Fuck you all, here an independent power rankings (I haven't seen matchups yet, so take this with a grain of salt), also on my phone so forgive the typos and formatting.
6. Aurumoths - who tf is building in any non current gen metas. Team has pilots and I have confidence they'll win a week or two, but innovation rests upon players who aren't necessarily cap mains, and they may suffer against other squads who have the depth + building innovations. If they can find the squads to win matches, they'll do alright.
TIE 5/4 - Saharajas and Crawlers - I have a very tough time deciding qhich of these two are the one I think is "better", so I will lay out why they're both here. The teams both have a number of established CAP players (TNM on Crawlers and shsp on Saharajas), solid builders and then a number of pilots that have some experience in other tours. The reason I feel they tie comes down to building experience and me not having a good read on which team will be able to generate the better squads as a result. It's a cop out, but I don't know right now. I'm obviously not counting anyone put yet, especially these teams, as both team's leadership have proven to be effective, but I'm gonna keep my eye on all of them.
3. Bagons - 10 players means there's no room to hide, everyone on this team will need to show up each week and play hard. Luckily, there are players on here that will do exactly that. Momentum for the begins will be key: if they get into a rut even a little, it'll take a lot of work to dig themselves out of the mental deficit. BUT! This team is definitely quality over quantity, in my eyes, the question will definitely revolve around how their pace is, and whether they can maintain it.
2. Lechonkers - 17 players means two things, you have depth, but you also have to make sure no one goes inactive. There's plenty of noncapmain pilots backed up by competent builders across the old gens. This team will win the ORAS mus most weeks, and I have faith that dex will pull some crazy shit out of his ass wrt lineups and builds. I want to see this team's SM matches as I don't see an immediate SM *star*, but all very competitive and competent players here.
1. Whimsicotts - depth is a little tight, which is the one spot where I think the weatherman may falter, but there's a ton of builder and pilots across all three gens in this team. It's pretty impressive to see the collection of all these players together and I think that should games go their way, the whimsicotts will handily make playoffs, if not finals. I'm happy to be wrong, but I think this will be the one Lasen takes.
Roast my takes, thanks for reading :]