User blog comment:CrashBash/Crash's Top 5 potential Series 5 heat winners/@comment-24393094-20170607192535

In fairness, it is a very unusual anomaly, because just look at some of the robots within the Series 5 debut category. In my opinion, there are notably many robots that

You have robots like Barber-Ous, Hydra and Shredder; three robots that went out in the first round in Series 5, became heat-finalists in Series 6 and then went out again in the first round in Series 7. And it is even more strange when in Series 7, they were much improved over their Series 6 counterparts!

Then, there are robots like Corkscrew, Crushtacean and Rick, robots that were heat-finalists in Series 5, only to suffer progressively worse results in later series (if we ignore Crustacean's Dutch Robot Wars' success, of course).

On the flip side, there are robots like Big Nipper and Kan-Opener who despite never escaping the heats, did well in other competitions.

And finally, although their TV appearances were unremarkable, robots such as Storm Force, Wolverine and Ruf Ruf Dougal have shown that they can still defeat the very best in Robot Wars.

Henceforth, I do agree with your belief of no Series 5 newcomer winning a heat is strange. As for my predictions, I believe Big Nipper, Kan-Opener, Wolverine, Hydra and... Trouble 'n' Strife, on the basis that you stated "since their first appearance in the Fifth Wars".