Here's a different blog. I am going to go back through all the Grand Finals of the main tournaments in each Robot Wars Wiki Arena tournament and rate and review them. I will be looking at how close the battle was, how the voting panned out, how fun it was to vote in that battle, the arguments put forwards and the robots themselves. Were the robots expected to be in the final or not, and did that work for the tournament? Was it a detriment that it was one-sided or was it a sweet surprise to see one of the robots there? We'll see as this blog goes along.
This ranking is purely based on the Grand Final battle only, and is not a reflection of the whole tournament's ranking.
(Warning, there will likely be a slight bias towards tournaments I voted it as I was more involved with how the tournament went on so can talk about the context a bit better)
NB: Any entry titled in italics was a tournament which completed after the completion of this blog initially, meaning it might refer to entries previously published on the assumption that you have read those ones. So don't be confused or surprised if an entry talks about a tournament which you haven't read about yet if it's your first read of the blog.
Honourable Mentions and ineligibles[]
As with all lists, there's usually a few awkward entries that don't fit the criteria of everything else, but still deserve to be mentioned to avoid someone pointing out that they've been ignored.
This tournament ran the post-Heat competition for all Main Series' of UK Robot Wars, plus Extreme Warriors 1 and some Annihilators assuming that the Heat Final losers actually won the battle. With so many concurrent Grand Finals and minimal discussion, I decided not to rate these tournaments, especially as it was basically a message board for people to run it themselves, rather than battle voting.
In the same vein as the previous tournament, Alternate Heat Winners version 2 actually turned the heat final losers into Semi-Finalists with a proper battle voting format. However, with so many different Grand Finals of the same prominence, I decided against rating all of them individually. There were some fun Grand Final battles like Behemoth vs King Buxton in Series 3, Razer vs Behemoth in Series 4 and the Judges' victory for Tsunami over Spawn Again in Series 7. This was certainly a great tournament, but just a bit too awkward for this list without cherry-picking.
The Extreme format tournaments were great, but because it's a bunch of mini-tournaments, there are actually a lot of finals, none of which can really be called the overall Grand Final. As such, I decided to take the finals of the All-Stars and World Championships held in each respective tournament for the list, and every other smaller competition is here as an honourable mention. These honourable mentions include: Wild Thing vs Diotoir, Kadeena Machina vs The Cat and Ironside3 & MeggaMouse vs Tough as Nails & Cobra.
While this final was an absolutely massive debate between the two best episodes of Robot Wars, I decided against including it in the main part of this list as it isn't a battle between robots, and as the only tournament here that isn't that, I wasn't happy to include it. Especially as it was going to place pretty high otherwise.
Ranking[]
I will not be numbering each rank as I hope to add future tournaments to it as they complete. Thus I just need to say that this is an ascending list, which starts at the Worst final and gets better as the list goes down. Tournament winner is highlighted in bold at the start.
The Ultimate Free Pass - Anarachnid vs Mammoth[]
Somehow we had to work out which of these two would actually win the rematch, so we could subsequently award the loser the title.
Starting off this list and crowning itself as the Worst Grand Final in the wiki's history is...the Grand Final supposed to be the worst. The Ultimate Free Pass was never supposed to be an official tournament, but it seemed quite popular on my userpage so it got elevated to a proper one. At the end of Ragnabot 2, a tournament in which the phrase "Free Pass" was thrown about a lot, I held a knockout competition where robots which had collected no votes were placed together, with the losers from each fight going to the next round. In the end, the two worst robots in the whole tournament faced each other, and oh boy was it a stinker!
Actually, that's unfair. Judging Anarachnid vs Mammoth was a lot more difficult than the 8-1 victory by Anarachnid suggested (hence crowning Mammoth the tournament winner). This was a rematch, as the two fought each other in their only fight and it was dire. Neither could move effectively or fast, meaning neither robot met and certainly didn't show themselves off to be good, hence they were awarded a draw IRL. This played into the voting as two users actually voted for a draw, giving half a point to each robot. However, the rest of the voters decided that Anarachnid at least showed some kind of movement in a direction, it got the votes to win the fight. As such, Mammoth was crowned the Ultimate Free Pass®™°C to score its first (and most definitely only) tournament victory, even if it is such an odd format.
International Series 6 - Razer vs Firestorm 4[]
Entertaining as a battle, but not to vote on again
It feels horrible to put such a good tournament right her at the bottom - only above the deliberately-designed-to-be-bad Ultimate Free Pass final, but this truly was an awful anticlimax. Firestorm and Razer fought 3 times in total, with all three battle being pretty unarguable Razer victories. Firestorm 4 did fight this version of Razer in Extreme 2, so we know this Razer can beat this Firestorm - which helps place it lower than the Christmas Special. Oh yes, this isn't just a repeat of a battle we saw, but also a repeat of a previous Arena final too. At least that one had a later Firestorm version with its Razer-specific weakness potentially patched. Without it, and very dismissive votes giving Razer a 8-0 victory, this was a very low scoring final on all counts.
Featherweight Championship - DTK vs Typhoon Cadet[]
It won't take long for this to happen
The Wiki's featherweight championship of 2013 was a great little tournament which pitted all the Featherweight robots against each other, combining official competitors from the Extremes, Series' 2 and 7 plus the Featherweight competitors from Series 1. This produced some interesting results all the way up to the final. Series 7 champion DTK understandably eased its way there and found itself facing the ultimately charmed run of Typhoon Cadet in the final. The smallest and least successful of the Typhoon robots, the Cadet's only really notable time on screen came when DTK flipped it over with ease. In a single head-to-head fight, Typhoon Cadet has no chance to avoid being chased and flipped without causing much damage to DTK. A unanimous 7-0 "seen it" and "One flip and done" vote ensued, which is shame but it just went to show how good DTK was as a Featherweight.
Audited Series 9 - Carbide vs Eruption[]
Yeah, this was what we were afraid of
Audited Series 9 suffered the stigma of being up there with Series 3 as potentially the most predictable Series to Audit, and our fear of the final being a "seen it" was realised when Carbide met Eruption there. The robots met 4 times, and it took until the fourth occasion for Eruption to even survive the fight, which it finally won. However, as it took Eruption three losses to find a way to survive Carbide, this first meeting was an easy win for Carbide and a dull way to end up voting unfortunately.
Tag Team Terror 4 - Winners of the Second vs Winners of the Third[]
This probably happened at some point during this TTT4 battle
Seen it is bad. Seen it convincingly is even worse. The two most fancied real-life tournament winners meeting in the final sounds like a brilliant recipe for debate, but this was the first round battle of the third Tag Team tournament. Bulldog Breed ft. Robochicken started their whole campaign by thoroughly dominating the defending champions, so nobody disagreed with that result hence the 5-0 win. A good battle to watch it may have been, but the fact that a previous fight had 8 voters and this - the final - had 5 speaks volumes. It's a shame because the play-off was a close judges' decision.
Redone Extreme 2 (All-Stars) - Razer vs Tornado[]
Basically this battle exactly
When it's a seen it, battles can suffer. When it's a debate with few votes, most going for what happened and one even deciding that the seen it should have been awarded as a draw, you know the battle was pretty bad. The only redeeming feature of this fight is that in the same Arena Series we got a rematch in a final, and it was glorious.
Christmas Special - Firestorm 5 vs Razer[]
Even the Series 7 steel strip wouldn't have stopped this rout
When you have a battle which is a seen it, you sometimes have votes that reflect the random luck in the fight and therefore disagree with the result. See a battle like Pussycat vs Fluffy for example. Pussycat won the fight IRL, but I'm sure Fluffy would always pick up votes and could win sometimes in tournaments if the draw came up. However, if a couple of robots fight multiple times, using the seen it argument can either get clouded or more solid. Ironside3 vs Pulsar is one that will always be a solid debate as they always flip-flopped either way so we don't have a definitive answer, but Firestorm vs Razer is a perfect example of it being as solid as diamond. Razer has fought and convincingly defeated Firestorm on three occasions in the post-weight increase period, where Razer's infamous reliability issues have gone away, ripping away that argument from people wanting to remove the frankly OP Razer from tournaments. So the fact that Firestorm picked up 2 votes actually works against it here. I think it's worth calling this out, as one of the votes seemed to be based on a pullbacks battle between the two...
Audited Series 4 - Chaos 2 vs Pussycat[]
This is the most "seen it" of all the seen its you could choose from
In an Audited Series, we are essentially rerunning a series to have some fun and get different results. Big names crashing out early and plucky underdogs flying high with a good draw is part of the fun. What you don't really want is for an Audited Series to basically confirm that the actual finalists were the rightful finalists because, well, where's the fun in that? Audited Series 4 was the epitome of reruns as the final could not have been more predictable, as Chaos 2, Pussycat and Stinger made it to the final 4, with Firestorm being the only non-finalist from that series - and we all know Firestorm's credentials. The draw for the first round gave us Chaos 2 vs Stinger, a battle we saw at that stage anyway, before setting up...exactly the same Grand Final as Series 4 gave us - Chaos 2 vs Pussycat.
Now, I'm not here saying that Chaos 2 vs Pussycat in their respective Series 4 versions is a bad fight; quite the opposite. It was a brilliant Grand Final, but to judge? No. It was a convincing win for Chaos 2 which leads to little debate and a near-unanimous victory. Seen it is bad, seen it at the exact same stage with a lack of reasons to go against what we saw is really not good. You want the Grand Final to be a hotbed of debate or at least pining for a good theoretical battle, even if it's a dominant display by one, but not this. Audited Series 4 served up an anticlimax we didn't need.
A Fantasy Audited War 2 - Anarchy vs Dantomkia[]
Really, we can only guess how this robot fares if/when flipped over
A surprise finalist is fantastic. I love it, most of us love it. However, just the one surprise finalist is a problem, as it means the other robot is not a surprise and is going to cake walk the fight most of the time. This was one of the more extreme examples of this. The walkerbot Anarchy scored its greatest ever tournament run here, beating some big names comfortably (somehow one of those was a full-power Hypno-Disc in a close one) to make the Grand Final battle in a massive shock. However, it faced the well-fancied Dantomkia in said final, a battle Anarchy had no chance of winning.
So it's a 7-0 victory for Dantomkia, what's special about this which places it so low? It isn't a seen it and it's not the worst of surprise finalists, Anarchy is still plenty competent? Nope, it's probably the fact that the battle would likely be an easy Dantomkia victory, even though it would have failed to do much. Anarchy's extra weight would make it tough to get a good, clean flip on the walker, meaning Dantomkia will end up taking a good few attempts to do anything meaningful, which would most likely be a side-stranding flip. A boring KO victory does not translate well to a Grand Final, hence the very low placing here.
Redone Series 4 - Chaos 2 vs Mortis[]
This is the likeliest outcome if Chaos 2 didn't want to end on an OotA
One of the earliest tournaments, and it's Series 4 again. Series 4, like 3 to be honest, really only has a small pool of Grand Final quality robots who will only not make said Grand Final by meeting each other. Mortis was not one of these robots, so this battle is another case of a very obviously one-sided vote. Chaos 2 unanimously took it by 5 votes to 0 for a battle that most voters agreed would be over quite quickly when Chaos 2 flips Mortis over and feeds it to House Robots. Not the most enthralling fight to watch.
Extreme Series 3 (All Stars) - Aftershock vs Carbide[]
Carbide makes preboot Razer look like a pansy when it comes to Arena tournament OP-ness
The All-Stars of Extreme Series 3 had a small pool of powerful robots from the first two Reboot Series', and was made on the back of Series 9, which Carbide completely dominated without ever breaking a sweat. Really, everyone was hoping Carbide would face Terrorhurtz, the only robot which Carbide had fought and lost to, without having beaten them at another time - and it did! In the round 1 melee with Carbide, Eruption and Terrorhurtz, Carbide's only vanquisher was knocked out leaving Carbide to have a clean run to victory basically. Aftershock was the robot it fought in the Grand Final, and it was pretty easy to vote for Carbide here. Carbide had torn Aftershock apart in the Series 9 final, and Aftershock had also suffered against another horizontal spinner in Ironside3, so it was no fluke. 10-0 was the score and it can't really be disputed.
Robot Wars World Cup (Football) - Behemoth & Mighty Mouse vs Panic Attack & Evil Weevil[]
The heat is getting higher, I feel like I'm on fire!
When a tournament final has only three votes, all filled with major apathy, you have to feel sorry for the robots involved, especially as this has all the hallmarks of a classic final.
Robotic Soccer is a side-event that is probably the least memorable, and is one of the least judged tournaments on the wiki, so to see it be done in one of the first ever Arena tournaments is great, but it's a shame this got nowhere near as much attention as the combat tournament also taking place in the World Cup. All four robots involved are quick and manoeuvrable, and would certainly be well suited for a game of robotic football, but the final was such a damp squib. Few votes and the lowest scoring match of all the knockout matches, the final did not live up to everything it should have been.
Audited Series 6 - Firestorm 4 vs Dantomkia[]
Yeah, t'was a good fight and all, but not as something to vote for
Firestorm 4 and Dantomkia ended up as the final two in our Audited Series 6 tournament, despite there being no OP robot culls put in place. Razer and Tornado were both knocked out well before the final, which came as a surprise to many. So why was Firestorm 4 vs Dantomkia a bad Grand Final? Well, like a lot of the lower placings here, it is another case of comprehensively "seen it". Both these robots fought in Extreme 2 and Firestorm dominated the whole battle, leaving us with no doubt as to who would win between the two. The one vote for Dantomkia hinged on the fact that Dantomkia did manage to flip Firestorm over once, and tried to spin a victory out from that one moment, but to no avail as Firestorm took a comfortable seen it victory.
Wikia Series 8 - Storm 2 vs Firestorm 5[]
A predictable result
The first ever Arena tournament threw up a brilliant final, which unfortunately ends up as another seen it. The vote was closer than you'd expect for such a dominant seen it victory - as Storm 2 only won this 4-2. The votes for Firestorm had some logic behind them, but overall, as expected, Storm 2 romped through the whole tournament without a scratch basically to take the win. 6 votes for the first tournament ever is fantastic and in that context it's great to see, but really this is a kind of battle that needs more votes to see if the upset was really on, or just a fantasy by a small amount of people. As a seen it though, the scoreline doesn't reflect well.
Welterweight Tournament - Smash vs Blenda[]
The most damage Smash ever did
The Welterweight Tournament was awesome in every way, except for the finals. If it weren't for the fact that Smash vs Blenda is such an interesting and unique pairing for a final that we'll never really get a chance to see again, then this final really deserves to be even lower. It is an absolute cacophony of types of Arena battles that are undesirable.
This isn't a 'seen it' battle in the sense that we've seen it on Robot Wars, but it was a battle already fought previously in the tournament. The one issue with Losers Melee type redemption brackets is that it can sometimes throw up rematches for battles already seen. You just need to see the Heat Finals of Series' 8 and 9 to see why repeat battles are very often terrible and not worth it. This battle was no different as Smash took another victory by 6 points.
Now that's bad, but this isn't the only sore thing about this fight. There are certain types of robots I don't like seeing pick up votes in Arena tournaments: Non-qualifiers who we never saw on TV, Gabriel, Robots which work in the live events but never did on the show, Cherub, and Robots which work in theory but never showed it in multiple battles. This last one is what both Crackers and Smash suffered from the whole tournament. Smash's drum I'm sure works in theory and would cause a load of damage, but it never did anything in its many televised battles. Blenda on the other hand showed its spinner doing an awful lot, and would have been a much more satisfying winner of the tournament, but Smash working in theory and the live events was enough to carry it through to victory here unanimously.
A pre-tournament seen it and a robot that works in theory beating robots we saw be competent in the show hurts this rating a lot, but the uniqueness of seeing Smash vs Blenda in a final, and the fact that the battle would probably be quite spectacular with two light robots with massive spinners means the battle itself would likely be awesome, means it gets raised above the previously mentioned battles.
Series 5 Audited - Hypno-Disc vs Wheely Big Cheese[]
Somebody Photoshop Ming out please
A bit like the Welterweight Final, this fight was also an in-tournament seen it, as Wheely Big Cheese made the final having gone through the Losers Melee after being defeated by Hypno-Disc in the first round of the Semi-Finals. This is also an almost exactly seen it too, as Hypno-Disc has beaten Wheely Big Cheese in a Mayhem qualifier featuring Ming 3, when both robots were in the same guise.
Hypno-Disc took a pretty convincing 8-2 victory, with the Wheely Big Cheese voters rightly playing up the titanium flipper of WBC as something Hypno-Disc would struggle to break, but completely ignoring WBC's very vulnerable and obvious targets in the wheels. As a head-to-head this battle would be pretty entertaining, but as a vote it's pretty obvious.
Extreme 1 Audited (All Stars) - Behemoth vs Firestorm 3[]
I wouldn't put it past Firestorm chucking Behemoth out
The Extreme 1 All-Stars had some, ahem, funky results to remove some of the big hitters in the early rounds which left us with an obviously one-sided final. Behemoth and Firestorm have never fought each other and the two would likely put forward a pretty decent battle. Firestorm's wedge and flipper would be great for dumping Behemoth over multiple times - it would win the battle of the ground clearances quite often - and won't be at risk of being overturned itself. Not much to say here except it's a clean sweep which needs little thought.
All-Stars - Spawn Again vs Terrorhurtz[]
This fight it was not
This tournament final is punished in the ranking as it is one which deserved a lot more debate and thought than the votes suggested. Spawn Again and Terrorhurtz fought in Series 6, and Terrorhurtz won the fight quite convincingly. This arena battle was to be fought between the Extreme 2 Terrorhurtz and the Series 7 Spawn Again. The votes pointed to the fact that Terrorhurtz improved in E2, probably to the same amount that Spawn Again did, but we know that that wasn't the case.
Series 6 Spawn Again was awful. It was unreliable and flawed in controlling, and basically won the heat by a miracle, so as soon as it faced something that wasn't going to break down like Terrorhurtz, it was screwed. Series 7 fixed all that, upgraded the flipper and made it a monster, one that certainly should have garnered more debate and a closer vote.
I will give it slack though, this was one of the first tournaments on the Wiki, when information and videos were either harder to come by or non-existent. But still, I think a 5-0 "seen it" victory for Terrorhurtz was a bit harsh on Spawn Again.
Old vs New - Thor vs IG-88[]
Thor's eventual fate
This is a second consecutive final in this list placed so low because of problems with voting. This time - numbers. Thor got through to the final of this tournament by beating Series 3 Pussycat on a 5-5 Judges' Decision. Sounds great right? So why did the Grand Final get a paltry 5 votes? IG-88 completed a clean sweep in what would have probably been an enthralling battle which certainly would have been nice to have had more people giving their opinion, and a fight that wouldn't have been out of place with a couple of votes for Thor. But no, 5 users who had voted within the last couple of days decided to not get involved for ??? reasons. Hell, the Third Place Playoff even got more votes than the concurrent Grand Final!
This is the absolute extreme of why there was so much complaining about people who cherry pick which battles they vote in. When the Grand Final - the one battle we do all these tournaments for and will wait weeks or even moths for - happens, why do people just not bother? One-sided or not, we want to hear your opinions. Cherry picking when you're in a rush is OK if you come back later and finish the votes off for the rest of the round. I don't believe 5 people suddenly went on holiday at the same time and were unable to vote here.
A potentially great Grand Final ruined by a lack of interest.
Series 3 Audited - Cassius 2 vs Chaos 2[]
It feels like this robot was being judged
I'll be honest, I straight up don't like this final and I had to bump it up to here because I had clearly underscored it.
I'll get straight to the elephant in the room. Cassius 2. Was it really Series 3 finalist quality? Well thanks to Rex's disgust at the behind-the-scenes incidents, it never was going to be. But this is an Audited Series, so it's fair to say that we can assume those incidents didn't happen and Cassius fought with all intentions of winning and with a full gas bottle.
The improvement of robot quality from Series 2 to 3 was massive, but I don't think Cassius 2 was in that band of upgrades to be honest. It still wheelied like crazy, and the flipper looked like it was probably a bit worse TBH. But Cassius 2 was judged to be as good as Cassius was against Series 2 robots. Put it this way, there is no way Cassius 2 should ever have beaten Fire Storm with all its wheelie antics, so Cassius's place in this final was not deserved, nor was the 3 votes it picked up against Chaos 2 of all robots. Chaos 2 in Series 3 is probably the most OP robot in any Audited Series and Cassius 2 will never be the robot to stop it.
Audited Extreme Warriors 1 - Manta vs Panzer Mk 2[]
This was not a disagreeable victory for Panzer
This battle can really just be summed up as a seen it whitewash result that ended a tournament with low voter turnout. I must admit to being one of those non-voters, it occurred as I was finishing my Uni Dissertation, and included robots from a series I am not as much of an expert on/didn't enjoy as much, so it didn't engage me much.
That said, Panzer Mk 2 and Manta are two very good robots who totally deserved to be in that final and would likely put on a good show. That said, Panzer comfortably beat Manta by battering it into submission in the fight, and none of the votes really disagreed with that outcome. Manta didn't really have a chance in the fight, so it didn't require any contrarian votes.
Also, SpaceManiac888 said this, but never answered. Now is his chance: Panzer Mk 2 will join two prestigious wiki tournament clubs if the results stay as they are, which I will explain after this battle ends. This turns out to be that Panzer made it throughout the whole tournament without ever even picking up a vote against it
War of the Weapons - Black Hole vs Firestorm 5[]
Firestorm would just be even harder to damage if Black Hole was overturned
This is one of those fights between two brilliant robots where no matter how you spin it, one of them will always come out victorious. Black Hole showed its undoing was being flipped, as shown by Philipper 2, and Firestorm is certainly able to overturn Black Hole. Firestorm's low shape makes it hard for Black Hole to hit in the first place, and even harder to damage. Add into that it'll be overturned quite quickly and it's screwed. Black Hole would try to make a fight out of this, but it'll just be pushed and flipped away at every opportunity. Black Hole would likely be tossed onto the arena wall and then out.
Nickelodeon Robot Wars - The Revolutionist vs Destructive Criticism[]
.png){kind=link}
Destructive Criticism's history against spinners wasn't ideal
Nickelodeon Robot Wars is an interesting tournament to consider, as the rules with child drivers throw a little bit of a spanner in the works. As it happened, the final two were pretty predictable, with The Revolutionist and Destructive Criticism showing themselves to be some of the best robots in the American Robot Wars scene.
The battle though was tenuously one-sided. One-sided because The Revolutionist took a solid 7-0 victory, but tenuous because of The Revolutionist's weapon reliability lottery. It's always a struggle to judge unreliable robots. Something like Fluffy you can just say "will it be able to immobilise its opponent before it has a chance to break down?", but The Revolutionist always blew hot and cold, and you never know which one it'll do when it enters the arena. As such, The Revolutionist was just assumed to be working leading to a solid win over Destructive Criticism due to having a larger area of damage, and knowing Destructive Criticism's vulnerability against Ninjitsu.
Tag Team Series 5 - Supernova & Behemoth vs 101 & Fluffy[]
The two losing finalists are left in a corner, Supernova having torn 101 apart and Behemoth shoving the immobilised Fluffy into the corner
Tag Team Series 5 was a stunning tournament idea, pairing the first round fighters into tag team partners and drawing them together, it really highlighted how few round 1 battles had good teams. All the good robots effectively got given free passes, and only a few genuinely good pairings actually appeared. Hypno-Disc managed to carry Black Widow to a 4th placed finish!
Tag Teams are an interesting format to judge, especially as it has specific rules that are rarely enforced in the form of the "one robot at a time rule". That said, it didn't really need to be used in this fight, as the main consensus was that Supernova was the spinner most likely to come out on top, and Behemoth also the pusher most likely to come out on top, meaning a pretty convincing win. 101 and Fluffy were touted as undeserving finalists by some, but I disagree. It was a well balanced pairing with fighting styles that complimented each other, they just met an unstoppable force in the final.
Interestingly, Supernova is joint second on the list of all-time Arena tournament victories with 3!
North vs South - St. Agro (South) vs Behemoth (South)[]
St. Agro gloats as Behemoth struggles to self-right (for some reason)
North v South was a tournament held in late 2011 to find out the best robots across the North/South divide of the UK. Where possible, every battle was North vs South, and impressively it ended with two from each side of the border in the Grand Final episode. However, both Southern robots won the eliminators, setting up a South-only final.
St. Agro vs Behemoth was Cornwall vs Hertfordshire and should have been a doozy of a fight. The score of 4-2 to St. Agro says just that, but I can't say the reasoning for St. Agro's win is the most satisfying or interesting. It's not like they were saying "It'll be a great close fight which St. Agro will win on a judges' decision" or "St. Agro to throw Behemoth out of the arena", no, they pretty much all focused on Behemoth's supposedly unreliable srimech. Flawed and/or tenuous logic is just about acceptable for the occasional contrarian vote, but when it sways the victory? No thanks.
Don't get me wrong, if this battle was run today, I have a feeling this could be top 10 material on the list, but North vs South does not satisfy. I would also say that North and South should really have been separated all the time to find the representative of said region before a barnstorming final fight. This is definitely a tournament we can run again with that change to the format.
Classic Wars - Firestorm 2 vs Dominator 2[]
This didn't quite score enough points for Firestorm 2
This is a seen it. There's no way to sugar coat this, Firestorm 2 vs Dominator 2 in Series 4 guises in the Series 4 arena is a seen it. Dominator 2 won the judges' decision after a really good and close battle. But that's the downfall of this battle, not that it was a seen it, but that it was a close judges' decision.
As much as I prefer Dominator 2 to Firestorm, every time I rewatch the fight since voting in the battle, I always think "Firestorm was robbed there", so wouldn't put it against people to go against the seen it and argue against what the judges went for. It certainly is one of those seen its without a definitive answer. However, the score of the battle is kind of in the sorry middle ground of tenuous seen its.
Dominator 2 won this 7-2. If it was a clear seen it, we should have seen a score around 9-0 or 8-1. Even a non-clear seen it can still go 9-0 if everyone agrees it was close, but the judges got it right, but for a battle like this with good reason to vote either way, you'd expect at least a 6-3 to close it up, or even 5-4. As such, it felt like the spark for debate was sent, but didn't land on anything flammable.
Seen it battles can still be interesting (If we get Pulsar vs Ironside3 in a final, that would go straight to the top), and this pairing was set up perfectly to be one of these, but it missed the mark.
Series 7 Audited - Firestorm 5 vs Bulldog Breed[]
At least it avoided this fate
his battle here is a perfect example of plucky underdog getting a great run to the final but ending up as a clean sweep. Bulldog Breed was certainly good enough to reach the finals of Series 7, and it managed it in this tournament in spectacular style but finally met the unbeatable robot at the end. I can appreciate battls like this a lot because a clean sweep in a final involving an unexpected finalist is a lot better than a clean sweep between two robots you'd expect in the final.
As it was, the consensus was that Bulldog Breed would be outwedged by Firestorm 5 at every opportunity and would be sufficiently bullied around the arena like pretty much every other flipper Firestorm ever fought. Reptirron, Ripper, Mute and Dantomkia had all shown themselves to be inferior to Firestorm's superb ground clearance and driving, and it was agreed that Bulldog Breed was never going to be up to the task either, hence a 10-0 victory.
Runners-Up Rumble - Supernova vs Suicidal Tendencies[]
Supernova tearing Suicidal Mingdencies apart
Another one-sided fight hits us here, with a bit more destruction though, so that's gives it points. The runners-up rumble gave a chance for robots which came second in tournaments but never won them to have a chance to win a war in the Arena. The fact it ended up being one of Supernova's three Arena wins can be ignored though haha...
There is definitely cause for concern for Supernova here, Suicidal Tendencies is a decent pusher with a strong scoop at the front which could deflect the disc back for a while, and Supernova does have some reliability issues from tis past, but in reality the fight will boil down to how long does it take for Supernova to hit one of Suicidal Tendencies' tracks.Once the tracks get damaged, ST is done for, something most voters agreed with. With one theory that most people agreed upon, it makes the case for a 10-0 victory very solid and pretty indisputable.
Ragnabot 2 - Carbide vs Behemoth[]
The sheer violence of the battle is why this seen it rates so high
The second Ragnabot tournament was the biggest tournament ever at the time and saw the debut of all robots from Series 8 in the Arena. A monumental effort, the tournament eventually ended with one obvious finalist and one surprise! Carbide was the Series 8 runners-up after a very close final, and it seemed like nothing in the preboot had a hope in hell of stopping Carbide. The other finalist was Behemoth, a fan-favourite who managed to score some big wins but crucially avoid some of the true Reboot big hitters.
However, the battle voting itself was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Behemoth had fought Carbide three times in Series 8. Once in a melee where they avoided each other and both qualified, once in the heat final where a damaged Behemoth pitted itself but crucially, once in the Head-to-Heads where both were at full strength.
Behemoth's scoop is a spinner killer, designed to resist the hits and push back. However, in 53 seconds Carbide managed to smash into said scoop over and over again until the scoop broke off and Behemoth was turned over by the hit. Carbide had emphatically shown that is had the measure of Behemoth and the votes showed, with Carbide taking a monumental 13-0 victory. That said, the battle between the two was ridiculously spectacular to watch, and the sheer number of votes showed there was still interest in the final, which is what places it here.
Series 7 League - Tornado vs Typhoon 2[]
This was from the last hit on Storm 2, but would probably be the first on Tornado
This final is slightly different. A bit like the 1950 FIFA World Cup, this battle technically isn't the Grand Final, but the way the result went, it was. The Series 7 League threw head-to-head progression out of the window and just made each heat a tournament filled with a load of mini-leagues in which four robots all fought each other and scored points for their result.
Heading into the final round of this tournament, Firestorm 5 had picked up two losses and was out of the running for the title. Tornado was sitting on 3 points, Bigger Brother on 4 and Typhoon 2 were leading on 5 points. Bigger Brother fought Firestorm 5 and lost unanimously in the other fight of the final round and putting it out of the running. As such, the winner of the concurrent Tornado vs Typhoon 2 would take the title, which is why I can call it the Grand Final.
Typhoon 2 beat Storm 2 in the Series 7 final as the judges cited damage caused as the reason it swung that way. Storm 2 proved during the series that it was superior to Tornado as a pushing box, and was probably the stronger spinner resistant one too. As such, Typhoon 2 scored a 5-2 victory in the judging in what would probably have been a decent fight to watch, and a pretty destructive one if bits started coming off Tornado.
US First Wars - BioHazard vs Punjar[]
I mean this is basically what happened
The US First Wars was the first tournament with non-canon robots serving as a mini prequel to the Wiki Canon tournament. A big dominant flipper vs a wedge with a flail was the eventual final, and pretty one-sided in the end as BioHazard was adjudged to be best as the flipper would easily overturn Punjar in the fight. Unfortunately, the good battle of BioHazard vs La Machine happened a round before, leaving this 8-0 sweep to end a fine tournament.
Extreme Series 3 (World Championship) - Apollo vs Pulsar[]
A dodgy srimech vs a big flipper isn't a good plan
The final of the World Championship ended up as Wales vs Spain after some very tenuous linkage for Pulsar, which I doubt we'll use ever again. Anyway, Apollo was in this battle on the back of Series 9, where it suffered at the hands of two big spinners in Carbide and Aftershock; while Pulsar had shown it had a spinner which could deal out major knocks, but had an unproved srimech.
Both robots had history of reliability issues caused by big knocks, and in the end it came down to Apollo being the more likely to hand out the big knocks when it flipped Pulsar, with Pulsar's struggles in the Series 8 final against TR2 helping to convince people that way. 7-2 was a decent scoreline, but as stated in a previous fight, this one relly deserved to be closer. Pulsar's srimech hadn't really been used in Series 9, and Apollo had been knocked out by spinners multiple times in Series 9. Pulsar had dealt some serious big hits that year too, so it wasn't out of the question for Pulsar to also score big hits that could take Apollo out. Both robots had an equal chance of causing the other to take damage it is known can knock them out, so it deserved a closer result.
War of Independence - Atomic vs Tricerabot 3.0[]
Atomic vs Tricerabot 3.0, probably
Sometimes a one-sided final with an absurd contrarian vote can be fun. Putting a bunch of powerful flippers on Team UK for a tournament with Extreme Warriors robots seems a little unfair, given the caverns underneath each American robot, but at least Atomic is the kind of powerful flipper that can make a dominant performance interesting.
Tricerabot 3.0 being invertible helps make this fight a bit better. It does mean the robot has a chance of escaping and not being stuck if it gets flipped over, but not for long. Eventually Atomic would find a way to get Tricerabot out, seeing as it did the same to another invertible robot in the form of S.M.I.D.S.Y., which was a good fight anyway.
Extreme 1 Audited (Second World Championship) - Chaos 2 vs Razer[]
We'll get here eventually
When two of the strongest and most iconic robots of all time meet in a final, you have to hope it isn't a seen it so you can have fun with the debate. Chaos 2 and Razer have both met twice though, but even then this isn't a simple one to judge. Their meeting in Series 3 was a comfortable win for Razer, but the Extreme 2 melee put the ball firmly back in Chaos 2's end as it certainly had the upper hand on Razer in the few seconds before 13 Black got involved.
However, the votes all ended up in Razer's favour. Yes, some may have just gone with the Series 3 result and pointed out that Razer's upgrades since made it a formality, but there was certainly some credit given to Chaos 2 in other votes. Ultimately though, it was decided that Chaos 2 might be able to flip Razer a few times, but nothing would have been a killshot enough to stop Razer coming back and crushing Chaos 2 into a pulp.
Robot Wars World Cup (Combat) - Typhoon 2 vs Tsunami[]
Tsunami succeeded in the groups, but failed in the final
This final was certainly an interesting debate and result, seeing as they had met in the group stages already! Back then, Tsunami scored a knockout victory in a pretty close debate again with votes either way, but the majority vote was for Tsunami to charge in and flip Typhoon 2 over before it was up to speed.
However, that was kind of a 3-2-2 vote which certainly showed when we reached the final. Typhoon 2 was subject to having "learned" from their previous encounter, with Tsunami being hit with overconfidence apparently too, leading to Typhoon 2 staying away from the flipper long enough to get up tae speed and turn around, smashing Tsunami into oblivion.
Unsung Heroes - Manta vs Drillzilla[]
A thrilling back-and-forth battle.
Unsung Heroes was a tournament open to any robot which never fought in a UK Championship. In the end, two strong American robots made it to the final. Manta had made its way through impressively, while Drillzilla entered the final as the favourite due to its weight advantage seemingly making it overpowered, or at least that's what everyone was fearing all through the tournament.
Manta vs Drillzilla is a seen it battle, and a well known one too as it occurred in Extreme 1's 2nd World Championship. As it happened though, the voting went against the result of the fight. Both robots were pushing each other around the arena during the fight, but one awkward hit with the wall seemed to knock something loose in Manta causing it to conk out and allow Drillzilla to pit it. The votes in this battle didn't agree that this would be the case. Manta had been the more successful robot when it came to pushing in the encounter, and so long as it doesn't break down, Manta would have won the judges' decision with ease. As it was, 6 people agreed with this philosophy, to give Manta the crown 6-2 over the seen it.
Tag Team Terror Series 3 - Mortis & Killerhurtz vs Challenger 2 & Facet[]
This is certainly one of the more surprising Arena tournament winners
Did you know we've done two Series 3 Tag Team Terror tournaments already? This is the original, one of the first tournaments run on the wiki, still in the text response format, rather than battlebox we are all used to now. The final ended up as a team made up of Mortis and Killerhurtz, up against Facet and Challenger 2. These teams can often be described as "OP team vs Carrier and Carried", with team 2's hopes basically being "can the carrier defeat the other robots before the carried gets mushed?".
The voting was close. Three people focused on how much better the combination of Mortis and Killerhurtz was, stating that Mortis just needs to flip Facet onto its side where it can't right itself and Challenger will be a walk in the park to stop. However, 4 people disagreed, stating that Mortis and Killerhurtz also had dodgy srimechs in Series 3, and that Facet was the more likely robot to score a flip. The scores were close, but the Tag Team title went to Challenger 2 and Facet.
Series 1 Audited - Killertron vs Mortis[]
It's what the producers always wanted
Series 1 Audited was an interesting one, as it ran the tournament as if it weren't the first ever Series of the show, and had had the time to establish itself and come up with a format that was fair for everyone. All the robots which entered were split into various weight categories, rather than lumped into one, so understandably this Grand Final rating only focuses on the largest and most important tournament - the Heavyweights.
Killertron and Mortis ended up in the final - two robots which certainly were good enough in Series 1 to make a final anyway. With this in mind, these two robots were probably the best two to appear in the final. This is, however, the last tournament to appear in the list where one robot was awarded no votes at all, as Mortis took a 10-0 clean sweep of the votes. Mortis has everything in its advantage to take this. Ground clearance, armour, weaponry, pushing ability etc. The list goes on, and none of it was good for Killertron.
German Robot Wars: Series 2 - Tsunami vs Ansgar 3[]
If they couldn't flip the heavy robot out, just do this
Intended to be the second Series of German Robot Wars, set in Series 7, this short tournament ended up with two very powerful robots in the final. Tsunami in its Series 7 guise up against Ansgar 3, the shufflebot which proved to be much better than Ansgar's Revenge from the previous German Series.
7-1 was the final score, but that doesn't tell the whole tale. Yes, Tsunami took a commanding points win, but most of the votes for it also gave credit to Ansgar 3 and acknowledged that there are multiple plausible ways in which Ansgar could win the fight. Ultimately, despite it being 60-40 in most people's mind, you always vote for the side you'd see winning the most battles in your mind, which in this case was Tsunami. Ansgar's fragility and lack of a srimech meant that against a powerful flipper, even the extra weight wouldn't save it. A solid, if close in people's minds, victory for Tsunami.
UK vs The Netherlands - Behemoth vs Scrap-2-Saur[]
A spectacular battle of the flippers
UK vs The Netherlands was another international wiki tournament which pitted robots from each country against each other in round 1, and hoped that an equal number from each country made it through to the final. As it happened, two UK and two Netherlands robots made the Grand Final, meaning they could be split up to guarantee a British vs Dutch final.
Behemoth fought Scrap-2-Saur in what most users decided would be a pretty good battle of the flippers, with both overturning the other multiple times. All votes came down in the end pretty much to who's srimech would stop functioning first. As it was, a 5-3 victory of Behemoth appeared, as it was also decided that Behemoth was more likely to find a killshot - such as a pitting or and Out of the Arena - than Scrap-2-Saur. A back-and-forth flipper fight with reasonable votes on either side is always going to get a good score here.
Debut Wars - Tsunami vs Crushtacean[]
Tsunami joins Mortis and Apollo as the only robots to win Arena tournaments with every different version of itself
Debut Wars pitted robots from the original series in which their respective teams entered Robot Wars, focusing on teams which competed in at least two series' of the show with significantly different robots. As was expected, robots from later in the show's run began to succeed as the middling-good robots of later series didn't have the experienced veterans getting in their way, as they often had to enter a pre-weight increase robot.
German Tsunami and Series 5 Crushtacean met in the final for what I expected to be a closer battle than the voting suggested - but luckily the votes did paint that picture slightly. In the end, it was decided that Tsunami was probably too strong for Crushtacean to grab and push enough, so Tsunami took victory 6-1.
Redemption Tournament - Trouble 'n' Strife vs Hodaf the Bad[]
Official Arena tournament champion, Hodaf the Bad!
The Redemption Championship was a tale of two halves, as the tournament literally stopped for about a year and a half! This was of course a shame, because the Redemption tournament idea was certainly a good one. Only robots which had never won a battle were eligible, allowing robots to get good runs in a tournament for once. This was perhaps the first sign of the greatest joke bot ever beginning to show its Ragnabot heat-winning quality, and got us to finally consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of these often one-time losers, which usually end up in a tournament getting blown up by IG-88 or flipped out by Chaos 2 or something.
The Grand Final was wonderful, with two robots which had specced into the same weapon combination - high wedge flipper at the front and flywheel at the back - facing off. Trouble 'n' Strife had kept Wild Thing honest in its only fight, while Hodaf the Bad didn't get much chance to show itself off as Thor bullied it and Gravity went and used Hydra to destroy a wall, ending the battle prematurely.
The votes reflected the lack of knowledge we have of the robots, but Trouble 'n' Strife's suspected struggles with self-righting were cited as a major obstacle to its winning the battle with Hodaf, a robot with a flipper that we have seen self-right before. 6-2 to Hodaf was the final score, leaving a good final to end a tournament which didn't deserve the dereliction it got in its original run.
A Fantasy Audited War - Bigger Brother vs Atomic[]
Crucially, Bigger Brother could recover from this
The first Fantasy Audited War ended with a thrilling battle with two strong flippers. Bigger Brother and Atomic had both got super reputations as flippers with few weaknesses, making this battle an epic one.
The votes were all aware of this too, most saying that it is a close choice to vote either way and also agreeing that it would likely have been a frantic back-and-forth between each of the flippers. However, one thing cropped up that tipped the battle into Bigger Brother's favour - self-righting. Despite being a very powerful flipper, Atomic never proved it could self-right as it wasn't flipped over by the flippers it faced, and the only time it was overturned, it stayed turtled on its back against Typhoon 2 - although we all agree that was a malfunction rather than genuine. However, in a close battle, one bit of doubt about one robot is often all you need to swing a decision. With Atomic's srimech being that doubt, 6 of the 9 votes swung in favour of Bigger Brother, giving them the tournament victory.
Legends Special - Supernova vs Judge Shred 3[]
Supernova will get thrown a few times here
This is the first of only two tournaments on this list with a very special result - a Judges' Decision! Supernova and Judge Shred 3 were the lucky finalists in the Legends Special, and it's fair to say that the votes weren't expecting the Judges' result.
The four votes for Supernova seemed quite dismissive of a Judge Shred victory, with all of them stating that Supernova should easily tear apart the Judge Shred which broke a wheel against a flipper in Mute! However, the Judge Shred side all decided that Supernova's iffy reliability, especially in its loss to Spawn Again, would flare up and cause Supernova to conk out after a couple of good flips by Judge Shred.
Eventually the score was 4-4, leading the the judges having to decide. They were also split, with the score ending up at 2-1 to Supernova, giving the spinner its first of three Arena tournament titles.
Ragnabot 3 - Rapid vs Eruption[]
Anyone who says this was a seen it clearly doesn't rate Magnetar at all
The Grand Final of the Robot Wars Wiki's biggest ever tournament was an absolute cracker. That is, the Grand Final episode was an absolute cracker, with the actual final battle being the second best of the lot. I bring this up because Rapid made it through to the final unanimously against Typhoon 2, but Eruption had to squeeze through one of the closest votes of all time, winning an 8-8 Judges' decision 2-1 against defending Ragnabot champions Carbide. Had that been the final, this would unquestionably be number 1 on the list.
However, we were still treated to a great finish. Eruption faced against Rapid, another powerful reboot flipper and one that had shown itself to be driven in a very tactical way, just as Eruption was. This fight wasn't just a case of judge the power of each robot, but a judgement of how well each respective driver would utilise the arena to their advantage and try to out think each other. This was basically a chess match with ejector seats on each side.
The great thing about the final wasn't the 10-3 scoreline in favour of Eruption, but the serious level of detail everyone had to go into to get their point across. This wasn't a battle which could be dismissed in a few sentences because there was so much at stake, and the chances of a reply to your comment was very high because everything had to be considered. In the end, Eruption took it quite comprehensively on points, but it was a brilliant end to a fantastic tournament.
Audited Series 2 - Roadblock vs Plunderbird 2[]
What's the word? PLUNDERBIRD!
Sometimes a good final can just come from a shock result. Roadblock won Series 1, and were Grand Finalists in Series 2, meaning its run to the final wasn't a surprise. However, the International Wreck Crew's Plunderbird 2 making the final was! Yes it won a heat in Series 2 and was a decent robot, but to reach the final after beating Razer unanimously? None of us were quite prepared for that eventuality.
Plunderbird 2 took the title with a 5-2 victory over Roadblock. Two very similar wedges in a pushing war usually comes down to a battle of the ground clearances, to which it was decided Roadblock would probably lose - especially if it tried to lead with the saw. Plunderbird's better wedge and definite prowess with pushing would give it an advantage Roadblock would struggle to give up, and with the evil PPZ's a thing, it just needs to be one good push and Roadblock is toast at the hands of the House Robots.
RNG Wars - Pussycat vs Atomic[]
Pussycat has a history of winning finals against the odds
The first RNG final on the list was a corker, with a strong robot taking a massive lead and taking 84% of the votes, yet still managing to lose when the randomiser threw out a number! The strengths of RNG are shown in this battle, as despite Atomic being the clear winner and would have won 11-0 in a normal battle, every vote seemed to give Pussycat some kind of outside chance which ended up coming true. A good ranking, but I'm saving higher RNG rankings for a closer fight where both robots are given more of a chance.
A Fantasy Audited War 3 - Typhoon 2 vs Big Nipper[]
Big Nipper's higher lifting arm would have completed this flip
A cracking close battle between a reboot and a preboot robot finished off the Third Fantasy Audited War, even if there was a bit of a mess in one of the votes - which I won't go into detail on.
Typhoon 2 was one of the best preboot robots with really only one weakness - no srimech. Big Nipper was reduced to using its claws rather than the super-powerful flywheel to stop it being overpowered, and it gave us a brilliant matchup. Big Nipper's claws can be used as a lifter, but they aren't right to get Typhoon 2 over in the first few seconds of the fight when it is too slow to be protected. This left us with a special battle between a powerful spinner and a brick on the other side, seeing if it can weather the attacks long enough to respond and hold Typhoon 2 off.
Typhoon's supporters didn't feel like the claws on Big Nipper would survive the fight without taking damage, thus stopping them going under Typhoon and tipping it up. They felt that Big Nipper would basically have to hope it can survive the 3 minutes taking a major pounding. However, it wasn't enough and despite those 4 votes, 6 votes decided that Big Nipper would have it in itself to find a way to pressure Typhoon 2 into an arena danger due to the smaller arena size and could capitalise on any moment of weakness to flip Typhoon 2 up and over.
Not to toot my own horn, but my comment at the start of my vote perfectly sums up why this battle was so great. "This is exactly what you want for a Grand Final. A battle between two completely different robots that have never fought, therefore allowing for debate, especially as there are multiple valid reasons for both to win." Luckily, everyone agreed that there were many different realistic ways this battle could have gone, thus placing it this high on the list.
Redone Extreme 2 (World Championships) - Razer vs Tornado[]
Now this is the sequel to this battle, it's a solid debate compared to the previous
With Razer vs Tornado having already been a final in this tournament, this World Championship rematch was actually treated as a sequel to the 3.5-1.5 Razer victory from the All-Stars. As this is effectively the meeting after their European Championship meeting, Tornado has now lost with the anti-Razer cage, and many users began coming up with new ways the teams would change their tactics. Many theories were postulated, from the "Terrorhurtz" strat to the Anarchy spike, there was enough creativity for Tornado to claim enough votes to take the win away from Razer. A close and creative voting which was a truly strong and engaging debate with over double the votes of their previous meeting in the same series, but not as good as the original Ragnabot final. That is the benchmark for Tornado vs Razer battles which I can only see RNG being able to top in the future.
Third Wars Tag Team - Panic Attack & Razer vs Killerhurtz & Mortis[]
Mortis and Killerhurtz only just had what it takes
The Third Wars has had two Tag Team tournaments, and the one which occurred just before Ragnabot 3 was by far the best final of all Tag Team tournaments.
Razer and Panic Attack were fantastic Series 3 machines, one was a second round Semi-Finalist, while the other was the World Champion. Two very powerful, very well respected and known robots in a team is often a frightening prospect in a tournament like this, where it looks like there will be one OP team cruising through to the title. Especially when the opponents were two underperforming robots from the series who both crashed out in embarrassing ways.
However, I must bring up the example from Ragnabot 2 of Pussycat vs DisConstructor. Here we had one very strong robot in Pussycat vs a double loser who had been dumped in the pit unceremoniously both times it fought on the show. From the outside, a simple Pussycat win seemed likely, but DisConstructor just seemed to most people to be the wrong robot for Pussycat, and the right one to take it out. This led to one of the most unlikeliest 8-4 victories I've ever seen on the wiki.
I bring this up because that kind of mentality kept Killerhurtz and Mortis in the game. Razer and Panic Attack picked up 4 votes which quite rightly hinged on the step up in quality between team PA&R over team K&M. However, the (admittedly longer) votes on the side of K&M all started to delve into the actual mechanics and physics of the robots meeting. There was enough support of Killerhurtz and Mortis being, like DisConstructor, the wrong sort of robots for Panic Attack and Razer's designs and weaknesses, which brought the score to 4-4 by the close.
With two of the judges siding with K&M over the one on PA&R's side. The long (but not too long, there is such a thing as a vote that is too long which screams of desperation rather than explanation) votes on team K&M seemed to keep enough people on said side to bring us the highest placed Judges' decision on this list.
Dutch Series 3 - Krab-Bot vs Tough As Nails[]
Tough As Nails has shown it can deal with awkward shaped when it needs to
The final of Dutch Series 3 was a thrilling tussle between two robots with the same tactic, but two completely different designs to utilise that. Krab-Bot went for high ground clearance, circular body and two vertical grabbing claws, while Tough As Nails was a lower, squarer and massive horizontal grabber. Both robots were basically planning on pitting the other, but both seemed to simulataneously have the perfect weapon to grab the other, but also would find them impossible to grab.
Krab-Bot was likely to kinda pop out the top of TAN's claws if it got grabbed from the front, while Krab-Bot needs to get around the side or back of TAN to really have any chance of getting a good grip. These factors turned it into a super-tactical fight, and therefore a really close final. Both robots gathered votes, most of which conceded that the other robot could very easily get the vote, but having to decide by one tiny aspect of either robot to give them the advantage. These included: Tough As Nails having slightly more to grab than Krab-Bot, Krab-Bot's slightly lifting claws, TAN having slightly better grip retaining properties, Krab-Bot's erratic driving, Tough As Nails' grip and better aggressiveness.
In the end, Tough As Nails took the title with a 5-3 victory. This was a brilliantly close final, but I can't quite justify giving this a top 3 rating because of only 8 votes. The top 3 all had at least 12 votes and were close or closer. With a few more votes, Dutch Series 3 could have challenged for top of the list.
Random Format Series 4 - Wild Thing vs Pussycat[]
Pictured: Pussycat tearing into a robot with a flame job
It's a great compliment to the quality of recent tournaments that this is the second tournament in a row since this blog was completed to jump straight into the top 5. Wild Thing vs Pussycat was a great fight between two robots that never fought before, which were both able to exploit the weaknesses of the other. Wild Thing's aggressive pushing wedge was a perfect design to get under Pussycat and bowl it into every single obstacle, while Wild Thing was going to take a lot of damage from Pussycat's disc. However, Wild Thing would take this damage without dying, like it did against Hypno-Disc.
In the end, Pussycat took a 4-7 victory, with most people on its side deciding that although Wild Thing would dominate and soak up damage, it is still taking massive damage without being able to assert itself quite as well as Chaos 2 did, leaving the judges' with a choice of Pussycat on damage due to its weighting. A great final for a frankly awesome tournament (even if I am tooting my own horn).
Extreme 2 Audited - Terrorhurtz vs Typhoon 2[]
We wouldn't ever imagine a scenario like this with reboot Terrorhurtz from a Horizontal spinner.
If you are ever looking for a breathtaking final to go back and have a look at, the final of Audited Extreme 2 certainly fits the bill. Luckily, this wasn't in the previous round, as we got rid of the "seen it" battles in the eliminators. Peak preboot Terrorhurtz came up against the Annihilator round 1 loser in the final. This sounds preposterous until you realise that the round 1 loser is none other than Series 7 champions Typhoon 2. In Series 7 guise, this would probably be an easy walkover for Typhoon 2, but not in Extreme 2 - oh no.
This was the Extreme 2 version. Slower, lighter and with an electrically driven spinner, rather than petrol, this robot was more vulnerable and slightly less powerful. Basically, it's a balancing act of "do you think the downgrades are enough to swing the battle in Terrorhurtz's favour?". This version of Terrorhurtz had faced humiliating destruction at the hands of Fluffy in Series 5, showing it's vulnerabilities to spinners (a reputation is completely threw on its head in Series 8). Terrorhurtz's axe is powerful and quick, but bladed, which seemed to swing a few people away from it. Typhoon was beaten in Extreme 2 when its cone was punctured by a sharp pincer, but Terrorhurtz - though powerful - would probably just bounce off the cone, leaving a dent. Without puncturing the dome, Terrorhurtz was going to have to hope it could survive the spinner.
Typhoon 2 picked up votes very quickly, building a decent 4-1 lead at the start, but Terrorhurtz started to claw those votes back. A few responses to votes accusing users of judging the Series 7 version of Typhoon 2 were quickly quashed, but helped gather more votes on Terrorhurtz's side. Despite a late defection to the Terrorhurtz side, it wasn't quite enough as Typhoon 2 took an extremely close and well debated 7-6 victory. A spectacular final for a brilliant tournament!
Ragnabot - Tornado vs Razer[]
This was one of the most heated and closest of rivalries
The first Ragnabot finished off with the perfect final to be honest. Tornado and Razer proved time and time again that they really were the cream of the crop in the Preboot and to see them meet in the final was honestly exactly what such a revolutionary tournament needed. It wasn't an obvious clean sweep, it wasn't a boring seen it, it was just the most impossible to decide "multiple seen it" battle of all time.
So yes, why has a battle which we saw many times been denoted as one of the best arena finals ever? Well, because the tactics both robots employed made it so close, with results going either way in their fights. Tornado's anti-Razer cage was a brilliant bit of ingenuity that solved their weakness to Razer (not crushers, otherwise they would have used it against Snake Bite) despite the whole controversy of it, especially after the Series 6 final. Razer came up with a solution for Extreme 2 and took the win that time, but it wasn't clear cut as the team forfeited afterwards having thought they were immobilised for too long. Basically, this was not clear cut.
As we enter the voting stage, opinions are split as to how the cage would affect the results - and also if the cage would be allowed at all. Without a specific interchangeable weapons rule for the arena at the time and a decision on the canon series for the tournament, this confusion led to some users deciding the cage wasn't allowed, in which case it is an easy Razer victory. Really, this uncertainty over which weapon Tornado was allowed to use is what lost it the battle. Razer gathered too many votes for Tornado to deal with, and took the first ever Ragnabot title 8-4. Despite this, the debate and reasoning displayed was sublime and a perfect end to a brilliant tournament.
Audited Series 10 - Aftershock vs Apollo[]
Apollo recovered from this hit to take a last gasp victory
This is it. The final entry (for now), and what I am declaring was the best Grand Final the Robot Wars Wiki Arena has ever seen. Audited Series 10 was probably the hardest tournament to organise the beginning of as it basically required some serious policing of Blog posts to stop it becoming obsolete. At the instant Series 9 finished, a lot of users all Audited the Series themselves, meaning we'd all done pretty much every matchup to death, and thus Audited Series 9 is a tournament we still haven't done to this day. Audited Series 10 was done as soon after actual Series 10 had finished as possible to stop it having the same fate as Series 9.
Audited Series 10's Grand Final was actually a really surprising pairing, as neither of the finalists were Grand Finalists from Series 10. In fact, Behemoth was the only Grand Finalist in the top 4!
Aftershock and Apollo were left to duel it out for the title. Both robots had improved from their Series 9 meeting - namely Apollo wasn't struggling after being mullered by Carbide twice in its Heat. This set up a brilliant back-and-forth debate.
Team Aftershock all focused on the way Aftershock had dealt with Apollo in the past, and also how flippers never seemed to cause Aftershock many issues (citing external factors for Eruption's OotA on it), and figuring that nothing will have changed, and Aftershock would be able to keep the damage on Apollo up enough to score the victory by breaking the flipper enough that it couldn't flip Aftershock.
However, Team Apollo focused on Apollo's improvements between Series 9 and 10. These were cited to give Aftershock more issues and the ability to KO the spinner at least with a high flip. Apollo's strengthened armour would also help it resist Aftershock a bit longer, and the problems with Apollo getting stuck in the floor probably wouldn't happen again.
Both teams had a strong case, and it certainly showed in the result. What made this final truly the greatest of all time is the way the voting panned out. In the same way many people have called Heat I of Ragnabot 3 one of the best "episodes" of all time, this final was all about the comebacks.
Aftershock took an early lead, going 2-0 up. Apollo hit a resurgence straight away though, gathering 5 votes consecutively. At this point looking in, you're starting to think it's going to be a simple Apollo win, but you'd be wrong. A vote for Aftershock appeared, soon followed by one more, tying it up at 5-5! One main user was left to vote, with that vote ending up being the deciding vote. This final vote went for Apollo, thus declaring the Series 8 champions as Audited Series 10 champs, in a battle that was truly brilliant to see update in real-time.