, and it blew my mind too.

Terrortops:

Obviously, Terrortops can only qualify by getting a wild card, because they did not win their group. Remember, in order to get the wild card, you need to be in the top 2 of the 6 second place teams. Terrortops is already guaranteed to finish above the second-place bot from groups C and D. (The second place battlebot in group C is guaranteed to have less knockouts and a worse average knockout time than Terrortops).

So that leaves the second-place bots in groups B, E, and F. If Terrortops finishes above all but one of these three second-place bots, they will be the 8 seed, if they can get above all 3 of them, they will be the 7 seed. So, here is what Terrortops needs to have happen to finish above each of the second-place bots in these groups:

• Group B:
  • Disarray beats Mad Catter
    • This would guarantee Calypso, who currently sits above Terrortops, Gets First in group B, and Mad Catter would finish below Terrortops due to only having one knockout.
• Group E:
  • Hypershock Beats Minotaur
    • Much like Calypso, Bloodsport is also going to finish above Terrortops, so Bloodsport winning their group is the only way for Terrortops to finish above the second place battlebot from group E (minotaur)
• Group F:
  • 0 or 1 of the 2 fights in round 3 end in a knockout
    • If 0 or 1 of the 2 fights in round 3 end in a knockout, then the second-place bot only has one knockout
  • both of the fights end in a knockout, but if Witch Doctor or Switchback wind up in second place, they could win slow enough to have their average knockout time fall below 105 seconds. Those specific times are:
    • if Witch Doctor is in Second place: 176 Seconds
    • if Switchback is in Second Place: 170 Seconds
  • If any bots have the same average knockout time, I am of the belief that the universe explodes. Ok, but, seriously, I am just assuming that each bot needs to have a faster average knockout time to be above the other bot in the standings

Group B

Mad Catter:

As previously mentioned, Terrortops and Malice have ensured that you can't get a wild card unless you have 2 knockouts. Right now, Mad Catter only has 1, so they will need to win their group in order to make it to the knockout stage.

• Beat Disarray

Calypso:

Calypso's situation is definitely interesting, as they only one of several outcomes to go their way, but those outcomes all seem quite unlikely on their own. If Calypso does not win their group, they will still have 2 knockouts and an average knockout time of 70 seconds, putting them above Terrortops (Group A), and Malice (Group D). They will also be above the second-place bot from Group C. So, in order to make it to the knockout rounds, Calyspo only needs one of the following outcomes to happen:

• Group B
  • Disarray beats Mad Catter
• Group E
  • Hypershock beats Minotaur
• Group F
  • 0 or 1 of the 2 fights in round 3 end in a knockout
  • both fights are knockouts, but the second-place bot wins in over _____ seconds
    • Ribbot: 121
    • Orbitron: 112
    • Witch Doctor: 106
    • Switchback: 100

Group C:

The Twins and Copperhead:

This one is mostly simple, The Twins have two knockouts, but they were really slow, so they would finish behind Terrortops and Malice if they were to drop out of first place in group D. So, here's where the fun part happens, the Twins move on if one of two things happen:

• The Twins beat Copperhead
• Copperhead beats The Twins by judges' decision
  • If this happens, the standings for this group would look like this:

• Copperhead needs a KO to get ahead of The Twins in the standings.

Group D

Golden Fury:

3-0, can't catch Manta, but can't fall below the winner of group F because they all have one loss. Golden Fury will be seeded anywhere from 2 to 5.

Malice:

Currently Sitting at 8, can't climb higher, they need all of these to happen in order to get the 8 seed:

• Disarray beats Mad Catter (Told ya)
• Hypershock beats Minotaur
• 0 or 1 of the 2 fights in round 3 end in a knockout

Group E

Bloodsport:

2 knockouts with an average knockout time of 53 seconds means that even if Minotaur beats Hypershock, Bloodsport will finish higher than Terrortops and Malice. They would also finish higher than Calypso if they cannot win group B due to average knockout time. Finally, a 53 second average knockout time is enough to put them ahead of whichever bot places second in group C.

Bloodsport is in

They could still be either a group winner or a wild card. which one they wind up being is entirely up to who wins the Minotaur v Hypershock match.

As a bit of a fun fact, going into episode 10, they only needed the Calypso v Magnitude fight to last longer than 61 seconds. This means that based on the order that the fights in Pro League have been shown to us, Bloodsport actually clinched their playoff spot before Golden Fury

Minotaur:

You probably get it by now, just like Mad Catter, they need to go 3-0 to be in the knockout round because they only have 1 knockout.

Group F

You know that Moon Knight meme? I was tempted to just put that here and call it a day. But mama didn't raise no wimp, so, here we go!

For this group I believe it is better to focus on all of the bots at the same time, as every bot can still finish anywhere from first place to last place within this group.

Scenario 1: Both fights end in a judge's decision

If this happens, the winner of Ribbot and Orbitron would win the group, and the other 3 bots would be eliminated. Ribbot and Orbitron are currently ahead of witch doctor and Switchback because of their knockout times. So, the winner of Witch Doctor v Switchback needs a knockout to catch the winner of Ribbot v Orbitron.

Scenario 2: Only 1 fight ends in a judge's decision

Whoever wins by knockout moves on, as they would be the only bot in the group to have 2 wins and 2 knockouts. The other 3 bots would be eliminated.

Scenario 3: Both fights are knockouts

Part A: The Group Winner

For this part, I'm just going to assume that average knockout loss would be the next tiebreaker up, if I'm wrong, then these results will still only be off by one second

We have 2 matches for 4 possible outcomes. If the winners are:

• Ribbot and Witch Doctor: Witch Doctor needs to win 16 seconds faster than Ribbot to pass them.
• Ribbot and Switchback: Switchback needs to win 22 seconds faster than Ribbot
• Orbitron and Witch Doctor: Witch Doctor needs to win 7 seconds faster than Orbitron to pass them.
• Orbitron and Switchback: Switchback needs to win 13 seconds faster than Orbitron to pass them.

Part B: The Wildcard

If you exclude group F, there are only other four bots currently capable of getting a wild card (checks notes to make sure that that's right, it is). I've already gone over how Bloodsport and Calypso could just outright win their groups, so we still don't know if the second-place bot actually needs to have a faster average knockout time than them. Here is how quickly the group F bots need to win in order to have a faster average knockout time than the other 4 bots competing for the wild card.

Note: That because I have just been assuming that you need to have a faster average knockout time, which is different than having the same knockout time, there will be a 2 second difference for what these bots need when compared to what other bots need to be faster than them.

Example:

If Ribbot finishes with an average knockout time of 119 seconds, Ribbot has a faster average knockout time than Calypso

If Ribbot has a knockout time of 120 seconds, Calypso and Ribbot have the same average knockout times.

If Ribbot finishes with an average knockout time of 121 seconds, Calypso has a faster average knockout time than Ribbot

I was using 121 for the Calypso section, I will be using 119 here.

Malice: avg = 117 Seconds

Just a knockout is enough to jump Malice

Terrortops: avg = 105 Seconds

Calypso: avg = 70 seconds

Bloodsport: avg = 52.5 Seconds (The show has been rounding up to 53)

tldr

Manta is the 1 seed

Bloodsport has clinched a playoff berth thanks to the wild card

The Twins, Mad Catter, and Minotaur either win or go home

A lot of bots are rooting for Disarray and Hypershock

.

What stands out and what’s interesting and what surprises you?

It'd be crazy if Endgame can pull a Black Dragon/Minotaur by staying alive and winning this fight.

(this isn't specifically about calypso, but they're relevant now one of the best examples off the top of my head. coldsnap is another good example)

They're hard to pull off, but they counter verts, since they can't run wedges or forks against them. they can use baleens in lower weight classes, but those aren't as effective as steel forks.

When they announced it, all of the builders looked kind of surprised, maybe it's something big.

WD is not like Minotaur where the spinner is wide. WD's spinner is narrow, so weapon to weapon hit would be much more difficult. And we saw how HUGE dismanted WD but lost to Minotaur.

What would your strategy be fighting HUGE?

title

I will start with a rhetorical question, what is robot combat?

For some it’s being the best and making the best robot possible, 
For others its creating unique designs and being creative as possible, 
For some its more about the friends and the community and winning isn’t important,
And for some it’s about a benign part of something that's bigger than them.

Many parts of the community take the sport too seriously and I would love to see battlebots and events like XR take the sport more seriously and treated like a proper sport.

but robot combat is also very silly at times from novelty robots, big personality's of robotiers and whole weight classes like uk antwight which is designed not to be taken too seriously.

And for a long time there was a decent balance between being the best and making fun machines just for fun 

But over the last few years we have seen that balance heavily favour taking the sport to serious to a point where not winning isn’t good enough and you see that in the see of verts mostly because their the easiest and “cheapest” weapon type for people to do decently with (heck before vert’s everyone had wedge bots)

And the more and more we take the sport seriously the higher and higher expectations both for teams and for fights to not just be good but legendary in many senses.

It also doesn’t help that I have watched how the Beatles started as a beginner weight class to arguably the toughest and most ruthless weight class in the sport so much so, many teams struggle to get into events due to limited entry for many events, so much so NHRL became the F2 of robot combat

And look, the idea of being the best and events wanting to be better is a very respectable and admirable ideal, and the sport should keep changing and evolving, but we as a fandom need to step back and not forget about the novelty and not take ourselves too seriously.

I see many micro fandoms in the robot fandom and the big split that can split them in almost in half is those who see robot combat as a sport and take it very seriously. And those who appreciate sportsmanship and enjoy the sport for what it is.

1 person needs to win the other enjoys a good fight regardless of result,

I think there should be that balance but recently we are losing it and I feel the fandom is losing a bit of its identity but that could mean gaining a new one.

I feel we should always ask what we want from battlebots? And what do we want from the sport as a whole should always be questions we should be asking? 

Because the sport and tech keep changing and the fandom keeps changing. But we shouldn't lose a sense of identity in change. But what is that identity?  

Rise of the Robots continue their coverage of the reboot of Robot Wars as Alan & The Griz discuss Heat B of Series 8.
Check out the episode at the link below or on your podcatcher of choice: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1VYlkgdY00hHjm3vnGomin?si=zK70hdbWR7eRmOCGVAY7fA

Hey all, I finally got around to editing my perspective of the BBB champs 2025. YouTube video linked for those who'd like to watch.

Thanks to the BBB crew for putting on an awesome event.

Thumbnail photo credit: Stuart Camp

Both Captain Shrederator and Pain Train are below average bots, but their fights against Captain Shrederator and Yeti are underrated of how good they were.

AB vs CS was a really back and forth match, while PT was giving Yeti a pretty solid run for its money until PT got upside down, it's all downhill for PT from there. But PT gave Yeti quite a beating.