This season was prob the second most frustrating mons has ever been for me, but it's still a pleasure seeing a lot of great players in the playoffs. Rooting for Giannis and Star, but there are a ton of deserving winners. Finally, congrats to the first time qualifiers on breaking the mold -- hope there are many to come.
1.
Star vs. (Winner of pj vs..
Spl4sh)
Spl4sh is a really underrated player. I see him doing well in a lot of different tiers across a lot of different tournaments in smaller settings. I am not super familiar with him in these three generations, but I have to imagine he will get it together, especially if Brazil is around to help him. pj is more than the meme some people used to make him out to be, but his playstyle may be a bit limited and I am not sure how well he plays ORAS while Spl4sh seems to have been playing well for a while now. This is really a toss-up, but I give Spl4sh the slight edge.
Regardless of who wins, I favor Star to take all three against them. He has been one of the best players all year long and it would be pretty cruel for him to get bounced early both here and in Classic. I actually thought the Classic format suited him better, but Star's already proven his strength in SS and he's no stranger to SM or ORAS either. I think he will bring solid stuff and outplay here.
2. MichaelderBeste2 vs. (Winner of Skypenguin vs..
Malekith)
Malekith is super dangerous and I can see him tripping up both opponents here. As for Skypenguin, he's a really good SS mind, but Malekith finished strong in SCL and he has been around to witness a lot in SM/ORAS, playing at his convenience. Keep in mind Malekith had some other STour and OST runs that were pretty impressive over the years. I still see SS here as maybe favoring Skypenguin, but I think he may be strapped to take one of the other two if Malekith reigns in his chaos in the other two generations and finds a good balance between creative ideas and optimizations.
As for Michaelder vs Malekith, that's a great set -- prob my second fav of the round. Michael has been insane lately and I struggled to pick against him, but it is one of his first individual chances while Malekith is a long-time veteran who is pretty much immune to any pressure I feel. I think this is pretty tight and most pick Michael, but I will go with Malekith to shock in SS and take it from there. I think it is hard to prepare for Malekith and the surprise factor will go a long way here. Really exciting set and I am really curious to see what teams these two pick.
3.
Giannis Antetokommo-o vs. 14. z0mOG
Huge highlight for me. Giannis has been on a tear lately after early struggles while z0m clutched qualification impressively. I think the conventional favorites would be Giannis in SS and ORAS, but z0m in SM. I do not really have much of a feeling as to if it will follow this pattern or not -- feel like it usually does not as of late, but I have seen Giannis mowing through competition in early rounds and I am really impressed with his gameplay, so I will side with him. Feel like z0m taking it seriously with prep is an uncertainty and, even if he does, who knows what he will come up with in SS. Will say that his SM has proven to be solid and his ORAS has improved over time and with more experience, but taking both against Giannis seems really hard and SS is going to be super uphill.
4.
Bushtush vs. 13. Fc
Bushtush struggled a bit in SCL and had an unfortunate early exist in Classic, but I think he ends the year off with some success after it started strong in SPL. I do not see him as a specialist in any of the three, but he has enough exposure to each metagame to hold his own against someone more known for Ubers. Fc has had a nice, surprising run to this point and should be proud of qualifying for sure, but he probably needs a bit more experience to build off of this start to get even further in the future. Obviously we have seen a lot of surprise finalists and semifinalists in recent years that have caught me by surprise personally and Fc does fit that profile, but I am not familiar enough with him in any generation to say he is favored here, so I'm just going with my gut on Bush taking it.
5.
SoulWind vs. 12. qtipsa
Not very familiar with qtipsa unfortunately, but gotta side with SoulWind. He's the most consistent player on Smogon and has made countless deep runs, so picking against him seems like a mistake. SW should be fine against just about anyone in all three generations with his experience, too, which helps a lot. Stranger things have happened, but I feel that this is not the time to bet on the upset, so yea.
6.
beatiful vs. 11. xtra$hine
beatiful has not lost many games in recent times at all. His SCL regular season really impressed me, even if we already knew how strong of a player he was from prior success. I think because of that I favor him in SS against everyone in the entire pool. Thankfully for xtra, he has good experience in the other two tiers and both are wide-open to his arsenal of hyper-offensive tricks if he so pleases. I think beatiful has enough combined experience in tournament games overall and those two tiers to take at least one though, so I will side with him in a set that could be close.
7.
watashi vs. 10. jonfilch
I dunno how invested watashi will be after a really rough ending to his run in Classic. If he picks up where he left off, I favor him for sure. If he just loads up whatever, it's probably a toss-up. I think he is the better player and he is way more proven in SS and SM, so I will just go with that, but if jon has the motivation and preparation advantage, I can see him pulling the upset. After all, he has a good mind for ORAS, so it's already plausible he does the deed there. Taking 1 of 2 is possible for anyone against anyone else in this entire field -- these are all good players after all. I just think watashi has done more to prove himself in each of those, but there's no saying where either will be at here, so probably one of the closest sets because of that.
8. egalvanc vs. 9.
Flex OKLM
Really not sure here. I think Flex OKLM has gotten consistently better as a player and I find that cool, so I guess I will side with that. I dunno how much egc really cares for this either if he is offering to
rn either, but maybe that was just a scare tactic or he's just that confident that he does not need prep. Either way, egalvanc is a fiery player with a lot of good ideas, but I am not sure how consistent his teams will be or how his play stacks up against this competition. I think either can take it and it prob goes 3, but Flex OKLM seemed a bit sharper to me in the games I saw during qualifiers and earlier this year from him, so I'll go with a gut pick that will likely be wrong given my track record honestly.
bit of a random request but would love to see someone make some youtube coverage for these, always enjoyable to hear some analysis on the games
I will try to cover at least a couple each round. I do not believe in posting all of my individual uploads in the thread, but I'll try to post in the appropriate discord channel in STours if they do get uploaded.