User blog comment:RA2/Series 6 and Extreme 2 Rankdown/@comment-27162079-20190116060129

14) Kan-Opener - Starting the list off is Kan-Opener. Being the Annihilator Champion is a notable achievement. It paced itself well, it outclassed Thermidor 2, KO'd Raging Reality and so on. But having said that, we're now at the last stage of the Rankdown. As well as needing one or two really good wins at this stage, you need consistency. Kan-Opener lost in Round 1 of the UK Championships. Yes, it was to Fluffy. Yes, the attack on it was opportunistic. But we're at the Top 14. Black Hole gets punished for not following through on Black Hole, Hydra gets penalised for not KOing Dominator 2 despite two good performances against it, and so on. A great placement from this machine, but I'll be surprised if anybody puts it any higher than 13th.

13) Spawn Again - I say "any higher than 13th" for Kan-Opener, because I can see people ranking it above this machine. We all know about Spawn Again's struggles during Series 6. A sleepwalk through the melee, having to rely on Spam of all things to KO itself, and so on. It's understandable if people put it bottom of their 14, but I think Spawn Again offers enough to not be bottom of this batch.

It flat-out beat Supernova. Definitely not the most convincing KO ever, but it got flips in and continued on home. A good win.

Then, it nearly won the Losers' Melee against Bigger Brother of all machines! If a limping Spawn Again could nearly OotA the 2nd seed, then that is something notable.

And to close it off, it got a win over Hypno-Disc too! Dominator 2 did a lot of the tanking, but Spawn Again's armour held up well when it needed to, and some of the flips it dealt out were impressive. Honestly, I find the Extreme 2 version of Spawn Again quite underrated in general. Razer struggled to pierce it, its mobility was much better, and its flips were stronger. The Series 7 version of Spawn Again is obviously held in high regard, but I think with more fights to showcase its ability, the Extreme 2 version could've shown a very good level too.

12) Bulldog Breed - Bulldog Breed makes the top 12, and with Series 7 on its way, it'll be on for another good finish there! Here, Bulldog Breed funnily enough suffers its worst Heat run since its debut - but, it was pitted against Hypno-Disc, so fair's fair.

The main bulk of this obviously comes from The Tag Team Terror. A case can be made for Kan-Opener rivalling this. Why did I not give tournament winner Kan-Opener the edge over tournament winner Bulldog Breed? Why I am putting one of them two places infront of the other? Well, because Bulldog Breed won a tournament designed for pairs, by winning it on its own. It curbstomped Pussycat, Diotoir, Lightning, and so on without ever really being in trouble at all. This was a great warmup show of Bulldog Breed's capabilities going into Series 7, so no wonder it made the Semis in said series.

11) Hypno-Disc - We lost Chaos 2, but thank goodness Hypno-Disc made it this far! I was really worried we'd lose it, but thankfully it seems the attitude of Hypno-Disc in Series 6 being the worst Hypno-Disc ever has calmed over the last couple of years.

Hypno-Disc experienced its last Robot Wars action in Extreme 2, so of course we immediately go to it being past its best, and so on. In Chaos 2's case - I get it. That was a machine with polycarb, that was underweight, that had a flipper which wasn't as consistent as before, and that genuinely had made no design changes from its debut series. Hypno-Disc did though. Every series the machine was changed.

And Hypno-Disc still put on good shows during its final two series. It eviscerated its melee, beat Bulldog Breed even easier than 'peak Hypno-Disc' did a series earlier, and killed off Barber-Ous again. Were things perfect? No. Of course not. But its losses were also excusable. Being rammed about by the upcoming champion that was built for defence with the wedge. Being killed by spinner-killer Bigger Brother. Being tag teamed by a Dominator 2 with doubly-thick armour from their last encounter, and Spawn Again. And then being caught out by Dantomkia. It lost to three spinner killers, and then got outfoxed. It happens. The argument of Hypno-Disc being ineffective by the time it retired is silly. Yes, some machines were armoured better, but a lot were still not. Hypno-Disc could've still torn apart a large portion of machines in the field, but of course you don't expect it to beat the only machines that have strong enough armour to handle it. Fluffy, 259, Black Hole, Supernova, Disc-O-Inferno and co were all considered 'the future' of spinners, and yet none of them would've damaged Tornado's scoop, Bigger Brother's rear armour, or Dominator 2's shell either. Hypno-Disc was still a very good machine. It would've competed well in Series 7, and it deserves a good placement here.

10) Storm 2 - finally an Extreme 2 champion in the Top 10! Storm 2 arrived in Extreme 2 and showed what we'd come to see in Series 7 straight from the first activate. It surged through most of its opponents with ease. Yes it looks more basic and less 'professional' than it will go on to look like in Series 7, but it's still a powerful machine. Where do I deduct it points? Well, it should've lost to Mute. It failed to push Mute into any danger areas and carried out no effective drives. That'd be like giving a Judges' Decision win to a flip that lifts up its opponent but can't actually turn it over. I also deduct it minor points for having weaker armour. Taking damage - albeit minor - from Revolution 2 and Chopper of all things is still a point to take in. Still a very good machine, but doesn't quite breach that top tier because of the aforementioned negatives, as well as not being able to show itself against the big boys in this form.

9) Dantomkia - it's Dantomkia's beginning to Robot Wars, and it's a wild ride alright. A lot of praise usually goes to the Heat Final win over Chaos 2, but I'd argue that (S3 aside) that fight was one of Dantomkia's very weakest displays! Nevertheless, it dominates two melees in Series 6, made a good crack at the Challenge Belt, flipped Firestorm IV, and even pushed back Razer a bit. Four OotAs also help.

The negatives? Well, just Dantomkia's lack of durability compared to the true elite. Getting caught under the angle grinder was unfortunate against S3, but that shouldn't have killed off the fight, because Dantomkia should've been able to take more than a good hit from S3 before breaking down. It also ends up running out of steam against Firestorm IV and Terrorhurtz. Just too patchy against the bigger machines to stake a claim for the Top 8.

8) S3 - Compared to the rest of the Semi-Finalists on this list, S3's campaigns from Series 6 and EX2 are a bit more sparse. The obvious negative is that first-round loss in the All-Stars. But I don't want to put too much weight on that. It would be harsh to criticise the anti-flipper skid too much. And as it was, S3 was about to come down onto the arena floor anyway! Unfortunately, Firestorm IV comes in with a drive right as it starts its manoeuvre. This keeps S3 upright long enough for Bigger Brother to come in and hurl it over the wall, and that was that. It was just one of those things.

As we know, one battle in Extreme 2 is very small. So what else do we have to judge from? Well, its Heat victory was very good. It ripped up both Sir Chromalot and Shredder really nicely. The melee wasn't as good of a performance, and that does hurt it a bit, but a KO victory over Dantomkia is still enough to seal its place above the flipper.

7) 13 Black - Based on Series 6 alone, 13 Black would be below the previous two. It didn't hold its own well in the Semi-Finals at all - being flipped over by Firestorm IV in a battle that a Firestorm III Heat win would've been proud of, before being dominated by Dantomkia so much that much machines turned the fight into a mickey take.

So the prospect of 13 Black in the Extreme 2 All-Stars wasn't all that exciting, really. But it proved people wrong. Just listing off the fact that it retired Chaos 2 for good, damaged Razer twice and beat Dominator 2 are enough to fill out the CV in a good way. Was it fortunate? Yeah, I do think it got very lucky that Matilda essentially won 13 Black the fight against Dominator 2 - and even then it nearly threw it away! But it still has plenty enough to say it had a stellar All-Stars campaign, and that by itself is a big plus. Shoutouts to its Heat win in Series 6 too, of course.

6) Dominator 2 - Man, Dominator 2 from Series 6 and Extreme 2 is a strange case. It's the Dominator 2 best suited to winning the tournament. Hardier armour added onto itself gave it a really good-looking chance on paper, but in reality, Dominator 2 was incredibly patchy.

Hydra outclassed it in Round 1 and troubled it in the Heat Final. S.M.I.D.S.Y. gave it a tougher fight than it would've liked to admit too. These are pointers towards Dominator 2 being a Heat Finalist-like machine at best.

But then it beats Bigger Brother, and kills off Hypno-Disc expertly. We haven't had Bigger Brother on my list yet, so that shows you just how many points a win against it scores, while showing just how much its armour had improved from the previous encounter with Hypno-Disc just proves Dominator 2 as a well-rounded package even more. And even in those harder fights, it did still come through. Dominator 2 isn't an easy machine to truly dominate opponents with because of its narrow range of attack and long sides. But it still got the results, and it all comes together to help it finish just outside the Top 5.

5) Bigger Brother - the runner-up from Series 5 comes fifth here. A worse finish, but is that a bad thing? Not really. Honestly, I'd say Bigger Brother is quite fortunate to finish here. It got beat by the machine directly below it, Terrorhurtz destroyed it without Bigger Brother even getting a flip in, it got outclassed by Firestorm IV, again not even completing a flip, and it even had notable bad moments against Behemoth and Spawn Again - with the latter nearly getting it out of the arena.

But it beat Tornado. It beat the champion. That's enough. That's a vintage Bigger Brother win. And that's enough for it to cover up a patchy campaign by style.

Oh, and it won that kids event.

4) Terrorhurtz - the meme about my favourite football team Arsenal is that we always finished fourth for ages (I wish we could now lol). So where does my favourite machine finish? Fourth, obviously.

I don't need to say much here. Terrorhurtz explains itself. It destroyed Panic Attack, KO'd Dantomkia, and butchered S.M.I.D.S.Y. for starters. But what really pushes Terrorhurtz high is that Semi-Final campaign. It had by far the best displays from all of the Semi-Finalists. It absolutely wrecked both Spawn Again and Bigger Brother with ease. Did it have its shortcomings? Of course. It lost to Razer, Tornado and Firestorm IV one on one. So it's below all of them. But Terrorhurtz comfortably takes fourth without much hassle.

3) Firestorm IV - But guess what. I was so, so, so close to putting Terrorhurtz above Firestorm IV, because I believe that if John Reid cranked the axe down a little bit and didn't KO himself, that he would've actually beaten Graham Bone's machine. But alas it wasn't enough. To add to that, Firestorm also put up a bit of a better fight against Tornado and a slightly better one against Razer. And then to fully clinch it, Firestorm IV also wins the Commonwealth Carnage to take its first ever trophy. I honestly didn't put much weight in that tournament win, because it was a sure favourite to take the title. But y'know - it's still something.

2) Tornado, and 1) Razer - It's the champion. It's Tornado. It's... it's in second?

Yeah, it is. The machine that took Razer's crown still finishes below it. Wins against Dominator 2, Hypno-Disc, Terrorhurtz, Firestorm IV, and even Razer itself are not enough. But why? Well, because it's Razer of course.

Look, I like Tornado a lot. It's in-and-around my favourite robots list. It did beat Razer. But to beat Razer it had to change its whole machine. And even when Tornado was completely overhauled into an Mega Evolution, Razer still had its number at some point. For Razer to even have a chance of beating a machine specifically altered so that Razer had no chance at beating it is ridiculous. But Razer didn't just give itself a chance - it basically had Tornado covered. In the Extreme 2 battle it got hold of the Mega Tornado so quickly it was quick it was amazing.

Tornado could use its wedge, could use its drum, could use its specifically-designed spider-web frame, and yet it still could not KO Razer. Tornado had to be absolutely 100% overhauled to have a chance of beating Razer on a Judges' Decision. Team Tornado had to design an anti-Razer frame with specific measurements, with a specific length and with a specific width, with massive air gaps away from Tornado itself - all to ensure that Razer couldn't touch it. What did Razer have to do to match this? Make a minuscule adjustment with its beak. In theory, Razer shouldn't have had a chance. How could it reach Tornado if Team Tornado specifically designed something that would cut off Razer's reach? It's like kicking a football on the roof of a house and asking somebody to get it back down with a stool. But Razer still managed to pull something out of the fire, because it is the best. No matter what Tornado tried to outdo Razer, it was always only trying to compensate and to attempt to get anywhere near Razer's level. Tornado doing what it did showed that the team itself knew that Tornado wasn't on Razer's level, and that is the ultimate compliment to Razer, and why it takes number 1 once again on my Rankdown.

Oh, and Tornado lost to Bigger Brother as well.