Pearl vs Gondra - I think Pearl is probably the most complete player in this tour, comfortable with playing any old gen as well as being able to build for all of them whereas I’m not convinced Gondra has the same familiarity, particularly with the old gens. However he is a really good player, so my money is on this going to 3 games but Pearl making it through.
edi0n vs Amane Misa - I think I predicted this the other way in open but I’ll go for the same result as back then, I think edi0n’s in game execution is a little bit better and he showed a willingness to go to an older gen last round despite being a relatively new player, meaning Misa will have to prep across all gens as opposed to just SM which I probably would’ve bet on edi0n picking as his preferred tier before the tour. Again I don’t think this will be a beatdown, but I think edi0n will come through some close ones.
Shiba vs Kushalos - surprise surprise I’m rooting for my fellow smasher and the guy that beat me! In all seriousness Shiba is comfortable enough with all old gens and SM to take on whatever series comes along, I think the main challenge will be making sure he’s ready for something potentially unconventional from Kush, as he’s definitely a very creative player. Interesting set!
Lycans vs robjr - I probably had the hardest time picking a winner for this one out of them all, as this is a cool set between two uu “mains” who have a lot of experience from the big team tours. I’ve gone with Lycans and consequently all the higher seeds as I think he’s just a touch more consistent than rob, who I think is definitely capable of handling himself in this matchup but probably has more off days than Lycans overall, I feel anyway. He also picked up a nice dpp win over HT while I’m not really sure what rob’s uu old gens background is like apart from I think he used to ladder in oras, so maybe Lycans has an edge there.
Cool matchups, seeing all 4 go to 3 games would be absolutely no surprise, gl to all