Power rankings time :men:
1- Garchomps
Of course I wouldn’t put any other team besides my own in first place, but I do genuinely believe we walked away with the strongest draft. I don’t know why y’all let us get rabia for 10.5k or some other picks for as cheap as we did but I’m not upset about it. We have a lot of flexibility across all our slots and I don’t believe we have any glaring weakness besides for
Binacle Pinnacle, at least within the context of the pools for the respective tiers. Not to jinx anything, but overall I’m very happy with how the draft went and super excited to get into the regular season.
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Tier 2- Breezis
SS: Strap / darek / shsp / raj
Oras: Jay, maybe SHSP or pepsi
BW: Lol
Mono: BALLSMASHER9000 staple, Splash sub
This is what I imagine their lineup to look like at a glance, although I think there is an okay amount of flexibility here such as putting Jay in BW or Splash in SS if you want to move things around. If they can supply good teams to The Strap he will basically be a guaranteed win each week, though that may be a big “if” as I rate SHSP as their best builder and I’m not sure how much free time he’ll have to prep other slots. I don’t know how much SS Darek has been playing either, but thankfully him, Jay, SHSP, and a couple others should be pretty self sufficient, ultimately landing the Breezis a potentially dangerous SS core with ORAS/BW being more up in the air depending on who goes where. Idk who the fuck is BWing here but having one bad slot is fine. Dex can also support Splash in mono, and although the tier is a bit of a crapshoot, Splash's experience and skill as a player makes me think he'll end up going firmly positive. Overall a team with a lot of potential, just a matter of whether they can unlock it or not.
Tier 2- Steelixes
SS: TNM / S1nn0h / DLC, Zeph / Spitfire subs?
Oras: Spitfire / buns
BW: Uhhh buns or L>S prob
Mono: Dugza
Sooo I’m not totally sure how to evaluate this team because I’m not positive if there’s a clear “best” lineup but this is what I imagine? TNM for 22k is a very good deal, but I worry slightly about who will build for him because I know he doesn’t have the time to spam build teams for himself or others. Could see him just recycling stuff honestly. Less sure about the rest of their SS but at the least it doesn’t look too bad, again I just worry about building support. These guys will likely farm BW given they have the most experienced (and probably most motivated) BWer in the pool, plus two managers with experience. Oras also looks quite solid with a core of buns and spitfire, so I’m sure they will be fine there. Finally Dugza in mono is pretty damn nice as long as he’s active and motivated. I think this team is deceptively strong, as they realistically have ~3 slots they can bank on winning each week and then hope to pick up 1 more win elsewhere.
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Tier 3- Staryus
SS: D2 / RSQ / snake, gorex / scaldburns subs?
Oras: Cbrev / gorex
BW: Sagisolar
Mono: Crashy
I like the look of this team, but I feel like it rides very hard on their star players D2 and RSQ bringing home wins each week if the Staryus don’t just want to farm ties; normally this would be no issue, but the SS field is very strong so I’m not sure how consistent they will be. Regardless, I don’t know much about the mono field but I’ve heard good things about Crashy so that slot will likely end up going positive, and then we have what I would say are comparatively weaker ORAS and BW slots. I’m less familiar with sagisolar but he’ll probably do fine considering the BW pool isn’t that strong for the most part (that is, if he can build), while cbrev and gorex both have a lot of potential but might not be able to stand up to competition. Lasen and volt managing should be a huge benefit on paper though, as I really trust both of their managerial skills and especially Lasen’s support across a number of tiers.
Tier 3- Zeraoras
Really no clue what this lineup will look like but here goes lol
SS: Quziel / kate / FC / avery, reach / ainz subs
Oras: Kaede / quz, offler sub
BW: Trade but who is going to fucking build
Mono: Roxiee / cy
This team is hard to make heads or tails of for me. I follow SHSP's assessment that there are a lot of scary players on paper here, but just as many strong personalities that might clash. Quziel kate FC avery is a very threatening SS combination, but I worry about team support given quziel's expressed time constraints and potentially waning motivation / distaste for how SS looks right now. Kaede should do well in ORAS, especially if Jho can support them with teams like he's done before; meanwhile BW looks somewhat sketch with a presumably solid pilot but no one to supply them teams (jho? quz? maybe someone builds BW here and I'm just not aware). Roxiee is a great mono pickup and I expect them to go positive, especially with cy as support in the back / to sub in when needed.
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Last- Venomicons
SS: arnav / fakee / airfare, omi + a few other subs in the back
Oras: pannu
Bw: assuming nalo
Mono: Maroon / seo
A little scared to rank Nalo's team last because everyone thought the chromeras sucked too and they ended up with a real shot at the trophy. Even now, I'm really questioning whether last place is deserving or not; arnav, nalo, and maroon are strong bets for a win most weeks, and they only need one more win elsewhere to bag the week / tie if one of those three loses. That said, I think this team is still a little underwhelming compared to the rest. I don't know where they're getting their SS teams from - maybe airfare? - and I don't trust airfare/fakee to be particularly consistent week-to-week. Pannu is alright but somewhat unproven in ORAS, especially among what looks to be strong competition. I do really like Nalo and Maroon, though; if nalo can get a good grasp on BW CAP then that should be a very consistent slot, while maroon is an experienced mono player with support in Seo to help him succeed.
edit: I have been informed kaede was traded for omicorio which i clearly got wrong in the descriptions. my rankings will not change