Hi all I'll start this week by giving a quick review of the week 1 games before going into predictions for week 2.
Fruhdazi vs Skarpherim:
Skarpherim brings like exactly what you would think he'd bring (boring tss ft defensive starmie) and fruhdazi brings a pretty standard concept of his as well (team that looks normal except there's a registeel for some reason). A common thread among defensive starmie teams (which typically lack swampert or suicune) is being pretty weak to earthquake - I can definitely imagine this playing out in testing and that being the reason the Aero has HP Fighting in order to switch in on and surprise a tyranitar that has no reason to click moves other than EQ. This only led to further issues with celebi, however, now that it's not threatened for most or all of its health from aerodactyl. I have to imagine that fruhdazi brought celebi alongside physical tyranitar and aerodactyl expecting a team with a physical backbone of defensive starmie and metagross, as this is definitely a comfort zone team for skarph.
The first notable turn to me this game was fruhdazi switching to swampert against jirachi, most likely expecting a fire punch defensive set (a fair guess at this point in the game). This backfires as the jirachi clicks calm mind, putting him in an extremely tight position. A switch to registeel (and the ensuing thunder wave click) seems almost like a desperation play at this point - if jirachi subs on thunder wave the game is extremely hard to recover. I don't know if he knew the team already or something, but it turns out to be the much less dangerous cm wish rachi instead. He may have thought that the 2nd CM indicated it was not substitute as well, or just been planning a pivot registeel on hp grass and then to tyranitar on the other coverage move, but this is a pretty risky sequence as well. I think if skarpherim sacrifices his starmie against celebi instead of switching aero into leech seed he would be able to give himself a 50/50 turn to win the game, hitting rock slides notwithstanding, although there may be a line involving fruhdazi preserving a low hp celebi to fight jirachi that spoils that. HP Fighting notably concedes the speed tie to opposing aero, for anybody reading this who may not know.
Endill vs Zinc:
Both players brought teams from 5 years ago. Blue offense from Endill is all right and zinc's team is reminiscent of those altina teams with 5 mons weak to skarmory + skarmory (although usually those teams carried a claydol). I don't really have too much to say about the team choices and I am unsure what matchups each player was looking for, and I assume at least for Endill that blue offense is a comfort pick.
I don't have too much to say about this game either. I think the misclick that Endill refers to at the end of the game is dragon dancing the second time, but this is a pretty reasonable play to make and the only one that beats Zinc going for a second dance. Rock slide is technically better considering flinch chance and that fact that it may just ko outright. No real mistakes made from Zinc in her spl debut is nice to see.
Mayo vs Prinz:
This one is pretty uninteresting to me. Dugtrio special offense is just bad and it runs into one of its many nightmare matchups (skarmory + blissey + anything with a speed stat...). Prinz keeps it close with some luck and mayo pp stalls hydro pump to pretty much seal the game.
Johnald vs Garay Oak
I really like johnald's team here, jolt+cloyster is such a fun composition and pairs excellently with dd mence, I've always done it with toxic jolteon but spreading twave for sub dd mence is very clever. 2 atk ddmence coverage is always an issue, and I think the choice to be walled by zap aero makes sense here as at least zap is likely to take paralysis. Garay's team is jank and I do not particularly understand it. Hp grass p2 makes no sense to me at all on a team with gyara, hera, and lax, but it ends up putting in a great performance here. I absolutely loved watching cloyster eat a +2 brick break from heracross. I think that johnald had pretty reasonable odds to win this one but it's too complicated for me to estimate.
Triangles vs river
I love seeing quadruple choice band from triangles. Along with the two from river, this game had a 50% use rate of choice bands, which is great. Both teams coincidentally using dug aero is interesting as that's a pretty uncommon pairing. As for the game itself, nothing too crazy happened. It was pretty much just a trade war where river pulled ahead ands triangles then got a few guesses right in a row to win the game.
My record so far: 3-2
Predictions:
violet river vs zinc
Zinc didn't play badly at all in week 1, but I don't think she did anything terribly impressive either, and river's loss was more due to a handful of 50/50 turns than any mistakes she made as well. I think River will make this game complicated and difficult for her opponent, and that should lead to a victory.
Garay oak vs shitrock enjoyer
I'll take the upset here, Garay is a player who does his own thing and I think that fruhdazi's metagaming may come back to bite him a bit.
Prinz vs Johnald
I'm going to predict Alexander again by the team choice last week did shake my confidence a bit. Johnald brought my favorite team of last week and I hope he keeps that up. I'm too lazy to check but I think these two may have met in adv revival with prinz coming out on top.
Endill vs mayo
These two are both typically solid and don't do anything way too fancy. I expect Endill to win in a game that doesn't really get out of hand for him - either it's balance on balance and he can grind out a win or mayo tries to mix it up and falters early.
Skarpherim vs Triangles
Skarph impressed me in his loss last week and triangles didn't really display anything besides prediction in his win, but I just think this has to be a skill gap matchup.
