wanted to give my thoughts on the rankings since this is a pretty diverse pool this year with imo a pretty big gap between some placements
1. thefranklin - everyone on this list has some question mark next to their name, specifically either a. being unfamiliar with this tier and needing some time to get up to speed or b. being unproven on the scl stage and needing to show a couple games to prove they belong... except this guy. Frank has both shown he's in touch with the tier and has a wealth of prior scl experience and in general is one of the more formidable ru names around. Beyond that his support is cracked, umbry+punny is a deadly duo who recently broke the guardians rupl curse and won the tour this year so yeah... this guy's 1
2. santu - After a highly successful LC pricefixing campaign (he is the most expensive ru starter in the pool) i have Santu coming in ranked two, this guy is just a superb clicker and has pretty good support in LBN who himself has been on a big tear this year. I personally am a lil unsure if LBN's cracked out teambuilds will mesh well with how santu will want to approach the tier but until we actually start to see results I don't think that'll be TOO big of an issue, stories is also always in the wings fresh off of a ltwc win to quality check and veto any TRULY outlandish brings
3. hjkhj - This is definitely the most ambitious of my personal rankings. I've played hjk a lot in the past both on ladder and just testing for various tours/teams throughout the year and the guy is MAD consistent. He is a tad bit straightforward in the types of teams he likes to bring (has a reputation for spamming fat/stall) but we've seen methodical styles of prep like this yield good results in the past. I will say, the shoguns basically left hjk on an island, their support in this slot looks scarce, 3d is there and had a great rupl but that was in the context of feli/ajna backing him so idk how much he'll be able to do standalone
4. robjr - robjrs a weird one to rank, I think I said this in last year's prs but he can be really see-sawy with his performances, his rupls the past couple years for example have been inexcusably inexplicably atrocious, but his SCL's which should ostensibly be higher competition are great! He's off the heels of a middling ltwc where he went 2-3 (although he got lucked in his quarters game damn u team india) so he has at least been in touch with the tier personally since last shifts. Therefore I will just go with history, I think rob has all the right indications for putting together a strong tour and has pretty good support with the ru open finalist flabeauf in his corner. Kinda like santu+lbn, i am unsure if flab can adapt his building style to rob's preferences but not so much that I would move him lower i think
5. richardmilleplain - as far as the quality of ru clicker, i probably would actually rank a few ppl below richard higher than him, however scl is always more than just the clicker and rmp has the best support in the pool. After being cruelly told they could not both manage and selfbuy in rupl, the feli/ajna combo is back in action this time on the scl stage. As far as ru pedigree/official team tour ru experience, this combo is far and away the number 1 in this year's pool. After proving that they still have their chops putting together a crazy team SV RU record in rupl too, I have no question that these guys will be able to quickly acclimate rmp and set him up for a good tour
6. hacker - although he did not play in the pools phase, hacker did go 3-0 for South in ltwc playoffs as his team won the entire tour. And, being reunited with metallica, who was the builder for us south in the latter end of their playoff run, I think hacker is setup in a decent position to do very well. However hacker's overall ru results this year besides ltwc have been a lil sparse/inconsistent which is why I don't have him a bit higher
7. colin - kinda wild to see slam finalist colin clock in at 7 but as far as his RU games specifically went, he did do pretty well but they also weren't like exceptionally standout performances to me and I am a bit skeptical if he can find long term success week in and week out for RU. At this point most of slam meta is also outdated due to tier shifts and we've had a whole ltwc to cook up the general shape of the next RU meta. I think a lot of Colin's success will ride on his support, namely feen and whether or not he'll be able to both create teams that Colin enjoys and how fast he can get Colin up to speed with the meta and maybe even ahead of the curve
8. eifo - firstly shoutouts eifo my mans finished his thesis and is back on the mons grind. unfortunately i do have him at 8th... as far as pure clicking goes, I probably rank eifo better than a few of the spots ahead of him but extenuating circumstances have him down here for me i think. I mentioned his thesis which is very hype but also means that for a large majority of this year he has been detached from ru and smogon as a whole from what i can tell so he will have a lil bit of catching up to do with meta. More than that though, I think the most alarming thing is the lack of support for the spartans, dug isnt BAD support but he also isn't really known to be on the RU frontlines nor are a lot of the other names on the spartans roster. eifo is someone who is capable of single handedly working himself into a strong season though so you never know
9. kristyl - this is the most bizarre starter in the pool. Some of the other people on this list don't have a ton of experience with ru which is whatever but idt kristyl even has experience with SV period. A DPP mainer, they've been out of the official tours loop for a lil bit, last appearing in SPL back in 2023 playing dpp ou and since then have mainly stuck to old gens cups. I will say, the dynamo's kinda did this last year when they drafted BIHI and they have the same RU support, this time officially on the roster, in flampoke but I'm like still SO uncertain of the methodology. Flam has had a pretty good year going 5-2 in RUPL, but in this most recent meta he seems to still be finding his footing after a 1-3 showing in ltwc so theres just a lot of question marks leading to me having them here at 9
10. dj breloominati - if this were ss pu spitfire would be 1 but in SV RU? I'm skeptical. right before the draft dj posted this message:
and then 24 hours later he was drafted to start in a tier that as far as I can tell, he has not played before at least this calender year. Beyond that I think his support pool is also a bit suspect. LpZ won slam last year but idk how much he's been building/testing RU with some of HIS recent irl developments. I was on Piyu's rupl team and I remember he wanted to play/build sv ru but things ended up where he was just using stuff from beraldo so I'm unsure of how effective he'll be in the support role esp considering the context. I do respect dj's clicking a lot, I think from pure in game he would, like eifo, be higher than some others on this list, but theres a lot of extenuating circumstances around this slot in particular so i feel like I have to have them here
