Ranking Every Vex Game

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hey guys, Luke here and today I have such an interesting video for you guys today where I'm going to be ranking all of the Vex games from S to F tier. And pretty much all of these I will show videos of them as well while I'm explaining them. Um except for the most recent one. So we're going to start from the most recent one and then we're going to move back in time back to like 2010.

[00:00:22]Um and we're going to rank them from let me travel back in time please to torture. Anyways, let's get started. So, this first one is the the most recent game, which is the 2026 season game. I think it's uh actually got some potential. This is a override, and a lot of hate is being put on this game, but I think it's just purely because uh some of the the rule changes made, especially R23 with the fact that you aren't allowed to have those colored uh C channels anymore, which really I think it drives down creativity a little bit.

[00:00:54]Um, but also big fact of that is that there hasn't been a stacking game, at least a prevalent one really since uh Tower Takeover, which is seven years ago. Um, and you can kind of argue that Tipping Point was one of them too, but I really really wouldn't I would put Tipping Point in a category of its own, and you'll see that later. But yeah, the I think Tower Takeover was really the last uh was really the last stacking game. And and the and it's really big change from what we've had, right? We've had a lot of a lot of shooting, a lot of fast-paced ones, lot of lot of one-on-one action. Pretty much all these years has just been one-on-one action.

[00:01:31]Um, which which is quite different from what a stacking game would be, right?

[00:01:35]But I think this is a a good mixup here.

[00:01:38]Definitely gets to to show the VEX community's prowess and it stacking games. And I love to see these robots go very very high up. However, um some some rules that makes me a little bit uh scared of this for this game is the fact that you aren't really allowed to play defense at all. Uh at least it's very uh it really puts you in a bad spot cuz if you try to go across the field, right, minor violation when you if you touch one of those goals. So, um it's interesting to see how this plays out early season um on defense and stuff cuz I would like I would like to see a very aggressive and very close and intense adrenalinefilled game like some of the previous seasons. I think Max has really done a amazing job with these past four years making them super close and very very high adrenaline to watch and to play. So, I think this one has has good potential. I'm going to put this into into goatated actually. Um, this may be a wacky call. All right, next up we're gonna we're gonna dive into uh this is push back the previous game, right? As you guys saw um but you guys probably watched Worlds, but this one I think um I think I think it's good. Um, I think I think at the start, once again, at the at the very start, I remember everyone was hating on it because they were they were like, "Oh my gosh, these these scores are going to be so so prevalent, right? And balls just roll out of the the the matchload zones." And then once you started playing, you're like, "Oh, hey, like it's first of all, it's not as bad as you think. And second of all, that's the whole part of the game." And that's that's actually what makes it so interesting, right? And you know, I don't have a problem with there being big big point swings like it like there is in push back, right? The only problem I have with it is that you can get those big uh point swings without any like effort and without any like skill and then skilled teams can't make a comeback, right? that that's really kills a game is is if you have if you put hundreds thousands of hours into it and then just one tiny mistake loses you the whole thing and you can't come back then then that's a big problem right which I don't I don't think that is the case in this game right um I think if you really have the skill to you will out outdo your outdrive your opponents and that's I think what makes a good game and especially with how fast-paced this is this is super exciting to watch and I think uh everyone on stream also really liked watching this So, I'm going to put this in a tier as well. Push back was was good. All right, going back into high stakes. This This was interesting, right? Um I think for for a good portion of the of the of the season, it felt like everybody was kind of just camping in a corner, right? Even till worlds, it was kind of the case as well. Um but really what sets this game apart are are the hangs, right? You see Jackson area here going for a hang at literally a minute and going up that is like a couple feet in into the air and then putting that top ring on that just made the whole crowd go crazy at worlds. Um, and you know, this is the last season I competed in. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the tier three working, but like seeing that at Worlds was just genuinely insane. And this was kind of a sight to just on its own, right? And all the all the goal steals as well in in the in the corners, those were also really goatated. Um, I think I I think this game didn't fully reach its potential because of the fact that uh teams did tier three so so late and there were so so many upsets earlier in the season because of tier three. So, a lot of teams were just scared to do it. So, that's why I think at Worlds it was so like it was so different than all the other tournaments before because the tier 3 is just completely dominated. So, um I think I mean, you know what? I'm putting this in S tier. If I if I if I was able to travel back in time, definitely would would play this game and definitely would would build tier three. All right. Next up is Overunder.

[00:05:53]Now, I think I have a very big bias for this game because um this is the the game where um I think I did the best in oh won the US Open and then won uh worlds as well for for skills. So, this is like definitely my my golden year, right? I think we were the only VEX team in history to never lose skills. Um, so but to put to really like look at this game though, um, it really is just about like just optimizing, micro optimizing again and again and again because you have to just go across the field again and again and again and particularly like that's kind of there's not really too much strategy to it. It's more of just like oh like can you can you make all these movements correctly? Like is is your is your robot consistent enough?

[00:06:45]and and like are you is your mechanics good enough? Right? It's just a all wholly mechanic game. Is your reaction time good enough? Can you stop these pins good enough? Can you like use your wings good enough? Right? And are your is your drive is your like drive coaches are your matchers locked in enough? And um that part of the game, right, is just a fully mechanics based game, honestly.

[00:07:09]Um, and then I I think in in the the next like year as well, you'll see I think these two years VEX really made very mechanically heavy games that made very very good drivers. Um, which is which is definitely good, right? I think Spinup and Overunder created the some of the best drivers um we've ever seen. And then since then uh the past couple seasons have always had really really good drivers because of that, right?

[00:07:36]because of how mechanically focused these games were. Um, I think I know for skills for a fact, uh, it was very luck based and at the end of the day it was just about how much you can micromanage and the tiny tiny uh, little optimizations you can make that would win you at the end of the day for overunder, which which I I think is it's definitely a good change from some of the games. Um, but but I don't think it I don't think it deserves to be in S tier. Um, I think it's going to go in A.

[00:08:08]Next up, Spit Up.

[00:08:11]You know what? Vex has lowkey been cooking. If you look if you look back, like I kind of get why everyone's complaining because like they don't know how good this game is going to be, right? And all the previous ones has been so good. Like they've all been pretty good to be honest. Um, no glaze though. This is this is a spin-up and this is this is definitely the best one like period like shooting first of all like I love whenever uh robotics competitions incorporate like real life objects that you kind of like um are familiar with right especially like these discs right these are these are very I mean these are these I mean they're pretty common right you play like frisbee when you're a child so be super so it's like oh wow like that's so cool you make a robot that actually shoots that and look at that catapult just shoot three at a like like it's just it's just so incredibly cool. And then um so much roller play as well at the end. Uh making for such like so much such an intense fight at the end, right? You don't you never know who's going to win in rollers and who's going to win in the end game, right? Because earlier in the match you're like you're like like dang like like I I can kind of tell who's going to win, right? Because it's like oh like they're up and shooting, right?

[00:09:19]Or maybe they're really close and shooting, right? And and then and then you just start like anticipating, right?

[00:09:25]And then towards the end it's like oh wow like these roller fights are getting so so close and then you just can't help, right? It's like it's like so close and then and then I mean they fight and then the end game is just it's just immaculate. The end game is just true cinema, right? Uh unfortunately I mean string makes it so it's so hard to really like um resetting the string and getting out of drivetrains are always super super annoying, but I think the season had some of the best drivers period. Um he had been 515R. We had um drivers from 9364 C, 9364E, uh and then was it I think Eric um 1482B, there's Barkbots, just so many good teams. Oh yeah, there's even like there's Captain Extropy. It was just it was it was just insane. Um I think the only thing that was bad about this game was the fact that there were the endgame. Uh, that was the only thing that that kind of sucked about it. But this game still goes into S tier easily.

[00:10:26]Okay, now this this is a flop.

[00:10:30]This is the 2022 game or is this is this is a 2021 2022.

[00:10:36]I think this is um tipping point. This was not a not not not a very good game in my opinion. Um, and just because the fact that there wasn't really much head-on play. I mean, you can see like there's still a little bit of head-on play, but like what can you really do?

[00:10:51]You can you just run into robots with a freaking goal and that's about it, right? Like there really isn't too much that that is super interesting in this game because um you have a lot to do, right? Like if you're down on that third yellow goal, you need to go grab it, right? But also like it like that doesn't mean you you can't win because you can win by collecting a full goal of rings as well, right? So it's like it's like the driver is really like is really really uh forced on time, right? Because oh like if you don't get the third goal with after 30 seconds, you need to spend the next minute collecting rings and then doing a a park at the end which all takes up a lot of time. So it really really reduces the amount of uh robot on robot action that you really see because like here you can see immediately like minute 15 hits and then pibotics gives up, right? I mean, partially it's because that goal was stuck under the the red goal, but Potics immediately gives up and then goes to to get rings, right? And then, um, you can see here like what happens is just like it's just it's just like not a lot of of action all like these robots aren't really doing much, especially like their their main uh scoring elements, right? Like they their lifts, their clamps, their back clamps, none of them are being used. It's just the intake for literally the whole match. For 90% of the match is just the intake. And then towards the end here, I mean like this is this is kind of cool. Like they do a park, but like like it takes them like 30 seconds to do a park, right? And then it's just a lot of flops, right? Um and I think this is the season where some of the drivers really started like realizing, oh, like driving really matters, right?

[00:12:34]So, um I don't I don't really think this is that good of a game, especially with like the fact that for a lot of the season, um it was just sitting sitting in corners with the with the goals and no nobody was really good enough to steal them. So, it was kind of torture.

[00:12:50]All right, this is the the ch this is change up. So, this is during co um there really wasn't a a ton of like matches the worlds was online cuz it was co but however we will show that I I do think this has the one of the most epic reveals of all time. I think this is the most um definitely definitely like I think this is the craziest reveal filming it on a lake. This is pretty crazy. This is semicolon. Um I think one of one of the goats and they filmed their change up reveal on a lake, right?

[00:13:25]I think I mean the main thing is this is basically playing tic-tac-toe, right?

[00:13:29]And the biggest problem is that um it's just another mechanics game at the end of the day. And at this point there wasn't there there wasn't really any mechanics games to to set this one up, right? So then it was just there wasn't a ton of drivers who were actually that good. Um, and this is I think the first year with the the V5 motors if I'm wrong or if I'm right or maybe the second year. So teams are still like, you know, working on their build and especially with it being in COVID. I don't think this game got nearly the amount of like uh this game got nearly the amount of um love that it deserved just because it was in CO. So you didn't really see a lot of like the exciting match play uh happen on this field, right? I just imagine like robots dashing around and and doing doing that doing like the tic-tac-toe, right? I think it was I think it was okay. Um kind of sad that, you know, worlds didn't really happen, right? So, uh you didn't really get to see like the highest level of this game ever get played out. However, this still struggles from the same thing as the previous games where I talked about just very very driverbased uh where you don't really get to a point where strategy really matters. And I think strategy is super super cool in Vex, especially uh in the previous couple seasons where strategy uh kind of kind of played a a big role, especially this coming season.

[00:14:52]I believe strategy will play a really big role. So, um this game definitely lands in like what game, right? Because first of all, COVID and then um it's just another mechanics game, right? All right. Next up is Power Take over. This was a cool one, by the way. Uh we have a we have a speed catting event coming for for Override uh on Saturday which is I think if you're watching this should be like today right so watch watch out for that that stream is going to happen and it's going to be super super sick. Uh and yeah um this game was was was really cool of stacking. Uh if it gets knocked over you're kind of kind of screwed kind of DQed. I think this also I don't I don't remember. I think this is also during COVID as well. So, kind of unfortunate um since for that for this game as well.

[00:15:47]You didn't really get to see all of it being being played out. However, it it was cool. It was just a little bit too slow. I think like that's kind of a problem with some of these stacking games is really slow. So, um and especially with the this you have to stack so high and they don't they don't sit well with each other, right? The main problem with this is like the blocks. Like there's there's not really anything to hold them together. So they kind of just like wobble around and like like if I feel like if you hit the field wall they would like fall over and then like like yeah like you see what I mean like these blocks aren't held together by anything like uh when you have this here where at least like it's it's like a a male female connector right like this they don't they're not held together or anything so it's just kind of just sliding around um which I think makes it much less safe to put these put these big like towers up early, right?

[00:16:42]Which which is kind of what you want to see. Oh, big tip there in the China qualifier. This is the China qualifier high school finals or high school finals. Yeah. Um it is cool. Damn. And then he falls fully fully over and that's like like a 50-inch robot there on the ground. We're definitely going to see a lot of those this this year. But anyways, it's it's cool that it's cool that um that they stack these high these so high, right? But I don't think for I think for majority of the season, these weren't really being played at all. Like these big these like high high elements weren't being played at all. Um which I think really reduces a lot for strategy.

[00:17:24]I I think this year this year actually had had some um could have had some really good strategy. However, I didn't really participate in it. Um, I think I think I'm going to give it decent.

[00:17:40]Um, next up, this is uh Hold up. Sorry, I didn't actually get a video for this one. This is um this is I think this is in the zone. No, this is in the zone.

[00:17:57]Sorry. But this is the one where you have to hit the flags and then climb onto like a three like a platform here.

[00:18:06]This was this was pretty decent. Um I think sorry for not getting the video for this one. I was going to the video for all them and I think this is like the only one I missed.

[00:18:16]But I think this one was pretty good. Um because there's a lot of there definitely a lot of things to do and I know sorry I know a lot of alumni really like this one.

[00:18:28]So, since I don't have the video, I'm going to just put it into into a tier, right?

[00:18:35]Sorry about that. Next up, we have uh this is I think this is in the zone.

[00:18:40]And this is definitely what a lot of people are trying to get inspiration from this year, right? Because of these cones and these mobile goes, right?

[00:18:50]Definitely a big thing that um people are taking a lot of inspiration from this year. uh especially from with those with those lifts and those double side rollers as well, right?

[00:19:04]You can see here like what I mean by a full-on lifting game where there's not really a lot of like robot on robot action and it's just each robot doing its own thing, right?

[00:19:17]And like even towards the end here like they didn't like there's not really any action happening. It's just like they're just trying to get as many points as possible and try to be the most effect efficient at doing that, right? Which I I mean there's nothing wrong with that, but you really need a good mix of both.

[00:19:31]Um, which I think I think we're going to see out of this game, right? Because the fact with the rollers, the the king of the hill, and just honestly like the the neutral goals as well and the fact that the previous years has really trained drivers to be super super aggressive.

[00:19:45]So, I think I'm gonna put this game into into Ctier uh for the fact that it doesn't really have a good mix of of scoring and also like like defense and and a lot of a lot of head-on head action, right?

[00:19:58]This one is 2017. Um this is uh I think this is Starruck, right? You see these stars here and then this was really really cool. Uh because I mean these robots are pretty much stuck on the same on the same side the whole time and you just throw throw block like throw these like cubes and stuff over again again.

[00:20:19]And it was super fun because um there's these robots here that could pick up like pretty much all of the the stars and then throw them over at the very last second, right? Basically like whoever had whoever had the least amount on their side won, right? You want to throw as many over to the other side as possible. So like this is super interesting because this is the tech div finals and then this one team here just had like this was the strategy on both sides, right? Pretty much like one of them just like had all the all the the stars and the cubes and at the end they would just throw all of them over, right? And there's like nothing the other alliance can do. Look at this.

[00:20:59]Look at this lift lift up and bam. Look at that like just pop out. I don't know.

[00:21:04]I think maybe like a gear or something like a like a very tension system and this whole thing just just explodes and all these stars just go flying on the field and what can the opponents do, right? I think this was a fun game. Um, however, once again, like I just don't think it's good to have these robots completely like completely completely closed off.

[00:21:29]So, I think I'm going to give this one decent. Um, yeah, I think it was I think it was D. actually H I'm going to give this one C because because of that uh the fact that it was pretty closed off and you really couldn't have couldn't have really done that much. All right, next up um you have this one. This is this is one of the shooting games of all time. There hasn't been that many shooting games I think in VEX and this was a really cool one because uh you shot balls and this is another thing that like you you really like see a lot of times, right? And this was super cool. This kind of feels like the F FRC game from very very recently.

[00:22:07]And and you also had to drive on top of your your alliance partner for a park, which is so cool as well, right? Which like I think this is really amazing because um I don't think the drivers were really uh like I I think I think the driving strategies and stuff weren't super advanced at this point where you saw a lot of defense happening, right?

[00:22:27]Maybe it was in the rules. I don't really know the rules that much cuz I I didn't compete at this time, but it would have been really fun to see a lot of defense happening as well. Um like because like there just was it was just kind of boring, right? But there was so much it was so much there was so much like opportunity for defense and there's just such a big opportunity to make this such such a good game, right?

[00:22:48]Especially with the fact like the I mean this this is just so cool like because you had to you had basically had to design a robot um to do a certain task, right? You had to have you had to either choose choose choose to design a designated shooter or a park robot, right? Cuz you get a lot of points for this. And this is so cool. Like look at that. That's so hype. Um this is definitely a a let me travel back in time to play this game kind of game, right? Very cool. Next up, this is Skyrise, right? Another another uh stacking game. Vex used to have a lot of stacking games. And this was this was interesting, right? Um cuz you had to stack very like weird elements. You had to stack these blocks on the tubes and then you had to stack like more tubes inside of blocks. So I think I think this this made for really really interesting robot designs where teams had to use a lot of clamps um instead of rollers cuz I think rollers are more efficient than these clamps are. But teams did have to make do with clamps and that made like you know lining up and stuff much harder for the drivers and especially with like being so high up like I can only imagine how these guys were lining it up. What is this 11 um 118 here? Some goats.

[00:24:07]They're lining up so quickly. And this is so cool. Like look look at the mechanisms on here. They had to have both a intake and a claw combined with and also like a double like a huge lift as well. All on one robot, right? And they had to just throw that all Oh my gosh, this is insane. Like I didn't really realize until now. Like this is so cool. This what is this video is getting a bit long. So this one's definitely going into S tier. Like that's that's so cool. Um, I think I think it could do with more um I don't want to say the robot on robot action because this in this year like there there's a lot of I think you need like a fair balance of both, but I think just purely based off of how the robot looked and stuff um and the mechanisms you have to have have built. Definitely a really cool game, right? This one 2014 game. This one was um was all right.

[00:25:02]Once again, I think with the field being sectioned off in this way, definitely made it so the robots had to vary like look like like a it just didn't really couldn't really have a lot of uh different styles of robots. They all kind of had to had to go over go under the same same pipe and then kind of like, you know, be be stuck to that, right? how uh compared to like over under where you know you could you could choose to either go under or you can go over as the name states right so then some teams um you know had I mean pretty much all the teams were able to go under that bar right but but a lot of teams you know chose to to go even lower right um this game I don't really know too much about it to be honest the routs are pretty sim pretty simple just looks like uh literally an a vertical intake and then just a lift and that's about it. So, I don't think the robots were really that complicated here. So, I'm going to get I'm going to give this one I'm going put it down here. I don't really think it was really that fun to design these robots, so I'm going put it down here in F tier. All right, sack attack. This This one seemed really fun.

[00:26:17]Once again, I personally really like the games with where they actually use like a lot of stuff that you see um in real life like especially like these bean bags. I thought this was super super cool where team had to place them on here. Um like like I think like like I don't think this game was really that good. Uh but but I do think it was cool. Like the fact that like you can, you know, steal those bean bags, put it directly into yours. Uh I think it it was too close.

[00:26:49]Like these these goals were way too close. Um to where to where like it made sense to really leave them once you have a lot of a lot of uh bags in them, right? Because like a lot of teams would be leaving them even after they had a lot of bags in them. you really just have to like just have a robot play defense at that point cuz you just you get your whole thing stolen or desced and that's kind of a a really a really bad thing, right? Once again, robots weren't super complicated in this game because you only had an in you only really needed to have an intake and then like a dumper like a like a big big basket. So, it was all right. Um I think I' I'd have to give this one like a SC tier cuz yeah, it was it was just all right. All right. 20 2012. We're really going back in time now. Wow. 1008.

[00:27:38]Dang. I haven't haven't heard that name in a while. I remember they were they played, you know, played uh in overunder pretty well and then I think in high stakes as well, but here this is where they really shined back in uh back in 2012, 14 years ago. Some of you guys are probably not even that that old. Holy, man. But anyways, this was another really cool game with some lifts as well. Um, once again, like this is kind of this looks really similar to to tower takeover. Some of these robots can probably like actually just play in Tower Takeover straight up. If they just added the motor here, that would make this thing tilt. So, another game that wasn't super super interesting. Um, and it was so sectioned off to where like you literally can't even get across the field. So, I think for that reason, I think this game is going to go in torture. All right.

[00:28:29]finally 2011.

[00:28:32]And I think you can really see with how how it's like the progression that VEX has actually been making some some really good games. Like they've been actually doing better, right? 2011 is another another I think this game was actually pretty good for for its time.

[00:28:46]Uh having so many different things you can do like you can do hang you you can do hang you have these goals you have to score on. Right.

[00:28:54]This this was pretty much just just just high stakes. Like let's be real. This is just a a a an early version of high stakes that that wasn't um as as exciting cuz there wasn't really Oh my gosh, look at me be wrong. I said I was about to say there's no wall sticks and look at this. There's wall sticks.

[00:29:14]There's everything, right? There's everything that high stakes has except for the for the corner goals. And that makes it even better because now robots don't have to be in the corners the whole match. They can be in the middle.

[00:29:26]Look at that. Um, but yeah, I'm going to give this one a decent just because like we didn't really like there wasn't nearly as much, you know, hype around this and there wasn't the driving wasn't wasn't super good and the motors that they were allowed to use weren't wasn't super good. But I think this definitely has some good potential. Um, but yeah, anyways, if you want to go make your own, I'm going to leave this in the comments in the description because this is just super fun to make. But here is my tier list.