robopoke vs TaceBreeze - Tace you my nigga but robopoke is crazy good and I feel like his unique perspective on teambuilding is going to make him a formidable opponent to take down this tour. However, Tace is still solid and could win this game if he gets a neutral or better matchup and stays at the top of his game.
SoulWind vs Lopunny Kicks - Lopunny Kicks has cooled down a bit since the wcop playoffs game that everyone has been gassing him up over, and Soulwind has been doing amazing in SM tours all year, so it's hard to take such an unproven kid against a battle tested veteran like Soulwind. I think that this series is going to be a pretty decisive 2-0.
blarghlfarghl vs Insult - Both these guys are personal friends and roughly equal as players in my eyes, and it's hard to pick one of the two of them, but I feel like insult is going to bring better teams than blargh in this set considering who he has helping him. I'll be excited to watch this set live seeing as it'll probably be pretty tight either way, so I hope that both these guys go far in the tour.
ABR vs Mimolette - Mimo has been making some really cool unique teams lately and could possibly snipe a good matchup against ABR, but ABR has so much more experience and has proven he's among the best in SM OU, so it's very hard to pick against him here.
Sacri' vs Twixtry - I tried justifying Twix over Sacri to myself because he's a bro but it's just hard to do because Sacri has been playing great between wcop r1 and qualing in a harder cycle than Twixtry did in this tour along with generally having way more experience in these types of situations.
XxKidofDeathxX vs Kory2600 - I know that Kory is coming off of an absurd qualifying run with 90+ gxe and under 70 games along with a solid showing in wcop, only losing to Hiye all tour, but KOD is a super hot player right now and is zero'd in on this matchup, so I think he'll be to turn heads by pulling off an upset here.
Zokuru vs zugubu royale - Zugubu Royale has apparently been tearing up ladder tours all year, so I expect that he'll have enough experience in high pressure situations to beat Zokuru in this matchup, but I haven't seen enough from him to definitively call this matchup.
CaronSmith vs Empo - CaronSmith showed last year that he doesn't have any problems with nerves in this tour and has really impressed me with the way he's been playing lately, so I'm going to pick him to pull off a huge round 1 upset in a very entertaining series.
hot meat vs Juuls - I don't know who the fuck either of these guys is, but I thought that hot meat's olt alt was jamvad for half a second so that must mean he's good.
Paycard vs Ojama - Don't pick against the kingpin lol.
Simia vs Kickasser - Simia comfortably qualified for this tour, getting so high up that he didn't even have to play near the deadline and has been quietly performing well whenever I've seen him play, so I think he'll be able to clutch out a win against Kickasser in spite of having less experience in high pressure situations such as this one.
Ktütverde vs Zuchtrest - Zuchtrest is a great player from what I've seen and has had the ability to power through his opponents in spite of being constantly accused of being an alt for the duration of last OLT. I've not see Ktuverde do anything super impressive playing or building so it's hard to pick him to beat anyone in this tour.
Googly vs RedEmption - Googly has been playing in tours for a while, but he's been fairly ordinary in tours lately, most notably being dismantled by Lopunny Kicks in wcop, and RedEmption is a new aggresive talent with the French behind him to help, so I think he'll be able to overcome his relative inexperience and take down Googly.
Mob Barley vs Bro Kappa - Mob is actually an incredible player when he's focused and I'm frankly not sure about Bro Kappa's skill level after coming off of such a long ban, so I think that this is going to be another pretty quick series.
Ash KetchumGamer vs Hiye - Hiye has been destroying high pressure OU tournaments all year, doing well in both SPL and WCOP, and he's facing someone that I've never seen before that was only alright from what I saw so I'm gonna pick Hiye to 2-0 this set.
Malekith vs Eternal Spirit - Last but not least we have another matchup of 2 strong foreign talents that are vastly different players. Malekith is no slouch in SM OU, but Gama has an absurd record in tournaments and seems highly motivated to do well from what I've seen, so he'll be able to easily win this game as long as he doesn't let his clash royale addiction get out of hand.
goooo kitchen :D