The Cherry Bomb Classic IV: Fight Cards, Brackets, and Results

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The Monsterworks
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Quarterfinal Fight Card: Ironworks (FW & LW) and The Noir (MW & HW)

Post by The Monsterworks » Thu May 07, 2020 6:34 pm

After fourteen weeks and two-hundred-fifty-two individual fights, they're finally here: the Cherry Bomb Classic 4 playoffs! After perhaps the most competitive season in ARC's history, we have our qualifiers: the thirty-six best machines of the competition. Over the next few weeks, they'll duke it out for the ultimate prize in fantasy robotic combat: the CBC Bowl of Cherries. Only one from each weight class can walk away with the trophy, however. Will it be you? Find out on the next episode of DragonBall Z next fight card!

First, however, we have a bit of housekeeping to do: with the top three bots qualifying from each division, for a grand total of nine in each weight class, we have one too many! Last week, we solved that by hosting a quartet of elimination matches. Play-ins for the playoffs, I guess you could say. The results of those are posted just below our arenas for the week. Don't liek the fact that there are two of 'em? Hey, it wasn't my decision! Blame Elon Musk. Anyways, let's take a look.

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Featherweight and Lightweight


Ironworks by Floating Castle Robotics on Sketchfab

Name: Ironworks (Eisenwerk)

Location: Dusseldorf, Germany

Layout: Octagonal

Size: 30 ft x 30 ft - 700 square feet

Intended Use: FW - LW Singles and Doubles

Theme: Heavy Industrial

Floor Materials: steel

OOTA Zone?: NO (pit)

House Robots: This arena does not use house robots.

Hazards and Features:
  • die Schornsteine The smokestacks (10) - There are five of these powerful pistons located on either side of the arena. If a robot drives or is pushed over them, they will pop up and begin spewing flames, dealing light to moderate damage which stacks over time and potentially flipping bots over.
  • der Müllbrenner The Furnace (1) - A great furnace occupies the center of the arena, its oppressive heat seeping out through a pair of grilles. It is ringed by caution stripes and a small lip that prevents bots driving in at high speed. This is because the grilles are rather flimsy. Four solid impacts against a grille will cause it to collapse, leaving the furnace yawning open. A bot that falls in will be considered to be eliminated.

Achievement: Forged by Fire - successfully shove your opponent inside der Müllbrenner after they have opened it.

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Middleweight and Heavyweight


The Noir by Floating Castle Robotics on Sketchfab

Name: The Noir

Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Layout: Square (with rounded corners)

Size: 50 ft x 50 ft - 2500 square feet

Intended Use: MW - SHW Singles and Doubles

Theme: Retrofuturistic Cyberpunk Noir

Floor Materials: painted steel

OOTA Zone?: YES

House Robots: This arena does not use house robots.

Hazards and Features:
  • The Fatales (4) - These four slightly recessed floor spinners are lit up by strips of white LEDs. Once the match begins, each of the hazards' damage will scale up whenever they are driven over in the manner outlined below:

    - White: the first time that a hazard is driven over, it will spin slowly, dealing light damage. Following that contact, it will turn green.

    - Green: the second time that a hazard is driven over, it will spin at moderate RPM, dealing light to moderate damage. Following that contact, it will turn yellow.

    - Yellow: the third time that a hazard is driven over, it will spin somewhat quickly, dealing moderate damage. Following that contact, it will turn orange.

    - Orange: the fourth time that a hazard is driven over, it will spin at high RPM, dealing moderate to heavy damage. Following that contact, it will turn red.

    - Red: the fifth time that a hazard is driven over, it will be spinning at a vicious speed and will deal heavy damage, destroying the wheels and damaging the body panels of many bots. Following that contact, it will turn white and will not spin any faster for the remainder of the fight.
  • The Crooked Cop (1) - In the middle of the arena is a small hump with the ARC logo. It is not a damaging hazard, but it can spoil a box rush or high-center a bot with low enough ground clearance. Fortunately, it will retract to be flush with the floor after thirty seconds have passed in the match.
  • Low-down Dirty Rotten Walls (2) - All around the arena are two foot high walls at the base of the lexan. However, the lexan isn't present immediately behind each starting square where the bots are loaded in and out from. A good flip will send an opponent out of the arena proper and into the loading zone.

Achievement One: Tax Evasion - Last the entire three minutes without getting hit by the Fatales even once.
Earned by:
Team 57: Remi 4 (CBC4 Round Three)
Team Rinzler: FusterCluck (CBC4 Round Three)
Achievement Two: Bloody Sunday - Get all four Fatales up to red over the course of the match.
Earned by:
Tartarus Robotics Group: Santangelo (CBC4 Round Three)

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The Eliminators


Featherweight: (8) Untitled Goose Robot vs (9) Finishing Move

Okay, Finishing Move’s spinning up… spinning down… oh and the “drum on a stick” srimech mechanism fires, sending the drum swinging overhead and almost flipping the bot over. It clips the floor, sending up a few sparks. Ah, and here comes Untitled Goose Robot attacking Finishing Move, and it charges in with the vertical spinner facing backwards. This mode of attacking seems to catch Goose a little off guard, and FM darts in and gets a hit!

The problem is, Finishing Move’s drum has a ridiculous amount of reach using its drum like this. The weapon outreaches everything else in the arena, but especially its own feeder wedges. As a result it glances harmlessly off Untitled Goose’s front. It kicks itself back a little, but Goose not so much. Untitled Goose Robot’s after it with its explosive acceleration, and Finishing Move finds itself getting forced back, getting a couple more glancing blows – oh, and being backed into the wall! And it fires the arm again, slamming its blade into the wall and knocking itself free of a clamping attack. Goose is right after it though, forcing Alex to put those Mecanum’s to use strafing behind the MuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuufuckitIainttypingthatshitout – and it darts back out, and this time comes in off-center and manages to catch Goose’s claw near the root. The goose finally flies! Of course it bounces thatnks to those big tires, but immediately takes a hit to one of them, shaving off some rubber.
Now it’s Finishing Move’s turn to go on the attack, knocking UGR around a couple times before Noah gets his bearings and shoves the wedge under the drum. FM’s retreating again, more scraping and sparking – uh oh, and Untitled Goose has a wheel clamped! FM fires the “flipper” to try to get away, but gets its weapon smashed into the wall again. It whacks Goose on the head with the now stopped drum – or rather, the supports, but it’s spinning back up! And up come the flammenpisstins under… both bots actually but Untitled Goose just gets its wedge popped up a little, and easily backs off. Finishing Move has a bit more trouble.

So the first like… minute and fifteen seconds have Goosebot in steady control with a couple of quick chains of hits by Finishing Move. However, those claws have actually been getting clipped quite a bit. The sharpened tips are pretty much gone, and the wheels have gotten bits of tire taken off too. FM also tries using its blade as a hammersaw, but aside from one good hit on a wheel his own weapon supports get in the way.

However, eventually Alex has completely run out of ideas, and has to use his absolute last resort tactic of “Actually drive like a normal vert instead of doing janky boat mode bullshit christ we get it you’re excited for Aquabots stop jumping the fucking gun.” And Goose pretty much immediately gets punted. It’s by no means an easy fight for FM, because UGR’s wedgelets are still getting between its wedgelets pretty often, but the Goose does have a little bit of a wheelieing tendency and takes some solid hits on the actual wedge, as well as on the clamps. And Finishing Move’s got the speed to capitalize whenever it gets a hit in, grabbing those meaty tires and juggling it.
Somewhere in there Finishing Move’s picked up a bent axle and it’s driving like garbage, but it’s still really fast garbage, and Untitled Goose Robot’s now running on wonky wheels too, plus its clamps are very noticeably crooked and the sharp prongs are pretty much gone from them. The wedgelets are so far not jammed up, but one of them’s bent and keeps getting caught by FM’s drum. Overall a very close match with both bots getting some good shots in but struggling a bit towards the end, this could be a tight score.

Judges’ Decision:
Damage: Finishing Move 4, Untitled Goose Robot 1
Aggression: Finishing Move 2, Untitled Goose Robot 3
Control: Finishing Move 3, Untitled Goose Robot 2

Your winner, by a 9-6 Judges’ Decision, is Finishing Move!

Lightweight: (8) Broken Tooth vs (9) Apeirogon

BT comes out aggressively and goes to angle in on Apiergon while Maxi starts his bot out of his square rear-first, but spins around once he’s closer to BT and Apiergon spins up its weapon. The two bots exchange glancing blows at first and are knocked away from each other. Both engage again and this time something comes off of one of the bots and goes flying, from BT maybe? The bots are separated again and Apiergon goes skidding away before its mecanums can regain traction on the slick steel floor. BT is charging in again and catches Apiergon on a front corner and punches it upwards a bit. BT suffers some knockback, but recovers and aims to capitalize on the last hit. Apiergon is the slower of the two to recover again because of the mecanums. Broken Tooth gets in another meaty weapon hit and Apiergon is now reeling. Maxi desperately strafes out of the way and barely avoids another blow and backs up to put the center furnace between him and BT to buy a few seconds and recoup.

~~~~
Broken Tooth remains aggressive and chases after Apiergon. Maxi feigns retreat, then tries the earlier trick of suddenly turning his front towards BT and catching Gabe off-guard. It works this time, BT gets a face-full of vertical spinning bar and gets punted backwards. It’s weapon arm looks bent now, but the weapon still works and Gabe doesn’t let that faze him. BT keeps up the aggression for the rest of the match and doesn’t really bother with the arena hazards. The bots exchange more hits, some sending bits of each other’s front into the ceiling and both start looking worse for wear but still functioning in the drive and weapon departments. Final 30 seconds and each bot gets in one more good hit on each other. Apiergon loses drive in one of its mecanums while Broken Tooth’s weapon is noticeably slower and the match ends with a stalemate. This will go to the judges and the winner will move on into the next round of the CBC4 playoffs!

Damage: 3-2 Apiergon

Aggression: 3-2 Broken Tooth

Control: 3-2 Broken Tooth

Broken Tooth wins with an 8-7 Judges’ decision

Middleweight: (8) Diablo Genesis III* vs (9) Spinnerfood

Both bots begin the match quickly, with DGIII raising its lifter high to combat Spinnerfood's awkwardly placed chassis, whilst Spinnerfood, unconvinced, spins up. The two bots meet, with Spinnerfood's blade smacking the underside of DGIII's plow and throwing the bot clean over. DGIII attempts to self-right, but Spinnerfood is already in position, and hits the baseplate with a hefty crack, causing a plume of that magic smoke to erupt. DGIII does continue to brawl with Spinnerfood for a while whilst gushing fumes, actually managing to push back against the taller bot and nearly get it to the wall, only for its batteries to inevitably conk out from the damage sustained.

Spinnerfood wins by KO in 1:27

Heavyweight: (8) No Fun Machine vs (9) Defenestrator

Defenestrator went with the anti spinner plow with a regular lifter to no one's surprise and the No Fun Machine decided to go for the more normal looking teeth.

The fight begins with the spinner predictably spinning up and approaching the middle while Defenestrator brings the arm all the way back to engage with the full plow. This does throw off his center off mass a bit back but doesn't seem to be a massive deal. The two of them do the dumb circle game thing you probably did as a kid while playing tag if there was some kind of big obstacle that you could go around but not through, but only for a few seconds as one of the bots here is almost twice as fast as the other lol. This does buy Gabe enough time to spin up for a big hit, too bad he fell right into the evil HFL's perfectly calculated trap and got sent straight to the corner, where there is a big hazard that does a MASSIVE 1 DAMAGE MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA...
Yeah that really didn't do any damage but it did allow Defenestrator to box NFM in the corner beautifully. Some boring boxing later NFM escapes and spins up in the middle at around the 30-something second mark. The fight doesn't get that much better from before for Fun't as HFL knows how to drive and makes sure to tank the hits with the very middle of his plow and is reasonably good at predicting where the shell will bounce to.

Multiple of these sub-optimal hits later the shell teeth manages to catch the inner edge of the weirdly shaped plow on Defenestrator and that hit goes a lot better, it doesn't take that many hits before Gabe manages to get good at getting hits like that. And with good i mean one of those every few hits.

Meanwhile Defenestrator does pin NFM against a wall for a few seconds on a few occasions, no corner pins again tho. Have you seen the screensavers on the DVD players from a bit over 10 years ago with the bouncing logo? well the logo is Fun't but there is also a moving wall in the middle or something like that. The point is that it doesn't really go into the corners much, OK?

The hits that catch the inner corner for extra damage are starting to be more common, HFL counters this by attacking at a bit of an angle as there really is only one edge that the shell can hit. This does have the side effect of putting more hits in the other slightly forward side of the wedge at a not quite ideal angle but it sorta works out for him as it spreads out the already stacking up damage.
This sums up the fight for the first two minutes and around fifteen seconds, that is the point where even if it is dominating the fight, the plow in Defenestrator is showing some real damage while the No Fun Machine keeps working just fine. A few seconds later Fun't deals a massive hit in the corner and now there is a split on that plow starting from the bottom inner corner and goes up a noticeable distance, you can clearly see the front side wedge part thing of the plow clearly bent outwards now. Although it is still in one piece technically, HFL doesn't really like the look of it and backs off a bit. Then he decides to turn around and attack in reverse using his lifter as a keep-away stick for the last 20 seconds of the fights. It works, albeit you can see that Defenestrator is being a lot more careful now and doesn't really do anything other than push NFM around.

Time's up now.

Judges’ Decision:

Damage: No Fun Machine 5, Defenestrator 0
Aggression: No Fun Machine 2, Defenestrator 3
Control: No Fun Machine 1, Defenestrator 4

Your winner, by a 8-7 Split Decision, is No Fun Machine!


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The Fight Card

Below are the week's fights. [Unlike most weeks, where RPs are due on Saturday, b]RPs will instead be due on Sunday May 10, at 11:59 PM EST.[/b] As the playoffs have begin, the RP limit is 500 words, where it will remain for the rest of the tournament. The higher-ranked robot will always start in the green square. Remember to inform your opponent of configuration choices by Friday night if they are not patently obvious or clearly posted in your signup.

Featherweight

Lightweight

Middleweight

Heavyweight

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Results

The first bot listed will always start in the green square. An asterisk (*) denotes a defending champion.


Featherweight

(1) CIRCUITZ Killjoy Syndicate (5-1) vs. (9) Finishing Move The Monsterworks (5-2)

We’ve got a rematch from the group stage because wow, nice brackets am I right? Finishing Move was the only thing that beat Circuitz last time, let’s see if it can pull it off again.

Circuitz’s strategy is of course “oh god oh fuck oh shit he has a spinner AND a functioning drivetrain what do I do oh shit arena hazards please save my shiny tinfoil ass.” This lasts about six hits on the grates, and one open pit, before FM catches her and sends one of her side skirts into the ceiling. Circuitz is still functioning though, and… oh, manages to juke FM and come in with a huge ram that absolutely smashes both bots into the arena wall! Finishing Move’s gotten out of there with a bent axle, but its corner forks seem to have taken the brunt of the impact and are seriously twisted sideways. It’s limping now – but still maneuverable enough that it lands a hit! Circuitz gets sent flying!

But Finishing Move’s sent itself skidding backwards almost over the pit! There’s a wheel caught over the grate, and it’s struggling to get out of there! Circuitz seems to be having drivetrain trouble itself, though, and the flipper’s utterly warped up and useless. Finishing Move’s able to finally get enough traction with those mecanums to free itself! Circuitz retreats, jukes, and tries to come in with the rear wedge, but that ends up bent up at an angle, and FM takes a bite out of the back of the chassis as well. Circuitz has to do something here quickly, and PREFERABLY NOT THAT!
A last-ditch attempt to knock FM down the pit again turns catastrophic as Circuitz gets hit on the front again, and thrown into the air so violently that its baseplate comes most of the way off. It lands upside-down, propped up on the mangled flipper and with speed controllers and batteries spilling out. And that is a wrap!

Your winner, by knockout in 1:44, is Finishing Move!

(4) Black Salvo Team Ignition (5-1) vs. (5) I Can't Believe it's not Tanto Team Riptide (5-1)

Both bots rocket out of the starting squares, colliding quickly, with Tanto slipping under and slamming Black Salvo into the grates. Another tussle has Tanto flipped over, but it manages to escape, scooping up Black Salvo up once more and bashing them on the grate (that's two!). A third head-on collision has Tanto win out, taking them into, guess what, the grates (three!), Black Salvo rushing back to try and get under Tanto, but it proves too slippery again to let BS do much. After a bit more jousting, Tanto gets its fourth and final opportunity to smack Black Salvo into the grates. Final, since they've dropped down, the inferno eagerly igniting. Badnik does his best to attempt to maintain some control over its nimble opposition, but Tanto wins out eventually, slamming Salvo into the flames.

I Can't Believe It's Not Tanto wins by KO in 1:42.

(2) Black Dog III Tartarus Robotics Group (5-1) vs. (7) Angry Bird: Seed Killer Gen 2 Team Eagle Robotics (4-2)

Both come in charging until Black Dog backs off a bit. Seed Killer waits and stands his ground. Black Dog then begins to advance slowly while Seed Killer backs up, patiently waiting for that hit. They're both being rather cautious for this fight. BAM! the crazy bird just misses barely grazing the drum and gets sent onto it's back. It rights itself, but Black Dog is already going in for another hit. Seed Killer is able to get itself upright and almost lands another shot, but only hits the floor. It backs up while moving around the circular arena, looking for that shotnl until....oh no! It's run out of wall it looks like. He's gotten corralled onto the flames. Seed Killer tried to correct, but not before a little jingle sound comes from the oven and sends the Birdy to it's fiery doom. And this one ain't coming back a phoenix.

Black Dog wins by KO in 1:37

(3) The Grand Vizier Team Blood Gulch (4-2) vs. (6) Ori Team Instant Regret (4-2)

In this rematch from the group stages, Grand Vizier starts strongly, damaging the tip of Ori's flipper and juggling it a few times. The Team Instant Regret machine, however, is able to survive the onslaught and soon begins to find the right angle on its opponent's narrow forks, all the while working the furnace grates. This pays dividends at the 1:40 mark, as a sudden shove and flip, all before the vert can slip away, sends it tumbling into the furnace and out of the playoffs. Revenge is a dish best served... kinda lukewarm, I guess.

Your winner, by pitting at 1:40, is Ori!

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Lightweight

(1) Magnolia Pico The Monsterworks (6-0) vs. (8) Broken Tooth Interrobang Robotics (5-2)

Okay, the bots are off, and Magnolia Pico’s coming in pretty aggressively – possibly with good reason because one shot with that massive hammer could be all he needs to end it. Broken Tooth’s wary of that weapon as well, and goes for the side a couple times, but Pico’s strafing, while it seems like it’s a little clunky mixing it with the turning, is enough to keep up, and… it looks like there was very briefly a chance for Pico to fire, but Broken Tooth gets back out of range. Doesn’t seem like Alex wants to commit to a risky shot that could leave him open since BT’s taking its time with attacking anyway.

But suddenly it looks like Gabe’s flipped the switch on his transmitter labelled “Cyka Blyat.” Broken Tooth just guns it and rushes in! Magnolia fires the hammer but isn’t quite quick enough on the draw, and takes a big hit on its wedge! Its sheer weight and size mean it doesn’t get that much airtime, but it still gets tossed onto its back and up against the wall. It self-rights, but by then BT’s gotten in position at its side. It takes a big chunk out of one of the polycarbonate skirts, and -ooh, Broken Tooth ends up with its disc underneath the skirts! The disc grinds to a halt, but in the process it’s put Mango Pickle in a bit of a pickle because at least one of those legs is mangled!

Pico thrashes back and forth trying to free itself, while Broken Tooth stays wedged under it and… is really struggling to push it around. Pico has stood up on tippytoes, but doesn’t quite have the reach to climb off, and… oh, BT’s flipper almost turns it on its side! It doesn’t manage it, but it’s still wedged and Broken Tooth’s disc is now at the back and free to spin up. It does so, but MP finally climbs off. Broken Tooth flips its disc back into attack position. It tries to go for another shot, but MP turns and – oh, he nails him!
Or at least, does a perfect log-splitting maneuver. Uhh… Pico’s hammer spike has impaled itself between Broken Tooth’s wedgelet and the frame, and now it’s a power struggle because neither bot can easily push the other and BT can’t reach it with the disc. It tries to just retract it anyway, and ALMOST picks its opponent up, but even with double the weight it ends up faceplanting – but jostles Broken Tooth free in the process! Or he may have just snapped the pin holding that wedgelet, because that looks very lopsided – but it still gets under Pico’s wedge, which is already seriously bent, and even more so after taking another hit. It’s thrown inverted again. This time it self-rights back away from danger… except that the Manbanana’s in the way, so instead it ends up stuck against that. It raises its stance and gets back down, but before it can un-unglunk itself Broken Tooth rushes in underneath the wedge again. There’s a huge shower of white sparks as it gets the blade right under the middle of the bot… and again ends up stuck underneath it. With Pico trying to paddle itself away to safety and looking like one of those Little Tikes toy car things in the process.

I’m noticing a lack of thrashing around with the hammer, though, and a bit more sparks coming from underneath the bot than a stopped disc should be causing. There is some smoke, though… oh, that’s quite a bit of smoke. Not quite enough to be batteries, but still impressive. We may need an unstick and a fire extinguisher here. Or not… Broken Tooth goes for the big heave-ho!

TIIIIIIIMMMMMMMMBBBBBBEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

And yep, there’s no hammer functionality on MP, but there is a smoking gash in its baseplate, and its seven surviving legs wiggling in the air like a dead Canadian Cockroach.

Your winner, by knockout in 1:38, is Broken Tooth!

(4) Scrapper Cool Story Brobotics (5-1) vs. (5) Final Mecha Catbot End of the Line LLC (5-1)
Cat lacks dorifto potential and thus cannot box rush
Catbot decides to start by opening both grills on the furnace and Tri figures that if he can't stop it he won't even try.
30 seconds later both things are open and we can finally start.

Noah goes for flanking and goes hard on it. What usually happens is that Tri backs off while turning to face him while gyro, and Noah reacts by just saying never mind and backing off from the trap. After several attempts Catbot does manage to flank and push Scrapper from behind but sadly does not get an angle that lets push the drum into the furnace or the floor hazard thingies.

A pin timer later they back off a little and we go back to before, Scrapper playing defensively while Final Macha Catbot being aggressive but not really. Some seconds later Scrapper catches the hammer blocker thing and tears it off completely and actually flips Catbot. Said bot does not have any active weapon and just self rights by ramming at a wall at full speed.
Then repeat the same things a little more, this time Scrapper scratching Cat's face a few times instead of catching the now non-existent hammer blocker.

At some point Scrapper gets the right angle a bit before the impact and thus is not gyroing at the moment, this actually lets it get under for once. V900's OC that totally isn't a Garfield recolor flies off at high speed and bounces off a wall in mid air before landing inverted again. A quick Wall slam self right later we can see the now somewhat bent bottom of Catbot's plow.

We get some other aggressive but not really driving for a while, eventually Noah has enough and decides to charge in right in the middle of the drum and just tank a hit. Catbot's face hurts a lot now but it manages to push Scrapper into the hazard that isn't a furnace as it is the thing it has line of sight with. Scrapper gets annoyed by the floor coming up from underneath it and Noah uses the time to position itself.

When the arena lets Scrapper go FMC immediately comes from behind it and pushes it straight into the furnace door. Tri tries to get out but can't quite do it, he still manages to steer the situation enough to make his drum hit the door frame from the side instead of going fully in and then bounces off far away from the hit. The three minutes end before the two bots make contact again.
Judges’ Decision:

Damage: Scrapper 4, Final Mecha Catbot 1
Aggression: Scrapper 2, Final Mecha Catbot 3
Control: Scrapper 2, Final Mecha Catbot 3

Your winner, by a 8-7 Split Decision, is Scrapper!

(2) Blood Eagle* Tartarus Robotics Group (6-0) vs. (7) TSA 2.1 Ice Cubed Robotics (4-2)

What appears to be a straightforward "brick tanks and smothers spinner for three minutes" kind of match, turns into anything but as the notoriously slippery Blood Eagle demonstrates excellent arena use to buy itself three full-power hits on the front armour of The Servant's Assistant in the opening minute. Alex seems hesitant to use his flipper against the defending champion, worried about the power of that blade, but it allows Laz to brazenly and repeatedly Tombstone bait him. While TSA's aggressive response leads to a chain of control at roughly the halfway mark of the fight, Blood Eagle manages to avoid the pit through a combination of awkward shape, j-hooking, and TSA's mediocre torque. As its weapon never completely goes still, Alex remains conservative in his flipper use and, once Blood Eagle gets free and Laz gets his timing down, if finally scores that coveted sideswipe. With its side armour buckled into the path of its wheels and mobility reduced, TSA struggles even further to smother its hard-hitting opponent, and a pitting seems out of reach. Now able to be more aggressive than before, Blood Eagle is able to deliver a series of devastating blows as the clock winds down but, in a final show of defiance, the Britflipper makes it to the final buzzer.

Aggression: 4-1 TSA
Damage: 5-0 Blood Eagle
Control: 4-1 Blood Eagle

Your winner, by 10-5 judges' decision, is the defending champion: Blood Eagle!

(3) Shade Fist Team Ignition (5-1) vs. (6) Golden MADD Team Rinzler (4-2)

Big-ass drum vs big-ass shell. This is pretty standard "deathspinner slugfest" fare, so I'll spare you the fake suspense of "oooh they both spin up who will strike first ooooooooh" and cut to the chase: Shade Fist is far and away the aggressor here. It rounds the corner and slams into Golden MADD at great speed! MADD is knocked away, but doesn't see much airtime-

...wait, you really went with the angled shell?

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I guess Golden MADD does see some airtime after all, getting chucked several (as in, literally 7) feet away. Shade Fist goes in once again, twice again, but not thrice because it's drum soon dies after the second hit. It bumps the fumbling MADD around a bit onto the pistons, but the shell eventually recovers and finishes the deed.

Golden MADD wins by KO in 1:25.

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Middleweight

(1) Hoarfrost Tartarus Robotics Group (6-0) vs. (9) Spinnerfood Team C/D (4-3)

Sirens comes into this match determined to score a flip and chain by spinning his blade upward, but this isn't Diablo Genesis he's facing and the geometry is all wrong. What ensues is three minutes of frustration for the spinner, as Laz sinks deep into his comfort zone and drives Hoarfrost like it's "Hellhound, but with a really tall plow". This isn't 100% straightforward, as Spinnerfood is quick enough to give Hoarfrost the slip a handful of times, and its trips to the hazards are less common than Laz probably would've hoped. However, one glancing swipe that blows open a side panel aside, the HUGE clone is kept safely away from the flipper's vulnerable chassis. We're going to the judges.

Aggression: 4-1 Hoarfrost
Damage: 4-1 Spinnerfood
Control: 4-1 Hoarfrost

Your winner, by 9-6 judges' decision is Hoarfrost!

(4) Magnolia Grande The Monsterworks (5-1) vs. (5) Momma Bear Killjoy Syndicate (5-1)

Magnolia Grande spins up and goes to the middle of the arena, meanwhile Momma starts activating the hazards by bumping into them (note that it's not a fast bot at all lmao) while the cubs go around and engage.
The cubs are really annoying Mango and are surprisingly good at reading it so they dodge slow moving attacks consistently. A few times one of the cubs get under enough to fire its flipper, Magnolia Big goes up a bit but the gyro of the big spinny weapon makes it not get overturned at all, so it continues as an undercutter.
A while later Momma decides to join the game and before it reaches the battle Alex gets a hit in and Santi gets yeeted away and crashes into the lexan, bouncing off in several pieces around the entire quadrant of the arena.
The fight becomes even more annoying for Alex as now there is a big cheese wedge scraping into the spinner while the remaining little shit gets to its ass and pops it or something. After a minute and something of this Alex manages to use its weapon to touch slightly the remaining cub, little shit literally explodes.
The rest of the fight is Momma (~50.25% of the weight) trying to push Mango into one of the corner hazards but failing to do so as she isn't even faster then the slow deathspinner lmao.

Aggression: 3-2 Momma Bear
Damage: 5-0 Magnolia Grande
Control: 3-2 Momma Bear

Your winner, by 9-6 judges' decision is Magnolia Grande!

(2) Dragonfist Team Worst Swordsman (5-1) vs. (7) Skoll Team Instant Regret (4-2)

Flail and Ball Torture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at en dot wikipedia dot org.

Between the obvious ball puns and comment about Skoll being HFL's fursona, there's a PLETHORA of jokes I could make here and you should be thankful that I'm restraining myself to 1 (one) CBT reference.

As for the match itself... most of it is just these two Beyblade-lookin asses tickling each other for something like a minute and a half. The flails do their damage (read: not a ton), while the bar does its own damage (read: also not a ton). It's the bar-to-shell collisions that make this match remotely interesting, with each of the two spinners seeing huge amounts of knockback. When I said "Beyblades" I really wasn't kidding.

Of course, this only lasts so long before Dragonfist's obnoxious reach gets the better of a box rush-happy Skoll, with the latter receiving a big old-fashioned gash in it's flank. Skoll skids around in circles and slams against the wall. The weapon spins back up to speed, but the drivetrain just isn't there. 10 count, and we're done here.

Dragonfist wins by KO in 2:01.

(3) Acrid End of the Line LLC (5-1) vs. (6) Pressure Flop II Team Design Flaw (4-2)

Acrid decides to gamble by not going with its plow. It's determined to show that it, too, has knockout power. The result is plenty of wily driving on Noah's part, and conservative driving on Maxi's. Then it gets the pin. Acrid manages to shunt the shuffler's turret aside by outwedging its wedge, and it goes to work with its saw. Sparks fly and you can definitely see a cut being made. Maxi flails desperately with the hammer and that's enough to jostle his bot free. Serendipitously, that also leave shim lines up perfectly for a hammer blow. While it's glancing, it forces Noah to back off out of range, reset, and try again. His attempt to avoid the hammer on his next approach spells disaster, however. Acrid oversteers and leaves itself vulnerable for just a split second too long. Down comes the hammer, leaving a scary-looking dent in Acrid's top panel, and the demon dog dies on the spot. Must've knocked out a receiver or something.

Pressure Flop II wins by KO at 1:37

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Heavyweight

(1) Glacier III The Monsterworks (6-0) vs. (8) The No Fun Machine Interrobang Robotics (5-2)

The two biggest, baddest horizontal spinners in the heavyweight class going up against each other, this ought to be good! Glacier’s up to speed, No Fun Machine’s up to speed, and they lumber towards each other. Here comes a huge hit… or not. Nope, instead because No Fun Machine has opted to use its flails, we’re getting a bunch of little hits, lots of pretty sparks, and one of the worst sounds that has ever come out of a robot combat arena, but no real carnage or bots being flung around.

Bits of metal are periodically getting flung into the box walls at very high speed, but both bots are still spinning and haven’t really done much to each other. Is it it my imagination, though, or are No Fun Machine’s flails looking a bit shorter than they were at the start of the match? No, there’s short pieces of chain, mostly just a few links, littered around the arena.

A bit over halfway through, No Fun Machine rams Glacier hard enough that despite the flail lulz the robots actually make contact, FINALLY. They promptly get flung across the arena, and NFM hits the wall, but despite being the aggressor Glacier’s just too slow to get across the box before it spins back up. So there’s a couple more lower-speed hits, and… BAM! Another huge shot! No Fun Machine still has a couple feet left on both flails, but the shell doesn’t seem like it’s on straight and it’s stopped spinning. It proceeds to run away and do fuck-all for the next minute. In the playoffs. Wow.

Judges’ Decision:
Damage: Glacier 4, No Fun Machine 1
Aggression: Glacier 5, No Fun Machine 0
Control: Glacier 4, No Fun Machine 1
Fun: Glacier 0, No Fun Machine -5

Your winner, by a 13 to Negative 3 Judges’ Decision, is Glacier!

(4) Xtreme pneumatiX Team Riptide (5-1) vs. (5) Wallop Team British Robotics (4-2)

The starts and both bots drive to the middle like expected, around the middle anti-box-rush-device too because these guys aren't dumb.
After a few seconds of angling shenanigans Wallop gets under first and flips Xtreme pneumatiX, Ethan fires the flipper to self right but is impatient and does it a bit too early (read, before landing) so he doesn't actually self right. This gives TBR the opportunity he wanted to chain several hits and even lands two directly on a wheel. Eventually Xtreme pneumatiX lands the right way up and it seems that it took no damage at all somehow.
Anyways the tanky thing gets under the next time and it seems like Wallop can't get away at all. Xtreme pneumatiX starts driving it to it's starting square and...
No
Ethan no
Don't do it
Don't
Flip

Your winner, by OOTA in 0:43, is Xtreme pneumatiX!

(2) Dreadnought Mk. 4 Ice Cubed Robotics (5-1) vs. (7) KILL 'EM ALL Team Stealth (4-2)

Screw it this is literally the last fight remaining so i will just speedrun writing the result because i can.
Kill 'Em All can basically do no damage so this is Alex's fight, and so he decides to... not be aggressive?
No OOTA or hazards that can kill happening here boys, no damage and low aggression. yeah this fight is a lot more boring than what it looked on paper. The fight mostly consists of KEA charging at Dreadnought and firing the hammer on its way, Alex responding by moving in to get under and usually get hit again before being able to flip KEA over its back and then back off away, KEA self rights quickly and we repeat the cycle. Often Shaba gets under instead and gets an extra hit or two before Alex backs off.
Yeah that sums it up pretty well, just repeat that for 3 minutes, occasionally KEA ends in the corners with the (white) hazards, but nothing ever comes from it.

Aggression: 3-2 Kill 'Em All
Damage: 3-2 Kill 'Em All
Control: 4-1 Dreadnought MK4

Your winner, by 8-7 split decision is Dreadnought MK4!

(3) Santangelo* Tartarus Robotics Group (4-2) vs. (6) Tabor Mark 4 Team Worst Swordsman (4-2)

This is at least the third time i write for Tabor yay
The central bump gets successfully ignored as Tabor goes straight to the corner and drives over a hazard a few times to activate it. That's the most interesting thing that happened tbh as neither bot is able to get good enough control over their opponent to get them into any corner against their will.
The match is just an awkward pushing match. When Santangelo gets under it fires the flipper that pops Tabor up a bit and 80% of the time doesn't manage to actually turn Tabor over its back but at least lets Laz get his bot deep under the turret robot. The few times where any flip happens Tabor self rights faster than you might expect but lands on top of Santangelo anyways. In both cases Santangelo gets to push Tabor a bit faster (Still fairly slowly)
When Tabor gets under it immediately moves the lifter up at full speed to flip which half the time manages to make it topple over and half the time it just slides off the plow tip and lets Laz get under. Rocket also mixes in just pushing which kinda works i guess.
No angling in happens really as Santangelo is significantly faster and thus blocks angling while Tabor can't get angled because of the massive turret.

Aggression: 3-2 Santangelo
Damage: 3-2 Tabor
Control: 4-1 Santangelo

Your winner, by 9-6 judges' decision is Santangelo!

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Mastodon... Extinction (HW)
Osiris... Armageddon! (MW)
Elrathia... ROBOTS (LW)
Magnolia Pico... Ruination 4 (MW)
RipTide... ROBOT2 (FW)
Black Diamond... Cherry Bomb Classic 3 (HW)
MADSCIENCE... ROBOTS 3 (LW)
Abyss... ROBOTS 3 (MW)


The Monsterworks: 214-57 (.790) ...Probably up to no good.
Cherry Bomb Classic IV: 25-4
Finishing Move: 6-2
Magnolia Pico: 6-1
Magnolia Grande: 6-1
Glacier III: 7-0
ROBOTS 3: 21-6
Sixpounder: 3-4
MADSCIENCE: 9-1 Champion!
Abyss: 9-1 Champion!

User avatar
The Monsterworks
Posts: 1308
Joined: Thu May 26, 2016 12:00 am
Location: Canada, for now
Team: The Monsterworks

Semifinal Fight Card: Gothiq (FW & LW) and The Woodshed (MW & HW)

Post by The Monsterworks » Thu May 21, 2020 2:21 pm

Former champions, dark horses, Hall of Famers, veteran contenders, and innovative and electrifying new designs. It hasn't mattered. All kinds fell in the Quarterfinals. All kinds progressed through the Quarterfinals. Whether you're a longtime, decorated member of the community, a career journeyman hoping to snag that elusive title, or a fresh new rookie or sophomore team looking to kickstart a successful ARC careeer, if you've made it this far, you have a one-in-four shot at taking home a Bowl of Cherries and, with it, membership in elite company.

Do you feel like a long, pointless preamble here? Elon Musk sure doesn't. He's HYPE! I'm HYPE! My freakin' dog is HYPE, so get HYPE, people! It's the Cherry Bomb Classic IV semifinals! Check out our arenas below.

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Featherweight and Lightweight


Gothiq by Floating Castle Robotics on Sketchfab

Name: Gothiq

Location: Caen, France

Layout: Rectangular

Size: 32 ft x 52 ft - 1664 square feet

Intended Use: FW-MW Singles and Doubles

Theme: Gothic-style church

Floor Materials: Stone Tiles

OOTA Zone?: NO

House Robots: This arena sometimes features two house robots which patrol the red zones along the flanks of the arena. However, they will not be active unless specified by the tournament director.

Hazards and Features:
  • Gargoyles (2) - These are heavy stone statues mounted on vertical tracks that run along the arena's support pillars, slamming down onto robots that drive underneath them, dealing moderate to heavy damage. They have powerful electromagnets in their feet, allowing them to pick up some robots, lift, and then release them to deal additional light to moderate falling damage.
  • The Pipe Organ (2) - Mounted on an upper balcony, it constantly plays Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky or another organ transcription chosen by the starter of the RP thread. Whenever a robot drives over the red spot beneath the organ, it will strike a discordant note and fire an enormous pneumatic spike through a hole in the balcony floor at the unfortunate competitor, dealing moderate to heavy damage.

Achievement: True Believer - win after being hit by each of the four hazards in a single fight.

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Middleweight and Heavyweight


The Woodshed by Floating Castle Robotics on Sketchfab

Name: The Woodshed

Location: Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada

Layout: U-shape

Size: Prongs = 20 ft x 30 ft; Bottom section = 60 ft x 30 ft - 3000 square feet

Intended Use: MW-SHW Singles and Doubles

Theme: Sawmill

Floor Materials: Brazilian Walnut planks with fire resistant coating

OOTA Zone?: YES

House Robots: This arena has two 'Grizzly' house robots which patrol the caution-striped zones at the tips of the arena's two forks.
Smokey & Yogi
A Pair of Bears


Yogi & Smokey by Floating Castle Robotics on Sketchfab

Yes, they're a matching pair of Breaker Box-style lifters named after two of the most famous bears out there (sorry, Winnie and Baloo). They do exactly what you think they do. Also, a second yes: they will deal 10 impact damage if they smack into you.

Stats: 10 speed / 9 traction / 10 torque / 1 weapon / 6 armour (+6 house robot bonus)
Hazards and Features:
  • Hacksaws (2) - These are heavy blades about eight feet long suspended from the ceiling by a winch system. They drop onto robots that drive onto the caution-striped area beneath them, doing light-to-moderate damage.
  • Chopper Row (2x6) - A line of six woodcutters' axes that fire at anyone who drives into the caution striped squares in front of them. They deal moderate to-heavy damage.
  • Log Rollers (4) - located in front of the triggers for the arena's most powerful hazards, these sets of rollers deny traction to bots driving over them.
  • Low Wall (1) - located at the top to the 'U' shape's base, a wall that is only two feet high stretches for about twenty feet, allowing most flippers to flip an opponent out of the arena and into the dead space beyond.
  • Log Chute (1) - located in the middle at the base of the 'U', this large pit remains closed unless one of its triggers is pressed, in which case it will open for the next thirty seconds. If both triggers are pressed, it will remain open for the rest of the match. Robots that fall into the Log Chute are considered to be eliminated.
  • The Murdersaw (1) - Located just south of the Low Wall, this king-sized saw moves rapidly (with the equivalent of five speed) back and forth on a twenty-four foot track when one of its two triggers is pressed. When both are pressed, the Jaws Theme plays and the Murdersaw remains active for the duration of the match. This hazard functions more like a flywheel than a saw and does heavy to catastrophic damage.

Achievement One: Take 'em to the Woodshed! - Cut your opponent clean in half using the hazards.
Earned by:
Team Riptide: Xtreme pneumatiX (CBC4 Round 2)
Achievement Two: Taken to the Woodshed! - Be cut clean in half by the hazards.
Earned by:
Team Cardboard Pony: Pink Wedge 2020 (CBC4 Round 2)

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The Fight Card

Below are the week's fights. Unlike most weeks, where RPs are due on Saturday, the will instead be due on Sunday, May 24, at 11:59 PM EST. As we are now in the playoffs, the RP limit is 500 words. Remember to inform your opponent of configuration choices by Fridday night if they are not patently obvious or clearly posted in your signup.

Featherweight

Lightweight

Middleweight

Heavyweight

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Results

The first bot listed will always start in the green square. An asterisk (*) denotes a defending champion.


Featherweight

(5) I Can't Believe it's not Tanto Team Riptide (6-1) vs. (9) Finishing Move The Monsterworks (6-2)

I don't know why you guys picked Coco Jamboo of all things, but that's what we're doing with.

A lot of this match comes down to Finishing Move ramming full-speed into Tanto and them crashing together like a pair of trucks speeding down the highway. And by that I really mean bumper cars, because none of these bots has so much as a chance of KOing the other. FM has a flywheel constructed out of wood and Elmer's glue that does an astounding -1 damage, and Tanto is a literal doorstop. Nonetheless, the spinning doohickey on FM at least suffices in punting Tanto around and keeps it from asserting it's pushing prowess. Tanto isn't really able to get much going outside of shoving FM back a few feet, let alone bringing it all the way to the hazards. 3 minutes of ragdolling later...

AGG: 3-2 Finishing Move
DMG: 3-2 Finishing Move
CTL: 4-1 Finishing Move

Finishing Move wins by a 10-5 judge's decision.

(2) Black Dog Tartarus Robotics Group (6-1) vs. (6) Ori Team Instant Regret (5-2)

Both bots stare down each other down... except not really, because Black Dog starts facing the side and zips away immediately as the match starts. They cat-and-mouse for a bit, pretty ironic considering dogs are usually the ones chasing rabbits. Maybe it's more of a Chihuahua? Who knows.

Ori eventually is able to get a lucky slip when Laz messes up a gyro lift, and proceeds to pop the drum up into the air. A couple flips here, a wallslam here, some good aggression overall. Black Dog is able to free itself and deliver a couple smacks to the top of Ori's forks, but nothing too drastic.

Black Dog then ends up getting wedged (again) in a follow-up attack, but is able to escape much quicker this time thanks to an ingenious "jackknife" sort of strategy. I put that in quotes since it didn't really make sense the first time I read it, but long story short he almost does this. Almost. He gets up to about step 3 or 4 before Ori's "woah there pal let's back it up here" and escapes before Black Dog pulls the sneaky wheel hit. A few more flips here, jackknife attempts there, and even a couple stray hits from the Gargoyle statues on Ori's behalf serves as a mild back-and-forth for the rest of the match.

AGG: 3-2 Ori
DMG: 3-2 Black Dog
CTL: 4-1 Ori

Ori wins by a 9-6 judge's decision.

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Lightweight

(4) Scrapper Cool Story Brobotics (6-1) vs. (8) Broken Tooth Interrobang Robotics (6-2)

The match starts with Scrapper trying to play defensive, spinning up and moving across the Arena carefully to engage Broken Tooth. It's opponent meanwhile moves out too, but Broken Tooth tries to go for an OOTA, as Gabe is confused and thought he's in an arena with an OOTA zone, rather than the Gothiq. Unfortunately, Gothiq has no OOTA zone, and this stacks heavily against Broken Tooth, as it is fragile and needs quick win, disintegrating if it doesn't.

Anyway, Broken Tooth eventually tries to hit Scrapper against the hazard, with Scrapper tossed on the spike. However, the spike only hits the drum, preventing much damage as Scrapper escapes. As both bots reset, it becomes clear that Broken Tooth is damaged from directly hitting the drum, when it shakes upward a bit. It seems a tooth has been destroyed from the hit. Both bots soon meet up for a weapon to weapon again, and Scrapper gets tossed again as Broken Tooth also fires the arm. Unfortunately, the disc shatters at the hit against the drum, with pieces of it mangling the arm slightly.
Now weaponless, Broken Tooth has to tank Scrapper with its front wedges. Scrapper still drives defensively however, trying to counter Broken Tooth's maneuver against it. It slips off when Broken Tooth shoves it's face, and sometimes gyro in an attempt to hit the top. After some times of this, Scrapper manages to get a hit on the top, tearing a nasty hole that exposes the internals, with Broken Tooth having trouble driving after this. Scrapper then manages to uppercut Broken Tooth from below, tearing a fork and making the baseplate come loose, with a battery seemingly getting punctured and leaking. Broken Tooth is now dead and gets counted out.

Winner: Scrapper by KO (1:12)

(2) Blood Eagle* Tartarus Robotics Group (7-0) vs. (6) Golden MADD Team Rinzler (5-2)

Now here is a rematch between the rookie shell spinner Golden MADD, which has been carving a reputation as a quality machine, against the reigning champion, undercutting bar spinner Blood Eagle. Those two have fought before in the group stage, with Blood Eagle beating Golden MADD in a bit of a shock despite the predictions that Golden MADD could take it as it had a more durable weapon and harder-hitting weapon.

However, the Arena is now different. It is the Gothic instead of Hall of Ice and Wind. Anyway let's start the fight. Both bots start by spinning, with Blood Eagle rushing at the shell, which is spinning and going to the middle. Eventually after a bit of driving at each other for angle, both bots weapons' make a contact with each other.

Blood Eagle is sent flying away into the Pipe Organ, which fires into it, hitting the weapon support but missing the belt area. Meanwhile, Golden MADD is sent ricocheting in the angled wall, causing it to coin and turn upside down, but it self rights quickly. With the reset, both bots try to come at each other again, causing another hit. Golden MADD is sent into the pillar, causing it to bounce around wildly, while Blood Eagle is sent skidding into the hazards again, this time the Gargoyles. It slams into Blood Eagle right into the bar area, causing Blood Eagle to recoil against the floor while gouging bits of pieces from the statue. It then lifts Blood Eagle up and drops it, giving Golden MADD time to approach it.

The match keeps going down like this. Blood Eagle tries to use its drive advantage and normal wheels to control Golden MADD, but something Laz doesn't anticipate is that Blood Eagle isn't that responsive when turning due to something inherent in the design. Golden MADD also tries to strafe to dissipate some of the hits' worst impact, though it's still getting richoceted. This time, it first goes into the pipe organ, which fortunately hits the angled section instead of the gap on the top, and then the Gargoyles, which slams on top of it and lifts it up a bit, plus of course the walls or pillars in occasion. But Blood Eagle isn't much better. It starts to noticeably weaken in performance due to all the impacts shocking the parts inside, as well as being sent spinning or recoiling around to the walls, pillars, or hazards too even with a bit more traction from normal wheels. It also sometimes get put on a vertical position, where an unknown flaw is discovered. It stays pointed upward for few seconds before dropping on its own as the bar is actually unstable.

Eventually, the match is coming to an end as the timer runs out. Both bots are worn down by all the impacts, but Golden MADD looks better than Blood Eagle, which is slowing down and even starts to smoke, as well as more difficult to turn. Then 10 seconds before the match ends, Golden MADD manages to get a hit on Blood Eagle, which has been turned into an overcutter position. The teeth hits right into the weapon support, causing the bar to just detached as bits fly. The recoil that sends Blood Eagle spinning from the hit also leads on of the wheels right into the shell, tearing it too. It still goes to a judge's decision however.

Judge's Decision:
Damage: 4-1 Golden MADD
Aggression: 3-2 Blood Eagle
Control: 3-2 Blood Eagle
Winner: Golden MADD by 8-7 Judge's Decision

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Middleweight

(1) Hoarfrost Tartarus Robotics Group (7-0) vs. (4) Magnolia Grande The Monsterworks (6-1)

Hoarfrost gets rolling quickly, whilst Magnolia Grande, starting upside down, spins up and takes a more leisurely approach. The bots collide near the Murdersaw switch, Hoarfrost slamming Mango Grango across the rollers into the switch, causing the spinner to ricochet off of the wall, as the Murdersaw spins up with a terrifying hum. Magmortar Graveller manages to pull away, getting back to speed as Hoarfrost quickly comes back in to smother, bulldozing them into the wall, the hacksaw descending and booping Megatron Galvatron on the top (bottom?) of its chassis. Hoarfrost is able to reposition, scooping up Mangle Fivenightsatfreddies and launching it at the Murdersaw, which, as expected, cleaves straight through the spinner's bar. The Murdersaw's timer thankfully ends before Morris Garages gets injured any more, though the now weaponless bot isn't able to do too much to Hoarfrost, resulting in it getting flipped into the pit switches and dumped, albeit with enough juking from Alex to make this take a decent while, but not enough to beat the buzzer.

Hoarfrost wins by KO in 2:21.

(2) Dragonfist Team Worst Swordsman (6-1) vs. (6) Pressure Flop II Team Design Flaw (5-2)

Dragonfist spins up, but has to navigate the gauntlet to actually get to Pressure Flop, unless Pressure Flop rushes it. It doesn’t seem to be, though, instead hanging out near the hazard triggers on its side of the box. Dragonfist advances across the arena, and Pressure Flop… destroys the pit release trigger! Hey, come on, we’re not quite done with this arena yet, there’s still a couple more matches!

Dragonfist’s moving slowly even by its standards, steering between the pit and the murdersaw track, but there’s enough space for it even with the flails in play. Pressure Flop hits the murdersaw trigger, again with no real result, and – uh oh, gets caught on the log rollers! It has to bring that turret around in a hurry, and only doesn’t get smacked in the side because Dragonfist doesn’t want to go near the walls. The shuffle pods finally get traction and free it, and now Pressure Flop moves in to try and stop that weapon.

At first the steep wedge does a great job deflecting the flails, but Dragonfist’s a difficult bot to smother even with a fast drivetrain, which PF doesn’t have. It’s trying to bounce her into the hazards – oh, and there’s a close call on the pit – but Dragonfist backs away, and swerves to the side of the next attack. Pressure Flop turns the turret to follow it, but a flail ends up catching the edge of Pressure Flop’s wedge and sends the whole turret spinning around like a top! The hammer gets pivoted around into the path of DF’s weapon, and there’s a big hit! But Dragonfist bounces almost into the murdersaw! The slope around the track deflects the flails, but – oh, yikes, the saw does make contact, uppercutting one of the heads HARD and destabilizing the shell spinner.
Dragonfist’s on its back, and flopping around worse than its opponent! Pressure Flop’s hammer is twisted, and its own shell has a serious dent in it, but the weaponry’s still moving freely. It moves in for the kill as Dragonfist self-rights, and… BAM! The srimech pole’s now got a much worse bend in it, but it’s already done its job.

And now, Dragonfist’s in more trouble! It has to get spinning again with its opponent right in its face. It jukes away – ooh, and one flail goes over the edge of the pit, but it’s spinning back up, and… actually, which way is Dragonfist even facing? Cassie seems to be having some trouble controlling her robot, which is very dangerous this close to the pit. It’s almost like it’s… strafing or something, and unless Rocket borrowed some wheels from Golden Madd that shouldn’t be happening. The pole might be knocked loose and twisted somehow?

But there’s another big hit on Pressure Flop’s plow! The thick titanium plates are holding up pretty well, but that pirouette can’t be good for whatever’s driving the turret. And it looks like it might also be on lopsided, because Pressure Flop’s not really advancing with the wedge like before, it kind of has to awkwardly circle-strafe into Dragonfist. Dragonfist ends up destroying the other murdersaw trigger – by this point the other one’s turned back off, but more importantly Dragonfist’s shell is slowed down! Pressure Flop tries to muscle its way in past the weaponry and fires, but gets smacked aside again. There’s another glancing blow off the murdersaw track from Dragonfist.
Dragonfist’s still on the run, but spinning up again as Pressure Flop pursues. It rams full-speed into the circle of death, and both bots get sent skidding in opposite directions. Dragonfist goes over the pit, but again, nobody hit the other trigger so it’s closed. Pressure Flop, on the other hand, ramps up the murdersaw track, and that one is active! The saw plows straight into its side, and… ooh! That looks painful! It’s caught by the descending side the of the blade, and you know those fancy saw stop things? Well, Pressure Flop’s shell’s looking kind of like a used Sawstop cartridge. The hazard’s stopped, but taken a huge chunk out of its side, and PF gets shoved off the end of the track by the carriage the saw’s mounted on.

Meanwhile Dragonfist’s self-righting pole has completely fallen off. Pressure Flop’s completely stationary, and DF punishes the inanimate piece of metal for its betrayal by punting it into the lexan… and then hits the srimech pole too. Great job driving without a direction finder.

Your winner, by knockout in 2:03, is Dragonfist!

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Heavyweight

(1) Glacier III The Monsterworks (7-0) vs. (4) Xtreme pneumatiX Team Riptide (6-1)

Xtreme PneumatiX gets rolling quickly, and then just kind of... lets Glacier spin up and make its way out of the corner. Naturally, this results in a full power collision between both bots, PneumatiX spinning away with a nasty chunk taken out of the front of the bot. Both bots soon recover, Ethan trying again and not quite realizing how hard it is to wedge something with your wedgelets ripped to bits. A second hit buggers the flipping arm, a third following ripping the tip off entirely. A fourth strike sends PneumatiX spinning across the field and into the wall, its battered front end making driving difficult for the Welsh team. Glacier is able to crawl up, revving at full power, and smack into the side of the machine, tossing a wheel across the ring. Another few moments, and a KO is secured.

Glacier III wins by KO in 2:03.

(2) Dreadnought Mk. 4 Ice Cubed Robotics (6-1) vs. (3) Santangelo* Tartarus Robotics Group (5-2)

We've two very similar designs here, it's gonna be a close one. Santangelo scores the first flip of the match, bouncing Dreadnought up and down, though not getting it quite over. Dreadnought gets its turn, after a spot more dueling, rolling Santangelo over and shunting it into the wall. Santangelo is, of course, able to quickly recover from this, ready to go at it once more.
The match continues throughout with both sides managing to establish dominance for portions of the match, Santangelo chaining lifts and flips to keep control of Dreadnought, and Dreadnought rolling and slamming Santangelo into the walls. As the timer slips towards its final few moments, Dreadnought slams Santangelo upside down into the axes, the dropping hammers dealing the main visible damage of the match, as the buzzer goes. Let's see what the judges think...

Damage: 3-2 Dreadnought
Control: 3-2 Dreadnought
Aggression: 3-2 Santangelo

Your winner, by an 8-7 decision, is Dreadnought Mk. 4!

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Mastodon... Extinction (HW)
Osiris... Armageddon! (MW)
Elrathia... ROBOTS (LW)
Magnolia Pico... Ruination 4 (MW)
RipTide... ROBOT2 (FW)
Black Diamond... Cherry Bomb Classic 3 (HW)
MADSCIENCE... ROBOTS 3 (LW)
Abyss... ROBOTS 3 (MW)


The Monsterworks: 214-57 (.790) ...Probably up to no good.
Cherry Bomb Classic IV: 25-4
Finishing Move: 6-2
Magnolia Pico: 6-1
Magnolia Grande: 6-1
Glacier III: 7-0
ROBOTS 3: 21-6
Sixpounder: 3-4
MADSCIENCE: 9-1 Champion!
Abyss: 9-1 Champion!

User avatar
Trihunter
Posts: 503
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm
Location: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Team: Cool Story Brobotics
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Grand Final Fight Card: Razor's Edge (FW & LW) and Black Sun (MW & HW)

Post by Trihunter » Sun Jun 07, 2020 5:33 pm

It all comes down to this. Eight bots, seven teams, four trophies. It's been a long journey to get this far, so let's make this last stretch count!

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Razor's Edge by Floating Castle Robotics on Sketchfab

Name: Razor's Edge

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Layout: Rectangular

Size: 40 ft x 30 ft - 1200 square feet

Intended Use: FW - MW Singles and Doubles

Theme: Love Letter to Neon and the Eighties

Floor Materials: painted steel

OOTA Zone?: YES

House Robots: This arena does not use house robots.

Hazards and Features:
  • The Razor (1) - The entire arena is on a slightly raised platform, with this wall, designed to look like a razor, separating it from a drop of five feet. Starting half a minute into the match, it will begin lowering from its initial height of five feet at a rate of one foot per thirty seconds, stopping once it reaches a height of one foot with half a minute remaining.
  • The Glory Hole (1) - At one end of the razor is a hole large enough to push a small robot through during the first minute of the match, given enough precision and a strong drivetrain. If a robot becomes stuck in The Glory Hole through its opponent's actions as The Razor lowers it will suffer moderate to heavy damage, that opponent will be required to back off, and The Razor will rise briefly to free it before returning to its proper position and resuming its downward progress.
  • Psycho Exes (2) - Two of these x-shaped killsaw configurations lurk in each of the corners close to the Razor, rising for up to ten seconds when robots drive over them and dealing moderate damage. The teeth and spin direction of their blades are designed to feed you into the middle of them, so X definitely marks the spot... that you need to avoid.
  • Wild Flings (2) - This pair of large spinning drums occupies much of the arena's northern wall. While they can be used to aid in self-righting, their design also potentially high-centers robots on top of them, chewing up their underbellies for moderate to heavy damage.

Achievement One: A Close Shave - Score an OOTA with less than ten seconds remaining.

Achievement Two: Edgelord - Shove an opponent out of bounds through The Glory Hole in The Razor.
Earned by:
Team Riptide: I Can't Believe it's not Tanto (CBC4 Round One)
End of the Line LLC: Untitled Goose Robot (CBC4 Round One)

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Black Sun by Floating Castle Robotics on Sketchfab

Name: Black Sun

Location: Manaus, Brazil

Layout: semicircular, with a semicircular cutout along the bottom

Size: 70 ft x 35 ft - 1767 square feet

Intended Use: LW - HW Singles and Doubles

Theme: Techno-Futuristic Inca Temple

Floor Materials: painted steel

OOTA Zone?: NO

House Robots: This arena does not use house robots.

Hazards and Features:
  • Roots, Bloody Roots (7) - These branching, pneumatically powered barriers, coded to match the colours of the Inca flag, radiate from the central hub of the arena. When activated, they raise six inches from the floor and remain raised for three seconds, effectively cutting off portions of the arena. This works as follows:

    - 1) Whenever a robot scores a damaging blow, flip, or completely removes its opponent from the ground for five seconds or more, it will gain control of the set of roots closest to its starting circle. If it scores a second successful attack while in control of one set, it will gain control of the next set out from its circle. A third attack will give it control of the third set out, up to a maximum of all seven sets controlled.

    - 2) Once a robot controls a set of roots, its driver is allowed to activate them once, using a button in her control booth. After being used, that set of roots returns to being neutral and must be claimed again. Though it can be advantageous to use these hazards strategically, they do no damage, there is no expiry on using them, and they don't need to be used at all. More than one set can be activated at once as well.
  • Embrace of Darkness (1) - If a robot controls four or more sets of roots, its driver has the option to turn all of the lights out in the arena for up to ten seconds, potentially allowing him to maneuver unseen if he has a good enough idea of where his robot is.

Achievement: Sun God - Control all seven sets of roots at once.
Earned by:
Team Design Flaw: Padoru Machina (CBC4 Round One)
Team Ether: Icebreaker (CBC4 Round One)
Alpha Robotics: Diablo Genesis III (CBC4 Round One)

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The Fight Card

Below are the week's fights. Unlike most weeks, where RPs are due on Saturday, the will instead be due on Sunday, June 14, at 11:59 PM EST. As we are now in the playoffs, the RP limit is 500 words. Remember to inform your opponent of configuration choices by Friday night if they are not patently obvious or clearly posted in your signup.

Featherweight

Lightweight

Middleweight

Heavyweight

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Results

The first bot listed will always start in the green square. An asterisk (*) denotes a defending champion.


Featherweight

(6) Ori Team Instant Regret (5-2) vs. (9) Finishing Move The Monsterworks (6-2)

IN THE YELLOW SQUARE... weighing in at 64 and a half pounds... watch out neighborhood dogs, this rabbit bites back! It's... Ori!

AND IN THE (other) YELLOW SQUARE... weighing in at 65 and a bit... "test your might" all you want against this speedster, you're still on the fast track to a swift fatality! It's... Finishing Move!

BZZZZRRRT

The match starts and FM immediately starts flaunting it's extra speed, liberally bobbing in and out of Ori's vicinity. Ori, of course, is a communist who HATES liberals and as such is quick to shut down this strategy, zipping straight forward into FM as it strafes. One, two, and three flips sends FM to the wall, where Ori pins it with the flipper ajar. Ori takes the free 10 second pin before being told to back off.

Now free, FM decides to try... pretty much the exact same thing again. More specifically: Ale- I mean Billy dodges most of Ori's lunges in hopes of pouncing when it sees an opening. That doesn't materialize though, since Ori proves to be real stiff on the controls. Stop, go. Stop, go. Thing turns on a dime.

You might also notice my use of the word "most" there... yeah. Things go south for FM again as Ori manages to catch up and ragdoll FM around, this time landing it on the spikes. Herein FM's true colors come out to shine: it's very fast. It is also very fragile, as the spikes pop up and bend the axles on one of FM's wheels.

The rest of the match falls squarely in "stop stop he's already dead" territory, with Ori bullying and punting FM all over the place. It thinks about chucking FM over the razor last second, but does it really matter either way at this point?

AGG: 3-2 Finishing Move
DMG: 4-1 Ori
CTL: 4-1 Ori

Ori wins by a 10-5 judge's decision, and is your Cherry Bomb Classic 4 Featherweight Champion!.

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Lightweight

(4) Scrapper Cool Story Brobotics (6-1) vs. (6) Golden MADD Team Rinzler (5-2)

Finally, it's time for the final of the Lightweight division. In one side we have Golden MADD, a shell spinner from the rookie, but skilled Rinzler. On the other side we have a Splatoon-inspired drum spinner from Tri hunter. These bots have overcome a lot of obstacles as equally hard-hitting spinners to make it all the way here. Now, who will win? The shell spinner of the giant drum?

We are off to a start. Golden MADD is spinning up, while Scrapper is trying to use its speed to get into Golden MADD first, while the shell tries to meet in the center. Eventually, both bots meet, and we see what happens weapon-to-weapon. Tri thinks that the angled shell and low teeth will give Rinzler little to bite on Scrapper while allowing Scrapper to break down the weapon by wailing on it. However, this doesn't go as well as Tri expects. Rinzler indeed tries to maneuver to get the teeth into one of the forks using the kiwi drive and this plays into Tri's tactic to snipe the self-righting pole while Golden MADD is turning.
However, this fails. Rinzler does consider the possibility of Scrapper doing that, so he maneuvers his bot carefully, avoiding the pole from being hit. Scrapper meanwhile gets an angled hit from the shell on the drum, sending both bots away with Golden MADD pinballing for a bit, though it luckily doesn't get into the path of any hazards m. As the spinners are at slow speed, it's noticeable that Scrapper has a bit of it's teeth taken off, as is Golden MADD, though the shell is still in a better condition than the drum.

Both bots soon line up to hit each other again, with Scrapper being slowed down a bit by gyroing while trying to turn. Golden MADD again maneuvers carefully to avoid the hit Scrapper wants on the srimech pole. Golden MADD finally succeeds in getting its own target instead, one of the forks. It hits the left fork at an angle, quickly taking it off.

Golden MADD pinballs again and eats a hit from the Psycho Exes. However, it fortunately only makes contact with it for a second during the pinball, so the baseplate doesn't suffer much damage, unlike its fight against Blood Eagle in a different arena. Scrapper on the other hand is unable to spin the drum effectively as it now scrapes against the ground.

Scrapper is still persistent, though it is now limping. Golden MADD soon moves in for the kill, smacking the side with the missing form, tearing the whole drum and a wheel. Golden MADD soon celebrates after recovering from another pinball as Scrapper is unable to move, getting counted out. This means that Rinzler has just won his first official major, like Alex once did.

Winner: Golden MADD by KO (00:49)

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Middleweight

(1) Hoarfrost Tartarus Robotics Group (7-0) vs. (2) Dragonfist Team Worst Swordsman (6-1)

This match begins with some trash talk between the two drivers and it's hard to tell if this is Robot Wars-style just-for-TV guff or if they actually don't like each other. When the buzzer sounds, Hoarfrost is off like a rocket in what Laz calls an 'arcing box rush'. It's just driving really fast in a shallow semicircle. I prefer that name for it. Dragonfist, meanwhile, is at great pains to move away from the wall, spin-up, and reach a very specific area of the arena.

Aaaaand Hoarfrost hits it, or it's flails, actually. Both bots suffer knockback, but not a ton of it, and Hoarfrost is back on top of Dragonfist before you can say both robots' names. Cassie tries to maneuver her much slower bot to freedom, and its flails buy it some time as they keep pushing the bots a few inches apart on each hit. They're slowing, though, and Hoarfrost is corralling her towards her starting corner.

Until a root pops up! Hoarfrost's big wedge ends up on top of it and the Canadian bot has no hope of getting over. Disappointed, Laz backs off and Dragonfist gets to spin up again. Cassie looks more relieved than happy with that bit of sneaky offense, though. Maybe it's not exactly what she wanted either?

The hazard drops and Hoarfrost is back. There are another couple of collisions and Dragonfist now has control of three roots, but Hoarfrost is right in its face. Until... a root pops up, but this time the spinner is on top of it, at its widest point too! It shifts a tiny bit as the root rises and the edge of its shell seems to impact one of the hazard's little branches. Dragonfist flings itself off, careening around the arena at an angle.

The moment that root has retracted, Hoarfrost is there, and it finally manages the pin it's been looking for. After a bit of flail-based struggle from its opponent, it has firm control, and Hoarfrost barrels across the arena towards its own starting area, with the shell spinner high-ended on its wedge. And... what's this? Hoarfrost now has two sets of roots? Dragonfist gets pummeled into an arena wall and the lexan ripples with the force of the impact. Hoarfrost tries to leverage the glorified self-righter Laz calls a 'flipper' to turn it all the way over, but it just ends up on its side, weapon motor wailing, flails jangling, wheels spinning furiously at the air. Hoarfrost earns a third root.

The British bot eventually comes down, coining onto its wheels, but Hoafrost is on its case again as it just starts to spin up. Miraculously, neither of the flails is tangled or caught under it, at least. Dragonfist starts to find itself pushed back again, before...

Pop! A root comes up and pwns Hoarfrost. It gets tipped back and actually does a wheelstand for a moment. Dragonfist coins some more, but is back under control and spinning up to dangerous speeds by the time that the hazard retracts.

Cue a montage of brick wearing down spinner and spinner trying to frustratedly get around brick's obnoxious plow. It only ends after Dragonfist has gained two more roots and used them up to buy itself some breathing room. An inconvenient root moment actually results in the spinner scoring a hit on Hoarfrost's body, but it's after a ricochet and doesn't do the crippling damage that Cassie was probably hoping for. Still, that's a mean bit of crumpling on Hoarfrost. The end result, however, is the same as last time: Hoarfrost ends up under Dragonfist and Dragonfist ends up getting shoved to the other side of the arena. Hoarfrost also earns two more roots in the cheapest way possible and is now up to five and not particularly inclined to use them.

A wall slam, and then another wall slam, and then a flip that sends Dragonfist wobbling and coining away put an exclamation point on the sequence for Hoarfrost. It now leverages the power of its drivetrain to ensure that the rest of the match is fought away from the roots that Dragonfist controls. Really, there should be a rule against this kind of root-hogging strategy, but Laz has never particularly cared if he wins cheaply or fairly.

Dragonfist gets away again, briefly, and manages a good few hits that spin Hoarfrost around and expose its back. Laz is smart enough to zip away and regroup, though. Cassie does the same, retreating to her holdout at the other end of the arena and positioning herself once more on top of a set of roots with less than twenty seconds left in the match. Just as she's triggering them, however, Laz triggers the Embrace of Darkness. He would. It sounds edgy enough for him.

Loud clanks and whirrs and squealing tires can be heard and, when the lights turn on, through sheer dumb luck, Dragonfist is near the opposite side of the arena, spinning back up, and Hoarfrost is turning around to go after it. Laz tries to pop his last set of roots to startle the other driver, but Cassie's not about to be had by such a cheap tactic. The fight ends more or less as it began: with Dragonfist's flails pinging and popping off of Hoarfrost's somewhat-more-battered-looking wedge. We're going to the judges.

Aggression: 5-0 Hoarfrost
Damage: 5-0 Dragonfist
Control: 4-1 Hoarfrost

Your winner, by a score of 9-6, and the Cherry Bomb Classic IV middleweight champion is... Hoarfrost!

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Heavyweight

(1) Glacier III The Monsterworks (7-0) vs. (2) Dreadnought Mk. 4 Ice Cubed Robotics (7-1)

Here we are, with the grand finale of the Cherry Bomb Classic: The Heavyweight title. In one corner, we've Dreadnought. Alex V's been fighting hard to get this bot a title for longer than I've been fighting robots, period, and he's confident that this time will be the one. In the other, we've Glacier, which has had a fairly clean, albeit less than popular, run through this tourney. Alex M's looking pretty smug coming into this match. Let's see how it pans out.

The buzzer sounds, beginning this match, with GF going for the ol' reliable aggressive-strategic schtick, rushing in, and sliding straight under the protector. Dreadnought jerks a bit as it makes contact with Glacier's outer chassis, but nonetheless, makes it through, hoisting it up and over, a chain of one, two, three flips rolling Glacier back into its starting square, pinning it against the wall, legs flailing. Eventually, after a fourth slam, Glacier is able to get up and spinning properly, but is soon no-selled by that beefed up front panel of Glacier, again piercing its shell-shell for a fifth flip, up and over, slamming it against the wall once more, sending it awkwardly rolling along the edge until its arm nudges it enough to come down. Similar assaults bank the final two panels needed for a total lockout, Glacier managing to spin free, getting free enough to rev up to full pelt, only for the two surrounding roots to pop up, one close enough to cause Glacier to glance off of it, as the lights go off, plunging the arena into darkness...

SMAAAAAAAASH!

In the murky depths of the arena, a collision rings out, the lights returning as Glacier pinballs across the ring again, Dreadnought spun away, but undeterred, Alex V quickly getting back into the fight, managing to recover before Glacier can get fully up to speed once more, lifting and throwing it back over, easily reclaiming its two spent roots. Glacier attempts to escape once more, only to get pinned by a root as it rockets up, Dreadnought moving to scoop and roll it over as the root drops down again. The match continues in a similar pattern for the next minute of the match, Dreadnought keeping on top of Glacier for the whole duration, although its front wedge is starting to look a lot more battered as the final seconds tick down. Dreadnought opts to conclude the match with another pin, inverting Glacier against the wall as the buzzer goes.

Control: 5-0 Dreadnought
Damage: 4-1 Glacier
Aggression: 5-0 Dreadnought

Your winner, by a 11-4 decision, and taking home the Cherry Bomb Classic IV Heavyweight Championship, is... Dreadnought Mk IV!

Dreadnought Mk IV has earned the Sun God achievement.

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Accolades
Official participant in ARCcon Europe
ROBOT 2 FW Shitbot Showdown winner
ROBOT 2 MW Shitbot Showdown winner
ROBOT 2 HW Shitbot Showdown winner
ROBOT 2 Most Trophies (Runner-up)
Official voter in OSCARC 2018
Best Meme 2018 (Mimi-Chan)
Trophies
ICEcrown Champion (Steelhead)
CBC3 SHW Runner-Up (Hartmann's Youkai Bot II)
CBC4 LW Runner-Up (Scrapper)
ROBOT4 Sportsman Runner-Up (Split Personality)
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Locked