User blog comment:RA2/Series 7 Rankdown/@comment-979907-20191206210910

1. Typhoon 2 - The only undefeated robot in the series comes first.

2. Storm 2 - I believe in honouring the results. I also believe that Ed Hoppitt has been slightly debunked over the last few years and as such I’m happy to call the win clean.

3. Tornado - though it feels like storm 2 lite, it’s still the pushing beast we know and a dominant win over Gravity redeems any doubts we might have had.

4. Firestorm - peak Firestorm doesn’t do as well as it’s predecessor but courtesy of drawing one of two bots it couldn’t beat. I will not hold the all stars against it because that’s like judging a star athletes performance on his tripping and falling while goofing around with kids on a street race on Saturday.

5. Gravity - the Dutch beast, a decisive member of the all stars with four spectacular wins in a row. Could not have beaten the top 4 but was able to shrug off serious house robots like they were nothing.

6. Tough as nails - benefits highly from HARDOX and decisive wins over Disco Inferno and Gravity, which gives me faith that it would win against some of the big players in the top echelons.

7. Xterminator - When X Terminator was on, it could rarely be stopped, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t two terrible fights in its S7 campaign and a heat final which it had basically lost. The Bulldog Breed fight was its peak and it never came back. I’d have it beat Gravity but it was just too chunky and exposed.

8. Dantomkia - deserved to be higher than its Series 6 performance because it’s run was so decisive, and it’s all stars run even more so. The series 7 loss was such a shot in the dark run of bad luck that I can’t criticise Dantomkia for it. Just super controlled and aggressive, reliability issues hold it back a tad but all stars does help it’s aggregate more than it hurts.

9. Bulldog breed - Solid as a brick, one of the only flippers who could take down TAN despite fitting in its clutches. It would lost to any number of better robots but we have a far bigger sample size of dominant fights than we do for....

10. Atomic - likely to seriously overperform in this rankdown, I will nor deny it did well Ko-ing an easy heat and M2, but it’s armour looks to be the same armour that Hypno disc ripped up two years prior, and Bulldog Breed never killed itself just by missing a flip. People praise atomic for its potential, I’m far far more conservative.

11. Tsunami - a beast of a flipper but it’s shape gives me concern about its ability to perform against some other robots, and its failure to beat a big name has name keep it below robots like Bulldog Breed who I would have it beat.

12. Pussycat - Pussycat has a 4-1 win loss ratio in Series 7, same as David Gribble Pussycat in Series 5, and the same as Atomic and Bulldog Breed. It’s loss is far closer than the losses suffered by those two. I can’t put it above the top 11 because Dantomkia is the only one I’d back in a straight clash, but it has to finish highly.

13. Bigger Brother - as I said on Firestorm, I won’t count All Stars against it, nor will I demean Iron Awe by saying that Bigger Brother flubbed the fight. It’s a genuine king killer here, the only bot in the whole comp that id rate against the top 4 of Series 7.

14. M2 - A solid robot, could have inherited the mantle of Dominator 2, Wild Thing and Spawn Again it if had time but it was undone after providing four of the best fights of Series 7.

15. Grim Reaper - a robot I now semi love based on its fundamentals. Did well against Storm 2, but no KOs and no big scalps to show for itself.

16. Ripper - a massive promotion for its dominant Annihilator display, but it’s two losses were fairly poor and it can’t do too much better.

17. Spawn Again - lucky to be here, Toasts point about the ram is well taken and while it was good, 17th is as high as I can put it.

18. Big Nipper - I’ve never quite seen it, it can lift and move but it collected only a single win against Jackson Wallop in a one on one fight and Grim Reaper dominated it in round 1.