Deadline to post: February 1st, Midnight PST

Round Closes: January 4th, Midnight PST

Bott right hurrr...

Word, good luck Lock. Let's make it a classic. KILLERS.

EXPO: Count was off as in Count Wackula. Comes des Garçon is a clothing line with the little heart on the chest area of the t shirts. Alex Emelianenko has the grim reaper tatted on his back. Phelps would always medal with Lochte a lot in the relay race at the olympics. 

Anything else buggin ya lemme know. 

GL, Dr. Locktopus.

Dope spar here.. Votes in..

This is a really nice battle, as predicted. 

Edge...

Man you were really creative. Like the whole 2 line concept deal (that shodan uses as well), it is very effective having the higher punch quantity, while maintaining consistancy in quality. Very nicly done. Just would like to see some more 3 liners in there, make for nice haymakers. Not taling anything away from your verse though. It was fyyyah.

Riep...

You did the same as your opponent, trying beat him at his own game. I like that, but that is not your thing. & while having an exceptional verse with little to no errors, you didnt come with your usual 2-4 line concepts (which hit really fucking hard most of the time) and i think that was your downfall here. Nothing taken away from yours either 🔐. Very nice verse with solid execution. 

Very hard to pick a winner here. Good luck to both participants. Be seeing one of you next round ;)

Got lock taking this. Thought his best bars were a bit better than edges best. Also had to look up like 3 different concepts of edges. Not understanding the references takes a bit away from the punch cuz by the time I've googled and all that in out of the moment. Fun battle guys. Good shit.

EDGE STARTED NICE WIT THA ''BALANCED TILL'' PART, ALSO LIKED THA ''BUDDIST MEDITATION'' LINE, MY FAV FROM THA VERSE THO WAS YOUR CLOSER AS THA WORDPLAY WAS REALLY GOOD, BEATS 'FINE ANTS PHE' ANY DAY OF THA WEEK LMAO........ RIEP HAD BOTB IMO WIT THA ''MAY HAD LEFT THA STAND'' INTO ''MAKE A BREXIT PLAN'' TBH THAT WAS DOPE AS FUCK, ALSO LIKED THA ''SILENT HILL'' LINE AND THA OPENER....... THIS WAS ACTUALLY REALLY CLOSE AS THEIR WERE NEXT TO NO FAULTS FROM EITHER SIDE..... ALL IN ALL THO I HAVE GOT SOMEONE AHEAD IN THA SET-UPS CATAGORY, I DID FEEL ONE SIDE HAD A COUPLE OF PUNCHES THAT STUNG MORE DUE TO A TAD CLEANER EXECUTION...... BOTH BROUGHT THEIR SHIT HERE AN TBH THIS COULD HAVE EASILY BEEN THA FINAL IF THA BRACKETS WERE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT...... FAIR IS DROPPED!

Okay, I honestly enjoyed both of the verses that were displayed in this rap battle. However, I feel rather one sided with this despite both of these emcees presented very good punchlines because I felt like one had some really insane multi-syllable usage whereas the other one had a multi that I feel like was slightly forced. Both of these rappers gave each other a great battle with really good bars but I have Edgeworth edging this for having what I believe to be some really, really good multi's (eleven syllables) that out-classed Lock's. 

This concludes my vote.

I'm going to be using the scorecard method for this battle. 0 points = meh bar. +1 or more points: decent bar or better, and the better the bar, the more points you get. -1 or fewer points: bad bar, and the worse the bar, the fewer points you get.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Edgeworth

Last round shit didn't "Add up proper", you advanced but not 'cause SON FLASHED HIS SKILL, you're only "still working b/c the Count was off" like an UNBALANCED TILL!!

- Anyone who regularly discusses rap battle bars with me will probably know how anal-retentive (pause) I am about making sure that your concepts always work perfectly both ways. The concept in this bar is tantalizingly close to that ideal, but barely misses it. If you read the setup literally, it's saying that your opponent is an unbalanced till that's still working, rather than a cashier. It should have been phrased differently, for example: "You're only still working because the count was off, like a cashier with an unbalanced till!"

Don't get me wrong. This was a good bar with a clever concept, but it still a reach. Not many people on LB are going to complain about a reach as short as this, if they even notice that it's a reach. The reason I pointed it out as a reach regardless is because if you're willing to write minor reaches like this, you might end up dropping serious reaches that stem from the same fundamental issues.

I think I've spent enough keystrokes harping on that particular issue now, though, so let me talk about the good qualities of this bar. By the first multi, you had already included a relevant setup that didn't feel forced at all, and taken an aggressive stance against Lock. I wouldn't call this bar a "personal" per se, since as far as I know, the voting in the previous round was perfectly fair. The bar was comfortably short and had no serious flaws in its execution. Overall, despite how much I ranted about it, this earns you a clear +2.

I'll stab under his collarbone over beef if HOMIE START SOME, either he dies or we see "Hart stitched in his Chest" without COMMES DES GARÇON!!

- I didn't know what "Commes des Garçon" was, so I Googled it, and that only brought up results about "Comme des Garçons." However, despite how compulsively critical I was about a small flaw in the previous bar, I'm not going to penalize you for transposing one character in a phrase in a foreign language. Just make sure to avoid mistakes like that in the future. I know that carefully proofreading a verse can be difficult and make an enjoyable hobby feel more like work than play, but it needs to be done, especially in battles which are against high-level opponents and where a lot is riding on the outcome.

The punchline is sensible, considering the logo of Comme des Garçon. However, heart / Hart is probably the single most used, abused, misused, and overused nameplay in the history of LetsBeef.com. Taking the risk of using it in a battle is comparable to using a defeat / da feet wordplay or a ROUNDS bar. I'm not joking. It's that bad. I'm not necessarily saying that you can't use it, but if you do, you had better bring such an incredibly novel spin to it that people can overlook something that, for all practical purposes, is about as old as the Pyramids.

As for the execution, it was short and sweet, with no major flaws. However, because of how basic the concept was at its core, I can't in good conscience give the bar a high score. +1

I said the block'll teach ya bitch to deepthroat and have her BREAKING GREAT RECORDS, she'll be known for that "Mouth in the Hood" like BATHING APE SWEATERS!!

- I think that having two similar bars back-to-back is risky. It either reinforces the previous bar or comes off as repetitive. I think this bar did both. The double meaning of "Hood" in regards to a sweater is already well-known and extremely played. Meanwhile, saying that you'll make your opponent's girlfriend perform an obscene act with you is also one of the most played angles that there is. "I'll fuck your bitch" bars aren't necessarily bad, but they do have a somewhat higher barrier-to-entry than many other types of bars because anyone who has been rap battling for a while has seen truckloads of them and aren't going to be impressed by another one unless it's particularly clever.

I've seen the kind of sweaters that this bar was referencing, so I get the punchline. It just doesn't hit very hard because it's simple, and more importantly, it's obvious. I bet that if you took a lineup of 10 random LB users and showed them a picture of a Bathing Ape sweater with a mouth on its hood, at least 3 of them would come up with a concept similar to this one.

Like with your previous two bars, the execution was crisp and solid. But for God's sake man, you can come up with punches that are more creative than this. +1

So step in the ring wit me, i'll bet this WACK DUDE'S HARMLESS N YA REALLY A FAKE HOE, 'cause when "I Draw, I'll put Rieper on his back" like the TATTOO ARTIST FOR EMELIANENKO!!!

- If you think that most of the people who read this battle are going to catch this reference without having to Google it, I'm willing to bet that you are extremely wrong. I didn't know who Emilianenko was until I looked him up, although the punch does a decent job of telling you what you need to know in order to get the joke.

Long multi sets are extremely hard to do right. I've previously used the analogy of long multi schemes being like a machine gun that has enormous killing power but is difficult to wield, while short multi schemes are like a knife that is easier to wield, and even though it lacks the raw destructive force of a machine gun, can be just as deadly if used with expert precision.

One thing you might want to keep in mind when using long multi sets is that if the rest of your verse surrounds them with much shorter multi sets, your verse starts to look unbalanced. Readers are likely to not only get the impression of a "top-heavy" verse at first glance, but also find it jarring when they suddenly have to drastically switch their mental cadence from "standard multi" to "abnormally long rhyme scheme." This bar is a serious example. An 11-syllable scheme is simply awkward to read when the longest scheme in the rest of the verse is at the comfortably common length of 6 syllables.

Another problem that frequently crops up in long multis is saying irrelevant or nonsensical shit to make the rhyme work. I should know. I've historically been one of LB's worst offenders in this regard. "WACK DUDE'S HARMLESS N YA REALLY A FAKE HOE" deserves to be in a textbook note about how to not write a multi. It switches from third-person to first-person without warning, which is always poor writing, but when it's done within the same multi set, it's much worse than usual. On top of that, the whole phrase is nothing more than some of the most generic aggressive statements imaginable. In all three of your previous bars, the first multi was clearly written just for that bar, but in this bar, the multi feels like it could have been written for any bar about anything and against anyone. It's blander than prison food.

This was easily the most poorly executed bar in your verse. The concept was also less than stellar. That adds up to an unfortunate 0.

Fuck it. I'll spread ya fam out cross the country 'fore I let the CRUDEST WEAPONS SLAY SHIT & they won't ever be found even with some TRUE DETECTIVE CASES, 'cause I've got "more Cabins in Different places" than CRUISE SHIP DESTINATIONS!!

- Here you change up the pace a bit by going for a bar with three multi sets, rather than two. That's good, at least in my opinion. I don't like it when people structure all of their bars on basically the same formula. An example of this is Wonderbred, who as nearly as I can remember, basically never broke from using an A-A-B-B-A rhyme scheme in every one of his bars.

The first two multis weren't actually bad, but they were still slightly forced. CRUDEST WEAPONS SLAY SHIT is a forced multi in that people don't often describe weapons as CRUDE, and when they do, it's usually referring to primitive weapons like a caveman axe or Indian arrowheads or some other Stone Age implement of war. I can't imagine anybody ever bragging that they have "the crudest MP5 in this suburb of Dallas." TRUE DETECTIVE CASES is forced in that the word TRUE likely wouldn't be included in this phrase if it were said in normal speech. It was obviously tacked on to make the rhyme work. Some level of forcing is often necessary to make bars rhyme, but you always need to make a serious effort to avoid it, up to and including rewriting the entire bar on an entirely different scheme.

Now, let's talk about the punchline. It's reasonably creative, but it's poorly paced. As far as I can tell, the central idea here is that you have many different cabins where you can store the pieces of his teammates after you chop them into tiny itty bitty witty chunks. There's nothing inherently wrong with this concept, but nothing before the setup alludes to you having any sort of structure where you could safely perform your supposed destruction of evidence. The core of the concept comes out of nowhere. It makes sense, but the way it's rushed makes it feel like premature ejaculation. No, that isn't just a pauseworthy attempt at humor. I'm serious.

Overall, my proprietary force chart didn't give this bar as high of a value as it did for the previous one, but make no mistake: this bar was poorly written considering the level it's being used at. I'm tempted to award it a 0, but it's just barely good enough that I'll give a +1.

Then i'll let the eagles-fly for "Peace-of-Mind" n have the RUGERS WRECK HIS FACE IN, you can see how "it all Connects in your Temple" like BUDDHIST MEDITATION!!!

- I've dropped eye-glazingly long critiques of every bar up to this point, but for once, I'll save your ocular sockets (and my chances of developing a repetitive strain injury in the medium future) the trouble of reading them. This is a clean, clever bar that isn't forced or reaching in any way that significantly lowers its quality. The only criticism I have is that RUGERS / BUDDHIST is a noticeable slant, at least for me, but I suppose that it might work for you because of accent differences. +2

Or, I'll have the ricin dropped in ya morning mug with no one to HELP WHEN YA SCREAM IN PAIN, 'cause I been known to "Meddle with Lock Tea" more than PHELPS IN A RELAY RACE!!!! (Medal/Lochte)

- In the first full draft of this expo, I wrote over 300 words eviscerating you for using "medal" as a verb when it isn't, and unflatteringly compared it to ROUNDS bars. However, after you hit me up in the DMs (unsolicited, thereby displaying great predictive power) and let me know that "to medal" actually is a verb meaning "to win a medal," the bar doesn't seem so bad anymore. Although, on the other hand, you could make the argument that most people on LB wouldn't recognize that, and therefore the wordplay would still be forced from their perspective.

I'm still hesitant about whether or not it's reaching to remove the possessive 's from a word to make the wordplay work, as you did in turning "Lock's Tea" into "Lock Tea." However, I don't feel that it's something I need to dig into you for, considering that it would probably go across fine, or even unnoticed, in a live battle. The setups were relevant and the rhyming was fluent, except for the minor hiccup of SCREAM IN / RELAY, which is off-kilter on the second syllable. All in all, this was a worthy capstone to a verse full of similarly clean short-bars. +1

Overall score: 8

Rieper

Killer in Toronto? I wouldn't even find you in KITCHENER BURSTIN' RATCHETS, so if ya "feelin' froggy, claimin this is ya cup of tea"? It's the meme of the LIPTON THAT KERMIT'S HAVIN'!

- First off, I think this is basically a conceptual reach. I'm fairly certain that I've seen the meme to which this bar is referring, and in that meme, Kermit isn't claiming that anybody in particular possesses a cup of tea. He simply sips it. You can conceive of how he might hypothetically claim that the cup of tea is his, but he doesn't, so the bar is reaching up the complex plane towards an imaginary solution.

I still understand what the bar is getting at, though, and it's fairly clever in that regard. And besides being forced in the one particular way, this is a finely executed bar. One thing that benefits the bar, even though I can't precisely pin down how, is the excellent cadence of the multi sets. They make the whole bar flow with a swaggered rhythm that none of Edgeworth's lines had. I wish I could explain how to do this, but I can't, even though I think I can write bars like that if I try.

Hesitantly, I'll give this bar a +1.

Watch my knife detach ya retina, you'll be conVINCED THAT A SURGEON PRACTICED when I use the blade to "bring out ya eyes" but you ain't PICKIN' A SHIRT THAT MATCHES!

- I had to have you explain this bar to me, which in retrospect is kind of sad. The first thing that strikes me about this bar is that it was on the same scheme as the previous bar, while Edgeworth only used one bar on each of his schemes. Showing off your ability to write well-structured bars is almost always beneficial, but it's doubly beneficial when it creates a clear contrast between your verse and your opponent's, as it did here (which is ironic, considering that the bar is about two things NOT contrasting).

Like with Edge's second bar, the setup was so suspiciously specific that it almost feels forced. Almost. It felt even more blatant here than it did when Edge did it. It's not something that really diminished the quality of the bar, but it is something that you ought to watch out for.

So far, I like how none of your multis feel as though they were written just to fit a scheme. They're all reasonably close to something that somebody might say in normal speech. And, like the previous bar, there was nothing wrong with the rhyming or structure, and it maintained a rhythm that increased the punchline's impact. +2

Smack addict! Cloth's the only thing makin' ya body STAY TOGETHA', FAM, the needle's had "stronger shots load in ya arm" than a GAME OF MEGA-MAN!

- I need to get something out of the way first. This rhyme doesn't work for me because I pronounce MEGA like MAY-GUH rather than MEH-GUH. However, I totally understand that this is an accent difference, so I'm not going to hold it against you.

Claiming that cloth is the only thing making Edgeworth's body stick together is a blatant exaggeration, and frankly, I'm not sure if that makes the bar better or worse. It certainly adds to the comedy factor. The punchline itself is conceptually solid. There's not much else I can say about this bar, except it held to the same higher standard of execution that you've set so far. +2

LB don't feel ya gun bars, ya can't SAY YA LET IT BLAM, they'll "vote against ya after bringin' up the pound" like when Theresa MAY HAD LEFT THE STAND when she failed to MAKE A BREXIT PLAN!

- Like Bape did, you switched from two-multi bars to a three-multi bar, which I think provides a nice change of pace. Now that I think about it, your verse has a lot of structural similarities with Bape's, which I guess is inevitable if two people both take a similar shortbar approach to battling.

SAY YA LET IT BLAM is kind of unnatural, but not to the point that it completely disrupts the reading experience. It only sent it a bit off-kilter. As for the concept, it's not a bad concept, but conceptually it is a slight reach, similar to what I discussed at length in reference to Edge's opener. Theresa May didn't fail to make a Brexit plan. She made a Brexit plan and then failed to get it past Parliament. So the last multi doesn't quite work.

Fortunately, I still get the punch, and I think it's good even though it's essentially a reach. And, once again, there weren't any major flaws in this bar's execution, except for what I've already mentioned. +2

Catch 'em grocery shoppin', anyone standin' beSIDE 'EM'LL GET SHOOK, I'll find 'em at the register 'n put a "red beam on his spine" like he was BUYIN' A TEXTBOOK!

- I wasn't impressed by the creativity in this bar. Spine/book is an obvious connection, and even though I can't remember ever seeing it in an rap battle bar before, it's probably been used on many occasions. The idea of a red beam as in a rifle scope is always well-known, and this wasn't a novel spin on the concept. The way that the two concepts were combined made the resulting punchline somewhat better than the sum of its parts, but it still wasn't great.

Saying that someone will "get shook" comes off as a forced multi to me. Maybe it isn't. It's not something that I'd usually say in normal conversation, but other people undoubtedly would, so I can't call it truly bad. However, the setup of saying that he'll be at a grocery store and then got shot at the register is toeing a very fine line between improving the bar (by setting up a complex concept that wouldn't otherwise be possible) and forcing it (by having been clearly invented just to make the concept work). I'm leaning towards improving the bar here.

Overall, this was a nice and well-executed jab, but the least creative bar in your verse so far. +1

Claims his gun barrel's heated up, but nothin' he'd SAY'S DESIGNED TO KILL, "all that smoke's used to cover up the flaws in his game" but we ain't PLAYIN' SILENT HILL!

- Again, I needed a personal expo from you to get this (although I guess I could have figured the bar out with a bit of Google-fu), which always decreases my opinion of a bar by at least a little bit. I'm also not confident that most readers will understand the Silent Hill reference without an expo. It should probably have been explained in a comment.

With that hiccup aside, this is actually a fire bar. It's unfortunate that some of the hardest-hitting concepts are reliant on obscure references, but that's probably an unfixable problem, considering that there's only a limited set of things that you can safely expect everybody to understand a reference to.

Unlike with some of the other bars from both sides in this battle, I didn't think that the plot-setup before the first multi was forced at all, even though it made a specific claim about your opponent that wasn't necessarily backed by evidence when you posted it. At least, I don't remember Edge ever explicitly claiming that his gun barrel was heated up. With all that said, though? This bar is roughly as hot as the smoke coming from that barrel. My only qualm is that the way you ran SAY IS into one word (SAY'S) borders on being a broken multi, at least for me, but maybe it works for you without being stretched, so I'll give you a pass on that. +2

The losses-to-Rai prove that all-that-ya-STATE'S INFERIOR, EDGE. Thought ya'd sneak by with false claims of stabbin', but he MADE IT CLEAR THAT YA DEAD you'd only be "sneakin up with a big blade without makin' a sound" if you'd PLAYED AS PYRAMID HEAD!

- This is another bar that I had to Google, which isn't surprising, seeing as how I've never played a Silent Hill game. As I said about Edge's lines about fashion clothing brands, I think that it's usually risky to have two back-to-back bars which are based on similar or connected references. In this case, you fell towards risk rather than reward, if only because I didn't get either of the bars without researching them. I think a lot of voters will have been in the same situation, however.

I think the first multi, and everything leading up to it, was a waste of space in the box like a cosmic body midsection in a vagina!!! But seriously, none of that section of the bar added any impact to the punchline, and the first multi was both bland and slightly awkward. If you'd cut that part, not only would this bar have been better, but you would have had room to add something good to the verse. I really think that for a text battler to get to the highest level that they can be at, they have to be something of a compulsive minimalist with their bars. But you don't have to be a compulsive minimalist to cut out this much dead weight in one clean stroke.

As for the punchline itself, I suppose that it makes sense, but it's not particularly clever. I know you're going to hate me for saying this, but the setup-punchline connection is so close that it, ironically, resembles a Rai bar. I'm 100% serious. The setup clearly described an attribute of Pyramid Head, and then claimed that your opponent wouldn't share it. It really does remind me of how, with most of Rai's bars, you can easily predict the punchline just by reading the setup.

Overall, this was your worst bar of the battle, which is definitely not the kind of note that you want to end on. I'm split between giving this bar a 0 or +1, but despite all of its flaws, it's still a passable line with no flaws that take it down beneath roughly 6/10 level. So, it gets a +1.

Overall score: 11

Although I've already determined Rieper as my winner by now, and I've said an immense and possibly excessive amount about each of the bars in this battle, I do want to close this expo by taking a step back and talking about generalities rather than specifics. Both of you had some bars that seemed completely sensible at first glance, but upon closer inspection, were forced or reaches. Both of your openers were good examples of this.

Another problem is that there wasn't a single concept in this battle that really impressed me. There wasn't any bar that I could point to and say, "I'm going to remember that bar in a week or month or year or decade from now." Even though the average level of punches in this battle was high, it never passed the barrier from good to great. Come to think of it, I just described almost every line that Lockhart has used to since around 2016. I hoped Edgeworth would be able to outdo his opponent in this regard. He didn't.

Edgeworth, there are two things that I think you should specifically work on, based on my impressions of this verse. The first is carefully proofreading every single bar to remove even the smallest errors from it. Perhaps it seems needlessly scrupulous, and that might be true, since most people on LB are not likely to notice or care about such small errors as I was wont to freak out over in this expo. However, getting rid of these tiny flaws would not only please me, but put you in the right mindset to potentially catch errors that actually would change the result of a battle in your opponent's favor.

As for Riep? You know what, I'm not going to bother telling you what you need to work on. You're a veteran. You don't need my direction. If you want to improve... do it yourself.

I'd like to congratulate both of these participants for putting out strong verses. However, only one man can win, and I think the scorecard method I used picked the one who deserves to proceed to the semifinals. I wish only the best of luck to whomever advances. And, yes, I do realize that this expo is very likely the longest in the history of LetsBeef.com. I think that's not a bug, but a feature. Fair's in.

Dude holy fuck.