The World Cup of Pokémon 2021 - Round 1 [Tiebreakers on posts #323/#331/#352]

Status
Not open for further replies.
Making this post to basically echo what stath said earlier in the thread, shoutouts to devin LittleBigPlanet2 Will of Fire for their invaluable help, wof especially carried my r1 teams, thank you to Christos for the incredible scouts and lastly thank you to Asuka Langley Soryu Rigas Laz TadaRinri GGFan for hopping in the server to make this experience a more enjoyable one.

Overall, this was a pretty middling performance from us and kind of disappointing considering what we were capable of. Either way it was a team effort and I'm happy for everyone I played alongside with this year. Big credit goes to Stathakis who came back after a long hiatus to strengthen our team and showed that he's still got it after all this time. You only needed 1 game to get back into shape and I'm sure you would've proved your worth even more had the tournament continued for us. Hope you stick around for more.

Gl Germany and LA in playoffs.
 

kjdaas

this girl rly slapped some letters together huh
is a Community Contributoris a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Round 1 Tiebreakers for 14th-16th

Due to the current qualifier format, a tiebreaker is needed in order to determine which team will take the 14th, the 15th and the 16th seed.
This is done because these seeds give (slight) advantages over each other, which would be unfair to determine by just points.


France (2) vs (0) Asia
Pierrick vs haxrme
Xizaaa vs ShinyAzelf
RedEmption vs devin

Asia (2) vs (0) China
haxrme vs Master Origami
IPF vs guangguang
devin vs lza

China (1) vs (2) France
lza vs Pierrick
Separation vs BIHI
guangguang vs MS3D

Teams have until Sunday, June 13th at 9 PM GMT-4 to complete their matches.
 
Last edited:
Happy to see my friends from LA and Spain at the top of the table, I have no doubt that this year we will finally have a Spanish-speaking champion

and sad for my Italian friends, this year was bad luck for they but I have no doubt that the next year they will come back to dominate and win again wcop :psysad:

VAMOOOSSSSSS LA Y ESPAÑA

hqdefault.jpg
 


Brazil (1) vs (2) US Midwest

mncmt vs. Luthier - My business partner and fellow johning conoisseur, mncmt, has once again looked sharp this WCoP. He just wins a LOT in SS OU. Though, so does Luthier, to be fair. Luthier has followed up a 6-win SPL with a 3-0 WCoP up to this point, on top of having qualified for OLT playoffs last year. He can clearly win in this metagame. I still lean towards mncmt, mostly because of his sustained consistency over the last two years, as well as the fact that he beat the immensely dangerous Storm Zone in a crazy ass game. I just like his approach and play, even if there's a crackhead decision made here and there.

Also, and I can only speculate to the effect this will have, Luthier has Slam playoffs to focus on this week. That's 5 teams to prepare, on top of potentially 2 tiebreaker games for this tournament. That's a lot for anyone to handle. Luthier also insists on live recording his games, which makes me a bit anxious. I've seen him nearly time out before, just because he was thoroughly explaining his thoughts while tabbed out to the calc. I hope for Midwest's sake that none of them end up having mncmt's team for this game sitting in their builder...


Eternal Spirit vs. John W - My favorite of the six games by far. I'm a big fan of both players and I can't wait to see what kind of teams they're both gonna roll up with. Gama will face the bigger challenge mentally, given that he's coming off of a very disappointing loss in Smogon Tour, plus he too has Slam playoffs to prepare for. Unlike Luthier, however, Gama already has a team builder filled with hot sauce ready to go whenever. Gama also took the loss very well and acknowledged he could have handled the ending better, not to mention the fact he delivered what might just be the most spectacular trophy finals of all time alongside Lusa. If random.org pulls through big and selects the exact brand of fajita required to break through John W's solid teams, then Gama could send Brazil through to the quarter finals for sure.

That said, he's facing a very difficult opponent in terms of style. John W has done a very good job of not losing to the unexpected and keeping his composure throughout those games. Examples include his tiebreaker game against ABR in SPL, but also his Round 1 game against Asta's Belly Drum Snorlax. Simply put, John W seems extremely difficult to cheese. Gama is obviously particularly creative and has proven he can beat anyone on any given day, but I think John W wins this game more often than not. He just doesn't get rattled by nonsense, and when he does he can even weaponize that frustration to potentially tilt his opponent into choking. He won the big games in SPL and has been a consistent fixture in both individual and team tournaments in recent history. I'd never feel completely safe against Gama, but if I'm Midwest then this is the player I'd want to face him 100%.


elodin vs. dice - Well, this should be encouraging for you at least, elodin. I literally predicted all three of your Round 1 games incorrectly, so let's see if that trend continues... Admittedly, elodin did better than I expected him to in a group as competitive as the one he drew. The problem is just that he's against dice. I currently have dice as the best player on Smogon right now and the second best player of 2021 behind only Star, due to Star's SPL performance compared to dice's. He just can't seem to lose right now! Clearly it doesn't matter too much whether it's ADV or SS, since this first round of WCoP looked quite comfortable for dice, too. Like elodin, dice was also placed in a very competitive group and handily topped said group with a 3-0 record.

I will say that Brazil as a team have been popping off lately and despite the 1-2 prediction here, I think they're one of the strongest teams in the tournament. If they pick the right teams and do it big for these three games, then I think they could go all the way without a doubt. Midwest is just top-heavier to me. dice and John W are just such good tiebreaker picks here. I'm sure I'd pick Brazil to win if it was a regular series, but I can't for this breaker. Brazil is my favorite team outside of Europe, so I'll be rooting for them, and obviously anything can happen in a tiebreaker, but my prediction right now would be that Midwest comes out on top. elodin is awful at ffa, too. Legit completely irrational and mindless decisions get made every single turn. And I'm not just saying that because he constantly targets me either...


US Northeast (3) vs. (0) US West

Star vs. z0mOG - Let me preface this by saying that I'm aware of the fact that z0m actually beat Star in their Round 1 encounter last weekend. However, I cannot bet against Star with his team's fate on the line. He went 3-0 in SPL playoffs, including a finals tiebreaker game 3 victory, and secured Northeast's position in this year's tiebreak, too. Honestly, I'm still not quite sure how he won that game, but it did remind me that you really have to beat Star in order to beat him. By that I mean that riding out a good match-up simply won't be enough, because he will find a way to claw his way back into a good position if you don't keep that door firmly shut throughout the game, no matter how dire it may seem at team preview.

As for z0mOG, I actually do think this is exactly how US West would've wanted the pairings to go. I have absolutely no doubt that z0m is going into this game confident he's gonna win it, even if it is against the best player of 2021 so far. z0m is extremely motivated and has done a great job leading this renewed US West team to 13 wins to begin with. In fact, many people didn't think it'd be possible with so many fresh faces. Obviously, these two teams have an established ongoing rivalry as it is as well, which should add to the excitement. This is the best game of this series without a doubt and I'm certainly gonna try to catch it live.


Nat vs. 64 Squares - This is such a crazy game to think about, given that it's such an unexpected tiebreaker pairing if you go back in time even just a few weeks. Here we are now, though, and both players certainly showed up big for their respective teams in Round 1. Nat went 3-0 in the least amount of average turns played out of any slot in any group, while 64 Squares beat both Trosko and watashi en route to an impressive 2-1 finish in a very competitive group. 64 Squares may have been an unknown entity to a lot of you before the start of this tournament, and possibly still would be now if I hadn't stepped in, but he's certainly made his mark now.

Interestingly enough, both Nat and 64 Squares have made their names in non-OU metagames, so their success in this tournament wasn't exactly obvious. That said, Nat displayed a strong affinity with this tier between this tournament and her deep run all the way to the top 4 in OST. I also think Nat will work harder on getting ready for her game than any of the other players in this tiebreaker. Keeping all of that in mind, I'm going with Nat for this one. I think it's great that both teams gave these players a chance to play such a big game, though. Should be a good one.


ABR vs. ez - Last and quite possibly least, we have a tiebreaker pairing of ez vs. difficult. These two players have found themselves in this position going in opposite directions the last couple of months. For those of you that aren't familiar, ez is actually an experienced player that featured in our team tournaments a few years ago. Unfortunately, those tournaments did not go that well for him. He followed up a 2-7 SSD I with going 0-1 in WCoP 2018 and took a step back from the scene since. Meanwhile, ABR started really hitting his stride at that time and has steadily worked his way up to being one of the all-time greats, if not the greatest. If it were as simple as lining up resumes, then this shouldn't even be a remotely close game.

However, the year is 2021 and a real argument can be made to predict in ez's favor. Frankly, ez has popped off lately and has looked as good as he's ever done playing this game. ez went 3-0 in Round 1 and also won the first OU Majors a couple of weeks ago. As far as high pressure situations go, one of those three Round 1 wins was the last game of the entire round, which ultimately ended up securing West's place in this very tiebreaker. ABR, to his credit, also won a game that ended up being decisive to Northeast's fate, but has clearly performed below his very high standard. Obviously, the name ABR comes with a certain expectation of greatness, and he simply hasn't achieved that level this year, as I'm sure his Toxapex would agree. It also occurs to me I still haven't mentioned that ABR lost, and this is true, seven (7) games in SPL (while costing, and I can't stress this enough, 36k). On top of that, he didn't understand why people don't use Grassy Glide on Tapu Bulu. I have a feeling Star won't be watching this one live.

So, why do I have ABR's name bolded? Well, because he owes Star some big time gaming. He told Star he wouldn't have to lift a finger these SPL playoffs, yet I imagine Star still feels a slight discomfort in his lower back at the very least. Not only that, but ABR finds himself being in this tiebreaker lineup over Insult (3-0) and Insulted (Finchinator), despite having significantly less experience and metagame comfort in SS OU. I know ABR better than most people and I know he wouldn't actually do this if he wasn't gonna approach this tiebreaker with the intent to break the metagame and secure the bag without any doubt. He wants what's best for the team and he wouldn't take a spot over Insult or Finch if he wasn't convinced he could show up big. Tiebreakers are a different ballgame and experience in them matters. If ABR loses, we can all agree he's officially done forever, but I don't think he'll let it happen.

Good luck and have fun, everyone. Let us know when you're playing! :psywoke:
 

Ox the Fox

is a Tiering Contributorwon the 8th Official Ladder Tournamentis a Past SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
Smogon Charity Bowl IV Winner
not putting in nearly as much effort as tony lmao but here's my predicts

Brazil (0) vs (2) Midwest
mncmt vs Luthier - luthier had a great 3-0 run and has been playing really well lately. mncmt is a great player but I think luthier has the slight edge here
Eternal Spirit vs John W - 2 amazing players but lately I've been super impressed with how john w plays. I think ES is gonna find some crazy tech to win in the builder but john w will outplay and get the win.
elodin vs dice - honestly haven't watched either of these players so I really have no clue how good either one of them is, but I think midwest will already have the 2 wins needed with luthier and john w

US Northeast (2) vs (1) US West
Star
vs z0mog - I think star is the clear better player here and this won't be too close
Nat vs 64 squares - this one's gonna be super close but I think Nat takes the slight edge
ABR vs ez - ABR has not been impressive at all lately and I'm honestly surprised NE put him in this slot, meanwhile EZ has been playing amazing; went 3-0 in R1 and also won OU majors, think this will be a clean win for EZ
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top