Welcome to Season 7 – Round 7 of Iron Builder!

Yes. Another exciting duel! To be honest, when I first saw this part, it was 70880. I realized that this would be a tough battle.
Ben sounded the horn with a Lilium Inter Spinas, and Ari responded with a steam style industrial building as a weapon.
When I saw the steam ball and the Infernal Bargain, I didn't hesitate to cast my first vote for Ari. But I immediately realized that Ben was using the same style of creative counterattack. His' The Headless Horseman 'won back a city.
The following 'Heartforged' is what I think is the best work of this duel (I searched for 70880 on the supermarket shelves...). Although Ben's ""Another Hobby"" attracted me. But it didn't affect my decision to vote for the 'Electrocutioner'... it's really cool!!

This round is hard to judge, because it feels like both builders would have delivered much more if they had the chance to, leaving me with rather little to actually base my decisions on. One thing is for sure: I’d want to see another IB round from both, anytime.

Parts Usage

On paper, a seven to four builds lead for Benjamin should make this category easy to judge, but I would say that three of his builds don’t really use the seed part all too well: Using a flame as a flame in his balloon is not particularly innovative and the parts are hidden too much to be impactful. Same can be said about his supermarket and the Armadoculus V3. The flower is more convincing, although it still doesn’t feel like it needs the flame piece to work. I adore the brush and The Innsmouth Harbor’s waves. Ari used the flexible nature of stacked seed parts, most notably in the Industrial Samsara.
With all those out of the way, the other builds fully use the furry texture of the flame piece and both our contestants brought their A-game constraction models here. In the end, this category results in a tie, because Ari incorporated the seed part more seamlessly in all of his works, while Benjamin explored a greater range of it.

Build Quality

Now this is where the fun begins! Whether it is a great life-style image of a flower, Ari’s creature blending into darkness or Benjamin’s beautiful modelling kit, both builders know how to present their MOC’s in creative and convincing ways. The Industrial Samsara has some great shaping, same goes for Benjamin’s balloon. His supermarket is a tad simplistic and his boat, I dare say it looks rather bad.
But do I really want our contestants to leave their constraction comfort zone when they’re both SO incredibly good at it? Hell no. Infernal Bargain, The Headless Horseman, Heartforged and Electrocutioner are all absolutely flawless from concept to execution and easily some of the greatest creations Iron Builder has ever witnessed. I could go into absurd lengths about the tiniest details and brilliant parts usages, instead I want to emphasize that they’re more than the sum of their parts: truly expressive characters!
Benjamin made a great effort to show a diverse selection of well-made builds, ending on a four-build streak with a particularly strong set of carefully constructed tools, yet Ari is unbeatable in a category that must have been named after him. None of his MOC’s makes any compromises, with pure quality dripping out of every inch of them.

Performance

Sadly, this round wasn’t particularly entertaining, with many days going by without an Iron Build. The circumstances didn’t make for much of a memorable competition, but luckily blessed us with a great selection of memorable builds. Credit goes to Benjamin for delivering more creations and exploring more sides of the LEGO system and the seed part alike. His shopping cart load of last-minute builds surely raised the tension towards the end, led by a fun pun of showing how Ari looks between the shelfs of a supermarket. Then again, whenever one might think Ari could be beaten, he closes the round with a jaw-dropping rendition of what he looks like when he’s not in the supermarket, but at the building table instead. So, another tie in my books.

Both builders really played to their strengths here, and it's wild to see so many larger-scale models in an Iron Builder round. I'll give the performance edge to Ari just for the intensity that Infernal Bargain and Electrocutioner display — to turn such large, goofy parts into something with such presence takes real skill, not to mention the pure imaginative wackiness of Industrial Samsara. Benjamin was no slouch either, particularly in the build quality department: The horseman's horse almost steals the show despite only using a few of the part, and the banana-leaf basket with brick-built balloon are really special. My favorite uses of seed parts are always where the part feels natural and unforced while remaining the main focus, and of all the builds I think The Innsmouth Harbors and Infernal Bargain pull that off the most effectively.

Favorite details: viking sail as inked parchment, CCBS shells as pumpkin, Jens nips as eyes, spaceport boosters as robo neck