Hall of Fame watch time! (also: forgive me for the fact that my letter p is broken on my keyboard, so every time I use a capital p for the rest of the post I'm copying it in from the last time I typed PDC)
22 players are looking for their first Smogon trophy with this tournament (same as SCL, more than last SPDCL)
- Cryonicles: bhkg, clean, kDCA, MGdos16, Gilbert arenas, Zokuru, Sceptross, zinc, Dugtrio is Broken,
gorgie, Sam
- Raiders: tier, JJ09LIE, Ruffles, Skyrio, Endill, Underlying, BeeOrSomething, Vileman,
Laurel, twash, MAVERICK SHOOTERS
6 players are looking for their second trophy:
- Cryonicles:
c0mp
- Raiders:
zS
,
Fc
,
Star
,
Charmflash
,
MANNAT
4 players are looking for their third trophy:
- Cryonicles:
GaryTheGengar
,
robjr
,
Luigi
,
Corazan
*
- Raiders: n/a
With a Raiders win,
Eternal Spirit would pick up a fourth trophy (SSD I, SCL I, SCL III), moving them into a tie for 31st in the Hall of Fame.
With a Cryonicles win,
watashiwould become the all-time leader in career SPDCL trophies, with 4 (IV, VI, and XI). With no other trophies,
this would move them up to the tie for 31st in the Hall of Fame.
With a Cryonicles win,
Corazan would become the 7th member of Smogon's (Triple Gold Club?) elite club that have won all three teamtour trophies, a club that currently hosts elodin (the inaugural member, who completed the feat in SSD 2018), BIHI (since SCL 2022), SoulWind (since WCOPDC 2023), Tace (since WCOPDC 2024), S1nn0hC0nfirm3d (since SPDCL 2025), and lax (since SCL 2025).
And saving the best for last, with a Cryonicles win,
PDC would claim their first SPDCL trophy, their fifth teamtour trophy, and their sixth overall trophy, moving them into a tie with -Tsunami- for 8th all-time. As far as I can tell, this is the first change to Smogon's top 10 since SPDCL 2023 (when McMeghan and Tricking claimed their fifth trophies). This would also have the effect of leaving Dave (joindate Oct 19, 2007) as the longest-tenured user in the top 10, kicking out goofball and Veteran in Love (both 2004 joindates who picked up their fifth trophies in 2008).
A few other narratives:
Only one player left in this tournament also played in the very first iteration, but since there were two that played in teamtours that first year, I'll talk about both. No matter which team wins, one of gorgie or twash is guaranteed to win their first trophy, 16 and 17 years after their respective sheet debuts. This is the first finals appearance for either of them, while we're at it.
By career sheet wins, the most accomplished remaining players still looking for their first red trophy are Gilbert arenas (64), Fc (46),
PDC (39),
gorgie (39), and zS (34). If you're looking for individual tour metrics, the most accomplished player left is undoubtedly PDC, not really a contest, they've got an individual trophy, five top 8s, twelve top 16s, but no reds! c0mp is the only other player left with an individual trophy and no SPDCL trophies. Meanwhile, Eternal Spirit's two individual finals are the most of anyone left looking for their first red trophy this year; in terms of individual semifinals, PDC, Eternal Spirit, and Corazan are tied with three. After PDC's 12, though, do you think you could name the player remaining with the most individual playoff appearances? It's Luigi, with 8, but they already have a red trophy. After them, though, is Zokuru with 5.
To be clear, I'll be picking Star to win in finals and I presume I'll do the same for a hypothetical tiebreak if it gets that far, but there's definitely a part of me cheering for history. Only two players have ever lost 9 games in a single season, and they both went winless that year. Meanwhile, Star's already at 2-8, with at least one more game coming and possibly two. Unfortunately, my fascination with morbid trivia outweighs my desire to get all my game picks correct, so I'm cheering for the mythical 10-loss season. I'm sure the Raiders would very much not agree.
JJ09LIE, c0mp, and Ruffles were all members of the finalist Tigers last year, all looking for vengeance, and unfortunately not all able to win. For that matter, the former two were both on the finalist Tigers in 2024 as well, so one of them's guaranteed to lose three straight finals. It's not easy out here.
And I mean, Cryos in the finals! They've only been here once before, way back in 2014; for reference, blarajan went 11-0 in XY LC that year, and Fakes is the only player left from that team. I just think I have to cheer for them, I really do. The funny thing is, I picked them to be bad before the season started. I thought the Raiders would be better! While ORAS and ADV for the Cryos have turned out better than I expected preseason I'm still favouring the Raiders in both slots, so really what this comes down to is that I expect the Cryos to have a mid (or worse) OU group, and instead it's performed at an elite level. But I think it's very cool that they've been this good. tbh I think we need a critical reevaluation of the PDCiyu/Spitfire manager duo purely for their role in the PDCaissance
