Shining Pool
After a quite tight regular season, with a final run between US South, France, and UK, the death of Racool's laptop, the return of the dragoluck, and the (expected) elimination of rfn ren, I'm back (oh no... ik ik) to give my thoughts about the beginning of this wcup, and my predicts for the incoming tie break.
First of all, I would like to congrats all the qualifiers (US West, Europe, and Asia-Pacific (even if they have the worst cap and the worst mnm player), but overall to all the teams, that was great to have so many high-qualities (and some less but smth
TheCoastsOfToast is gonna hit me) games, and even when the country/region wasn't famous such as China or Spain + LA, they managed to make some good results (such as
Nalorium in this stucked af STABs pool lol) and it was great to see some new blood. I hope you all had a great moment doing this competition, and I hope we can see you next year.
On the format of the wcup, I talked a bit of it in the OM cord but it's always better to write it officially, I'll not explain too much as I don't think it's neither the moment or the place to do so, but I heard some players say that they really prefer pools like that, as they offer more time to schedule and to build, and some have argued stuff about scouting (less scouting, but some think it's good and some think it's bad iirc) but I don't have an opinion on that point so. I totally understand the other points and, if I was a player, I would probably like the format because having more time is less pressure. However, I'm not a player, blame
Dragonillis and
LBDC (or my super bad level kek, your choice), so I'll give the opinion of a spectator that was invested in the wcup as I helped a few teams : I really had the sensation of a no-hype during 2,8 weeks, with a few games at random times but nobody really knew who was playing when and it kinda felt dead, and the last week end was like super strange, too many games that I feel I wouldn't appreciate all of them, despite there was a lot I wanted to see (QT, French, Greybaum games, to say the least) but I was lost in all those games and I feel like we kinda lost the value of a wcup game on this last weekend. Moreover, it was a pain to know who was in, who was out, who has played all his games, etc (esp with those guys that kept their replays until the very last moment, dude this just gives headaches not knowing who has played yet) and I think it was kinda stressful for people that were invested in that. Lastly,
willdbeast talked a bit of that, but it's harder for captains to sub 'unknown' players on already decided weeks, as they need to keep their starter to the end, and with that overbooked last weekend it was pretty hard to sub people (the only sub that happened were for people that disappeared/were suddenly not available, afaik) and it's kinda sad as wcup is also a way for 'new comers' to prove in one or two games their level.
tl;dr : as a spectator, I really prefer weeks system.
Lastly, here are my predicts for this very intense tie - it would be fun if the winners of the 2 last wcup were eliminated now kek
France vs. UK
STABmons:
LBDC vs.
xavgb I'll be honest, I didn't watched all of LBDC games (neither Stresh one, but I'm not watching BH anyway), but I felt like in this weird meta full of HO he's not in his best place, and his record of 1-3 (when he was in perfect in wcup before) shows imo some difficulties in stab. On the other side, stresh is obviously one of the strongest dude on this wcup, and I think he'll be favored here because he's on a better trend and is insane in game, and has a lot of support in building (free
Pujo tho)
AAA:
Atha vs.
Racool This is the game I expect to be the most close between two really good players in AAA. Racool has shown that her main weakness was definitely not being rusty butjust having a bad laptop, and she should have win the first game without that, whereas Atha is on the top of the AAA players since months now, got an impressive 4-0 during pools (with a lucky win against Racool), and he kinda underestimated Racool by bringing a motherlove team against her, which will probably not be the case here. I'm honestly super hyped to see this game, and I wish I'll see some heat, good teams and great plays, but I expect Racool to win from nothing
MnM:
aesf vs.
Chazm aesf is an awesome guy and it's pretty cool to have him on team France ngl. I don't really know why he's playing MnM but he's good everywhere so it's probably fine. He played his only BH game correctly, even if he should have lost because of his bad team :d however, I feel like Chazm is really impressive in MnM and I think Chazm's gonna win this, but this will be a very cool game between two excellent players, ^standing of a wcup
so yes. I'm expecting UK to crush France in this tiebreak, but all of those games are gonna be pretty fun to watch, and probably very close. I don't particularly encourage France, I just want to see good teams and enjoy the games, as its the main point of a wcup for me.
Good luck to all the players ! Have fun in your games, may the best win, and take care y'all
friendly reminder that Siamato is small (and I'm probably taller than you now lol) and that Gman is the nicest guy on this earth I love him so much (same for TheCoastsOfToast) 
