I like Rabia's tier system, and I think it's a more accurate way to view these pools, but as I've been christened the new Hate Watcher today by Tuthur I'll be ranking the pool 1-10 in an unbiased and extremely on point way.
1. Ho3n - this feels wrong to me because I feel like the lack of support will be felt, but I also think Ho3n is the best pilot in the current pool and has shown time and time again that he shouldn't be counted out. That Dura AV Glowbro team looks awful and I hate it, but it somehow keeps working, and I bet I'll say the same thing week in and week out while he grabs a 6-3 record. Worst case here he flips into OU and 3d gets dropped here I guess if things don't work out well.
2. Danny - my hot take for this tournament pre tour was that Danny would end up negative, but now that I look at the pool, I don't really believe it despite my want to hate here. I think he's a cut above a few other players here in the pool and he specifically rises up way above his usual level in SCL because of how much prep he puts in. Despite DugZa mouse slipping and picking etern over me (happens to the best of us), support here will be really good assuming Danny realizes that he should stick to his fat Vap teams and not resort to using etern's Orthworm BOs.
3. Roro - I think this tour we see a solid drop off in Roro's production, but like Rabia said, until someone exposes him by remembering to check their Ditto ability, Roro can't be put lower. We have a lot of offensive tools and new cheese/stall options for Roro to mess with, but we also have a lot more ways to deal with said cheese. No form of creative support here is really uninspiring to me as well which is why Danny is higher because I feel like these types of builders really thrive with people who can throw wacky ideas off of each other. He's a great player though and I expect a 5-4 season instead of a 7-2.
4. BJ - alright, the hot takes start now. I think BJ ends up with the best record in the pool or at least in the top 3. His builds and style are really good for the current meta and his play when he locks in is top notch. I'm a big believer in the power of a top class BJ and I think that's who we see this tournament. Is 4 too higher? Argue with a wall. Now the only reason I'll be wrong here is that I give it 3 weeks before this guy cancers his team entirely with no support and no one that vibes with him there BUT if he can last to midseason auction you know where to find me for the Dr. Phd Slicejob connection. If you or anyone else you know would like to buy NU Forum Slice Ad Space, please DM me directly on Discord to get a quote
5. Shengineer - Shen makes his debut in a really good situation as Shiloh is someone who knows how to deal with the mental aspect of a big tour and can help keep Shen's creativity and enthusiasm for the game consistent and focused. Imo, that's the only issue sometimes with Shen. He spends too much time with Stories now building Momo style frail fat no Steel BO that I think are exploitable when sometimes being less wacky is the right move. This is the time he shines though and I suspect he ends up positive or near .500. No support on paper might seem troubling for a guy as social as Shen, but we all know Loocas was picked up frame 1 to help in that team chat anyways, so it isn't a big deal.
6. Watashi - a good player who had a bad tour finding himself with better support the next time around is a recipe for a bounce back. I wouldn't be shocked to see him end up with a mediocre tour when this is all said and done, but I do think the ceiling is there and much higher than his result last time. Stories in this duo does a lot of heavy lifting imo, not really much else to say here.
7. Elias - I know many will have BJ swapped with Elias here, but here's my second major hot take of the tour: I think Elias has a down year. I tend to view Elias as someone who dominates in cycles. The meta is new -> elias finds some broken something and spams it -> he uses the same structures over and over again to success and comfort -> inconsistencies in the core are shown -> elias gets c teamed -> repeat. In my head, based on gaming I've seen, we're at the end of the "inconsistencies" part of this cycle/the beginning of the "c teamed" part of the cycle as we enter into SCL, the tour which has the highest prep effort of the year. He's been dominant historically, but the slow down is there already record wise and I suspect this isn't a SCL he'll look back favorably on.
8. Django - Djaddy might be a boomer, but I think he's an extremely creative builder and knows this meta well. Realistically, he'll get his wins by grabbing an edge in the builder rather than from any sort of play gap and I think he has all the tools to do so. The lack of support may be an issue because, let's be real, Kush isn't support and zS hasn't touched the tier in at least a year, so let's see how motivated Django will be to find and hone that edge on his own.
9. Esteban - I'm concerned for Esteban this tour. I think the pool level is really good this time around and the Frenchman's debut will be a really tough outing unless he finds a way to be ahead of everyone. This might be an issue though considering that he keeps running pretty telegraphed builds and cores and he doesn't have any form of support to bounce ideas off of when his techs are usually how he patches up his teams weaknesses. I think he's awesome and would be awesome as support or with it, but I think concerns are warranted in this situation.
10. Tuthur - Smogon's favorite racist got lucky in the draft and snuck his way onto a team after abusing his rank to show the auction list publicly to remind managers that he existed. If it isn't clear already, consider my expectations extremely low. We're talking about a guy who's gone 0-7 in a tour not once but TWICE, someone who got smoked in circuit playoffs by POKESLICE, and a man who leads a tier that's third on the SCL waitlist. None of that screams SCL worthy to me, but hey, the power of mod privileges are no joke! See some recent UU drama for another example of what I mean. To make it worse, this team has NO support so who's stopping Tuthur from loading up Tentacruel 3/9 weeks and gifting his opponent a free win. All around flop of the pool no matter how you slice it.
