User blog comment:RA2/Series 6 and Extreme 2 Rankdown/@comment-4700688-20190117102307

14. Kan-Opener. The only candidate for last place out of the remaining robots, but I wouldn't call it undeserving of its position in the Final Rankdown. There's very few robots that I would put in Kan-Opener's place - Wild Thing, Supernova and maybe Chaos 2 would be my limit.

13. Spawn Again. If we ranked the Extreme 2 version alone, then Spawn Again would actually jump up a few spaces, while I also have no doubt that a Series 6-only campaign may have missed the final rankdown altogether, even if not by much. This is the best compromise.

12. Bulldog Breed. How I wish the Hypno-Disc loss wasn't so easy because I would absolutely push for a Top 10 finish from the bulldog otherwise.

11. Storm II. There definitely is a greater difference between the Extreme 2 and Series 7 versions of Storm II than the four-bar lifter. This version of Storm II, while still plenty good enough for the top end of this list, was less controlled with a tendency to swerve, weaker structure shown by Chopper's damage, it lacked the precision-milled wedge and skirts, and of course the lack of the lifter makes a big difference for point-scoring.

10. Hypno-Disc. We've made it to the top ten instead, so I'll throw in a positive comment first - not many spinners can say they survived five minutes against Tornado, which is testament to Hypno-Disc's durability! Sadly that didn't last for any of its three subsequent losses, but the Bulldog Breed effortless victory also helps solidify a Top 10 finish.

9. 13Black. I do believe that Hypno-Disc is a superior machine to 13Black, but the evidence speaks in favour of the roulette wheels. Hypno-Disc broke down against Dominator II, 13Black won the fight. Hypno-Disc was thrown out of the arena by Dantomkia in seconds, 13Black made it to the Judges. Both had the same track record in Series 6, and then 13Black did much better in Extreme 2. However the lack of a srimech stops Team 13 dead in their tracks beyond that.

8. Dantomkia. Dominant victories collected over 13Black and Hypno-Disc mean that Dantomkia must outrank them in this position, but reliability issues prevent it from going any further. I'm aware that ranking robots over the machines they beat is not a flawless system (13Black finishes beneath Dominator II, which in turn finishes below Bigger Brother), but I tried to give less weight to wins decided by House Robot attacks.

7. Dominator II. This was the era where Dominator II collected some of its highest quality wins, including Bigger Brother and Hypno-Disc, and also its losses failing to really demonstrate a key weakness with the design, as they included a self-pitting and a House Robot partial KO. Despite this, I've ranked Dominator II below two of the other robots which reached Round 5 of the Sixth Wars simply because an axe is always going to be a less effective weapon than a flipper or vertical spinner.

6. S3. This final rankdown process has gone very smoothly, and I think the only robot to get the rough end of the deal is S3. I feel they're receiving a lot of slack for a "poor" performance in Extreme 2, but I would expect very very few robots to defeat Firestorm IV and Bigger Brother at the same time while being double-teamed! For no good reason, Bigger Brother and Firestorm IV were in perfect sync for that battle, and now that I've reached my No. 6, it's no spoiler to say that Bigger Brother and Firestorm IV are in my Top 5 anyway! These robots were the only two machines to beat S3 across Series 6 and Extreme 2, and I'm certainly not going to discredit S3 simply for not having many fights in Extreme 2. Were the opportunity there, I'm sure it would have won dozens more fights. The whole thing about S3 being 'weak to flippers' is a myth, blown out of proportion simply because the team once said they "don't like flippers" after learning they had to fight Bigger Brother and Firestorm IV at the same time. This wasn't a weakness to flippers, this was just S3 losing to better robots - surely a robot which was truly weak to flippers would not have defeated Roobarb, Sir Chromalot and Dantomkia all in one series? S3 finishes in sixth thanks to its Top 8 finish in Series 6, and its weapon which remains one of the most threatening in this final fifteen.

5. Bigger Brother. The most logical robot to top the Rankdown without making the Grand Final. Their win over Tornado was a masterclass, and its amazing displays against S3 and Behemoth help to solidify a comfortable fifth place. Its only loss to a robot which I've ranked below Bigger Brother was the Dominator II loss, which was fairly even until a House Robot caused the critical damage.

4. Terrorhurtz. An easy fourth place, because it only lost to Tornado, Razer, Firestorm IV and Dantomkia throughout these two series. The former three all out-rank Terrorhurtz, while it avenged its loss to Dantomkia within the same series.

3. Firestorm IV. There's no real room for argument with this position, its only losses were against Tornado and Razer, which place directly above it. Nothing else challenged Firestorm IV, other than Terrorhurtz which still ultimately lost.

2. Tornado. This has been almost universal across the board and I couldn't agree more. Tornado and Razer were the clear top two, and while Tornado was the Series 6 champion, Razer essentially "won the series" in Extreme 2 thanks to its All-Stars title.

1. Razer. And of course, we can't forget that Razer did beat Tornado in Extreme 2 anyway! I do think that Team Razer were right to hand over their victory in Extreme 2, but by the same token, the Series 6 title fight clearly demonstrated Razer's ability to defeat Tornado even with its heavy modifications - it just needed a little more time! The only thing here giving me red flags was the return of slight reliability issues (smoke) from Razer in Extreme 2, but that's where Tornado collected its Bigger Brother loss anyway.