LilyAC vs dcae - lily's been off form lately a bit, struggling to a 5-4 record in LCPL with a fuckton of games that were just cheese fests. shes obviously proven many times that she can win without cheese, but the frequency at which she has used it makes me wonder how comfortable she'll be in building in the post-webs / scrag meta.(**note -- lily did tell me this is wrong and she only cheesed one game. i am lazy and will keep it tho) this is also a valid question for dcae, whose lcpl teams were built by Lily. he did go 7-2 though, which is a stronger recent lcpl record even if you count the loss to ho3n as double because he was using a Meowth. since they're both very comparable players i'll favor dcae's recent strength + ninadog/tko support; i never thought that highly of ninjadog/tko until this LC open, where they both made very strong runs to win and finish top6 respectively. lots of support, hopefully that pays off wk1 even tho neither ninja/tko strike me as... THAT much of a builder
KSG vs daunt vs - dvs was 5-0 at a point in lcpl and then fell to 6-3, i feel like he's very up-and-down as a player and idt he had that crazy a playing ceiling when he was in his groove? dont get me wrong he 100% deserves to be here but i feel like this isnt the best time for him. he also seems more likely to be affected by debut game nerves, tho this is pure conjecture by me. id feel more comfortable w KSG in this game, tho i do think people have rushed a bit to praise his play; can he reliably outplay experienced opponents or does he mostly rely on preparing well? look forward to seeing both players answer this question this season.
Toadow vs Boulicrok - teammate! go foxes.
teal6 vs Laroxyl - the lc knowledge gap is probably too much to surmount wk1 ... even tho laro could def play shaky in his debut i dont see him outright choking/throwing
kythr vs Wail Wailord - kythr's been in insane form, circuit champion 8-1 lcpl and just genuinely never slowed down. he's consistently been ahead of the meta, built very reliable teams, and played extremely well; in fact, I ranked him as #1 in the lc prs. motivation is sky-high as well... I really see no flaws in his game. idk what to say about wail wailord honestly, he's projected the image of being very dead in the most recent LCPL so we'll assume that carries over until he shows passion here. considering his ceiling, though, ranking him at #9 is wild.... he was 6-3 in his debut! kythr is genuinely automatic in this tier but i hope to see wail back in his groove for the rest of this tour.
i copied obiis post above for format and then had all the same predictions