King of Bots (Season 2)/Episode 7

Season 2 title card

The **seventh episode of *King of Bots II*** aired on 25th August 2019. It continued the second phase of team battles, concluding the proceedings of Episode 6, before the celebrities chose one of six new robots to add to their rosters.

The end of the episode also featured *Robo Genius*, an educational segment exploring different aspects of robot building and combat.

## Competing robots

* Big Carioca
* Cracked Sword
* Deep-Sea Shark
* Drift
* Megabyte
* Mist Lion
* Po Feng
* Rhino
* Saber
* Thunder
* Vulcan
* Xiake

## Setup

*NOTE: Team captains are highlighted in bold*

In the previous episode, Tu Ziya was forced to eliminate Earth Mover and Emerald from her team, following defeats to Huang Jian Xiang and Zhu Zheng Ting respectively. This left the team rosters as the following:

The episode effectively concluded the second phase of celebrity elimination rounds, each with two head-to-head battles and a 2v2 melee.

Once these rounds had concluded, celebrities were then given the chance to vote for one additional team member to add to their rosters. These were from a pool of six newly-introduced robots including Warrior, Boxing Champion, Dragon King, The Hounds, Shrederator Tiger Claw and Johnny and the Dinosaur. Once the celebrities made their votes and explained their reasoning for selecting their chosen robots, the robot’s builders would decide which celebrity manager they would fight for.

## Battles

### Huang Jian Xiang vs Di Yang

Prior to the round starting, Huang Jian Xiang nominated Flaming Wheel and Thunder for elimination, with Di Yang selecting Mist Lion and Cracked Sword.

#### Vulcan vs Saber

Vulcan initiated the Season 1 rematch by slightly wedging under the front of Saber, edging it towards the wall, from which Saber sped away - but Vulcan caught up and flipped it from behind, throwing it across the arena. Saber landed directly onto a Grinder for a painful landing, although this did put Saber back on its wheels. On its own charge, Saber drove straight under the front end of Vulcan, but mistimed its flip, and turned itself over. Although Saber self-righted, Vulcan was already pushing it from behind, and used this chance to blast Saber into the corner of the arena. Had there been more room in this section of the arena, Saber would have been thrown out of the arena for an instant KO, but it instead bounced off the outer wall, and landed on top of the arena barrier before tumbling back in. Saber fired its flipper in an attempt to self-right, but instead bounced high into the air and landed inverted again.

Saber self-righted more effectively with a follow-up flip, but Vulcan had already positioned itself under Saber, and threw it upwards again, clipping the Grinder on its way down and still landed inverted. Saber finally put itself back onto its wheels after this attack, while Vulcan was thrown off-guard by the intervening floor flipper. With Saber mostly spinning in place, Vulcan drove underneath it easily, and again launched Saber across the arena, causing it to hit the wall near the referee. Saber made its escape, but rode up the front wedge of Vulcan on its next attempt at an attack, and was chucked back into the wall where it had just come from.

At this stage, Saber was at a huge deficit, but it was finally able to slot its forks under the side of Vulcan and flicked the British machine up, but not over. Vulcan, however, was relatively unaffected and instantly responded with a combo of two back-to-back flips, which still ended with Saber landing back on Vulcan's wedge. Saber attempted to flip itself free, but instead shook off its own side armor, and overturned itself again. The two robots separated, but Saber again drove up the front wedge of Vulcan, exposing itself to another flip. Both robots fired their flippers wildly in the final few seconds, with Vulcan completing its ninth flip on Saber in the process, when time expired on the battle. The resulting Judges' decision went resoundingly in the favor of Vulcan and Huang Jian Xiang.

**Winner: Vulcan (Huang Jian Xiang)**

#### Xiake vs Rhino

Both robots quickly met in the center of the arena, where Xiake flicked itself into the air upon hitting Rhino’s wedge. Rhino was knocked back towards the circular saws through this collision, but dodged another charge from Xiake, before turning round and hitting the red machine’s side. Immediately, after this, Rhino pushed Xiake into the furthest wall spikes, damaging one of its side panels and flipping it over in the process. Xiake was left stranded on the spikes for several seconds, but eventually broke free, only to get itself wedged underneath the spikes as Rhino closed in. Capitalizing on its opponent’s error, Rhino threw Xiake upwards against the wall, while tearing its right panel open and removing its right-rear tire.

Still inverted, Xiake attempted to drive away following another bump from Rhino. However, it ended up spinning into Rhino again, sustaining more damage as Rhino rammed it into the corner and the wall spikes once again. Xiake inched itself away from the spikes, but was soon upended by the nearby floor flipper. Rhino got underneath and hit Xiake’s top panel, before ramming Xiake drum-first into the blue corner. The force of the ram re-righted Xiake, but it soon became clear that it was now suffering mobility issues. Despite this, Xiake managed to shuffle its way across the arena perimeter, before pointing its drum at Rhino as the UK machine rammed and removed its left-front wedgelet. As Xiake tried to charge forwards, the mount for the damaged wedgelet caught the space for one of the circular saws, causing the robot’s left wheels to be lifted up and removing its only remaining source of drive.

Rhino quickly took advantage of Xiake’s issues, pushing and ramming it into the corner spikes. While this reset Xiake’s wedgelet hinge to its correct position, Xiake was still left immobile on one side, and was quickly counted out by the referee. Rhino earned itself and a jubilant Di Yang a controlling knockout victory; this allowed them to equalize Huang Jian Xiang’s team on points, enabling their 2v2 round to take place.

**Winner: Rhino (Di Yang)**

#### Deep-Sea Shark & Thunder vs Cracked Sword & Mist Lion

Deep-Sea Shark hung back to power up its spinner, while allowing its teammate Thunder to drive in and deflect the bar spinner of Cracked Sword, sending it spiralling across the arena. Thunder blocked its escape, catching Cracked Sword as it backed away, and then pushed it into Deep-Sea Shark. Mist Lion pushed its way past its opponents, and Thunder drove onto the arena saws, which caused it to land on top of the evasive Mist Lion. Deep-Sea Shark was required to knock Thunder off its opponent, particularly as Mist Lion had ground to a temporary halt over the saws, due to one of its forks being wedged into the slot for the arena hazard. Mist Lion eventually backed away, but gyroscopic forces pulled it into the air, and Mist Lion landed on one of its own wedgelets, stranding it again.

Thunder continued to assert itself over Cracked Sword, comfortably withstanding its bar spinner while pushing it into the arena corner. Thunder then backed away, and Cracked Sword hit the front of Thunder directly to knock both machines aside. Cracked Sword flew directly into the front of Deep-Sea Shark, which pushed it into Mist Lion, which was still stuck in place. Finally, Deep-Sea Shark hit the front of Mist Lion with its spinner, knocking its opponent back into the battle.

Thunder and Cracked Sword continued to face off, with the spinner of Cracked Sword starting to create visible damage in Thunder's scoop, but Thunder pushed it onto the floor flipper which lifted both robots up. This allowed Thunder to continue its attack, sliding Cracked Sword around the arena. Deep-Sea Shark launched a direct hit on the side of Mist Lion while pushing it aside, and it became clear that Mist Lion could no longer move with this side of drive, using only the gyroscopic forces of its drum to move outside of its circumference. Meanwhile, Thunder moved Cracked Sword into the grinder mount, inflicting severe recoil onto the bar spinner.

With Mist Lion clearly struggling for movement, Deep-Sea Shark attempted to capitalize and charged in, but directly collided with the drum spinner of Mist Lion and was thrown onto its front. Deep-Sea Shark's spinner threw sparks off the arena floor, but the robot did not fall back on its wheels, and slid into the corner of the arena, stranded on its front. Thunder moved in to try and free its teammate, but the referee counted Deep-Sea Shark out, and it became the first to fall in the two-on-two battle. Mist Lion drifted in to attack Thunder, but also ground to a near-halt in this corner itself, only twitching back and forth, leaving the battle up to Thunder and Cracked Sword. Cracked Sword joined the action, but Thunder guided the bar spinner of its opponent into the wall, where it ripped away an arena spike and lost all momentum to its bar spinner. Mist Lion was counted out at this stage, as it repeatedly backed into Deep-Sea Shark, failing to escape.

Cracked Sword had managed to accelerate its blade again, but Thunder guided it back into the wall and, this time, silenced the bar spinner permanently, although Thunder also collided with a seam in the floor and was momentarily halted. Cracked Sword mostly spun in place near Mist Lion, with one of its own wheels visibly damaged, and Thunder pinned it against the arena wall until time ran out. Even though time had expired on the battle, as signalled by the change in lighting, Thunder continued to attack, carrying its beached opponent across the arena and into the Grinder, where it became pinned. This late attack did not go unnoticed by the celebrities and roboteers, who were visibly upset by the late attack.

Originally, the Judges were required to determine a winner of the battle, naming Thunder and Deep-Sea Shark as the winners. However, Di Yang objected to the decision, believing that rewarding a robot which launched an attack after time had expired would encourage other teams to attack their opponents in the same position, and worsen the issues they already faced with repairing their robots in between rounds. In response, the Judges and producers re-evaluated the battle, and concluded that no winner would be declared.

**Winner: None declared**

#### Team Results

Following the outcome of their 2v2 battle, neither Huang Jian Xiang or Di Yang would be required to eliminate robots from their teams at this stage. With only their head-to-head battles being considered, they finished their round on a tie, with one win apiece.

 Di Yang

**Eliminated: None**

### Emma Dumont vs Tao Shen

For this round, Emma Dumont placed Cat King and Storm Cut up for elimination, while Tao Shen nominated Earth Shovel and Mr Hippo.

#### Drift vs Po Feng

Both robots circled around each other in the center of the arena, with the first contact seeing Po Feng drive over Drift's wedge. Drift kept up the pressure, bumping into Po Feng, while taking only a slight knock from the opponent's spinner afterwards. Drift then drove under Po Feng, and managed to drag it a slight distance across the arena until the robots separated. Drift then made evasive maneuvers, baiting out an approach from Po Feng while running over the wedge-shaped minibot. Po Feng again drove over the top of Drift, and was corraled into the Grinder mount by Drift, causing its spinner to throw sparks off the arena surface.

Po Feng recovered, and attempted to utilize the flamethrower of its drone, but the main robot simply drove over the top of Drift again. Driving capably, Drift circled around Po Feng again, exposing its wedge and luring it into the same Grinder mount as before. After two more head-to-head collisions, Drift made a slight mistake in driving over the arena saws, but Po Feng made the same error on a larger scale, ramping over the already-raised saws to throw itself over entirely, landing on its vertical spinner and coming to a rest inverted. Drift capitalized on its inverted foe, pushing it into a corner while firing its lifter, although Po Feng successfully used the wedge shape of Drift to self-right.

Drift wedged under Po Feng briefly, but then suffered its first direct attack of the match, with Po Feng delivering a side-on hit to Drift, tossing it into the air but without causing visible damage. Po Feng followed this up by hitting the front of Drift, but when Drift fell back onto its wheels, it wedged straight back under the front of Po Feng and caused it to fall over. Although Po Feng attempted to self-right using its gyroscopic forces, Drift did not let up, and pushed it into the arena wall, using its lifter to momentarily strand Po Feng against the wall.

Po Feng was still attempting to self-right using its spinner, driving in circles, eventually doing so by bringing its vertical spinner into the Grinder, somersaulting Po Feng back onto its wheels - Drift, meanwhile, was briefly raised by the floor flipper. Nevertheless, Drift drove Po Feng back into the arena wall, and the two robots then separated. Meeting again in the center of the arena, Po Feng grazed the side of Drift with its spinner, ripping away loose parts, but Drift otherwise kept its front end towards Po Feng, and negated its attacks for the final ten seconds of the match. The battle was sent to a Judges' decision, and Drift's good driving was awarded with a victory for Emma Dumont's team.

**Winner: Drift (Emma Dumont)**

#### Megabyte vs Big Carioca

Within seconds, Big Carioca approached and drove into a spinning Megabyte, only for Megabyte to rip off its front-right wedge and send it recoiling into the grinders. Megabyte, meanwhile, ricocheted into the spikes, rebounding back into the blue corner before getting its shell up to speed. Big Carioca charged into Megabyte again, and as before was launched towards the grinder, this time with considerable damage to its right axle.

Despite this, Big Carioca drove into Megabyte’s shell twice more; these blows resulted in Megabyte tearing off one of Big Carioca’s weapon supports and its remaining wedge, as well as dislodge the Brazilian machine’s bar spinner entirely. As a result of this damage, Big Carioca began to overbalance, flipping its chassis upside down while Megabyte closed in. Megabyte cleaved Big Carioca’s right wheel off, sparks flying as Big Carioca was knocked back into the blue corner.

Big Carioca moved back and forth in a circle on its remaining wheel, and began to shuffle out of the blue corner in an attempt to avoid getting eliminated. Although the referee initially began counting Big Carioca out, its movements across the arena were noticed, terminating the countdown after three seconds. Big Carioca made its way towards the pit, at which point Megabyte charged forwards and slammed into it one more time. The impact sent Big Carioca flying into a grinder mount, and the remainder of its weapon mount into one of the polycarbonate screens directly above. Big Carioca came to rest against another grinder mount nearby, where it was left to smoke copiously. After a spectacularly destructive battle, Megabyte was declared the winner by knockout, securing Emma Dumont’s second consecutive victory in this round.

"*The Brazilian team is really good friends with Megabyte, the Megabyte team, and they said “Let’s do it, let’s go full out, let’s try our hardest… you know, come at us!”… that was really honorable and very, very cool.*"
— Emma Dumont’s verdict on Megabyte vs Big Carioca

**Winner: Megabyte (Emma Dumont)**

#### Team Results

With Emma Dumont scoring two consecutive victories, the 2v2 battle – featuring Spectre, Cat King, Earth Shovel and Mr Hippo – did not take place, and Tao Shen was forced to drop a robot from his team. Following moving speeches from both of his nominated choices, a tearful Shen chose to eliminate Mr Hippo, despite neither it or Earth Shovel having fought during this round.

 Tao Shen

**Eliminated: Mr Hippo**

## Celebrity Teams

After the battles in this episode, six new robots pitched themselves to the celebrity captains, vying for a place on their teams. First introduced was Warrior, which Emma Dumont selected for her team. Second was Boxing Champion, which two captains attempted to select, with the robot's captain Aren Hill deciding to join Di Yang's team. Third was Dragon King, which no celebrity wished to recruit, pushing it to the back of the line. Fourth was The Hounds, which every available celebrity attempted to choose, allowing Ellis Ware to voluntarily join Zhu Zheng Ting's team. Fifth was Shrederator Tiger Claw, which the three remaining celebrities opted to choose, allowing Brian Nave to join Huang Jian Xiang's team of his own will. Johnny and the Dinosaur was then pitched to the remaining celebrities, and was selected by Tu Ziya. Finally, Dragon King was added to Tao Shen's team by default.

The updated celebrity rosters at the end of the episode were as follows:

*NOTE: Team captains are highlighted in bold. Robots introduced in this episode are highlighted in italics*

## References

1. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/battlebots/comments/cvfgwd/king\_of\_bots\_season\_2\_episode\_7/ey46as2/