User blog comment:RA2/Series 7 Rankdown/@comment-4700688-20191210103151

18. Spawn Again - This is one of the only positions I'm confident about, with Spawn Again being a robot I would gladly remove from the final rankdown in order to accommodate Supernova. The flipper was extremely powerful, but dangerously so, and the machine simply wasn't a complete package.

17. M2 - As you all know, I adore this machine with all my heart. M2 will continue to be my favourite robot for the rest of time, but my fantastical admiration of this beauty in blue has made me keenly aware of its flaws. With self-righting struggles when the robot was low on gas, vulnerable armour, and comparatively low flipper power when looking at the other machines in the pool, I'm ranking M2 surprisingly low.

16. Pussycat - Although I'm ranking Pussycat directly above a machine it lost to in M2, it's also considerably lower than one of its own victims, Dantomkia. Should balance out fairly well. I had no idea how far Pussycat would climb up this rankdown, so a 20-15 finish feels pretty good.

15. Bulldog Breed - I can't help but feel Bulldog Breed is going to do too well simply because it beat Tough as Nails. Let me first remind everyone just how close that fight was; Tough as Nails was quite close to coming out on top, and it was hardly dominance from Bulldog Breed, certainly not enough for me to decisively say Bulldog Breed is a better robot than TAN. Beyond that, Bulldog Breed took significant damage from Infernal Contraption in its melee and got manhandled by Mantis, before escaping its heat on a very weak schedule, without even threatening to throw anything out of the arena along the way. Surely you need at least one OotA in Series 7 to command respect? Compare its run to Tsunami - both lost to X-Terminator at the Heat Final and Top 8 positions respectively, but Tsunami made far more of an impact in two fights than Bulldog Breed did in four, and then Tsunami did much better against XT as well! That's just one example, but I could come up with individual reasons to rank Bulldog Breed below everyone left.

14. Ripper - On form, Ripper could make you believe it's the best robot in the entire Seventh Wars, but on the flipside you have its vulnerability to being back-stranded, and the frankly poor loss to Kan-Opener. There's a lot more positive things to say about an excellent machine like Ripper, but those little flaws hold it back at the very end.

13. Big Nipper - You know something, I was tempted to put Big Nipper above The Grimreaper on the grounds that it's much better built to resist spinners and axes. I do think Big Nipper would pose a more significant threat to the likes of Terrorhurtz, Storm II and even Typhoon 2 than TGR, and of course the TV edit showed us a Heat Final that Big Nipper deserved to win anyway. But I suppose THe Grimreaper not only won the Heat Final, but also did better in the first-round melee.

12. The Grimreaper - As soon as Big Nipper enters my ranking, The Grimreaper has to directly follow, its ceiling is about the same as Big Nipper's (if not lower), and they belong back-to-back.

11. Bigger Brother - Where you rank Bigger Brother in your rankdown depends on how you perceive the objective of the game. Many play the game with the intention of ranking robots based only on their performance in that series alone, but I think that if you take that approach, there's little room for discussion and you're basically stuck rearranging the robots by wins and losses only. That's why I've always played based on our evaluation of a robot's abilities when we judge them in fantasy tournaments and overall opinions. A 1-2 combat record does not define Bigger Brother, we know exactly how good it is, and I won't hold it back from a high finish just because of some unlucky defeats.

10. Dantomkia - Much like Ripper and Spawn Again before it, Dantomkia was the master of highs and lows. Dantomkia was responsible for some of the most impressive victories in Series 7, dominating two different melees, setting a record for quickest victory, and easily outclassing very competent robots. This is enough for Dantomkia to breach my Top 10, but the recurring breakdowns seen in Series 6 and Extreme 2 were evidently still there based on its strange loss to Pussycat and the subsequent live circuit.

9. Tough as Nails - You can genuinely put TAN anywhere. It has a loss to Bulldog Breed which I've ranked fairly low, but it also has a win on Gravity which we've all ranked very highly. If you then go down to potential, TAN probably picks up losses to more robots ranked beneath it, like The Grimreaper and Big Nipper, but it also probably beats Typhoon 2, the actual champion of the series! We were so close to having that fight too, but TAN's tendency to lose hopelessly when outclassed in pushing power stunts its progression at 9th on my ranking.

8. Gravity - Somehow I've ended up with TAN and Gravity back-to-back in my rank, but Gravity's ability to win almost any match with the click of a finger boosts it into my Top 8, and its ability to lose plenty of matches with the flick of a spinning blade stops it there.

7. X-Terminator - I'm going to join Raz3r in putting X-Terminator below Tsunami. I give massive credit to X-Terminator for beating Tsunami in one of the best matches of all time, but nobody would deny that it lost the match before being saved. In my mind, X-Terminator was a best of three which went 2-1 in favour of X-Terminator, but Tsunami's little "win" along the way is enough for me to validate X-Terminator going below it. The lack of a srimech and slow speeds are more prominent weaknesses than Tsunami's, and whichever one won the Heat Final would've got to at least the same stage of the tournament.

6. Tsunami - As mentioned in my X-Terminator vote, Tsunami "won" one "match" against X-Terminator before subsequently losing the direct follow-up, and if Tsunami had left XT alone, it would've reached the Grand Final. What further helps me put Tsunami above XT is knowing that while XT had no hope against Typhoon 2 and lost to Tornado quite easily, Tsunami was potentially capable of beating both. Sixth place for a potential runner-up (even champion?) feels almost too low when you put it like that.

5. Atomic - The very definition of a complete package. Excellent weapon, excellent defence, excellent speed, excellent wedge. Atomic boasted very few flaws, and earns its place in the Top 5, but I suppose the malfunction against Typhoon 2 did happen, and its nearest rival in the Top 5 would be Firestorm V which regularly beats Atomic in our fantasy tournaments.

4. Firestorm V - We all know the strength of Firestorm, a three-time Grand Finalist which entered Series 7 in its best and final iteration. Everything that gave Firestorm a high ranking in Series 5-6 applies here, but that also unfortunately drags across its loss to Tornado in the Sixth Wars. If that hadn't happened, I might've put Firestorm V above Tornado.

3. Tornado - Like everyone else, I'll be building my top three from the actual top three of the Seventh Wars, with Tornado finishing in third, its exact series finish.

2. Typhoon 2 - A worthy series champion which I've grown to respect so much. I rank it only below Storm II, not necessarily because I think Typhoon 2 should've lost that fight, but simply because it boasted a weakness that could give it losses to the likes of Tsunami, Atomic, Bigger Brother etc on a bad day.

1. Storm II - No matter how much we've come around to the overexposed Storm II "controversy" and seen Ed Hoppitt's claims for what they really are, not one person would deny that Storm II was an excellent machine. Both it and Typhoon 2 were miles ahead of the pack, and of the two, Storm II is the one that lacks any sort of weakness. Comfortably the best robot of the Seventh Wars, and only rivalled by Razer for the title of best classic series competitor altogether.