User blog comment:RA2/Robot Wars Rankdown: Extreme 1 & Series 5/@comment-2118191-20180719205619


 * 11th - Drillzilla. Absolutely solid as far as robots go. I still wish to stand by one of my original claims that it was one of the "unbeatables". However, for the most part, it was in a competition where it honestly had very little competition. It was the underdog going against Razer anyway, but I feel it should have been pressured more.


 * 10th - Disc-O-Inferno. An extremely impressive performance in the annihilator all-round, aside from a brief scare in Round 1. It was basically what Hypno-Disc should have been. That being said, like Drillzilla it wasn't exactly "challenged" going in with only one A-tier, two C-tiers and two GTFO-tiers. I rank it above Drillzilla because I feel it could have been a heat-finalist in Series 5 had it competed...so here seems reasonable.


 * 9th - Wild Thing. As tenacious as ever is Wild Thing in these series. But here I feel it was beginning to show that its weaknesses were too well known. Across all its fights, it had one KO for it, one KO against it, and then every other fight it had was a judges decision, with a 3-4 win ratio. All credit for hanging on, but that'll only get it so far.


 * 8th - Dominator 2. Speaking of only getting a robot so far, Dominator had a rather lackluster run in Series 5 in comparison to what it was the previous season. Twice in a row, it ended up winning a battle because its opponent either wasn't working or just stopped working, the latter of which it was losing before said breakdown. And then it ended up in one of the worst fights in RW history because nobody noticed it was immobile. What worries me is that it barely even landed that many axe-blows this series.


 * 7th - Pussycat. On the one hand, Pussycat won the annihilator in Extreme, and managed to take out Razer, so I think that'll score it higher than Wild Thing or Dominator. On the other hand, it was extremely lucky to get through its heat and had to rely entirely on Diotoir to get the Tag Team Terror title. This seems like a good compromise.


 * 6th - Chaos 2. Also rather lucky to get through its heat, and of course this being a CFH (Champion's Fodder Heat) makes the fact it nearly boltsed it up even worse. Also its weaknesses were really beginning to show, especially with the jammed flipper and overturning itself. Still got itself some solid wins though, so I have to give it some credit.


 * 5th - Tornado. A great performance in Extreme, beating Chaos 2 and Pussycat twice each, defending two Challenge Belts and just pretty much dominating everyone that came its way. If it weren't for its embarrassingly early loss to Diotoir in Series 5, it'd be number two, easily.


 * 4th - S3. Really solid performance and what we like to see from a spinning disc. Two destructive clashes, two very tight battles (one being an amazing comeback) and it needed both the eventual champion and runner-up to beat it. Just wish we could have seen more of it.


 * 3rd - Bigger Brother. An amazing run through Series 5 guaranteed it a spot in the top three. It was the robot who finally ended Chaos 2's reign and one of the greatest comeback victories ever against Hypno-Disc...the fight nominated as THE best Robot Wars fight of all time. It was clearly much improved. It's just a shame that it performed poorly in Extreme.


 * 2nd - Firestorm 3. A solid performance in Extreme even though it didn't really compete much is one thing. But what I want to talk about is its Series 5 performance. It's one thing to do as well as it did, but you have to remember, it reached third place AFTER suffering severe damage in its very first battle that it never really fully recovered from. And yet it still finished third. Even after getting its flipper destroyed by Razer, it refused to back down and very nearly beat it. That deserves serious credit.


 * 1st - Razer. But at the end of the day, was there ever any doubt? At long last, Razer was finally able to put the gremlins of its past behind it, and it showed. All-Stars Champion, World Champion and finally UK Champion. Yes, some of its fights were very one-note, but really I think that's just more showing how advanced Razer really was in its time. Plus, it had some tense battles against Gemini, Behemoth and Firestorm, so it's not all bad.