2. SoulWind (SS, SM, ORAS) vs. 10. Typhlosion48: typholsion made some noticeable misplays last round, especially in the ORAS game. overall though, he played pretty well vs a fantastic opponent in pohjis, and he brought some especially smart teams. still, it's hard to predict him over soulwind in any of these tiers. typh is a fantastic player, but he has some consistency issues. if he can play at his peak and prep as well as he did last round, i think he will have a strong shot here. i'm not sure how likely that is, and even if he he plays at his absolute best, he's still playing against one of the best players on the site. soulwind looked about as good as ever last week, though he did get a bit lucky in ORAS and he had a strong matchup in SS.
(3. Giannis Antetokommo-o vs. 17. ima) vs. 11. BKC: giannis is a great player, but he was not playing his best in his now discarded series vs juuls. still, i'm a big fan of his, and i hope to see him do well from here on out. sadly, i don't know how well he will do against ima, especially given how great ima looked in snake. ima is probably worse than giannis at ORAS and better at SM, but SS can get kinda close. still favoring ima in that one though.
whichever one of these guys ends up facing BKC, i think they're in for the toughest matchup of the tour. BKC looked damn good vs ojama, and after that performance i'm pretty convinced he can beat anyone remaining. his team choices were pretty nice and his play was... definitely BKC level play LOL. it's the goat what can we say? i don't want to assume one will be his opponent over the other when i predict (even though i predicted ima to win, lol), but i'm pretty confident BKC will win vs either. honestly, i have BKC going to finals at this point i think.
4. beatiful (SS, ORAS) vs. 5. Empo (SM): both of these guys had things kinda easy last week if we're being completely honest. still, i'm gonna go with the underdog here. they have a kinda similar style with aggressive, sometimes nonsensical play. bea has been bringing some really fantastic teams lately, whereas empo historically relies more on outplaying than his prep. i don't know how well this will work vs a player with a similar style as him though. i have bea in SS because he looks on top of it lately. SM it's hard to predict against empo, but bea's also fantastic at that tier... things probably come down to the ORAS, which is a tier i would say is more reliant on prep than the other two right now, making me favor bea in there slightly. think this is gonna be a real close one:
8. John W vs. 16. Kenix (SS, SM, ORAS): john cursed himself as shit last week LOLOL