The gendercast is running it back this year, with around 8 people contributing today :)
This OLT was a lot of fun to watch with a lot of last minute shakeups at the end of each cycle and a lot of new faces qualifying. We're excited to see how these newer OLT qualifiers perform against players like Empo and JustFranco, who are some of the best players on the site. We also want to shoutout the 5 iron gender qualifiers this year too, which has been awesome to see.
PREDICTS:
Axzel vs
sire clod (46-54)
- sire clod and Axzel broke into the tournaments scene last SCL and have had pretty varied paths since then. Both of them are pretty solidly entrenched in the scene now, which I think is pretty cool!
- Axzel has performed better in his OU officials games, only missing out on playing OU for WCOP
- sire clod just went 3-1 in WCOP and had a pretty fire run to qualify here
- We're definitely a little biased here since axzel has always looked solid in officials
- Armaan (LB (LabuBu)) is hyped for this MU!
JustFranco vs JJ09LIE (60-40)
- Franco just made finals of stour and is feeling pretty hot rn. We're expecting him to do pretty well here too
- sire clod says "Franco is one of the very best players on the website"
- JJ and Franco both had pretty fire runs only needing 69 wins to qualify
- JJ is historically very consistent, but they've been absent from tournaments since WCOP qualifiers. They may be out of form rn?
bbeeaa vs Baddy (58-42)
- Last time these two played was back in SPL where bbeeaa was still finding his form in SV and Baddy won pretty cleanly
- Since then, bbeeaa won the WCOP and would not stop loading until he reached the top of the leaderboard during cycle 1
- We're pretty convinced that bbeeaa is favored here but its hard to count out Baddy who's definitely feeling good rn after qualling cycle 4 pretty easily
Pkel SweeTforU vs Welli0u (55-45)
- Welli0u hasn't been too active in SV since recently and it'll be cool to see him play at this level again
- Pkel looks more in form right now but Welli0u at has peak is probably stronger
- It'll come down to how quickly Welli0u adjusts to SV
heileone vs zugubu royale (60-40)
- zugubu doesn't have a long history with SV OU but he recently won Grand Slam and this isn't his first OLT
- zugubu mainly qualled by using stall, so he'll be forced to step outside his comfort zone for this tier
- heileone has proven himself to be a pretty consistently good player and I think that consistency will be put on display here
NoName6293 vs Let's Rumble Shall We (52-48)
- Rumble (aka inertialinitiative/the guy who only loads jolteon on ladder) had a pretty incredible run last year, building his own teams along the way
- I personally rate NoName pretty highly in OU rn. He's went 10-0 in BLT a while back and has only had success since then
- This matchup is definitely close, it'll interesting to see what Rumble brings after only bringing his in-game team to qualify
- sire clod is putting all his chips on jolteon guy
qways vs
Skarpherim (30-70)
- Skarph has much more experience at this level playing big games and seems to have picked up current SV pretty quickly. It'll be cool to see him building for this tour (unless he's getting passed idk)
- qways had a deep OST run reaching top 16 but I think Skarph is still favored here
SupaGmoney vs
MemphisDepay (42-58)
- This is Supa's 4th OLT qualification and this is pretty much the only tour he plays every year. He has a lot to prove here but we're rooting for him
- Memphis is an individuals mainstay at this point, qualling STour and making top 8. We think he'll go pretty far this year
- This is a very interesting matchup and I think both players have a lot on the line here
Dragonite4242 vs Dasmer (60-40)
- Dragonite4242 aka mathismathin qualled this year loading some actual bullshit and it'll be awesome to see what he builds for swiss (this year's rumble??!?)
- An ascended iron gender gopher (a capybara now? much to think about.)
- This is definitely biased but we gotta root for our guy
- Dasmer is
Empo vs JojoOui (90-10)
- Anything is possible (natural disaster, internet outage, etc.)
- If JojoOui pulls this off we will be favoring him next week regardless of who he's against
Sanesa8724 vs
Storm Zone (8-92)
- Pinkacross' mod vs Pinkacross' father?
- If Sanesa8724 wins sire clod will chug a bottle of mustard (not on video)
- We have no further comments
Tace vs Giannis Antetokommo-o (52-48)
- Tace has a lot of experience in this position, with the longest active streak of OLT quals I believe
- Tace has a pretty consistent OLT curse where he makes top 16 one year and loses in swiss the next, and he made top 16 last year. We'll see if he breaks the curse
- Giannis was kinda struggling to qual this round but you obviously can't count him out
- This will be very close, but we're slightly leaning Tace
Ewin vs vk (54-46)
- Ewin's at the top of his game right now and he's historically done pretty well in this tour, making finals last year.
- vk got into OU again during WCOP and looked pretty good there, with his stock at a high right now (a local maxima, if you will)
- We're slightly leaning Ewin here but we could see this going either way (shoutouts shake)
hellom vs Vincent727 (85-15)
- If you've played Vincent727 aka swily on the ladder at all you've probably seen them improve a shit ton over the last like 6 months of laddering pretty much constantly, almost exclusively with slither wing sun
- That being said, this is literally the first tournament game swily has ever played so this is a baptism by fire to run into extreme tournament sweat and aspiring iron gender prodigy
- We are big fans of swily
MinoGod54 vs
Stareal (20-80)
- We rate Stareal pretty highly and has had a lot of tournament success
- We had to do our research on MinoGod to learn more about him and we found out he's an active* BioMechMons player and that this is not his first ladder tour qualification! He qualified NDLT in 2020 and got acted round 1
- He also made finals of a STABmons seasonal in 2022, only losing to DugZa
- MinoGod54 is sire clod's dark horse because he had the same Smogon profile picture as Originality56 aka Coach Jones 6fifth
Fabriisse vs
LB (41-59)
- Fabriisse has been very active in like every sidePL and language tour for quite a while and they've proven themselves to be a pretty compentent player at this point.
- This is LB's first official individuals tour qualification, reaching 2088 cycle 1 and qualifying with relative ease
- IRON GENDER PREDICTS: Armaan (LB (LabuBu (#kindness era))) will load blaziken x3 and click light screen with an iron moth
