LONG BEACH- Episode 2 of the 2018 Season of Battlebots was brought to us today as a fight card surely to rival last week’s was announced. This week the fight card highlighted 2 matches I found very interesting. The first is a showcase of one of the most hyped up newcomers entering the new campaign: End Game, a robot who enters Battlebots with a Major Title already up it's sleeve. End Game takes on one of the most successful full body spinners in history, Captain Shrederator. The other fight everyone in the sport has been talking about is of course the Main Event this evening. The alternate that ended up making it all the way to the Semi Finals: Yeti facing the fearless vertical spinner that nearly knocked out Tombstone 3 years ago Witch Doctor.

Other interesting notes about today’s episode is that this will be the 1st episode in Battlebots history we will see a Dutch and New Zealand team enter the Battlebox. Other countries more commonly seen on the show were also present of course representing England, Canada, and The United States, making this episode a proper world affair.

As you might guess, this article contains spoilers. Watch the episode first. Trust me, it's good.

Opening Fight: IceWave (6-5)* v. Vanquish (0-0)

Photo Credit: Battlebots (Twitter)

*This Record includes IceWave’s campaign as a middleweight. IceWave’s record just as a Heavyweight is 5-2*

The Combot Collective wants to bring statistics into episode reviews such as this. Each fight header will contain the Win/Loss record for that robot on that show. This means these record will only take wins and losses from Battlebots, so Tombstone won't be carrying over any wins and losses it didn't get inside a Battlebox of some sort. Also, huge credit for all the wiki communities on various shows, I'll be using to make sure my records for each bot are accurate.

Each fight will have 2 sections: my thoughts heading into the fight and my thoughts heading out of the fight. For each robot’s 1st match I plan to be slightly more in depth with each robot, and conclude each “Before Fight” in Round 1 with my prediction of how their Win/Loss record will look. The only “future matches” I’ll spoil in these segments are the ones current Battlebots trailers have teased. The “After Fight” segments will be my review of the match up for both competitors and if I had any outlooks correct or wrong, along with talk about where the robot goes from here in the season.

Without further adieu let's get this going.

BEFORE FIGHT

Vanquish- Coming out of England is Team Nebula with a very recently put together 250lb lifting wedge that goes by the name of Vanquish. Before Vanquish, you have to trace Team Nebula’s Heavyweight past to Neutron, their two wheeled wedge vertical spinner formerly known as Tanto. I don't have too much info on Neutron’s competitive history in the circuit, but I do know about it's fight as “Tanto” in the Robot Wars Series 8 pilot under mostly the same team as Vanquish. Unfortunately Tanto lost it's opening fight and had a quick exit from the pilot episode.

My main concern when I look at Vanquish is it's armor does not look exactly strong. The wedge system weighs 60 lbs all together and while that's a nice cushion, the back of Vanquish is awfully exposed. Overall I expect it to reach a 2-2 record and Vanquish to dominate any sort of Control bot, crusher and even pusher it faces. I also believe that if Vanquish comes face to face with any destructive spinner it's going to not last long at all. IceWave is one of the first robots you think of in terms of the destructive Horizontal Spinners in Battlebots. Despite some reliability issues in the past I expect Team IceWave to sooner or later get a shot on Vanquish that can possibly knock it out.

IceWave- One of the longest tenured spinners in the competition, despite not being very well known until 2015 is IceWave. IceWave has been fighting since 2004 where it began as a Middleweight in the NPC Charity open tournament, but the team started in 2002 with a wedge bot named Edge. also a Middleweight that fought in Battlebots Season 5.0. IceWave truly emerged onto the scene when it entered the Heavyweight class to compete in the revamped Battlebots 2015 tournament. The tournament “kicked off” with IceWave dominating Razorback in a destructive fight that put the machine we know today on the map as one of the deadliest in the game. IceWave then followed it's amazing 2015 with a very rough 2016 where it went 1-1 and had very poor luck in it's loss against Nightmare.

IceWave has plenty of redemption on it's mind and can very well be described as “The Muscle Car of Battlebots” which is what Kenny Florian called it in it's preview at the start of the episode. IceWave is powered by a vicious and phenomenal sounding Internal Combustion Engine which revs it's 47 lb Spinning Bar up to the cap 250 mph tip speed. This is all what makes IceWave the threat it is today. I can't say much about it's design that already has been said as the robot is the same IceWave we essentially saw fight in 2015 and 2016 aside from a bit more yellow on the top. We can only hope that IceWave has better luck with weapon reliability as it faces one of the “spinner killers” this season. In all I expect IceWave to have 2 very good very IceWave style wins where it does serious damage to an opponent. I also see IceWave running into too many hard counters by robots that are suited to block IceWave with similar power we saw with Ghost Raptor against IceWave in the past. IceWave should end up going 2-2, and winning this fight via KO.

AFTER FIGHT

IceWave- Honestly, I didn't know what to expect out of this fight besides a KO. I was confident IceWave would get the KO but knew there was a chance something could happen to IceWave. This though was something I did not expect. When I heard talks that at some point in the tournament a robot got torn in half, Everyone was thinking the usual suspects such as HUGE, Mecha Rampage, and Red Devil. Never in my wildest dream did I expect it to be a robot I even feared would be fragile. IceWave kicked off today's episode with a strike I can honestly rank up with Nightmare vs Son of Whyachi and vs Slamjob. One of the most brutal hits I’ve ever seen and a phenomenal way to start the evening.

IceWave looked at it's best tonight with a fight even more destructive than it's performance against Razorback. Everything seemed to work right and at it's full potential. Then again this was a 56 second fight against an opponent that I knew probably wouldn't hold up to it's power. This is the exact fight that IceWave thrives on. It has 3 more fights and they could very well be against some very vicious foes, so I don't expect much different from my prediction before this fight. That being said it did still very much impress me, so I definitely believe it has a chance to go 3-1 at best and sneak into the playoffs.

Vanquish- A couple days before this episode aired a number of people were selling me on how Vanquish is seriously underrated and can definitely beat IceWave. I was buying in partly and really thought Vanquish had a fighting chance as the buzzer rang to kick off the fight. All of this buildup selling me on Vanquish, only for my main fear for Vanquish ended up to be true in less than a minute. I already stated how phenomenal of a blow this was from IceWave, so lets move on.

This shows how horrifying the “season” format can be to teams like Team Nebula. Team Nebula likely has a day or 2 before it's next fight, and Vanquish is in 2 halves. Fortunately there's a reason why teams like them are at Battlebots and that's because this is a showcase for the Best of the Best. Team Nebula can very likely fix Vanquish in time for the 2nd round especially considering how teams help one another in the pits. My big worry is will it hold up again and again for 3 more fights. Vanquish regardless won't be as much of the bot it used to be before this match, and it might show for the worse. This rough start could very well lead Vanquish down a 1-3 campaign, but it's all about who Vanquish draws. This season is far from over for the Rookies from England.

WINNER: IceWave (7-5)

Fight 2: RotatoR (1-1) v. Petunia (0-0)

Photo Credit: Team RotatoR (Facebook)

BEFORE FIGHT

RotatoR- RotatoR comes from a team that also kicked off with a run at the 2004 NPC Charity open using a Middleweight named Blue Flame. Blue Flame fought in Battlebots’ 2004 and 2011 Tournament and had a 5-3 record overall. In 2016, builder Victor Soto got the call and came to fight in the 2016 Battlebots tournament where he brought a robot very similar to Blue Flame, but with design ideas from Surgeon General and 13 black to bring the amazing looking RotatoR. Unfortunately by means of a bad draw, RotatoR’s only Battlebots campaign was short lived as it got knocked out almost immediately by Witch Doctor. RotatoR’s most recent match though was it's only win in an exhibition Rumble where it dominated Splatter and Disc O Inferno.

A lot has changed at face when you see RotatoR. It dons a new gold/black paint job and lights inside the machine to give it that extra spark as it fights. Aside from all that RotatoR doesn't seemed to be changed much, but as the team does call it “RotatoR 2.0” on their Facebook. so I imagine there are some things different under the hood. A lot of people, myself included believe RotatoR had some of the worst luck out of everyone in the event when it matched up against Witch Doctor, so I do believe this can be a bounce back season for it. Entering Battlebots 2018 I actually see it getting the very last playoff spot and sporting a 3-1 record, as there's no recorded flaws with the robot aside from it's very unfortunate start. RotatoR is 2 wheel driven, and armed with 2 hard spinning discs which will make it very slippery and hard for Petunia to grab, I expect RotatoR to carve and attack Petunia for the whole duration of the fight and win a pretty one sided Judges Decision.

Petunia- Petunia is made by Team PCP, one of two Dutch teams competing this season but now holds the honor of being the very first team from the Netherlands to roll a robot into the Battlebox. Team PCP is more than desiring of this entry into the grand stage as it is unarguably one of a trio of legendary teams to come out of The Netherlands, the other two we’ll see shortly as the season progresses. Team PCP's legacy started with winning the 2nd ever Major Dutch Heavyweight Tournament where it defeated Philliper 2 to win Dutch Robot Wars Series 2 with PulverizeR. PulverizeR carried an 8-3 record and even competed in the European Championship and the 3rd World Championship in UK Robot Wars. Petunia itself started life very nearly becoming a competitor in the 9th Series of Robot Wars with Petunia under a nearly all black paint job and the name PacifieR. PacifieR was set to fight in Heat D, but had to withdraw unfortunately due to circuit issues. PacifieR then sat dormant for almost a year when Battlebots announced the 2018 Season, and the now named Petunia came onto the scene.

Petunia is clearly designed to be a Spinner Killer that happens to have a crusher. Very similar to PulverizeR in overall design, Petunia is built like a brick up front with that wedge. This design was likely tendered to fight robots like Carbide originally is perfectly suited for a very destructive competition such as Battlebots. Along with this Petunia can self right and has the most powerful crusher in the whole tournament. The issues though with Petunia lie in it's back. The back of Petunia is in no way as well armored as the face, and I believe a few good strikes to here in a match might just knock the Dutch team immobile. Overall I expect Petunia to put up a 1-3 record as it struggles matching with the Battlebots teams in it's 1st run in the Battlebox. Crushers just have never fared well inside the Battlebox, going from Mohawk to Photon Storm and against a robot with a lot of destructive potential around it in RotatoR means Petunia will have to be at it's top game to win this fight, but I think RotatoR will just sooner or later land the right hits to control this fight, leaving a 0-1 start for Petunia.

AFTER FIGHT

Petunia- I feel like my claims were proven that the back of Petunia is the way to go as the big hit of the match was definitely Petunia taking that vicious strike from RotatoR’s upper disc, nearly ripping off a part of Petunia’s shell. Credit is due though to Petunia for taking advantage of an opportunity such as RotatoR’s weaponry breaking for the first time ever and making a little showcase out of it. Petunia dominated the match after RotatoR lost it's discs, and got 3 fairly good crushes for it's work and used the arena better than anyone else has in 2+ seasons. Petunia moves into the season a lot more confident and with a lot more buzz than before.

Petunia is just as much of a spinner killer as we all expected, and it's crusher isn't too bad either. My main worries for Petunia heading on are of course being the back armor is an obvious weak point and late into the fight, Petunia’s beak actually broke off it's tip as it dug into the disc of RotatoR. Im sure Team PCP has backups but in all the crusher itself didn't seem to do much aside from being a good way for Petunia to grab bots and ram them into certain hazards like it did with it's phenomenal move assisted by the Killsaws, who finally got the spotlight they deserve. This certainly holds use in it's own right but it isn't what Petunia and Team PCP want. The Team most likely need to sharpen that beak as they head into round two 1-0. I still have trouble seeing a playoff berth in the Dutch team’s future, but they can definitely put up a respectable 2-2 I believe.

RotatoR- This is a bad way to kick off your season after a large part of the community expected RotatoR to dominate this fight. Perhaps this is a one off issue, and RotatoR dominates the next 3 fights like we all expect. RotatoR has broken down for the 1st time in it's short career and showed once those weapons go off, it's practically giving the opponent the win with how awkwardly shaped RotatoR is.

After the fight aired Team RotatoR went out to say that due to some issues in transit, RotatoR wasn't at 100% for Round 1. This might be another fluke loss if Team RotatoR’s words are true. Regardless RotatoR has kicked off it's season no different from how it's kicked off 2016 with 3 fights to go in the regular season. Its definitely game time for RotatoR to prove to everyone that it's still the robot we expected it to be when it entered. Overall I think RotatoR likely won't make the playoffs now and might also end it's run 2-2, but a lot will be told as we enter round two, where RotatoR’s path to the Final 16 will clear up.

WINNER: Petunia (1-0)

Fight 3: Red Devil (2-1) v. Brutus (2-1)

Photo Credit: Red Devil (Facebook)

BEFORE FIGHT

Brutus- Brutus is one of the big four MIT Robots that seems Battlebots intends to bring every season now. Besides Brutus, team captain Adam Bercu has no experience with Heavyweights aside from being part of Team Overhaul at Battlebots 2015. Brutus entered Battlebots during it's 2016 season and was the 1st robot in Battlebots history to be armed with some sort of projectile weapon. Brutus was armed with 2 Special Effects Pistols, which fired flare bullets that didn't do much to the robots, but definitely would help in the eyes of the fans and the judges. These bullets only ever received use once as it kicked off its debut fight against the returning Moebius by shooting the FBS who was losing control right as the fight begun, and eventually picked up it's 1st win. Brutus then picked up a win on rival from last season LockJaw before running into Tombstone in the Round of 16. Tombstone quickly knocked Brutus as it remained inactive until the 2018 Season.

Brutus has received a lot of criticism from fans as it entered this tournament with a new design that many said took all the things that made Brutus a favorite away from the machine. Brutus has entered the Battlebots 2018 season with about as practical of a robot you can get in 2018. A 2 wheel drive vertical spinning bar with a spinner killer wedge. This design is practical and definitely makes Brutus a playoff contender, but has upset many with this change. Controversy with fans aside, if Brutus’ design performs as well as it looks, it's definitely going to be a winner. Brutus likely will end up going 2-2 and barely missing the playoffs in it's last round. Just because Brutus is a very typical design doesn't make it the best design like that here. Robots like End Game and Bite Force aren't that much different and are machines I’d definitely expect win to over Brutus. Despite this, a fight with Red Devil should be one of those wins for Brutus. Brutus has its original driver while Red Devil’s captain Jerome Miles is not present as a sub team is coming in. Along with this Red Devil is not exactly the most sturdy bot. It's intricacy makes it very fragile which I expect Brutus to thrive off of.

Red Devil- Jerome Miles has been in the sport for well over a decade, as one of his creations appear at it's 7th Season of Battlebots. Jerome Miles and his team “Team Duct Tape” have fought in almost every Battlebots weight class and has even fought in UK Major Championships where two of Jerome’s better known Heavyweights: Unibite and Hyperactive competed where together the two robots had a 4-5 combined record in Extreme Warriors. Jerome Miles also had two less successful other Heavyweights in Knome II who fought in Battlebots 2.0, and Hyperbyte which fought in Robogames 2015; both of whom never picked up a win. Red Devil jumped onto the scene in 2016 originally named “Hyperactive” but had to change it's name as the now “Red Devil” entered Battlebots 2016 as more of an art bot than a true fighter. Despite this Red Devil kicked off it's 2016 campaign with a win off the equally zany Wrecks, before causing the biggest upset of the entire tournament. Red Devil seeded 30 fought the 3rd seed Witch Doctor in the Round of 32 and in slightly over a minute Red Devil had sunk it's saw into the perfect spot of Witch Doctor and surgically killed the 3rd seed. In the round of 16 though Red Devil lost a contested match against the future Runner Up, Bombshell.

As I stated with Brutus, Jerome Miles isn't here this season. He's one of a number of teams running split squads as Jerome fights with Red Devil’s little brother, Dragon King in China at the major “This is Fighting Bots!” tournament in Shanghai. Jerome Miles has called on the assistance from the “Canadian All Star” team known as All Black Robotics. All Black Robotics entered the 2016 season with Lycan, who’s power ended up it's own worst enemy as Lycan was one of the 1st robots to be eliminated at Battlebots 2016. This doesn't mean that the team are poor drivers though, as All Black robotics are called the Canadian All Stars for a reason and have won numerous combined titles in smaller weight class events. Despite all that Red Devil is no easy challenge to drive. Red Devil is one of the most intricate bots to enter the Battlebox this season and All Black Robotics of course have had some time behind the wheel to try to figure out how to perform at it's best, but in the end when you enter the arena it's a whole different story. Red Devil is going to have a rough road while it's owner fights in China, as I see them going 1-3 and possibly having a very rough 0-4 season. Brutus is just going to out power the very beautiful machine and we’re about to see a lot of Red Devil around the arena. The only saving grace Red Devil has is a brand new Spinner Killer plow that was shown on it's Facebook, I expect it to be on for this match but I doubt it'll do much in the end.

AFTER FIGHT

Red Devil- Okay, so the spinner killer plow did a lot in the end. This was a fantastic start to Red Devil’s season as I am once again surprised by the outcome and am very impressed with how All Black Robotics handled that fight. The new plow was used to perfection to hold up Brutus and the horns on the top of the plow are also great to keep hold of any bots who might end up there. Red Devil has proven to be reliable and hasn't had a fight yet in it's career where it actually took serious damage. Driving also clearly was not the issue I feared for as Red Devil dominated that fight once the disc of Brutus died.

This fight really does help pave a brighter future for Red Devil similar as to how it did for Petunia. Red Devil dominated that fight once the spinner killer took care of Brutus’ disc. I’m fairly sure Red Devil goes one on one with Monsoon in the next round, and while you’ll hear more about what I think of Monsoon as it’s turn to fight come up on Battlebots, I am not exactly too impressed with what Monsoon brings to the table aside from it's very unique design. I don't have knowledge of what Red Devil can do from thereafter, but with the driving issue behind them Red Devil now looks to have the same shot it would've had alongside Jerome Miles. Red Devil now has a much better shot at this season, as I expect them now to close it 2-2.

Brutus- This was a rough fight for one of the 4 MIT teams this season as Brutus had a fight very similar to how RotatoR started. Brutus started strong but lost its weapon very early on and after that, it was all over for Brutus. One thing I didn't expect through is Brutus getting actually knocked out by Red Devil. When Red Devil sunk it's saw into the front wedge of Brutus, I expected it all to be superficial but when Red Devil backed off Brutus was dead in the water to my surprise. There isn't much more to say about Brutus’ performance this match besides it was a rough start but it's hard to go lower than that as it moves to round 2.

Team Brutus also went out to say that they were having Round 1 woes of their own as they fought Red Devil as Brutus was running at double power. This might sound like a plus, but Brutus wasn't able to handle what it was putting out which caused it to quickly break down . Knowing this now, it's proven in the past that Brutus v1 most definitely can work given the right shot and I still expect just as much out similar of Brutus v2. A 3-1 record isn't out of the cards yet for Brutus but it's going to be a lot harder for Adam Bercu than it was at first as it's now time to dig out of that 0-1 hole.

WINNER: Red Devil (3-1)

Co Main Event: Captain Shrederator (3-3) v. End Game (0-0)​

Photo Credit: End Game (Facebook)

BEFORE FIGHT

End Game- End Game is a unique story, as its the success that New Zealand team OYES Robotics possess this year is what got them into Battlebots 2018. OYES Robotics started fighting with Featherweights and being a very good team in the FMB China's Featherweight scene. In early 2018, FMB held their first ever Heavyweight Major as they announced the 2018 FMB World Cup. One of the robots that entered the tournament was none other than End Game under the name “Death Toll”. Death Toll went undefeated against robots from China, India, the United States, and Ireland. It defeated famous Irish flipper Diotoir in the finals to win it's first major championship in it's 1st tournament. End Game now enters Battlebots with something very few other bots have, a major championship under it's belt.

I have complete confidence in End Game and marked it down as one of my three favorites to win this season. End Game is one of the most destructive rookies in the division right now and can very well go 4-0 in my opinion. The only robots I saw in episode 1 I believe can stop it would be Duck! and Free Shipping, the two top spinner killers at the event. In terms of this fight though, this has to be End Game’s. End Game has a sturdy front wedge and it only takes one hit to kill End Game with a perfect flip.

Captain Shrederator- Captain Shrederator is one of the kings of the Heavyweight FBS. Team LOGICOM has been competing with the Phrizbee/Revolutionist/Shrederator family since Phrizbee’s debut at Battlebots 3.0 in 2001. This series of Full Body Spinners were a force to be reckoned with in late Comedy Central Era Battlebots, and in Robot Wars Extreme Warriors. Phizbee attended Robot Wars under the name “The Revolutionist” and placed an overall Win/Loss record of 6-6 and even competed in the 2nd World Championships at Robot Wars. In 2003 came Sherederator, the sequel to Phrizbee and would end up being one of the most destructive robots in the world for about 4 years. and even placed 2nd at Battlebots Rochester R3 along with winning numerous RFL events but soon retired. Shrederator came out of retirement in 2014 and put up a weak showing at STEM Tech Olympiad, then came back to the rehashed Battlebots in 2015 with Captain Shrederator. Shrederator went 0-1 in another poor showing but stepped it up the year after as it destroyed Australian robot DeathRoll in round 1 but faced Chomp round 2 and was KO'd.

This year Shrederator is back with numerous upgrades, most importantly being the brand new shell on Shrederator which is brand new but looks just as destructive and even more practical as ever with the slope design. This season I believe Shrederator’s problem is going to be same one I see for Red Devil. Shrederator’s captain, Brian Nave is competing in This is Fighting Bots! as well with Shrederator: Tiger Claw, essentially a duplicate of Captain Shrederator. Currently Shrederator: Tiger Claw is undefeated in China but driving Captain Shrederator in the states is Nicholas Nave. Nicholas Nave is the son of Brian Nave and has been in the sport for a majority of his life. That being said I do not know how much time Nicholas has behind the wheel of Captain Shrederator but this could be an issue. Overall I expect Shrederator to go 2-2 this season, but can very well go 1-3 or even 3-1 since Full Body Spinners can be very hard to predict. This match isn't going to go so well though for Shrederator. End Game is a proven robot and can most likely take most hits Shrederator will throw it's way. It's only a matter of time until the Kiwi’s flip Shrederator over.

AFTER FIGHT

End Game- This is the exact match I expected End Game to have. End Game said hello to the United States audience by quickly knocking out Shrederator and flipping it in slightly over a minute. Nothing was wrong with the New Zealand machine as commentary praised it through the remainder of the event.

At the end of the match team captain for End Game, Jack Baker called out Tombstone as a robot it would like to challenge and Iactually have a lot of confidence End Game can back up such a claim if given the chance to face the defending champion. Everything we remember about End Game as Death Toll seemed there and it also has a nice extra spinner killer wedge to go along with it all. 2 of End Game’s future opponents were confirmed as LockJaw and Bite Force. This is now an easy pair of robots, but End Game also has a bigger weapon that goes all the way to the Battlebots weapon limits. I believe End Game could beat both of these robots but could also very well lose to then, it's something we’re just gonna have to sit and look forward to. Despite all that I still very well see End Game going 4-0, but could by chance go 3-1 given it's challenging schedule

Captain Shrederator- Nicholas Nave said after the episode aired online that Captain Shrederator had been suffering from a drive issue the previous few days and the team thought they had fixed it right before this fight but this clearly was not the case. This is another case where robot are having startup troubles as the season begins.

Captain Shrederator will have some time to fix the driving mistake before his next fight, so I do believe he’ll be ready for whoever next. I also believe that whoever Captain Shrederator faces next will be much easier than End Game and it should really do some damage in this next round. I see Captain Shrederator more likely going 2-2 now, but like I said earlier the season is still young and a lot can change.

WINNER: End Game (1-0)

Main Event: Witch Doctor (5-4)* v. Yeti (4-1)

Photo Credit: Yet (Facebook)

*Witch Doctor’s 5-4 record contains it's Middleweight Incarnation’s record. Witch Doctor as a standalone Heavyweight is 3-2.

BEFORE FIGHT

Yeti- Yeti comes from the only Alaskan Battlebots team, and is the only Heavyweight said team has made. Yeti started it's life out as an alternate for the 2016 season of Battlebots, and eventually got in. In it's first round it put up a fantastic fight against LockJaw that ended up being one of the best fights that season as it won a Judge's Decision. Yeti then dominated the tournament with knockout wins over Lucky, Mega Tento, and the red hot Chomp to make it all the way to the Battlebots 2016 Semi Finals in it's rookie season. The bad news was such a fight was against Tombstone. Tombstone dominated the fight but Yeti was able to take out Tombstone’s bar and last the full 3 minutes.

Yeti has been upgraded in pretty much every single way last season, while the 2016 Yeti was more quickly put together, this year’s had 2 years of prep put into it. Yeti now has a bigger stronger drum and drum motors along with a more compact body. With a compact body though doesn't always mean good armour. Yeti has only 6 pounds of armour on itself as it's main focus will be like last season with straight in your face aggression. I have Yeti making my playoffs this season sporting a 3-1 record and showing everyone it didn't just pull a Ghost Raptor and it truly is a serious competitor in the Battlebox. Against Witch Doctor I expect the team from Florida to be just as vicious and aggressive as Yeti, but with 30+ lbs of armour, Witch Doctor will likely take a beating but in the end I think Yeti will win by a judge's decision or a very late KO.

Witch Doctor- Longtime Florida team Busted Nuts Robotics created Middleweight Witch Doctor in 2011 to compete in Battlebots 2011, went 3-1 and won the Middleweight division, defeating the earlier mentioned Blue Flame in the finals. Witch Doctor then achieved a lot of success fighting in other competitions until 2014. In 2015 when Battlebots rebooted, Witch Doctor entered the tournament as a Heavyweight sporting a 30lb flamethrower minibot named Shaman. Witch Doctor put together a 1-2 run, defeating Overdrive 2.0 but losing to BRONCO and Tombstone in phenomenal fashion. Witch Doctor kicked off 2016 strong and defeated RotatoR by knockout in seconds but then suffered the previously mentioned upset loss from Red Devil.

Witch Doctor is 100% revamped and overhauled for the 2018 season, but the most talked about change for the season is not something new, it's something missing. Earlier this year Witch Doctor announced they’d be getting rid of Shaman for the 2018 season, and would be putting all 250 lb into Witch Doctor itself. This makes the vicious vertical spinner even stronger and deadlier than ever. Witch Doctor does seem more compact though this season and as mentioned in Yeti’s points has 30+ lbs of armor to work with. Another change is the srimech which is a rib cage design that lifts up over the top of Witch Doctor. I also see Witch Doctor going to the playoffs with a strong showing and a 3-1 record. That one loss will likely end up being this one as I just see Yeti too aggressive and that drum too overwhelming for Witch Doctor to have a chance.

AFTER FIGHT

Yeti- I made the episode shot for this article the 1st time Yeti is seen on camera and not through any sort of post production because it honestly wowed me at how much of a beast Yeti looked from straight on. The raw cold colors go well with the big grey spinning drum right at it's face. That menacing vibe definitely translated to the Battlebox as Yeti took every hit from Witch Doctor very well and replied with strikes even better. In 56 seconds Yeti had obliterated one side of Witch Doctor and knocked it out in the corner of the Battlebox.

My biggest fear for Yeti as we headed into this season was if it would suffer from the same fate Ghost Raptor had felt in Season 2, where Yeti dominated in 2016 but would do horribly in the following tournament. This was not the case as Yeti kept to it's aggressive means and dominated one of the most respected robots in the tournament. This momentum means a lot as Yeti became one of the big robots to watch out for this episode. I still expect Yeti to go to the playoffs and likely carry a 3-1 record because I do believe a few robots in the competition might just have a way to solve the Yeti problem in the Battlebox.

Witch Doctor- Witch Doctor was aggressive as it usual in the arena, but aggression doesn't always lead to success as despite some good hits to Yeti to kick off the fight, completely rendering it's lifting forks useless on the way, Witch Doctor couldn't keep up with the “Alaskan Assassin” as Yeti tore the new robot a new one in less than a minute.

Despite this very hard early loss, Yeti is a very hard early bot to kick your season off with. Witch Doctor is a very capable (and from that new Hexbug toy a very marketable) robot that is very well driven by captain Andrea Suarez. I believe that much like Minotaur, Witch Doctor will be thrown a bone in the coming rounds to keep it relevant, as it will likely follow this fight up with a win or two and end with a 3-1 record still. Worst case scenario I see for Witch Doctor is 2 wins coming up and then running into another contender in round 4, making it 2-2 as it would fail to make the playoffs.

WINNER: Yeti (5-1)

Closing Words

Very pleased with this week's episode of the 2018 Season, as for the first time in as long as I can remember every robot I wanted to win (not necessarily predicting) ended up on top which just leaves me excited and wanting more. Robots that impressed me the most this episode are of course the main eventer Yeti who showed to everyone he isn't a one-and-done, and End Game for staying up to it's performances in China as it absolutely dominated one of the best Full Body Spinners in the world in about a minute.

The only confirmed fight for next week as of this posting is Overhaul v. SawBlaze, I'll have more coverage over this fight and all the others that are set to come next week. Other articles that are going to coming up as we kick off are a look at Battlebots 2018 Episode one in a similar way to this one, a report on the very recent Extreme Robots tour stop in Portsmouth, and a weekly 2 in 1 “China Update” covering and following “This is Fighting Bots!” and “Clash Bots” as they progress. If you have any other ideas on articles that would fit in The Combot Collective please let me know as I am open to any suggestions.

Closing this article off on a more personal note, I am happy to announce that I will be one of the team members on the new Battlebots History podcast known as Chattlebots. This podcast will be hosted by the experienced pair of voices from the Robot Wars history podcast TheDamBeaver and Luke, my fellow mod team members on /r/Battlebots Cathalised and MunduK, a friend of mine and one of the few people I know that can go toe to toe with me in Battlebots history MisterRedman, and the man behind the fantastic Battlebots Update: Dracophile. This fantastic conglomeration of Robot Fans look to start talking about the past while in the present with Episode 1 later this month.



I also want to give a quick shout out to the group of guys who helped Battlebots by endorsing the show and appearing in the arena ad board this week: Nighthawk Pro Gaming.