Time for the return of the schizo predicts:
Preface:
Punny if you don't win this a third time and rng isn't a factor, never use the humpty dumpty gif again
Noble Guardians (0) vs (0) Tenacious Technicians
SV:
DripLegend vs Plague - Plague is an example of a prime brazilian who plays like gen 7 gama but doesn't make any of the flashy plays and normally expects the rng to go in their favour instead evidenced by the scarf gapdos clicking moves without fear vs fish body talon (not a real pokemon). Actually looking back at the games, there's no semblance to gama, not even a semblance to beraldo, so in other words they're a brazilian clicker. Who'd have though thunk it eh? I went through some of driplegend's replays and one of the first comments I saw was
+Frito ❤: go griplegend. Crazy nickname and I'd like to know what bedroom habits drip and frito discuss in their free time. As I'm writing this I'm going through more replays and see that plague has beaten driplegend before actually but the mu looked incredibly ass. Why the fuck did plague click destiny bond on a custap weezing vs a krookodile LOL what the fuck did they smoke. Would have been an amazing lure if they got it vs the reuniclus as well. Given what the guardians normally cook, if they don't get cteamed using wo-chien and gastrodon in a neutral mu I'd expect drip to win based off that turn alone, forget the rest of the paragraph.
SV:
gum vs Metallica126 - Metallica has incensed me for the year he has played RU. I mean ok he's a tryhard yada yada yada but he goes for secondary effects all the time like he's prime chungler, gets them and writes mb and then gg after. At least chungler has the decency to go for the secondary effects, be cognizant of it and move on with his day. You can't go for the secondary effect, most commonly the iron head flinch with bisharp, and then say 'mb'. I honestly think even if metallica has received a lot of hype over the past year, there are two fundamental flaws that hold him back from going further. The first is that he lacks long term game planning. It's very clear in his games that he plays turn by turn and really relies on aggro clicking to win his games. But the aggression isn't really timed, more of a vibes thing and he risks things for no real reason. The second is that he really relies on techs and lures to win his games. If the opponent has overlapping defensive synergy that he can't lure, or runs an offensive team, his gameplan gets shot based on how turn by turn his games are. In that sense, gum is probably the worst opponent on the guardian's sv that he can face because gum never really takes unnecessary risks and when they're in the zone, draw games out to their advantadge. Gum's achilles heel this tour will be using something too familiar yet again, but from what I've observed with ajna, it doesn't matter a huge deal sometimes because if you know how to win, you know how to win. So you need to basically decide whether switching it up is worth it vs an opponent who looks at a scout too closely, or whether staying in your lane will pay dividends yet again.
SV: Bouff vs
fish anemometer - This is the closest game I think prediction wise but I'm nauseating at the sight of having to spectate this game. I thought fish was a cool guy from some messages said in the EU server, but when he talked brain rot and showed an iq level lower than speed's after mindnight's choke, it made me lose a lot of respect for him. Though I'm predicting him to win, unimpressed is the word I'd use here as based on the strength of schedule compared to the rest of the technician's sv, he's had a free ride to get here pretty much. I also don't think the HO he has used some weeks has been terribly impressive and seemed more like a noob catch to win games than an actual synergistic HO that's well thought out. He also won't be able to get away with it this week I think? But actually having said that, I remember bouff knew the exact HO team that was coming, all the sets, and still managed to throw the game away. That game can be summed up the following beautiful imagery: bouff was a pigeon 100m high in the sky feeling good and dropped a fat shit onto umbry who helped them fly so high to begin with. Bouff had a bit of a comeback towards the last few weeks of RUPL, but brought fairly standard balances. Part of the problem I think with this is that those kinds of teams umbry knows the sequences and when to time the crucial aggressive turn/tera to flip the game. Bouff does not so if umbry needs to cook something, it's this week. Otherwise the only smell that will be smelt by bouff is rotten fanny.
SV:
umbry vs sufys - Speaking of umbry, this is so far her worst tour I think. But she's still 5-3 or something like that which shows a different level she's achieved overall in pokemon. She also opts for the hardest schedule but no shade to sufys, probably got the easiest out of the 4 on the technicians. Umbry doesn't mess about and will just bring something that's good. Even in games she lost, she really gives everyone a firm run for their money including the game vs evie which I thought was a really cool replay to look back at because both had their moments during the game. But I noticed this when ajna was prepping as well and that she needs to just be cognizant and give little room to those obnoxious slow breakers like golurk, daunt, gallade etc. She'll have a game plan regardless and because she's good at pokemon, is favoured to win. The biggest problem I've had with sufys more than anything is that this dude does not want to play the game whether he's scared to ruin some supposed reputation or whatever. Like why the fuck did we need to cajole him to play in RUWC vs olivia or whoever. I also wasn't terribly impressed by the team sufys brought vs ajna, recycled stresh team that wasn't up to date with the current meta and just ran into a bad mu vs bike of all things lmao. The technicians sacrifice stability on some teams for having a good mu vs the opponent. It's like lime-esque teams except tanish didn't actively always try to cteam his opponent. Unless umbry walks into a completely unwinnable mu, based on the technicians style of teams, she should take it but I still hope sufys tries to show up for this game otherwise our RUWC hopes look even more dire.
xavgb we need u buddy
SS:
Meru vs OranBerryBlissey10 - I wrote a fuckton for SV god. I hate this tier so much. Meru has shown layers to his game in a stark contrast to bestie's one dimensional sarcastic pancake personality he has had for 20 years on this site. OBB didn't play very well vs dunoks, a bit of karma for talking some smack during the feli and franklin bo3 last week. Punny has cracked the code on this tier even if his teams date to 2020 and he has a person who's been on this site for 20 years. I wish I could say Meru has 20/20 vision to complete a nice description but I was told by my mom not to lie to strangers.
SM:
kumiko vs lza - Kumi has been fire this tournament, and it's very refreshing to see quite a different take on the meta. By different, they're just copying what roro does every tournament with lower tiers. However, I don't think kumi can reach the roro heights because they don't have the x factor aka luck or the ability to have your opponents have the wrong abilities on their pokemon. I get the vision behind some of the teams but like the HO and hard stall but they were... a little weird. Having the aroma on plume I could see from a mile away but the team lacked a lot of toxic users. Also having a stall and not being able to keep them off with regi is definitely a bad look. The HO game came down to a speed tie between the croakers. I think kumi can build something really nice but not too off their rocker like what they brought to the semis but the predilection for the more balanced style builds and long drawn out games is pretty clear. Maybe in 2025, we won't see another sceptile/mandibuzz/regi team loaded by denial's team but odds of that happening are quite small. If horizons are expanded a bit, this has the potential to be a killer game but otherwise I think kumi will bring something balanced, not have to make a plays and walk away with a win.
ORAS: MZ vs
DugZa - DugZa is definitely in another breed of bringing crap in every lower tier tournament and making it work somehow if it's either through his opponents playing bad or just straight up getting lucky. I don't know honestly what goes on mentally in their team when he selects some of the things he does. Like clearly from spl, and scl he can bring normal teams but does he just think that 'this crap barrelled out from a indian gutter looks good, let me use this' for RUPL consistently. It's hard to make heads and tails of it. MZ is a very underrated pilot for the records he puts up and I want him to win but I think like the rest of the people here, he will just be dumbfounded on preview. As a pro-tip, bring a roar venusaur and you'll increase your odds of winning.
BW: Seraphz vs
Accel - Accel is my guy but he got really murked in regular season by finch. I think his takes on the meta are pretty funny and he doesn't recycle 2015 kushalos teams so that's definitely good. I think seraphz has been thrown to the wolves here yet again so I'll put money on Accel to win this because solid play + solid teams normally means solid results.
ADV: Heysup vs
SpoiledBerries - Berries is them in this made up tier. Lyra will find some way to take credit for drafting her in RUGL and nobody except for the two playing here will even care about this game. Even amity has given up trying to save this tier. I will be singing let it go in the background hoping this tier gets nuked for next year
BO3:
Punny vs TheFranklin - I was thinking of predicting franklin to make it a tie but I honestly think with the sv advantadge, the guardians should try to take this series in the regular week. This is the best game of the series hands down because both of these guys have clear advantadges and deficits in different tiers in the bo3. I went through punny's SV games and they're similar bulkier balances with some flex picks and creative picks here and there. Franklin though has the ability to pilot anything. I think franklin is most in his element when he's using a lime-esque team but some of the teams have used those slow/fat breakers sacrificing defensive stability in favour of type overlap. I think the building acumen possessed by the guardians will allow punny to load a team that punny feels comfortable using but also circumvents or allows him to outplay the aforementioned weaknesses. In SS, there's a clearer advantadge to punny and in SM there's a similar advantadge for franklin. I would hope punny doesn't needlessly recycle again in SS and tries to at least vary some of his old teams or try something different. In SM, franklin has used the same team like 10 times but won every game so you'd back him in this tier. The SV game will dictate the bo3 in my gut and so if these two guys are F1 cars, it'll come down to who has a better pit crew to support the marquee flashy cars.
