Here are my highly factual, almost guaranteed to be right, all-important predictions. I recommend you take high offence if I haven't predicted you to win, and also just be sad because I don't expect any of my predictions to be wrong.
1/ Megazard vs 16/ Dj Breloominati♬ - I've never been the hugest dj-breloominati fan (not as a user, just as a comp player), although he has reminded me basically every time ive interacted with him that he beat me in a game of oras aaa so I guess there's that. I dont see mzard putting in huge effort into this tour but at the same time I really dont see him losing this. The only tiers I can see dj having a punters chance in are AG (cos it literally isnt hard to win a bo1 in ag even vs the best players if you got a good team with a decent mu) and ZU, but even then I can just as easily see mzard winning in those tiers too.
2/ Akashi vs 15/ Andyboy - Speaking of users im not a fan of: enter jeran (this time both as a user and a player). Hoping here that Andy gets some good help and tryhards a bit and bops jeran out r1, that'd be ideal. Personal bias aside tho, on the one side I cant think of a single one of these tiers that I think jeran is actually really stand-out good at, while at the same time I really haven't actually seen Andy play anything aside mnm, so im taking the 5th on this one. Hopefully we get to see more of both players in the mnm match than the last time they played that tier vs each other in ompl tho rofl cos the MnM match should be a good one.
3/ Fardin vs 14/ Velvet Blood - Velvet is a nice player, but Fardin seems somewhat motivated-ish and I think is just much better all round here. Can see fardin taking AG, AAA, and MnM here easily, BH is a tossup cos idt either of them play it? (I know fardin hates it, idk bout velvet) and ZU could go either way. Fardin is who I believe is coming out of this lower bracket, as despite the fact that he hasn't played since omgs, firstly rust is overrated (like seriously seriously overrated LOL) and secondly the lower bracket sucks comparatively. Also fardin knows enough people to be able to source enough good teams to get through to finals I reckon.
4/ xavgb vs 13/ Catalystic - Probably the best or second best R1 tie here, competing with the one directly below it in fact. Stresh is I think the favourite to win this entire tour, due to the fact that all around he's a top 3 oms player imo (alongside jrdn and aesf) and in this particular tour I think he has a big advantage over jrdn in the fact that hes a significantly better BH player (one of the few actual bh players in this tour) and that stab and camo (2 oms that jrdn is top tier in) aren't in this tour. But yeah back to Stresh vs Cata, this is a tricky first round mu for stresh. Can see stresh taking BH easily, and I think Cata is a bit favoured in AG (although an upset here isnt impossible) which leaves AAA, MnM, and ZU. ZU looks fairly up for grabs, and stresh is favoured in both MnM and AAA, but yeah an upset here wouldn't be the most surprising thing in the world. Nonetheless, I think stresh will secure this one, oh and also: stresh doesn't lose individual tours.
5/ Quantum Tesseract vs 12/ Jrdn - The other competition for best r1 tie. I think jrdn is the far better pure player, but the question mark is how actually motivated he is to play and win this tour. QT should have BH for breakfast lunch and dinner, as jrdn and BH are like oil and water. Jrdn should take aaa with ease, and MnM id say should be strongly in his corner, which leaves AG and ZU both of which are relatively up for grabs. If I were to have a guess, id predict QT takes AG and jrdn wraps this up with a win in ZU to win this 3-2. More than anything tho, I really just want a stresh vs jrdn quarter (even tho it really shoulda been a final) cos that'd be the best potential tie in this whole tour. That'd be fucking hype.
6 / Pigeons vs 11/ a fruitshop owner - Not entirely sure why afo is playing this, I swear he doesn't play any oms other than ZU? (is that still even an om? has it done a uturn or something with the new gen lol?) Either way, im not the biggest pigeons fan either, think his stalls are fairly overrated and dont think hes anything more than a fairly solid player, but he should have this one with a fair amount of ease. In fact I wouldnt be surprised if he came out of the quite appallingly weak lower bracket ngl. Like my money is on fardin to do that (if hes motivated) but yeah, the lower bracket is a bit of a curveball ngl. Pigeons should win any tier other than ZU here.
7/ Chloe vs 10/ Funbot28 - I think funbot wins here, as ive never really viewed Chloe as that good a comp player. She's a good AG builder and alrightish MnM builder but idt she builds or plays any of the other tiers? Can see Chloe winning in AG, with MnM being relatively up for grabs, and the rest going to funbot. *edit* It has been brought to my attention that Chloe actually plays all the tiers, something I didnt know as I have literally not seen Chloe play once since coming back aside from some stabmons in OMWC (a tier that is not in here). Still gonna stick to my fbot prediction although this could go either way I guess. Dont see either of them winning their next match vs Andy/jeran though.
8/ Hamhamhamham vs 9/ TectonicDestroyer - I honestly contemplated predicting tect here, purely cos ham wouldnt care and im worried that tect will pm me asking why I didnt predict him, and then spam my pms if he did pull off the upset, but I really just cant see it happening. Like im well aware ham will give 0 fucks here, probably not build a single team more than 5 mins before he plays, and might even just get an activity loss at some point this tour, but so long as he doesn't actually get an act L here, I cant see him losing this. Like there isnt a single tier id see tect winning in other than BH potentially cos ham won't care and will bring the most crazy meme possible. The rest should be pretty much free for ham. Side note - I really really wish this tie and Chloe vs funbot were swapped in the bracket, as ham in the lower bracket would make the tour far more interesting, coulda easily seen him making finals and he woulda replaced fardin as my pick to do so.
Hope you enjoyed reading this, ngl I completely turned my brain off for this and basically waffled and bullshitted, so id be surprised if you actually did.
GL to everyone, kinda funny that the only om tour going on atm is a gen 7 tour, but I kinda prefer that cos the current gen sucks imo.