The first ever MRCA qualifier has concluded! After a long tournament with many hard-fought battles, a new Wisconsin champion was crowned! The full bracket result is available here, but here are some of the top robots.
1st Place: Mudskipper
The surprise story of the day was Mudskipper, built by Remy DeGuzman of y_0 robotics! After losing its first match, Mudskipper changed weapon assemblies and found a new stride by tearing through the losers bracket. By scoring knockouts in 8 of its 9 following fights, Mudskipper decisively won the tournament and left everyone wondering if there was any way to defend against this 1.5lb monstrosity. After such a dominant performance, it is undoubtedly one of the top bots to look out for at the MRCA finals in October.
2nd Place: Theseus
Ethan Hyden, the builder of Theseus, found himself in the finals at his third consecutive event! Despite a ground up redesign, Theseus showed no signs of slowing down up until its final two matches. Theseus ignored its tough opposition through the winner's bracket and scored multiple knockouts to score second place overall.
3rd Place: CookieCutter
Despite being one of the more underestimated robots of the tournament, CookieCutter took out some fan favorites to continue its run through the tournament! CookieCutter started as a simple Viper kit, but Eric Lussky's armor modifications and stellar driving put him very far into the bracket before suffering respectable losses to Theseus and Mudskipper. With a third place finish, Cookie Cutter was the last robot to guarantee its spot in the finals.
4th Place: Specture
Specture shook the competition in its rookie debut. It pulled a huge upset over Rules of Acquisition in only its second fight ever, but eventually lost one of the closest judge's decisions of the tournament to Theseus. Through quick repairs and great driving by its builder, Anthony Pressnall, Specture scored a very respectable fourth place.
5th Place: Carl
Anthony found both of his antweight bots in contention after his sister, Nadia, piloted Carl all the way to fifth place! Losing only to CookieCutter and the eventual champion, Mudskipper, Carl held its own during the WRC tournament.
Of course, these are just a few of the robots to watch from the WRC tournament. Many more contenders will show themselves as MRCA moves along to The Michigan Mashup, the only event with a metal floor on the schedule. With such a different arena, it will be fascinating to see how these builders adapt!