Last week's predicts: 1/3 PU; 2/3 LC
tied with the ape two weeks in a row is crazy :sob: at least i got some lc predicts right last week anyway woo review time
ADV PU:
Metallica126 vs Bugsileus 
(guessed Metallica126, L) - bugsileus brought HO vs metallica's bulkier offense and kind of just ran through him off matchup. i think this was a pretty reasonable approach vs someone more experienced like metallica, i do wonder if the ho happened to also be good into scout or if it was just passed in a "this is broken lmao" way. either way it worked out.
ADV LC:
Souji/Akumu vs Hacker (guessed Hacker, W) - hacker brings a double 20 speed elec + pinch build vs souji/akumu's interesting semi-sun with eggy and torchic...? i think this mu is pretty weighted towards hacker assuming his last is a sun check like ponyta or houndour, especially with the lack of trapinch on his opp's team. t1 was pretty interesting because hacker didn't click a pretty free toxic into staryu lead..? but he's rewarded with an extremely skillful tbolt para onto eggy which was def an important piece for souji but i think structurally hacker's SHOULD BE fire type last just cant be removed and even without this para i imagine it was still fine for him. if anything, i think the para full para as bull came in on turns 2-3 was worse than actually losing out on a fast eggy since it just snowballed out of control and cost souji/akumu their anorith who could have been pretty decent in this mu otherwise. souji's team doesnt have anything that bull can set up on for free besides maybe the elekid (if not sub tox) but one would rather pinch trap that than war it with bull so it doesn't really count i think.
ADV PU:
THE_CHUNGLER vs le LLiolae 
(guessed THE_CHUNGLER, W) - chungy brings a really interesting fatter team with the knock licki + hbell yena combo alongside tentacool who proves itself useful vs le lliolae's charm and tortle. le lliolae on the other hand has a more standard-looking bulky offense with a tortle + shedinja core in the back. le lliolae lets his minun get tox'd for some reason and that combined with knock licki really speeds the game up for chungy. the only real pain for him is the cb arbok that gets trapped by pinch and the shedinja that could position itself to be a threat. turns 5-6 and 8-9 are really interesting, le lliolae knows his arbok can be harded in on by pinch when its at -1, but he just crit chungy's yena so he could totally just try and get the kill here and remove chungy's hbell support. knowing his full team though, he doesnt really benefit so much from risking his bok to remove yena when the only likely status he's going to deal with are sludge bomb poisons onto yena which get rested off later and a potential resting licki who already has backup checks to his charm (tenta) and minun (it's likely a fat minun with twave on chungy's side which is quite good here into le lliolae's team with no status cure + elec check.), so him swapping out to keep his bok makes sense. the make or break turn happens on 9 where le lliolae has his bok positioned in front of a mighty without an intim drop, and chungy is forced to go hard into pinch to avoid losing a crucial mon but he's risking a sludge bomb poison/1 in 2 crits/eq getting clicked. none of these happen, and chungy's able to successfully kill the bok and from there is able to pretty easily choke out le lliolae. this turn is just kind of tough cuz an eq click is really really good for le lliolae if it lands and a 30% sludge poison also just wins. from there, its mostly smooth sailing with some potential for shedinja to go crazy but between yena and knock licki its pretty hard for him to get into a super winning spot without bok getting a lot of value.
ADV LC:
Shing vs PoseidonWrath (guessed Shing, W) - we had a lot of cool lc matchups this week but this was the one i was most excited for. shing brings a really fast team with double 20 elecs + abra + petaya agil horsea with only 2 real bulky mons in lead koffing and wailmer while wrath brings a really insane looking spikes screens HO. wrath makes a really nice t6 boom click on thief, and then goes into staryu, gets up screens, and is uhhhhhh just stuck vs icy wind wail with no good way to make progress around it since his staryu is surf spin and his sweepers are dd bagon, dd charmander, and sunny day bellsprout without external sun support. wrath chooses to just trade his staryu and screens turns for chip on wailmer, and his remaining pieces can't brute force the endgame. really interesting teams to say the least but the game itself ends up being kinda worse off after the staryu turn. such is HO i suppose but wow wrath rlly shitmonmaxxed with snorunt bellsprout charmander and a bunch of his sets.
ADV PU:
TyCarter vs Aurist 
(guessed Aurist, L) - god this game was weird. aurist brings a pretty standard looking balance team that seems a bit weak to strong normals and tycarter brings a bulky spikes offense with an all-out-attacking (?) shelgon lead which was pretty fun and cool. on turn 7 ty chooses to sac his pineco to charm when he has seadra in the back which is pretty interesting since in hindsight a pineco boom is really strong vs aurist. this game has two really crucial minun speed tie interactions happen, one on turn 23 where ty subs on aurist's tw and another on turn 45 where ty is able to dodge another game-winning tw. although this endgame is actually really weird to me; there's like a weird mix of aurist wins if they get a sludge poison on minun / if they win a minun speed tie / ty's seadra can win if it ever gets behind a sub for free but i because of that it also forces a kill vs swalot because surf barely outdamages giga + lefties but aurist can thwart that by giga-ing on the swap to seadra but also to kill minun you can only click giga vs it once since you need to sludge twice to kill it and sludging on seadra entry loses i think...? i have no idea i just woke up and this is hurting my head watching it back but whatever unfort to lose both speed ties when either won but thats the game ig
ADV LC:
Alder ST vs Celdanami (guessed Alder ST, L) - this one was pretty one-sided, celd's hp bug cubone immediately gets lead mu vs an anorith and snipes a cacnea which then forces another sac to break sub. from there alder seems to stabilize with his hp ground elekid beating celd's but then celd reveals lileep who is very difficult for alder to kill but then alder crits through it which almost makes u think he could be back in it aaand then ralts of all mons comes in and just cms to the moon and wins on the spot because alder's pony and elekid lack a strong physical move like dedge or hp ghost. although i wonder if abra could have done the same in this position since alder seemingly didnt have a way to ohko abra either from that spot. either way yea i mean this one was just kinda brutal for alder. celd's psyspam idea is pretty interesting since i assume the abra is like hp water to lure hound / wallbreak and then have ralts be a fatter cm thief wincon which is cool, but it does stack a lot of weaknesses that im not sure im the most fond of.
This week's predicts
ADV PU:
Plague vs THE_CHUNGLER
- the absolute PU highlight of the tour, the two 3-0s face off vs each other. these two were actually in a very similar position in PUCL where they were the top two players in the adv pool. in PUCL, plague won both games in main season and playoffs. I'm sure chungy is really itching for a win here, but the glalies just have absurd prep on their side and chungy kinda just has himself i think? im sure he has help in some way but it's a really steep hill to climb. rooting af for chungy but i'm gonna take a safer bold here.
ADV LC:
rineko vs
Shing - pretty cool mu, shing did say in his winpost last week he didn't put in a ton of effort and he's also like PROBABLY in LCCL finals so once again who really knows how much effort he's putting in here. rineko is an active builder but shing is stronger in-game and no slouch in the building department either since i'm sure even when hes being a bit lazy he has some teams already cooked somewhere. im feeling kinda boring so ill bold shing but theres def a world where rineko wins
ADV PU:
Bugsileus vs
TyCarter - last week bugsileus kinda just ran thru with a good HO mu that required very little outplaying/builder knowledge esp with the paths that were taken; unless the same shit happens this week i feel like ty is just solid and more comfortable here.
ADV LC:
Hacker vs
Alder ST - this is my LC highlight of the week, two godlike luckers of the tier face off. theyre both good players ofc not to take that away from em but it is very funny to see this mu nonetheless. i honestly don't know who to bold here but hacker needs to be humbled so ill take alder.
ADV PU:
DD Joe vs BlackKnight_Gawain
- gawain's finally off the bench and dd joe's back after a short break. i can't say i see gawain play this tier too much but i know he's probs decent at worst here and might have metallica influencing his brings? i think joe's due for a breakthrough by now though and his opp hasnt played the tier as much recently tmk.
ADV LC:
PoseidonWrath vs
Souji/Akumu - wrath like probably definitely overcooked last week affff :sob: but i think he's still solid. souji seems fine and once again i think they're likely to bring something overall solid-ish, in my head i still want to bold wrath but ive bolded enough favored on paper mus, need to do something a bit riskier for once this week smh.
More personal OU highlights
ADV OU:
Conflict vs Sato07
- seasonal rematch is very exciting, sato got lucky vs flict in there from what i remember. it'll be pretty exciting to see them re-visit each other in terms of both prep and play.
ADV OU:
Mikon vs lighthouses
- mikon is on a tear rn at 3-0 and i'm fairly certain shes an adv newcomer? shes also played overall quite solid in her games so far. lighthouses on the other hand is also pretty new to adv and had a deep seasonal run. i'm mostly just excited for this one cuz mikon is on fire rn and im a lighthouses fan. yeah yeah bias kill me.
ADV OU BO3:
violet river vs Spreek
- definitely the Bo3 i'm most excited for this week, two good preppers with a zoomer flair who both got quite unlucky last week. expecting some pretty cool teams in this one.
ADV OU:
Kaboom vs ADV Andy
- kaboom FINALLY in ou and his opponent is advanced andrew aka seradess who won a very important game last week for his team vs figull. i have 0 fucking clue what's going on with the delibirds ou with both cactu/eternallywandering and caloom benched but uhhhhh yea seradess atp is gonna have to step up his game for his team and kaboom is another tough one right after figull.
ADV OU BO3:
Endill vs NoName6293
- noname's looked pretty good this tour and im wondering if he can keep it up vs endill, i feel for endill tho he's been really unlucky the past couple weeks. really really hope this series ends up being clean more than anything :sob:
some misc stuff, it's cool to see prinz coming back rlly strong after w1 being very unfortunate and then beating flict and spreek, i alr yapped about mikon and noname being sheist (well for 30k he better be lmao) and whatever the fuck is happening in delibirds ou, oh also sossa is in ou instead of amaranth now for the glalies which is cool cuz sossa is pretty good himself. ok im done talking about ou actually im tired hf this week everyone
Flawless Juggernauts 
