LilyAC (45) vs (55) dcae -- This is a pretty rough week 1 for both players. I know if I was in the tour I would have wanted to build up a couple of wins and gain confidence before taking on this matchup. I expect conventional teams with dcae maybe offering some more variance. I wanna bet that 1 player brings fight spam with mienfoo-timburr but we'll see if that actually happens. Overall, both should succeed in this tour and I'll hand week 1 to my awesome WAP teammate dcae who I think may make a correct prediction or two to gain an advantage and close out a game from a winning position.
KSG (55) vs (45) daunt vs -- Both are players who I think are the most eager out of everyone to secure a win in their first week partly because they are new to this stage and I believe each player is confident that they are capable of defeating the other. For one player that won't happen, but I think it's really important for the loser of this matchup to keep their chin up, believe in themselves, and look to rebound in the future weeks. daunt vs has his direct support from serene which will be very useful, and KSG may find his support from the undrafted Shrug if he is kind (I would have loved to see KSG+Shrug be teammates because rotating them would be pretty powerful and safer if one is having an off-season). I'll give KSG the nod week 1 in a close set, but I think daunt vs and serene get better every week as they adapt to the recent bans.
Toadow (40) vs (60) Boulicrok -- I'm very pleased that both players are being given the opportunity to represent LC in a smogon-wide tour. Boulicrok, in my opinion, has played at this level for a long time but has often been overlooked in these drafts. Both I think welcome this match up week 1 as it means one of the two friends will start the tour strong, but they probably didn't want to face each other this early. My read on Boulicrok is that he tends to be the one that will bring more conventional squads whereas Toadow might choose teams that aren't seen as regularly. I'll bold Boulicrok due to his SS success, but honestly these are the 2 capable up upsetting multiple people in the generally selected top 3 (dcae, lily, kythr).
teal6 (40) vs (60) Laroxyl -- Pretty interesting week 1 matchup. Teal6 shows up to these tours and plays well enough in LC to always be in contention for .500 or better. With Luthier support he'll probably accomplish that again for another year. To his dismay he may not be allowed to use guts larvitar in the SCL (for the record I wanna see it shine and if memory serves me right he has brought it in the past) but that might be a good thing since the one prominent pokemon it beats, vullaby, is banned. As for Laroxyl I believe that out of all the players in this pool, he takes the most satisfaction in winning matches and taking down high profile names. He may play a bit rash on this stage and I do question his consistency at times, but overall it should be a great experience boost and let's see how high his peak can go. Laroxyl has managed multiple times now for LC tours so I'm not worried if he doesn't get a lot of team support so long as he finds people to test with on his own and try out teams. I kinda expect this matchup to be sort of scrappy since Teal is being reintroduced to LC. Teal's solid playing ability could seem him start to claw back from a deficit, but I believe laroxyl edges him out.
kythr (60) vs (40) Wail Wailord -- Kythr possesses the right qualities that allowed him to stand out and make a name for himself in LC over the course of a year. I see him not only as a very composed player who has the instincts to sniff out techs and scout for them appropriately, but also as a self-sufficient builder who will be able to provide for himself at the highest level consistently. The only notable feature that Kythr lacks is the one thing Wail has and that's the fact that Wail has performed at this level in LC in a team tour setting. When it comes to individual experience, Kythr is our circuit champion so say less. I saw in previous posts concerns over Wail's usage of shelmet in LCPL, but I personally like that he has the balls to experiment on big stages. So long as Wail refines his unconventional strats, maybe by using different movesets on standard pokemon, I could see himself upsetting most people here. That aside, Wail is a solid player using conventional teams and comes with a high ceiling as showcased by his 6-3 snake record so I'm not worried about him. I'll give this matchup to Kythr as he's on fire at the right time and I do expect him to live up to a lot of the hype he has generated in the community.