Team Malice are an active team who have competed in every season since BattleBots World Championship V with their heavyweight entry, Malice. Boasting a Top 32 finish in their debut season, Malice struggled to back this up as they fell in the play-in matches during World Championship VI following a disappointing 1-2 Fight Night record. Despite losing out to Skorpios, Team Malice paired up with Zach Lytle and Diana Tarlson as Skorpios fought in the 2022 re:MARS all:STARS event.
In mid-2022, Team Malice announced their intention to sponsor two additional entries from team members David Small and Nick Dobrikov - Banshee and Drago. Of the two, only Banshee was selected to compete. With Tombstone unavailable for World Championship VII, Team Malice picked up former Giant Nut winner Ray Billings for the season. Team Malice enjoyed their best Fight Night run and season to date, finishing with a 3-1 record and breaking into the Round of 16, before being defeated by former runner-up Minotaur.
Outside BattleBots[]
The team entered the 2023 edition of RoboGames with White Rabbit, essentially an inverse of Malice's predominantly black color. After defeating Original Sin in Round 1, White Rabbit defeated Terrortops in the second round on a 21-12 judges' decision. White Rabbit then took out HexaDecimator in the winner's bracket before losing out to Manta.
Team Malice member Nick Dobrikov has also entered Manta into the heavyweight class, which was a renamed Drago. For more see, Team Tanto Robotics.
Team Members[]
Adrian "Bunny" Liaw[]
Captain of Team Malice, Bunny Liaw has been around the sport for over 20 years, where she wore bunny ears for her first event aged 12 and fought with a rabbit-themed robot. As such, the nickname "Bunny" stuck.[1] Originally part of Team Wrecks, she joined Bots FC and Shatter! before piloting her own entry for the 2020 season. She married team member David Liaw in May 2022 and works for SendCutSend, who sponsor many BattleBots teams by providing machined parts.
For Episode 9 of World Championship VII, she joined Chris Rose and Kenny Florian as a guest commentator for the fight between HiJinx and RIPperoni.
David Liaw[]
One of three Davids on Team Malice, David Liaw is Malice's designated driver. Alongside his father Ken Liaw, he previously entered BattleBots as an 11-year-old child. Although they lost their only fight with middleweight Silver Shield, he continued to compete in various US events.
He has since fought in established events such as the National Havoc Robot League with his beetleweight Unknown Avenger, amassing over 90 competitive trophies in a career spanning over two decades. Liaw is a computer engineer by day. For a single exhibition battle featuring Big Dill, David Liaw assisted with Team Food Fight and sported their team attire in the team booths.
David Rush[]
Previously Malice's driver in 2020 and 2021, he became the team's weapons operator in World Championship VII. David Rush also has robots called Odium and Animus, which inspired the design of Malice. Similar to David Liaw, for one exhibition match featuring JackPot, Rush temporarily paired up with Vegas Combat Robotics in the drivers booth.
He also assisted with driving various robots during the live show BattleBots: Destruct-A-Thon, including Malice itself, Tazbot, HyperShock and Diablo.
David Small[]
David Small has specialized in flipper robots in lower weight classes, namely Kelpie and The Highlander.
He announced his intention to enter and captain 250lb entry Banshee for World Championship VII, thus leaving Team Malice.
Nick Dobrikov[]
Present for Malice's first two seasons, Nick Dobrikov opted to captain his own entry for World Championship VII, Drago. However, he was not selected and instead reunited with the Malice team. Under the name Manta, Dobrikov's robot won the entire heavyweight division both in 2023 and 2024.
He regularly competes at National Havoc Robot League events with Noisy Boy and has previously entered the 2017 and 2018 editions of RoboGames with Tsunami and Tsunami Light. Tsunami won gold in the junior bracket of its debut RoboGames campaign, but neither it not its smaller counterpart could replicate that success a year later. His insectweight team, Team Tanto, also entered robots called Maverick and Rogue Wave into RoboGames 2017, ending with 6-2 and 0-2 records respectively. Team Tanto also competed in Sparkfun AVC 2017 with Tsunami, Maverick, and a hobbyweight named Typhoon.
Nick Dobrikov again applied for World Championship VIII with Manta.
Isaak Malers[]
Joining Team Malice in 2021, Isaak Malers was previously part of Team Food Fight and Big Dill. He is described as the "main engineer" behind Malice[2] and fights in the NHRL with 12lbers DBSC-12 and Red-Dye-12.
Mike Britton & Brian Adamson[]
Two new additions in 2022, Mike Britton specializes in CAD software and assists with designing and modeling Malice parts in Solidworks.[3]
Johnny Tsoumpas[]
Joining Team Malice officially ahead of RoboGames 2023, Johnny Tsoumpas had led the redesign of Malice's forks. He also competes as part of Team Stamina with his 3lb horizontal spinner Spartan and his 1lb robots named Vital Signs and Permanent Waves.
Currently in development, Tsoumpas is designing his own 250lb robot heavily inspired by Nightmare, called Afterimage.
Robots[]
| Robots | Weight Class | Season |
|---|---|---|
| Malice | Heavyweight | World Championship V BattleBots: Bounty Hunters World Championship VI BattleBots: Champions I World Championship VII BattleBots: Champions II BattleBots Proving Ground BattleBots Faceoffs |
Win/Loss Record[]
- Wins: 13
- Losses: 10
See Also[]
Trivia[]
- Team Malice were involved in the first successful Appeal in BattleBots history, during Episode 9 of World Championship VII.
References[]
[[Category:BattleBots Proving Ground
BattleBots Faceoffs Competitors]]