with the round of pool play having finished now, i want to take a look back at my original team tier list and see how things went and my thoughts on the teams through pool play. congrats to all the teams who made it to playoffs and gl!
These tiers were made after the qualifying round, and order within a tier doesn't matter, these were purely groupings on how i thought each team would do.
S- these teams should make playoffs no doubt
A- these teams will probably make playoffs, but are not quite as strong as the teams in s tier
B- teams that are in the hunt for playoffs, not as strong as the s and a tier teams but certainly still in contention
C- teams that likely would miss playoffs, as they seemed weaker than the teams in b tier by a significant bit
D- this tier doesn't really have any significance besides the fact that the uk roster was far weaker than any other region
D tier:
UK: UK unfortunately wasn't able to pull the same signups from their big names as they were last year, and were forced to slot many relative unknown players who didn't prove that they could really compete at this level. unfortunate run for team UK but maybe they'll have PA next year.
C tier:
Bangladesh: Unfortunately like wcop the bangladesh cinderella story was not meant to be. they were in a playoff position for a while early on in the tournament, but this momentum petered out towards the end and they fell short. players such as raiyan and rumble had some impressive runs though.
Oceania: This team just seemed very mid from the get-go and didn't really have any crazy statistics, most people going just slightly negative or positive. Good runs by batzi in gen 8 as well as stallion who continued his gsc dominance from the previous year.
Brazil: brazil was in a good position until very recently, staying positive for almost the whole tournament but had a lot of losses that put them out of playoffs in the past week. Despite some good runs from some new additions to the team, they just weren't able to get it done.
Latin America: definitely the best surprising team of this tour for me. I wasn't expecting too much from this team, despite having many rands mainstays like blade and luchi. but this team really popped off, still don't know zilo or zden but they really went crazy and brought the team up to a solidly winning record.
B tier:
France: This team had extremely polarizing player records, with many 5-0/4-1 performances that were unfortunately canceled out by 1-4 or 0-5 performances. Not a whole lot else to say here, was definitely a team on the verge of playoffs that couldn't quite get it done.
Africope: besides the subpar gen 1 slot, this team did very well. not a lot of majorly negative slots, and just enough positive slots to get it done. clutch gen 4 series by mael just now to put them into the finals playoff slot.
US Midwest: Midwest seemed to have a lot to say to me when i put them as the worst US region team, but they did prove to be MIDwest during this stage of the tournament after all. Despite doing very well in past gens, the gen 9 core going a combined 1-14 was far too poor to recover from.
Germany: I was definitely a bit surprised to see germany miss, they were a team on the verge of being in A tier when i made these ratings originally. They did have a fair amount of really amazing rands players like michael and sylv, but they also had uncertainty in the non rands players like cripwalk and nigel who did not do well in their tiers, ultimately leading to germany missing.
Asia: this team had a lot of potential, but unfortunately did not get as good of a performance out of some of their best slots like jj and hiep, and the rest of the team couldn't quite make up for these deficits. Still a winning record for this team, so overall a solid run, but obviously missing playoffs will sting.
India: This team really piped up. Most of my uncertainty with this team when rating them came from their old gen slots, which did indeed do quite poorly, but their more recent gen slots did extremely well and propelled the team to a +6 diff and sliding their way into playoffs.
A tier:
Italy: this was definitely a bit of a surprise, with rands god losco leading this team. Unfortunately the slots where there was uncertainty on this team did not do very well, and it brought them down. they still ended even, but it was not good enough to make the playoffs this year.
Benelux: My main issue was some of the slots within this team, mainly the captains slotting themselves over other players. Luckily for them they figured out this problem and were able to sub in players who got the job done for them. Clutch performances from michi and gang made up for the lackluster round from usual star thefranklin.
China: Despite not knowing most of the people on this team, I knew I had to throw them in the A tier due to their win last year as well as being the most populous region. Even this turned out to be an underrating, as they really heated up during the latter half of this stage and proved themselves to be the team to beat come playoff time.
S tier:
US Northeast: my team, and we got the job done this year. We had a chip on our shoulder after getting relegated last year, and we got the job done in the main stage this time. I think our consistency was the main strong point of this team, as we had only one slot with less than 2 wins. clutch performances by buhrito boris and monai made up for our losing records and gave us enough to make the playoffs.
US South: after having probably the greatest run in any randbats tournament ever during qualis, they couldn't quite keep it up during this stage. Luckily for them though, they did still have enough to make it to the playoffs. gen 8 god typhlosion really clutched it up for them with a 5-0 record, as well as a few other 4-1 slots on this roster.
Canada: by far the most disappointing team from this tournament. looking back, I probably should have had canada ranked more as an a tier, but either way they ended up being second to last, a far cry from what they should have been. It was probably a bit hectic in the team server with all of the drama and ban going on, so I feel some sympathy for this team. Hopefully they can come back strong next year.
US West: Everyone seemed to have us west ranked way lower than the other US teams, and I still don't agree with most of those takes. US west proved themself during this round to be a top threat during playoffs, and also helped boost my ego when everyone disagreed with me putting them in S tier :).
Thanks to all for a great main stage, and glhf to everyone in playoffs.