Alright. So. RU pool, eh? Some things have shifted from last year, but I'll be keeping the same format as last year. Dividing into three tiers of quality. No brainer picks, high quality picks, and solid picks, without a care of whether or not they've signed up yet or not. For example, Franklin hasn't signed up yet, but I'm not going to exclude him for that, especially since I'm very confident he will. I'm not ordering within tiers, and I'm also not going to exclude non-mainers, because while some people complain when non-mainers take up slots, I do not intend to be a weenie bitch and act like that's an issue. If the games are good, the games are good. If you made this list, I think you deserve to be drafted and I think highly of you, regardless of whether or not I have criticisms. Alright, let's roll.
Tier 1: No Brainer Picks
HJKHJ, TheFranklin
Comfortably the top two in the pool, by far. With resounding records last SCL with 7-4 and 7-2 respectively, they have yet to slip in terms of play quality. HJK went 5-1 in RUPL this year, and make RULT Finals. Franklin made finals of grand slam this year, and got
lucked out of a trophy there. He also won RU Seasonal. I'll get to that grand slam shit a bit more later, but these two have been in the forefront of RU this whole year. If these two aren't retains for whatever reason, especially HJK because 10k for a retain of that quality is nuts. If for whatever reason they both aren't retained, between the two I'd do Franklin. HJK, no matter how successful he is, is an HO/Stall primary. He will load either of those and despite me saying week after week last year that he will not change his tune so prep for both, people sleep-walk into him w prep all the time and get exposed for it. Poor Feen last year was like "Bro he won't HO me, he's gonna stall. Let me load Scrafty." and he got HOd and lost. Fantastic player don't get me wrong, but I think Franklin edges it just a smidge. Doesn't fuckin matter though, both are godlike. If you're sleeping on these two you're just sleeping, period.
Tier 2: High Quality Picks
Ming549, Slikkles, Flampoke/Mareep, LBN, Feen, DugZa, Diogo (Lighthouses), Xiri
Now we have some quality picks.
Ming and Feen both took home the gold in RUPL after getting stomped into the dirt in SV the first two weeks. Beyond my shit talk, they are both great. Ming was by leaps and bounds the biggest snub last year, and I heard he took to supporting one of the other teams by invitation. If memory serves, it was the Islanders. Hard vouch, do not snub that boy again. His results are good and while he has some dogshit takes (Cyclizar B tier), he's more than earned his flowers. Get him. Feen is the TL, and thus gets the TL tax break. Very solid on the sticks, but his results are a minor step down from Ming I'd say. I'm not counting SCL last year, because I think he got bitched. Playing only 2 weeks and playing the two biggest cancers to prep for in HJK and Kristal is a fucked up hand to be given.
Flampoke is a fantastic Ubers main, who will carry you in the greatest Scale Shot tier on the website! Jokes aside, he's great on the sticks. Bo3 slot this year in RUPL could've gone a bit better, but I'd say that was a one-off. Luck played a factor, and if I recall most of his SV games were wins. As long as he doesn't load Braviary Sableye in SM he'll be chilling.
Slikkles meanwhile is a fantastic tryhard and prep-sweater. Down to earth guy, very solid on the sticks. I rate energy for prep quite highly, and out of everyone listed so far, in that aspect I put him first. Get my boy, he's nice with it.
Did you think I wouldn't glaze myself again? Shameless plug, I know. My results are objectively not as good as last year, but that's because of stuff like managing no selfbuying in RUPL, and LTWC not even happening. My RUPL team was a competitive playoff spot until the literal final hour of main season, and considering stuff like half my fucking roster going on Vacation in mid season and me buying a switch 2 and losing all my focus, I'd say we did really well. Buut I've helped a fuck ton of people over the course of the year w test games for various tours like Franklin and Ruffles for Slam, and dominance in language tours with repeated 6-1s or better. I also rode with Canada to WCop finals, supporting pretty much the entire team. Also got a sheet win!
As for
DugZa, I rate the play
very highly. RUPL he got thrown in like 4 different tiers and curbstomped all of them. I dead ass don't remember the last time I've seen him go negative in tour. He's always been nice in RU, and he wants to play it this year. Get him and let him. Not much else to say. As for
Diogo and Xiri, they've always been really fucking good. I really don't think I have to even vouch for either of them like these guys have been around since like ORAS you know they're good. I will mention Diogo can easily be slotted to PU as well, which is seemingly quite a bit weaker in terms of pool compared to other tiers.
Tier 3: Solid Picks
Ampha, Heatranator, RobJr, Cielau, Zugubu Royale, Ruffles
I'm going to preface this and say there is a. Sizeable gap between this tier and the tier above. Not that these guys are bad per say, but I think as far as value for money goes, the value you get from the ones above eclipses just about all of these options here by a large margin.
But in play,
RobJr and Cielau in particular aren't far behind. Cielau, much like DugZa, always seems to do really damn well in RU tours. 6-3 this year in RUPL is nice. The only question is.. is Cielau better elsewhere. I'm mostly ranking these guys based on proficiency in RU, not as their purchase for value. So when I see Cielau sign for PU aswell, somewhere I think he might be better.. you get the idea. As for RobJr, he's a household name. His last SCL wasn't too great at 2-4, but 4-3 in BO3 vs a quality pool is nice. Admittedly, I don't remember the last time I teamed w Rob. So as far as vibes go, I know him the least. Still really good, and keep him on the radar. But I'd get the guys above first.
Ampha meanwhile crushed RUPL with a 7-1 record. Going undefeated throughout the entire main season. He's been an RU player for ages. But I have some snags. For one thing, his bracket was relatively mickey. In main season, the best players he fought for RU were Cow mid SPL depression, and JoelxLeaf, who if I had a niche picks tier below this one, he'd go in as another member of the Food4Less HJKs. HO and Gimmick spammers. But either way, his bracket was mostly punch downs. Beyond that, he doesn't build. He just does not build. Very openly did not build for all of RUPL. If he announces to the world that he will, and I think he will build if asked to, he'd be nice. Look into getting him, no doubt. I think he does deserve a shot. Just contact him ahead of time.
Next is
Ruffles. If I recall, he prefers NU this year but his RU isn't bad. As stated by him in here, he's gonna want RU support. As someone who along side Ming, WAS his RU support, I love his enthusiasm. As far as energy goes. Between his performance in Slam and in RUPL (Mostly not SV but still very good record there), He's very good. Frankly if yall could draft DPP Messiah Kristal last year and have her fucking learn Poison Types can't miss Toxic on the fly, yall can draft ORAS Messiah Ruffles and make sure he doesn't load Water Absorb Politoed.
Zugubu Royale. This is weird. I think the best way to describe Zugu, is he's a Food4Less HJKHJ. With all the positive and negative that entails. For his slam run, frankly he robbed the dogshit out of Mind Gaming and I struggle to really act like that didn't happen. On the other hand, we also have a ton of Food4Less HJK's, and I think Zugu is the best of them by a countrymile. A lot of his Slam games were well played, and he's been around for a hot minute. The real question is, where do you field him? I rate him in RU nicely despite some of my slander, but he can go to almost all the Slam tiers. Where he goes is up to the whims of managers. He's
flexible. He should be drafted in some capacity.
Heatranator. (Love you buddy, but I had to dunk. Appreciate the glaze though!) Despite holding the trophy for funniest SCL quote last year, I rate him quite highly. In terms of play, I think he'd be in the hypothetical tier below. He's gotten much better in the past year, with 4-3 in RUPL vs quite a stacked bracket. HOWEVER. As far as being a dedicated support goes, I'd say he's the single best in the pool, comfortably so. His energy is amazing, much like Slikkles and Ruffles. If I recall
he was helping the Islanders last year as well, (It was the shoguns I'm a fraud!!!!) and they had plenty good to say about him. He is active as fuck, great for test games and poking holes in comps, and can do that for a myriad of slots. For a 3k pick, I strongly rate him.
