- There's a division between fans who want to see more Adolf Hitler vs. Darth Vader matches, and fans who think those battles are getting stale and the focus of the show should be placed elsewhere. The latter was acknowledged in Hitler vs. Vader 3 in the form of an included comment.
- Batman vs. Sherlock Holmes is very polarizing; half the fans like it just fine, the other half are put off by the delivery of Batman's verses, on top of Batman having very few good lines.note EpicLLOYD actually references this in Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD 2:And then I try to tell you things but you're too stubborn to understand
Like, dude, that is not a cool way to play Batman! - Reception to Miley Cyrus vs. Joan of Arc was pretty divided: while some people are fine with it, it has a share of detractors who think it's one of the worst battles. There are also fans who are disappointed at the match-up and wish Joan had gotten a different opponent.
- Invoked with the mention of the Affordable Care Act in ERB News 3.5. The hosts are well aware that it will be very divisive, describing it as "Polarizing News."Theodore Roosevelt: Some people will hate it. (clip of Lincoln smacking Obama) Some people will love it. (clip of Lincoln smacking Romney) I! Don't! Give A! Damn!
- While most fans are otherwise fine, some fans are split about Goku vs. Superman...mainly because of the fact that Goku is played by Ray William Johnson, who is pretty disliked by more elite YouTube enthusiasts.
- In general, any battle featuring two modern, purely fictional combatants (Rick Grimes Vs. Walter White and the aforementioned Superman Vs. Goku, for example) rather than at least one historical figure will receive a fair bit of criticism for not actually including any historical figures, thus making the "History" part of the "Epic Rap Battles of History" name redundant. Others, however, don't necessarily mind if two contemporary fictional characters are used, so long as the raps themselves are of decent quality (Indiana Jones vs. Lara Croft, for example, has received comparitively little criticism in this regard.)
- Many people found Stephen King vs. Edgar Allan Poe either unfair because Stephen King had longer verses, or fair because Poe's really fast rapping and trochaic meter style compensated for it.
- Artists vs. Turtles caused a bit of division between people who loved it, and people who thought that it was good but weak compared to other season finales. A major point of contention was its very short length (1 minute, 42 seconds) despite its large cast. The fact that Season 4 started with an even bigger battle suggests that EpicLLOYD and Nice Peter could have done a better job.
- Oprah Winfrey vs. Ellen DeGeneres is a pretty divisive battle. It tends to be seen as either one of the most underrated battles, citing its pretty good writing and performances, or as one of the most forgettable, blandest and/or downright worst battles in the series, citing its dull writing, lazy editing and overall filler feeling to it.
- The first two battles of Season 4's second half (Lewis and Clark vs. Bill and Ted, Harry Houdini vs. David Copperfield). Some call the battles "brilliant", and others find them lackadaisical and missing the spark that made the series so great to begin with. The two sides do not get along.
- Jim Henson vs Stan Lee has had a polarizing reception in the fanbase since it came out. Some people find it to be a really great finale, citing its use of storytelling in a rap battle (with its heartwarming and tearjerking moments) and finding Walt Disney’s verse at the end to be one of the greatest in the series, some other people, on the other hand, find it to be a disappointing and underwhelming finale, that moves too far away of what a rap battle is supposed to be, and find Walt Disney at the end to be a wasted character by him being an Anthropomorphic Personification of the Disney Company instead of being a direct portrayal of the real person. Others have pointed out that the initial showdown is too one-sided, with Stan being the only one to actually make jabs at Jim while the latter only has one real zinger.
- Frederick Douglass vs Thomas Jefferson got some notable divisive reception, with some claiming that Douglass pulled the race card to win and never actually countered Jefferson's question of "The fuck did you do?", while others felt that Douglass made multiple fair points. The fact that Jefferson was forced by the writers to spend his entire second verse countering the slavery accusations was also poorly received by some. However, there's a growing number of fans that counter that Thomas Jefferson wasn't "defending" himself for an entire verse, but rather that he was condescending to Frederick Douglass: more specifically, he's talking down to Douglass instead of apologizing. (The last line "So forgive me! I was busy, I had a lot to do. But we did it, you're free now so...we cool?" is used to further this point.) Because of this, there's an Alternate Character Interpretation going on that the writers weren't just turning Jefferson into a weak-willed strawman.
- Bruce Banner vs. Caitlyn Jenner is one of the most divisive battles in the show's history, with by far the highest dislike percentage. This is due to Caitlyn Jenner's presence alone (she's a very controversial figure, especially in the transgender community itself), as well as how one-sided the battle becomes in the second half (Jenner gets almost three times the number of lines Hulk does). Then there's the debate over whether Banner should've had a different opponent; one side dislikes the reasoning behind the matchup (simply the fact that they're both named Bruce and that they have a second form to them that changes radically who they were) and often brings up Henry Jekyll as a better choice, while the other side says that Jenner deserved a voice and/or that Jekyll would have been too obvious. And that's before getting into the political side of things, with some people accusing the battle of being transphobic, others calling it too "politically correct," and still others who think the first two groups are making mountains out of molehills.
- Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton. Apart from the obvious, Lincoln explicitly telling Hillary to "beat this dummy" and calling back to his appearance in "Obama vs. Romney" by slapping Trump twice rather than slapping both candidates as equals have caused a lot of controversy, as it blatantly showed Lincoln favoring Clinton over Trump.
- Freddy Krueger vs. Wolverine has some division among fans, some liked the battle, citing its great verses (most notably Wolverine’s) and its stunning visual effects, but some found the flow and the pacing to be kind of weird and awkward at times and Freddy Krueger’s verses to be weaker than usual. There’s also some people who found Freddy’s costume (namely the mask) to be kind of poor-looking (for the reasons given in this page), while some people liked it just fine, especially since they now have a much smaller budget.
- Vlad the Impaler vs. Count Dracula has drawn a lot of criticism, primarily related to its slow pacing, the quality of the costume design (particularly with regards to Dracula), and the fact that Dracula gets very few good disses against Vlad. There are some, however, who call it an underrated gem of the sixth season, usually citing Peter's performance as Dracula, embracing the campier aspects of the character (even referencing The Count from Sesame Street in his first few lines) while also acknowledging the more terrifying aspects. Of course, this also breaks the base, as many would have preferred Dracula to have been played more straight, with the comedic aspects taken out.
- Thanos vs. J. Robert Oppenheimer has caused a lot of division. While Peter's portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer was universally praised by audiences, Thanos’ portrayal caused an enormous split for numerous reasons:
- His voice; while some people think he sounds fine, some others think he sounds off, that it’s inaccurate to Josh Brolin’s impression and instead sounds more like RoboCop, and that even his delivery is off in some places (for example, his Thanoscopter line).
- His lines; while some people think he had some good hard-hitting lines, some others think that they were mediocre, at least in comparison to his opponent’s verbal slaughter, and that he relied too much on memes and current pop culture references (most infamously his Fortnite reference, which according to many YouTube commenters made him automatically lose the battle the moment he said it).
- His costume is by far the most controversial part; while some people think he looks fine, especially when one considers that ERB doesn’t have a Hollywood level budget to pull off a character that needed millions of dollars of CGI to be pulled off, some others still think he looked abominably awful (for the reasons given in this page) to the point of being distracting, or even making half of the video unwatchable, with some even saying that if they weren’t able to pull off a good costume, then they shouldn’t have bothered doing the battle, with some other people calling these out that it’d be a waste to scrap the whole battle just because one character doesn’t look good.
- Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden was guaranteed to get its detractors:
- Bias against Trump is once again a hot-button ERB issue. While Trump does have better and longer lines, Biden does have slightly more lines than him (4 more) and raps slower. It's generally agreed that Trump is treated much fairer than the battle released before the 2016 election.
- Peter's portrayal of Biden. While he has generally been praised for his appearance and rapping, some find him awkward and creepy, and his impression to be poor and inaccurate to the real Biden, just sounding like most of his old man voices.
- Lincoln's absence from the battle. While many are upset there he wasn't there to drop hot bars and slap the candidates about, a few are fine with him being absent to let Trump and Biden make use of their verses and darken the mood.
- The visuals for the battle, compared to the two gorgeous preceding battles, are a much simpler fare, with Trump and Biden rapping in front of American maps. Some are fine with the humble ensemble, with the pandemic still raging on in the US, while others are disappointed by the visual downgrade.
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