User blog comment:RA2/Series 7 Rankdown/@comment-1011118-20191207155316

18. Bigger Brother. Well, I attempted to remove them a while back, so no surprise that I’m putting them last. I cannot give them huge credit for beating Typhoon when it was clear the latter’s spinner wasn’t working. They got done a bit dirty by the house bots, fine, but that was after their choice to underestimate Iron Awe. They seemed to be using their full power just to invert other robots - a far cry from how they were launching bots out left & right in series past. And I’m not holding the All Stars against them, but I’m sure not putting them above robots that have their battle record plus some. Perhaps it was misfortune that everything went wrong for them, but i’m ranking them against 17 robots for all of whom things went much more right

17 Big Nipper. My unfulfilled nominee last round, and my mind has not changed. Nipper was a very innovative design that would enjoy great success 4 years after RW. But I don’t know them well enough to know how much they changed between RW and that. Fact is that while they held their own in the heat final, they were up against the weakest semifinalist in Grim Reaper. Their win was over a robot with a fatally flawed design. Great robot, #17 is a great ranking for a heat finalist.

16. Spawn Again. I think this bot is inherently, a very well-designed robot. Things break because they push the envelope. They had an explosively good Round 1, and I think some people overblow how close ROCS was to winning. Still a blowout in the heat final is a blowout in the heat final, so this is as far as they go.

15. Pussycat. DIdn’t do well in the domestic championship, but no one can take away their all stars championship victory. The defining moment, that bumps them up for me, was their immobilization of King B3 in the opening seconds. King B may not have been a pantheon robot, but it confirmed for me that Pussycat could do the same to any robot with exposed wheels.

14. Grim Reaper. I did just call them the weakest semifinalist, after all. Another solidly designed robot, certainly takes some good construction to stand up to Storm 2. But that’s all I can say, it was a very passable robot whom I don't think would make it further than semifinals.

13. Ripper. Sure, they lost in the heat final, but Grim Reaper (or any bot ranked lower than Ripper) wouldn’t have beaten Firestorm either. Ripper, as I said when kanned Kan Opener, achieved the most kills in the annihilator. It won’t go above any other semifinalists becuase of the armour - I am not convinced it would hold off a spinner as well as claimed.

12. M2. Not much I can say about this robot, other than it’s a very good, solid flipper that got outclassed here, and probably wouldn’t beat any of the top 8

11. Dantomkia. Though pushed aside by the brightest stars of this season, Dantomkia was very much a force to be reckoned with - the double-KO in the All Stars for one

10. Tough as Nails. This bot could end matches really fast if the opposition had low pushing power. The way they just trampled Gravity and Disk-O-Inferno made everyone’s jaws hit the floor. They invented a design tailor made to take advantage of the arena, and very well could’ve won a future series. Losing to Bulldog Breed & Storm II is nothing to be ashamed of

9. Tsunami. I would call this empirical evidence that they could make the semis in a different lineup. The design really was the prefect “ejector” almost seemed customized to throw bots over an arena barrier of that height.

8. Gravity. The most powerful flipper in Series 7, and without a doubt the best robot from outside the UK. That said, basically anything invertible was its kryptonite, and low wedges posed a serious problem. The ease with which TAN pitted it is also foreboding.

7. Firestorm V. As consistent as ever, aside from the obvious not coming in 3rd. Their strength of schedule was a little less impressive than the robots ranked above them, and that was the main deciding factor.

6. Bulldog Breed. While Gravity had high highs and low lows, BB was always quite good. That match against Tough as Nails was a masterclass in driving. That’s the reason that this fight went so differently than TAN vs Robochicken, there was barely a moment where BB’s wedge wasn’t pointed at Tough as Nails. Extremely solid competitor, but they were apparently mullered by Infernal Contraption, so for that vulnerability, they won’t breach any grand finalists.

5. X-Terminator. I’ll be kind to this robot and only drop it one place below its Series 7 finishing. This thing was an absolute beast in a flipper-dominated sector, and incredibly feared. They drop a place because they were dead to rights in the heat final and their srimech failed them, but even so, they capitalized on that second chance grandly, and they still truly are better than every bot I’ve ranked beneath them.

4. Atomic. From losing to Short Circuit in the qualifiers, to a Top-8 placement, this robot definitely wins “Most Improved.” Threw every bot like a ragdoll and even came close to beating Typhoon, whoi’d been mowing down flippers left and right. They’re very much a “complete package” robot

3. Tornado. Pretty standard Tornado run here that got them #2 in the S5 & 6 rankdowns. Not a whole lot can be said in their third high placement that hasn’t been said already, other than that Gravity was a pretty big head for their mantle. They drop to 3 here because Typhoon was nigh unbeatable, and Storm 2 was just plain better than them.

2. Typhoon 2. I held a childish grudge for a long time, because of the limited information that I took as fact. But after being more entwined in the community, and getting a better insight into people’s reputations, and how they conduct themselves, I find myself more inclined to believe Gary’s version of events, and I’ve come around to seeing that their victory was well-earned. It was a stroke of luck that they passed round 1 for sure, but which champion ‘’didn’t’’ have some degree of luck at some stage? It’s no accident that no one could box rush them, nor that (round 1 excluded) they had only one moment where they nearly got flipped, their driving was masterful. And they handed Storm their only loss, that’s major. The imperfection keeping them from #1 is of course, the Round 1 scare that I’ve kept saying to avert your eyes from, and some other things that I’ll go into detail below.

1 Storm 2. One word is the above-all-else deciding factor in picking the top robot, and that word is, “invulnerable.” That is to say, which robot looked straight up the most unbeatable? Nothing looked like it could beat Storm 2, its only loss was close. Storm 2 easily dispatched two grand finalists, and was the only survivor of Typhoon (when its spinner worked). combining their domestic & WC wins, their bounty is just a little more impressive than Typhoon’s in my opinion. And let’s not forget the active weapons rule, that’s the cherry on top. They accomplished all they did while retrofitting a lifting arm onto their design. They fought & won against the most formidable opponent in all of Robot Wars - the producers.