don't feel like organizing 10 people talking over each other just to shit on the teams they're not on, so since I'm not playing this tour I figure I can give some pretty unbiased power rankings:
8. RPS Rhyperiors
It's no surprise that this team ranks here. elo bandit + murman is an incredibly solid scouting core, although both have had noticeable trouble getting wins as of late. Had they decided to just grab a standard lineup of decent players that were generally self-sufficient, I could see this team getting most of their wins in the builder. It looks like they ran into some issues during the draft, however, and the inflated prices meant they got some pretty variant players for likely more than they bargained for. They got a trio of 13.5k players, with blanched and urfgurgle being newer faces in the tour scene and gym socks having notable trouble winning in team tours, although he did win champs with murman's help. following an early grab on the possibly unmotivated tsc, murman started drafting seemingly at random. his last 5 pickups were almost unexplainable, and the pl newbie LeCehlou will certainly have to perform above initial expectations to make this lineup work. what I assume was a failed upbid on bird poop coupled with the drafting of someone without discord makes me approach the success team with more than a little apprehension.
7. Hyperspace Horrors
In second to last, I've put the Horrors. Both managers bought themselves for this tour, but seeing as both are well-known as DPP players in a tournament without DPP, I don't quite see the reasoning. James' 2021 leads me to believe he'll be able to hold down the multigen slot, but the rest of the team is a haphazard assortment of SM mains + alice. Dropping 17k on squirtell, a player with an incredibly high ceiling who consistently underperforms in pl and hasn't even been in the scene for the past 8 months, leads me to believe the success of this team is more of a gamble. Alice is another respectable pickup; she usually gets wins in the ss slot, but I do think that price is very telling of how the horrors managed their money this time around. dropping 14k on alice and 13.5k on torterra-a player who gained much of their traction during elo bandit sm tours-mostly just fits in with the gambling narrative shown by the immediate squirtell pickup. They'll also need to hope dez is able to find teams or become more self-sufficient, because the team struggles with oras building. Overall I can see this team making playoffs, but that's only if everything goes right for them. Even then, I rate their pretty high ceiling lower than many others in this tour, so they're relegated to the 7th spot.
6. Drive-By Dragapults
I don't think this draft was bad by any means, but in my eyes the single greatest barrier to the team getting wins will be the motivation of their stars. the former 0-5qs teams up with 0-4 in pl5 mubs as a decent core of players that can get wins, but sometimes just don't. I really like the consistency in mubs' draft with the pickup of sansho and lancer to hold down oldgens for the squad, but it comes with some severe issues in motivation for the group. Sansho isn't much of a chatter, and the success of variant players like dogknees and rumia who don't seem all too motivated for this tour hinges on the activity of their discord. For that reason I like the pickup of sub slots alex, tenzhii, and adam, although 6.5k for mubs' biggest hater confused the hell out of me. I think with all things equal and everyone in their prime, the starting 8 should have no reason to switch out and are contenders this pl, but the lack of depth and slotting issues this team will face leaves me worried that a couple bad weeks would mean the end of this team's chances.
5. Trigger-Happy Thwackeys
It was neck and neck for the 5th place slot between thwackeys and megarays. Ultimately, I decided to pick thwackeys because I'm just still not fully drinking the cool-aid. carlos had a historic 2021 season in pl 5, but hit some historic lows during world cup. I think his confidence and motivation for this tour is probably at an all-time high and I expect a good performance, but I just don't know what to make of the rest of his team. SS for this team is going at least 2-1 every week, but oldgens slots like rosa, freddy, OM, and fakee are far from the consistency that ss brings. all of these players-besides the relatively unproven fakee-have struggled in the past during team tours, though the ceilings for the first 3 are known to be high. jacob throwing himself in multigen leaves ss3 to either crying (let's go) or nolenot, which should be interesting to see regardless. I'm pretty nonplussed by this composition thus far, and I think they'll struggling with filling oldgen slots should a player struggle this tour, but I couldn't put a team with jacob + carlos below this spot.
4. Metro Boomin' Megarays
In terms of player success and ability, this team should probably be ranked third. Almost every player on this lineup has gone positive in a past teamtour, so experience is really no issue. I just think the synergy here is horrible. A team captained by deg with an instabuy of zio could easily find success feeding teams to good clickers like frag or maki, but instead deg and itchy decided to pick up a host of almost entirely self-sufficient builders. I definitely think the draft plan was a bit flawed, but the value they got from it was certainly redeeming. a solid and active ss slot in smely should pair well with what I'd expect to be a zio bo7, but more likely than not zio will be forced into multigen. This means they'll have to start two of scholar (formerly known as yami), neomon, boat, or smb in ss 1v1. Maybe ink will get to multigen, but the fact of the matter is still that they still can't cover all slots with proper generational mainers. also, who the fuck is playing oras if smely is in ss? This team has some serious slotting issues that I don't expect to be resolved until at least week three, which puts them on the backfoot until their talent manages to break through. Definitely a playoff contender, but between personality differences and some serious slotting issues I don't see this team succeeding early on.
3. Big Baller Barraskewdas
This is the first of the teams' draft in this list that I like. crucify picking up notable feedable players in eblurb, leru, and maki gives this team a pretty high ceiling whenever crucify is motivated, and bird in the back should be able to provide some good ss support for whenever he's not. A strong sm1 in edgar and hopefully a similarly strong sm2 in bopher makes me impressed by their oldgens as well. Covering oras should be alright, they don't have a mainer but crucify will build and maki can click, and pretty much every slot is well supported and active. My biggest concern for this team is possible clicking issues in rellia and bird. both aren't known for having the cleanest of series', and it might be worth training up nick.see or the strap in the instance that one or both underperform. subs are really the only problem in this team; should a starter do ass they've don't have too much playoff-quality backup. What really elevates this team above the others after the draft is the synergy-all of these players know and like each other, and they cover each other's weak spots well. Definitely a contender, and it would be cool to see the barraskewdas succeed in pl once again.
2. Hellfire Heatrans
I will admit that I was apprehensive of a team managed by close and denis when they announced that they would not be doing tryouts, but I'm pleasantly surprised by their draft. while they do seem a bit top-heavy, the combo of denis, close, and radu is nothing short of monstrous. They also played to their strengths and picked clickers they can feed like frag + gorilla + aops. They even thought ahead and grabbed 1v1 newblood ncath to pump out some teams if radu gets tired of building ss with regidrago on every team. 6k joker is actually laughable for this inflated draft, so they were definitely able to get some value with the small amount of money they had after drafting all 3 managers. Not much else to say, these guys are stacked. If I had to pick a weakness, it'd be that joker doesn't have a whole lot of oras support which could be exploited during a potential oras tiebreak, but I think this team is really solid.
1. Playful Panchams
These guys are my favorite to win the tour for somewhat obvious reasons. The insane drafting strategy of nalei + XSC for the best bo7 and multigen in the pool that wasn't already taken by managing spots left the team with very low funds, but forgoing the pickup of kentari in favor of the very solid jabiru +tol sm core was a good strategic decision. Trashuny's oldgen experience should be able to help cover oras and bw, as well as support xsc as needed in multigen. This team's biggest weakness is that their 10-player pickup strategy in order to afford their stars forces them to pick between zen, toto, and thesecond best for the last ss slot, but such a slot is going to have the impressive support of trashuny, nalei, mishlef, and xsc. a bit of a gamble, but I'm a huge proponent of star-power drafting, so I expect this team to be able to succeed in weeks and smash during playoffs once their lineup is ironed out.