[RAT] Ezrael (55) vs (45) umbreon098 [LIN] Umbry is the player I was most hyped to see in snake and for a good reason. Excellent plays and teams from her in the first 2 weeks of the tour. The only "but" in these 2 weeks might be that both of her teams had pretty similar structures but hey, that's fine, it's working for her. Ezrael has been running into some really rough matchups, he hasn't had the chance to play an even game yet. Bringing sun vs an opponent that was likely to hard counterteam (and playing after nails) was a reckless move tho, his plays were good but they didn't end up being enough to beat goth-gigalith-dragalge with sun. If Ezrael gets an even matchup this time he's likely to win, the game should be close tho given how good umbry has been.
[TAI] Kiichikos (45) vs (55) Qwello Lee [COB] Solid showing from Qwello last week to be one of the players with a 2-0 record. Again like I said with umbry, both of their teams were pretty similar so we'll see if he can step out of his comfort zone on future weeks. Kichikos went hard for the counterteam (i'm assuming it was a ct since the team had a pretty bad matchup vs some stuff we've been seeing a lot like sand or kommo-o) and it worked. Props to kichikos tho, because even if you have the matchup you still have to win the game. So, as I said, kichikos has been relying on matchup both games but I don't think this works vs qwello, who is likely to change his playstyle after seeing the kind of teams kichikos brought. This should be an interesting game, I'm curious to see the teams they opt for this week. I'm giving a small edge to qwello because he's been pretty solid overall beating 2 strong players.
[BUS] qsns (45) vs (55) Memoric [NAG] I was expecting to see more of qsns in terms of teambuilding, he just seems to be recycling teams, which is fine as long as they are solid like his w1 team, I'm not too sure about his w2 team, or at least its structure, being good anymore. About memoric, I don't think his w2 team was as solid as the one he brought w1 but solid plays and cm necrozma working wonders vs jrl was enough to get the win. To me this is the hl game of the week, even more than ezrael vs umbry. I feel like teambuilding is going to be a huge factor since you'd expect good plays from both players. I'll give a small edge to memoric because he seems to be trying new stuff, but if qsns brings some heat (literally?) the odds might change.
[AST] Paraplegic (40) vs (60) Frania [MAM] Paraplegic's team last week was just way too passive to get a win at this level, he only had 1 mon that could do actual damage. When I saw these 6 mons i was expecting to see, idk, either band rillaboom, life orb zeraora or nasty plot mew... But nope, they were all bulky sets, which ended up in a lose. Frania's game was kinda exasperating to watch, I'm still wondering what item had necrozma (i'm guessing it was a resist berry or something) and why wasn't it safety goggles. As it happened to paraplegic, some sets on their team seemed suboptimal and they ended up falling to sun offensive pressure. I think frania's playstyle is good vs paraplegic, frania is likely to take some risks that can pay off and paraplegic might give him many chances to do that, like it happened on w1 vs kichikos, or bringing another passive team so I think fran could get his first win this week.
[SER] DLT JRL BELL (35) vs (65) Nails [LEV] JRL lost to a bulky set up mon yet again. At this point idk if the issue is teambuilding or actual plays, but I must say the team he brought this week wasn't weak to all the stuff I noticed most of their teams were clearly weak to so there's that. To be fair on w1 I think he had plenty of resources to deal with corvinight, but on w2 he didn't have enough to deal with cm necrozma and the right support, maybe he should have tried to set tspikes turn 1 but he didn't. Nails on the other hand, got a solid win vs frania after qwello's upset. As I said with qsns I'm curious to see what kind of teams he brings in future weeks because the ones he has played don't tell me much. I feel like jrl has to change his way of approaching games to be able to come back, this might not be the best week to do it since he's playing vs a top 3 player on the pool but yeah.
