[BIG] watashi vs crucify [SHA] - Crucify is carving a name for himself in the big leagues and that's honestly really great to see. It's not often you see new names pop up in these older generations; the barrier to entry is pretty high, and the turnover is also pretty low, so seeing a fresh player break in is great. With a strong BW cup run, a slew of seasonal results and having made finals in Classic, crucify is definitely not one to be underestimated at this point.
With that said, watashi is very good at mons and I think he'll win this pretty comfortably. Whereas crucify is likely to care too much as a result of this being his first time on the big stage, watashi is possibly most (in?)famous for being very carefree when it comes to pokemonning. I think crucify is likely to overthink things and bring a flawed team or make a crucial misstep in-game, which should guide watashi to a clean win if he doesn't mess up. Certainly not one-sided; crucify really is a weapon in this tier and can bust out some unbelievable bullshit to nail watashi with, so who knows where this is going, really.
[TIG] Finchinator vs Dice [RUI]
[TYR] Gilbert arenas vs elodin [RAI] - The famous saying goes "mons is mons", so I'm not too concerned with marcop's ability to do well in the away field of BW OU. I do think elodin is a little better though, and experience does matter. I'll admit I haven't watched either of these two play much, and certainly not recently; marcop made finals of the callous invitational (I think?) and that tells me he's likely in good form, but I do still rate elodin's overall experience with BW OU over anything else in a match between two fairly similarly skilled players.
[CRY] Stareal vs GaryTheGengar [WOL] - Stareal is as much of a zoomer as I am so seeing him in a boomer gen is pretty wild, but much like crucify, I think it's great to see Stareal get a starting opportunity here. He's been doing well in a whole bunch of tours for a while now - tho from what I remember, they were mostly SS. Lack of experience can make him a bit clicky at times, but he's still becoming a very solid overall player, and hey BW rewards aggression well so maybe overstepping won't be such a huge deal anyway.
GTG on the other hand had a great run in the tier last year and doesn't seem like he'll stop just yet. From the little I know of him he seems like he's got both a great grasp on this meta and a huge amount of passion for it, which I hope results in some cool teams with less explored mons and maybe even broken hail. While GTG hasn't been pumping out result after result like Stareal, I think he's still the clear on-paper favourite due to experience & superior meta knowledge. Excited to see if I can be proven wrong, though.
[SCO] peng vs SoulWind [CLA] - Ouch. Tough week 1 draw for peng, that's for sure. Having teamed with peng for BW PL recently, I learned two things; a), peng is super fuckin cool, and b), do not underestimate he's capable of in the builder; watching him theorycraft Rotom (the raw one) in real time was a mind-expanding experience, and that certainly wasn't the only neat tech he came up with. peng is just really great at prep; it wouldn't surprise me to see him getting a great matchup against SW at all.
With that said there is certainly a playing gap here that I don't see peng overcoming in week 1. SW is the best BW player of all time for a reason; it doesn't matter how good your matchup is, you're never truly safe, and that's especially true in this tier. A couple of wild techs might throw him off, but I don't think it'll be enough to dethrone the king. Definitely the week 1 highlight imo.
It would appear Finch beat me to literally all of these. Rip. Owell, hope they're an interesting read anyway. Looking forward to watching all of these as usual and I'm glad to see so many new faces. here's to a good season!