SCRAPYARD WARS 2025

[LMGcommunity]

IT’S BACK, and BIGGER THAN EVER! Linus and Luke face off to build the ultimate budget home theater gaming setup using $1400 dollars. They’ll scour local listings, thrift stores, back alleys and online marketplaces to find the best cheap gaming PCs, 4K TVs, surround sound systems, and used components. The goal? Create a fully functional home entertainment center for gaming, movie watching, and perfect vibes - without breaking the bank. You’ll see Smart DIY solutions, and intense tech rivalries as each team fights for the best bang-for-buck setup.

 

 

[CasualExtremist]

"Scrapward"?

[Har1eyG]

Scrappy yard

[Lurick]

52 minutes ago, CasualExtremist said:

"Scrapward"?

 

Yup

Scrapward Yars!!!  

[tkitch]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Yup

Scrapward Yars!!!  

uWu 

Scwapwawd yaws!
 

uWu

[CasualExtremist]

Just now, Lurick said:

Yup

Scrapward Yars!!!  

I thought for sure someone was going to inform me of the inside joke I missed, but as it turns out, dyslexia is just a hell of a drug!

[KidKid]

1 hour ago, CasualExtremist said:

"Scrapward"?

Good catch!

[manikyath]

1 hour ago, Lurick said:

Yup

Scrapward Yars!!!  

 

i in fact did not use paint, i just used snipping tool.

[emosun]

It's weird that they think they have to turn up the wick on scrapyard wars constantly for people to watch it.

A lot of shows die off that way where they think they have to outdo the previous episode every single time. They reach a point where they don't know how they could improve it and just assume nobody would watch it if it wasn't constantly jumping the shark.

I'd watch scrapyard wars regardless of whatever this years "gimmick" is.... it doesn't need to constantly 1up the previous episode especially if it's only a once in a year show. If you wanna try it in a different city or something to get a different market then sure but the whole concept around the show was already interesting.

There's a lot of successful content that is "more of the same" that people like , wan show being an example. literally just a weekly show where you just talk about stuff. Imagine if you had to constantly improve the wan show every week....

I don't get why they think scrapyard wars HAS to have a gimmick and HAS to be a massive expensive production every time. they're making the same mistake motor trend made and there's basically zero way to say it to them without just being written off immediately. It sucks , but motortrend didn't listen either so par for the course.

[bluehawk]

Huge L not having Sarah as a member option. I would have had her turn that entire room into a sistine chapel of dinosaur art 

[manikyath]

11 minutes ago, emosun said:

I don't get why they think scrapyard wars HAS to have a gimmick and HAS to be a massive expensive production every time.

wether they have a gimmick or not, scrapyard wars *is* an expensive production. multi-day shoot, multiple cameramen, multiple hosts, ending up with 50 hours of video to edit down. basicly the budget itself is the cheapest part of it. each scrapyard wars has a new gimmick to pull eyeballs to it *and* be a notable part of the back catalog, so it is worthwhile to actually make it.

 

13 minutes ago, emosun said:

If you wanna try it in a different city or something to get a different market then sure

that would make it even more costly.

 

--

 

i kind of like how every scrapyard wars has a different "gimmick", otherwise it just always ends up as "more of the same", and LTT is in a position where they *can* do the strategy of executing when they have an idea, rather than having to come up with an idea when it comes time to execute. IMO it's repeatedly executing on a known value that makes an otherwise interesting show start to feel stale.

on that note - i watch WAN show as a habit, sort of like watching the news in the morning. there is nothing about the news that makes me leap out of bed if i'm 5 minutes late, it just fills my ears with relatively useful information while i do something else.

 

the ability to leave it dormant until a good idea pops up, -to me- is what sets it apart from the vareous iterations of TV shows scrapyard wars was based on; they were fun shows, but you can just see they ran out of good ideas but had to keep going because discovery wanted them to. 

 

in a similar vibe, cleetus mcfarland (polarizing figure, if you hate his guts and what he does, power to you.) decided to continue the spirit of top gear's cheap car challenges. but because he has no production house to keep happy he can just literally wing whatever idea crosses his path, whenever it crosses his path, and it's a blast to watch.

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

 

woah no way. the exact opposite of whatever i think? who would have thought... way to mix it up for a change

[OhYou_]

I'm pretty disappointed you cliffhaingered on what is the most obvious scambait possible, like why even give these people so much light?
Should have just explained that it is obviously showing signs of a scam and cut that plan off there. 
Knowing how content goes you probably gonna ride it out because lol or something and actually go on ferry. 

[UnawareBlaire]

Allowing the use of a cloud PC subscription service is bizzare to me. I don't personally find looking for used furniture/tvs to be that engaging so this scrapyard wars might just not be for me

[Bramimond]

I like the direction this time. Never really could care about squeezing FPS out of an arbitrary budget or deal hunting, but setting up an entire room is pretty cool. 

 

So cool in fact, I'd like to revisit the concept but with a bigger budget. Maybe something like the $50, $500 and $5000 PC comparison, but do it for rooms and see what $2000, $20000 and $200000 can get you. 

[OhYou_]

3 hours ago, Bramimond said:

I like the direction this time. Never really could care about squeezing FPS out of an arbitrary budget or deal hunting, but setting up an entire room is pretty cool. 

 

So cool in fact, I'd like to revisit the concept but with a bigger budget. Maybe something like the $50, $500 and $5000 PC comparison, but do it for rooms and see what $2000, $20000 and $200000 can get you. 

I dont think ltt has enough roi to cover a $222,000 video without cheating by just throwing a $190,000 computer in the corner they got for free and building the rest of the plot with the remaining $10k out of cash fund

[Ha-Satan]

11 hours ago, UnawareBlaire said:

Allowing the use of a cloud PC subscription service is bizzare to me. I don't personally find looking for used furniture/tvs to be that engaging so this scrapyard wars might just not be for me

Yeah, I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was bothering me about the episode but I think this is a big part of it. I feel like this season possibly actually needed a few more rules, because it seems like the season might just come down to who can think the most outside the box to find weird ways to play games and set up a room, and I feel like that actually deflates the tension. 

 

Like, there need to be meaningful rules for the game to have stakes and tension and, at least after this episode, it feels like the season is basically over since Luke came up with a "one weird trick!" that Team Linus isn't even considering as within the field of play.

[swimtome]

LTT: works epically hard on a new season of scrapyard wars.

Half the thread: Scrapward!

[manikyath]

13 minutes ago, swimtome said:

LTT: works epically hard on a new season of scrapyard wars.

Half the thread: Scrapward!

YARRs!

[CasualExtremist]

1 hour ago, swimtome said:

LTT: works epically hard on a new season of scrapyard wars.

Half the thread: Scrapward!

I don't understand. What could possibly be more important that discussing Scrapward? ^/s

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

17 hours ago, UnawareBlaire said:

Allowing the use of a cloud PC subscription service is bizzare to me. I don't personally find looking for used furniture/tvs to be that engaging so this scrapyard wars might just not be for me

Well, I am not sure what to think of it myself yet, but I can see it make sense when viewed from the "build a entertainment space" instead of the usual "build a fast PC". And the subscription thing might have been semi overlooked by the team or during conceptualization. But yes, building a full room with vibes etc. will inevitably be a lot of furniture shopping.

 

On 8/11/2025 at 9:30 PM, emosun said:

It's weird that they think they have to turn up the wick on scrapyard wars constantly for people to watch it.

A lot of shows die off that way where they think they have to outdo the previous episode every single time. They reach a point where they don't know how they could improve it and just assume nobody would watch it if it wasn't constantly jumping the shark.

I'd watch scrapyard wars regardless of whatever this years "gimmick" is.... it doesn't need to constantly 1up the previous episode especially if it's only a once in a year show. If you wanna try it in a different city or something to get a different market then sure but the whole concept around the show was already interesting.

I think they talked about this a while ago on WAN show, where the consensus was basically that they need a gimmick to make it more engaging for themselves, more so than for the audience. Not just to up the stakes or out-do last season, but to make it different so that it is actually interesting for them to compete in. Plus the used PC/GPU market is probably still not that great, so that alone would be pretty boring most likely. Similar to the reason why they paused it for so long, when the used market was just gone and they did not see a point in trying to build anything during the acute GPU shortage.

 

Therefore I don't think that a regular scrapyard wars season would have been that good of an idea. Just look at their recent budget builds and how that just boils down to 'buy old office machine, cut a hole in the case and fit biggest GPU you can find for that budget'. Compared to old seasons, where there was a more interesting used market from what I can tell.

 

But yeah, if this keeps up we will finally see LTT do the tech plane in Scrapyard Wards 2030, right after the Scrapyard Wars: McMansion season and Scrapyard Wars 22, aquatic boogaloo. 

 

 

[Bramimond]

17 hours ago, OhYou_ said:

I dont think ltt has enough roi to cover a $222,000 video without cheating by just throwing a $190,000 computer in the corner they got for free and building the rest of the plot with the remaining $10k out of cash fund

Don't they already have the $200,000 room? What was the cost of the badminton LAN center again... 

 

Obviously spending that much is stupid, so it has to be some kind of meme. They could also go the $100,000 speaker route. 

[CasualExtremist]

15 hours ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

And the subscription thing might have been semi overlooked by the team or during conceptualization

Not sure how subscriptions are valid considering they have infinite cost (always another yearly or monthly payment and payment can be increased at any time) as well as preventing ownership of any asset to repurpose, resell, or otherwise benefit from. Whereas buying something used is a one-time purchase in which you actually own what you spent money on. I really thought the idea was about affordability/budgeting/cost-saving and subscriptions do not promote that. In fact, while I'm not a huge fan of CNET, they did a good job of laying out the issues with subscriptions in an article they posted late last year.

[SirShanova]

On 8/12/2025 at 12:58 AM, UnawareBlaire said:

Allowing the use of a cloud PC subscription service is bizzare to me. I don't personally find looking for used furniture/tvs to be that engaging so this scrapyard wars might just not be for me

It just isn’t the direction I feel this audience would go. Sure, us PC peeps are notoriously stingy but building a computer is kinda the foundation of the very channel itself.

 

I can deal with the console thing considering it’s the yin to the PC building yang, but building crappy computers or an Apple TV for cloud gaming just feels wrong to me. It’s not what ANYONE comes to this channel for imo.

[CasualExtremist]

Definitely a me issue, but scrapward feels more out of touch the more I reflect on the first episode's content. Engaging in obvious scam listings, resorting to subscriptions (which feels like a bad faith loophole), being open to pirating things like Windows OS (fawk Microsoft, but still seems like bad faith corner cutting), and taking advantage of having high-end machinery and tooling at their disposal @ LMG HQ. I hope it really ties back together well because this first episode just did not click with me like I had hoped it would.