Playoffs Smogon Tour Season 32 Playoffs - Finals [Won by SoulWind]

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Perry

Perry

slayer
is a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus

After 2 months of several hours of Pokémoning, we get to the part everyone has been waiting for. First of all, I'd like to thank our hosts and sheet owner kjdaas that made this tournament run as smoothly as it did. I'd also like to thank Blazenix for taking up the art for these playoffs and flawlessly killing it.

My congratulations to everyone who actually made it! Boomers and zoomers alike, you have done quite an amazing run and you should definitely be proud of it. If winning the prestigious pink trophy isn't motivation enough for you to win the playoffs, we are also offering (courtesy of Zarel and Teclis) the winner a pick of either a custom avatar or the ability to claim an inactive PS! username.

If you are unfamiliar with Smogon Tour's format, from this round forward each pairing will face off in a best of three series in the SS, SM and ORAS tiers. The higher seed picks the first tier that will be played, with the loser of the first game picking the following tier. Win 2 out of 3 and you are one step closer to being crowned the winner!

For this season, we have a tiebreak consisting of 4 users for the 15th and the 16th seeds. The four users were ranked considering their win-rate throughout the seasons to come up with a simple bracket. As such, the winner of each bracket advances to the playoffs! The four players are:
  1. pj - 29 points - 65.91% WR;
  2. Skypenguin - 29 points - 64.29% WR;
  3. Malekith - 29 points - 64.10% WR;
  4. Spl4sh - 29 points - 61.36% WR.
Now, onto business:

Finals


3. Giannis Antetokommo-o vs 5. SoulWind
SS / SM / ORAS

Tiebreaker

pj vs. Spl4sh
SS / SM / ORAS

Skypenguin vs. Malekith
SS / SM / ORAS

Round 1

1. Star vs. pj
SS / SM / ORAS

2. MichaelderBeste2 vs. Malekith
SS / SM / ORAS

3. Giannis Antetokommo-o vs. 14. z0mOG
SS / SM / ORAS

4. Bushtush vs. 13. Fc
SS / SM / ORAS

5. SoulWind vs. 12. qtipsa
SS / SM / ORAS

6. beatiful vs. 11. xtra$hine
SS / SM / ORAS

7. watashi vs. 10. jonfilch
SS / SM / ORAS

8. egalvanc vs. 9. Flex OKLM
SS / SM / ORAS

Round 2

1. Star vs. 9. Flex OKLM
SS / SM / ORAS

2. MichaelderBeste2 vs. 10. jonfilch
SS / SM / ORAS

3. Giannis Antetokommo-o vs. 6. beatiful
SS / SM / ORAS

4. Bushtush vs. 5. SoulWind
SS / SM / ORAS

Semifinals

1. Star vs 5. SoulWind
SS / SM / ORAS

10. jonfilch vs 3. Giannis Antetokommo-o
SS / SM / ORAS


Finals Deadline: 12/12/2021 at 23:59 GMT -3.
The schedule sheet can be found here.​
 
IPF

IPF

sundown
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Time for some predicts

Tiebreaker:

pj (SS, SM) vs Spl4sh (ORAS)
Might be slightly biased because pj is my BOY but I like him in this matchup more, although it will probably come down to the SM game. praj has been solid at SS for ages with multiple deep seasonal runs and actively laddering all year. I do think he has some deficiencies in his game, specifically his inability to finish the game off sometimes, but he's definitely favoured here for me. Spl4sh has been great at ORAS for ages and gets into tiebreak coming off a last-gasp tour win taking down Tricking and SoulWind in finals, which is hella impressive. praj is also dogshit at ORAS. SM will be close, I bold praj because I think he's better overall as a player (would be a no brainer if Lando-I was legal).

Skypenguin (SS, SM) vs Malekith (ORAS)
Fairly similar to the above matchup in that Skype is heavily favoured in SM while Malekith is favoured in ORAS, with SS being the deciding factor. Anyone who's checked the circuit tournaments subforum in the last year will know that Skype's dominance over those SM tours is ridiculous, and the dude is consistently top of the SM ladder as well, his ORAS on the other hand seems fairly weak so Malekith looks like the better pick there. SS is a toss up in my opinion, going into SCL I honestly though Malekith would struggle a ton but he put up a respectable 3-1 record which makes this decision a bit tougher, but ultimately I think Skype takes it.

Round 1:

1. Star (SS, SM, ORAS) vs. 16. pj
Alright even bias can't save our hero here. Star had qualification wrapped up in the first 3 weeks and has generally just been one of the best players on this site in the last year. He may have been upset by Altina in Classic, but I find it hard to see him getting bounced round 1 again.

2. MichaelderBeste2 (SS, ORAS) vs. 15. Skypenguin (SM)
This matchup is closer than the seeding suggests. If you couldn't tell, I'm very high on Skype's SM so I think he takes that and just like the tiebreaker I think MDB2 will take ORAS pretty comfortably. The SS matchup is once again key, with both players coming off strong SCL campaigns and Michael absolutely dominating SS tours in the regular season, even winning back to back SS tours in the same week just for the hell of it. I'll favour the recent results, but this could go either way.

3. Giannis Antetokommo-o (SS, ORAS) vs. 14. z0mOG (SM)
One of the strongest individual performers in the last 2 years (we don't talk about his WCoP campaign), Giannis is one of my favourite players to watch at the moment (very powerful name as well). Consistent teams and consistent gameplay while staying on top of the metagame is impressive as hell, so I'm inclined to bold him. zom's SM is pretty strong so I like his odds there, but the other two look pretty clear cut to me.

4. Bushtush (SS, SM, ORAS) vs. 13. Fc
The tush qualifies with a seed so high that he can actually count to it, incredible! My prediction for this set is that he will ask Fc to "open wide" at least once, followed by a deep, deep spit to assert dominance. As long as we don't get a repeat of Bush's Classic series, I think he takes this set quite comfortably. I don't think Fc is proficient enough in any of the 3 tiers to take it over Bush, although Bush is an idiot and likes to lose games and series he should probably be winning. Big upset potential!

5. SoulWind (SS, SM, ORAS) vs. 12. qtipsa
In spite of his recent obsession with grass touching, SoulWind has once again qualified for this tour with relative ease after a shaky start to the season. qtipsa on the other hand started the season extremely strongly, netting 24 points in the first 3 weeks before the timing change (more on that at the end) and ultimately qualified after missing weeks 7 and 8, and playing twice only on week 9. While I would love to not be boring, I haven't seen qtipsa play much and SoulWind is one of the best to ever do it. No brainer.

6. beatiful (SS, SM) vs. 11. xtra$hine (ORAS)
LOL seeing xtra qualify for this was a trip, one of the first threads I used on Smogon was his infamous team dump from years ago. That being said, I think bea takes this comfortably. He's arguably been the best SS player on site in the last year, he's no slouch at SM either and is very confident in his plays. I'll take xtra for ORAS just because the cheese potential is higher and he'll probably load up some cracked HO with something that autowins.

7. watashi (SS) vs. 10. jonfilch (SM, ORAS)
Slightly biased because jon's a friend, but I think he's looked really strong in ORAS all year and his sudden proficiency in SM is a surprise as well. I do think his team choices are fairly one-dimensional however, although it's nothing he can't work around. His SS is very mediocre (sorry dad) so there's no chance I bold him there, but I'm pretty comfortable picking this set as the only upset. watashi is obviously great but his notoriety for not prepping and the recent deep Classic run potentially draining motivation makes me bold against him.

8. egalvanc (SM, ORAS) vs. 9. Flex OKLM (SS)
The last time I watched egalvanc in playoffs he loaded up Entei and Mega Blastoise in ORAS and Sunny Day Scolipede in SM as he got swiftly 2-0d by Ktut. What makes me think this time will be different? I don't fucking know either. Absolutely no basis for these picks apart from the Flexman taking SS because that's definitely his strongest tier of the 3, but any of these games could go either way. I think Flex's team picking is extremely one-dimensional and thus exploitable, but honestly it all comes down to what egalvanc feels like using on the day.

As usual predicts aren't meant to offend anyone (except you pj you ugly ass hoe) so take them with a pinch of salt. Rooting for my boys pj and jon, go nuts losers.

Last but not least, a hearty fuck you to the people behind the knee jerk reaction of changing Friday tour timing midseason! Maybe it's because this decision singlehandedly killed any chance of me qualifying personally, and my friend haxrme as well, but this was one of the most infuriating decisions I've seen in my 3 years on the site. If you're going to give us the hope of having a tour that's feasible for us living in "unviable" timezones, the least you could do was stick to it for the season. It just shows that the initial decision to change the timings was half-hearted with no real intention to keep the changes in place, which is frankly insulting. Sure, I have some personal stake in this, but it doesn't make it any less disheartening. All I can say is that I hope they don't abandon the idea of tinkering with Friday times entirely, because 6 pm EST has been pretty tragic as well.
 
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