The judges say: 32-13 victory for Codebreaker
The fans say: 36-9 victory for Codebreaker
Scott: Minion had a sudden burst of aggression somewhere in the last third of the fight, but it wasn't enough to amount to more than Codebreaker's total aggression. More attacks and more pushing give Codebreaker the edge.
Let's tally up the damage. Codebreaker rammed Minion and disabled the disk, it knocked off a piece of armor underneath Minion, and it tore the treads off two of Minion's wheels. Minion put a couple of sizeable dents in Codebreaker's armor. Sounds like a 4-1 distribution of points to Codebreaker to me.
Codebreaker's strategy was clear -- attack with the drum and push Minion around. Minion seemed confused about what its strategy should be, especially at the beginning -- it couldn't decide between using the wedge and using the disk, which allowed Codebreaker to take advantage of the indecision. Of course, after Minion lost the use of its disk, it used only the wedge. Minion also was lacking in the defensive, as Codebreaker was able to attack its sides a number of times. Because it knew what it was doing and rarely was prevented from doing it, Codebreaker gets 4 points.
Shin: Eh...um...I feel icky. This season has been the season of many veteran upsets. Oh, here I was thinking I got off easy not having to describe Complete Control's humiliation, but alas...these upsets...keep on coming. And now I have to begrudgingly wonder what the hell happened to Minion.
Really, WHY wasn't Minion all-out aggressive? Or even a little bit? He makes some attempts to shove Codebreaker around, but most of them fail or have little effect as it is. And he was openly backing off from Codebreaker more than once early into the fight. When his disc was still...actually...running. WHY!? It hurts my head on how I can make sense of Minion's blatant...COWARDICE! Of course, Codebreaker kept himself plenty busy, attacking one side at a time, swerving around, pushing Minion into every hazard imaginable. Of course, Minion's so big that he's a bit arduous to shove around all over the place...considering that, Codebreaker did a pretty good job.
At least Minion made the pretty sparks come out. Too bad they didn't...do as much as I would've liked them to do. Codebreaker had some fun times on the killsaws too, so those are really the only reasons Minion even got a point in Damage. Minion even had his wedge flipped up and damaged from the bottom...then there's that tire incident, the disc dying out, and the fact that Minion was just looking plain trashy at the very end. At least Minion can withstand a good beating. Too bad it doesn't necessarily win any points...
Minion's strategy, uhh...was...um...MUCH more different than any other strategy he used in the past! Too bad it sucked. Sitting there and waiting for your opponent to drive into your spinning disc is no different from the Typical Thwackbot Strategy. Or Phrizbee Ultimate's strategy against Toro. I have a feeling Codebreaker did pretty much everything he wanted to do to Minion and more. He was pretty much in control of that fight 99% of the time. And he got to make Minion look really stupid...isn't that always an essential part to a fighting robot's strategy? Sigh.
Xrayspex: Minion did not look like a former champion in this fight. Codebreaker was definitely the aggressor in the fight, attacking with the drum on both Minion's primary weapons and wheels. There were a couple times when it looked like Minion was coming at Codebreaker with the wedge but it paled in comparison to what Codebreaker showed us.
Minion got absolutely pounded in this fight. Looked like the blade on the back was broken, the wheel was busted and affecting mobility, there were a number of rams into the spike strips and other hazards courtesy of Codebreaker, and dents and crunched metal too numerous to count. Codebreaker took a number of hits from Minion's blade and a couple hazard hits, but damage seemed mostly cosmetic and did not affect performance.
For strategy, Minion could get under Codebreaker with the wedge or attack with the blade, but did not execute either of these very well. However, since I was able to discern a strategy in the first place, Minion got a point. Codebreaker, on the other hand, was able to execute the strategies of attacking Minion's blade and especially Minion's wheels with the drum, and was also able to wedge itself under the blade and under Minion and push Minion into various hazards. Codebreaker gets the rest of the strategy points.