Tournament

**Tournaments** are the main medium of fighting Battlebots. They are set up with a structure knocking out robots in consecutive battles, ending up in a championship battle between two robots who will fight to be crowned the champion of the tournament.

## Structure

Tournaments are laid out in a series of set 1-on-1 battles to knock out robots in a series of 'heats'. The 1-on-1 battles are deathmatches in the arena where robots will fight to the destruction of one of them. Should the battle reach a stalemate, either due to both robots being knocked out at the same time or both robots being mobile but unable to damage each other further, then the decision will go to the judges, who will decide who wins based on damage, control, aggression and style. At the end of all the heat matches, the robot listings will have been cut in half, with half being victorious and going through while the other half will be eliminated from the competition.

With the remaining robots, the quarter finals will take place, again as a series of death matches. Once again, each robot will fight each other until the listings are again halved. These robots will have proven themselves in the arena from their previous matchup, so the battles will be fiercer with both robots being more in control of themselves.

After these battles, depending on the amount of competitors at the beginning of the tournament, the semi-finals will take place. If there are not a lot of competitors in the tournament, the quarter finals will be skipped, leading straight to the semi-finals. At this point, only the best robots of the tournament will be left to fight, with only around four robots left in the competition. At this point, the robots will be ready and waiting, all knowing what to expect from the coming fight. At the end of the semi-finals, only two robots will be going through.

The grand finals and losers melee will take place after the semi-finals and will be the final battle of the tournament. The losers melee will take place first, determining third and fourth place of the tournament. The two losing robots of the semi-final will fight each other to see who comes runner up to the champions and for a place on the podium. The grand final will take place between the two best robots of the competition, so the fight will likely be long and arduous, with both robots trying their hardest to win. The winner will take the crown and be named tournament champion.

## Rules

Tournaments have a set of rules to prevent interference and unfair play in the arena to give one robot the advantage over another unfairly. The rules are as follows:

* No manual interfering with other robots. This includes things like holding right click and using Q/E to stop actuators for spinners or flippers.
* No leaving the robot mid-match.
* No god mode of robots during the match.
* No respawning in the middle of a match.
* No pressing U to flip yourself over if stuck.
* When the final bell rings, you must stop all fighting.
* Unlike normal matches, you have to build your own bot to fight in a competition.

## Side battles

Alongside the main tournament will take place some other battles. Robots that have been knocked out of the main tournament can still take part in these side modes to win other honours and titles. Not every side battle will take place each tournament, with them being swapped out between tournaments. These modes include:

### Sumo

A sumo tournament bans weapons with the express aim being to push your opponent out of a wall less arena. Shoving power and driver skill is the main thing to focus on in a sumo battle, as having a weapon will not count for anything with a sumo battle. Should both robots come to a stalemate with neither being able to push each other out of the arena, then the sumo arena size will decrease, being expressed with a series of coloured lines on the sumo arena floor.

### Last man standing

The last man standing battle takes place in the main arena and features four robots fighting each other. There are no teams or alliances, just a fight to the death. With four robots fighting each other, there's a lot more going on and each competitor needs to decide who they want to take out first. There are no stops or resets when one robot goes down, so as the fight goes on and each robot dies, a lot more debris will litter the arena floor, giving extra hazard for those robots left fighting. The match ends when one robot is left mobile at the end, or if both robots are knocked out at the same time, which will lead to a judges decision on the victor.

### Tag-Team tussle

Tag-team matches take place between two teams of robots, who work together to win against another team of two. The robots are marked with a flag on a pole on the roof of the robot to show which team they belong to, to try and curb friendly fire incidents. The battle goes on until one team is victorious over the other. The key to a tag-team battle is to work together. If one robot is flipped without a srimech to right itself, then its teammate should try and right it for it.

### Annihilator

An annihilator tournament is like a last man standing battle, but each robot knocked out is then removed from the arena and the fight restarted. Unlike last man standing, when a robot is taken out, the fight is stopped and the damaged robot removed. The remaining robots are then placed back on their starting positions to start fighting again. This continues until it reaches a standard 1v1 scenario to determine the victor.

### Walker rumble

A walker rumble battle is dedicated to walker robots and those who use legs to move themselves along. Since walkers are in a class of their own, and very rare to see, they often perform well below robots powered by wheels or even tracks. Therefore, they are often only pitted against their own types to make the match fair, since they will both then likely have a similar amount of mobility.

## Awards

There is not only an award for winning the tournament championship, although it is the main trophy for the tournament. Altogether there's multiple different awards to win.

* Grand Champion - The main award for finished first in the grand final. This is the primary award of a tournament, to be crowned as champion.
* Champion runner up - Awarded to the loser of the grand final match for coming in second place.
* Most unique robot - An award for the most unique and interesting robot, be it in design, weapon placement or otherwise. Usually reserved for robots that are visually unique.
* Most innovative design - An award for the robot with the most innovative weapon system. This doesn't have to be a completely new weapon design, but the weapon should be effective and different to other weapons of the same type.
* Sumo winner - The award given to the winner of a sumo tournament.

## Gallery

The structure of a 4 person tournamentThe structure of an 8 person tournament