vs.
Inebriated Incineroars (6) vs. Circhester Centiskorchers (2)
SS:
MetaRiolu7 vs King Choco - Both players have the same record, but I'm going with Mr7 because I think he is better and is gaining momentum after his rough start. I said this last week as well, but a lot of Choco's wins in tours are often due to to his opponents being bad or things being in his favour. This doesn't mean he's bad of course, he's definitely good and this will be one of the more interesting SS games of the week. Nonetheless, I think Mr7 has showcased more as a player throughout his tour performances. He will also have a lot of motivation I assume, since the Incineroars are having a great comeback after a terrible first 2 weeks.
SS:
Conflux vs Shiba - Shiba has a better record, but siding with Conflux because he has had interesting builds and the better quality of games thus far, whereas a lot of Shiba's didn't necessarily come down to him outplaying. Similar to Mr7, Conflux is gonna be very motivated to turn things around, and will probably try hard to keep the momentum going.
Bo3:
zugubu royale vs Trichotomy - This might be the most interesting matchup this week. Similar to their matches last week, we have a clash between very confident players. I didn't give zugu enough credit last week by saying that kaiser would be able to easily prep for him. Instead, he managed to get a good edge prep wise and won his series pretty easily. Prep is one of my main reasons to lean towards zugu; he has had more inspiring team choices. Zugu has also had a better performance in the tournament so far. For perspective, zugu beat kaiser last week, who was looking like the best in the bo3 pool while trich's game was against piper and he struggled to take it in 3. Jokes aside, both of them are solid and this will hopefully be an entertaining and close series.
Threat:
Bouff vs Nailec - Nailec's actually pretty decent in threat, and I totally forgot about that until I saw him in the slot. I suppose he must be the builder for the team, since I was wondering that in last weeks predicts. He has some good creativity when it comes to sets which could be pretty useful. I mentioned their team having eh builds last week but they had a lot of improvements last week. The Magnet Rise on Excadrill was cool and might've won the game if not for the falling for the counter. Although, some of his sets have a "wow that's cool, but what does it really achieve" vibe at times, like the Role Play Landorus-T (again not even sure those are his ideas, but applies to the team in general). Nonetheless, the Incineroars have a really strong threat builder in torkoal and a great player in Bouff. When it comes to playing ability, he definitely has the edge here overall, but also in terms of feats in this metagame. He was a bit tilted from an unfortunate start to the tour, but seems to be collected again; a motivated Bouff definitely has the edge here. It should be noted however that Steel monothreat is a pretty lame type imo, lots of room for BS occurring and building is annoying so that could cause on issue. Bouff might be put in another frustrating situation that could throw off his game.
AAA: aesf vs
Fissure - Here we have a match between the top two records in AAA in the tournament. I've personally enjoyed both of their performances thus far, despite not really knowing much about Monotype AAA or being that big on the tier itself. I'll give this one to Fissure because he's the only undefeated one right now. I think this is gonna be a really interesting game tho as both players really manage to keep the viewers interested during their matches with the surprising things they bring. I'm looking forward to this and hope they keep it up!
STAB: Plas vs
Quantum Tesseract - Giving this to QT because he has done better in the tournament so far and has a lot more experience in Monotype STABmons.
LC:
Confide vs Eternal Spirit - Confide has been doing well in this slot, and I believe he is more familiar with the metagame than ES. ES is a great player overall, but his debut in this slot consisted of an incredibly lucky victory so its hard to say he's found his footing here.
NatDex:
Feliburn vs Skysolo - I think Feliburn is great in both SM and SS Monotype, so he should adapt to NatDex Monotype without much difficulty. Also, he has done better in his monotype tournament performances than solo has, and solo's game last week was pretty weird iirc. Both these teams have struggled in this slot, however the Incineroars might have the disadvantage in terms of team building. A lot of people complained about that weird rain lanturn team they had last week, and I honestly have no idea who is building here. Personally, I'd say just copy a team some other team used in a past week instead of risking giving a good player a bad team and losing. Overall, Feliburn is the better player and with the right team should manage this game comfortably.
vs.
Weaboo Wartortles (2) vs.
Mossdeep Murkrows (6)
SS: Kaguya Lys vs
Sabella - I don't think either had a really remarkable game this tour so far, but Sab is generally the better player and Aya brought infestation Toxapex last week.
SS: Dieu Amphibien vs
Maki - Here we have the match between monotype's resident quirky zoomers; the memer vs the furry. Both of them got incorporated into the community around the similar time. Since then, Maki has made a much bigger impact in the scene; he had a more impressive MPL and is doing better in MWP. Maki is also more likely to have a better team, as Dieu Amphibien had bad sets like DD Dragon Claw Dragonite in his past appearances. Maki's also a pretty big try hard so he'll most likely be pretty prepared. It also helps that the dudes lucky af.
Bo3: yedla vs
Star - Star is one of the best Pokemon players on the site so he naturally has an edge in most matchups. Moreover, he's put up a great performance so far with a comfortable 4-0 vs some tough opponents. His games were well played with him always being very in control of the situation. On the other hand, yedla has yet to make his presence felt.
Threat: taide vs
TonyFlygon - In terms of playing ability, Tony has a strong edge. In the first week, the main concern for the krows in terms of Monothreat was the team building. However, they picked it up after that week either by figuring it out themselves, or by talking to the right people. Steel monothreat is one of the more annoying types, as it is similar to ground in the sense that building is very constrained because of how overwhelming certain Pokemon are. This makes it so you often need to accept the loss vs a certain playstyle, pokemon, set because of the limitations. Therefore, a really big part of Monothreat is determining what your opponent is going to opt for and breaking that down. If taide manages to do that, he might be able to get the win. However, if it comes down to just playing then Tony definitely has the advantage.
AAA:
Feitan the steam vs Yami - Both these teams have failed to get a single win in AAA and seem to have taken different approaches on what to do with the slot. The wartortles put in the strongest player on the team to try and salvage it, while the Murkrows put in possibly their weakest player. This isn't really an insult, because the Murkrows have a team full of competent players. I do not know the experience of either in AAA, neither have shown much in the metagame. Without there being an apparent, significant metagame knowledge back, Feitan definitely has a strong edge as he is the better player by far. Moreover, he has his manager on a leash and decides his slots himself, so he must have a solid grasp of AAA and be confident in his ability to perform in it if he decided to play it.
STAB:
vivalospride vs Betathunder - I've said this before, but I don't really know STABmons much so I talked to people more experienced in the metagame. The two players have similar records, and are both competent in the real STABmons so there really isn't much of a defining edge there. I didn't wanna predict a total wash and people complained about Betathunder using AV Toxapex last week so thats why I picked vivalospride.
LC: Crashy vs
Leru - Crashy is doing solid in the tournament so far, but I'm picking Leru because of him being a very good Pokemon player and he has expressed a lot of interest in LC. I don't think Monotype LC knowledge and experience will really be a factor in this match because Leru does put in effort to learn a metagame and become comfortable with it. Without that advantage, it mainly comes down to playing in which Leru is favoured. Where I can see Crashy getting advantage is in terms of the surprise factor. He is a unique builder in this slot, almost always pulling out things that you would not see on another team. He could catch Leru off guard with something like that. Leru himself was well regarded as a unique builder in SM Monotype, but I doubt he will experiment a great deal in this slot. I see him just using solid teams that he is comfortable with.
NatDex: adjustments vs
Gondra - Luckypiper decided to escape Dieu Amphibien updating the meme about him, and instead chose to cannon fodder his mini-me instead of himself. Gondra is by far the better player here; he's just really good and unlike a lot of tournament players puts a huge amount of effort in preparing for him games. The Murkrows picked up their team building after bringing a Drednaw week 1, so that's not going to be an issue either. The hope for the weebs here is to cheese him or extremely fish.
vs.
Tsundere Tsareenas (4) vs. Viridian Vivillons (4)
SS: North vs
gorex - North was one of the best Monotype players in BW, but there isn't much information, if any, of him when it comes to a singles format in SS. He is a really good VGC player I here though, so he is familiar with mechanics and the moves, so he wouldn't be in a situation wondering what a Pokemon is, or how a move works like his managers could be. I don't know how much he's been watching SS Monotype, so not sure if he knows what things run. I think he is a good player, but it's hard to predict him when we haven't seen anything yet. On the other hand, gorex has been doing pretty well in the tournament and has become pretty familiar with the metagame.
SS:
Bushtush vs kythr - Bush is a good player but things are really just not going his way this tournament. I've heard he's been annoyed about how things are going so far, but I also don't think he's the type to really "lose motivation". I can't see him giving up on his team despite how things are going; he should still be focused on his game. kythr's pretty good too and is more familiar with SS Monotype, but Bush is a better overall Pokemon player and think he'd do well if there wasn't as many unfortunate circumstances.
Bo3:
Isza vs Decem - Both these players are very motivated to do well in this tournament and put in a lot of effort in terms of prepping. Also, they have the same record. Despite these similarities, I think Isza's the better player by a decent margin. Decem's advantage here is that he can build things that often don't make sense to others, and can catch his opponent off guard. He can overwhelm Isza like this, or just prep really well for him. This should be a fairly interesting series.
Threat: K3ppr vs
ToxaNex - Both these sides are really familiar with Monothreat, but I gotta give it to Nex because he is more knowledgeable of the metagame, builds better teams and tends to play better. Similar to what I said in the Tony vs taide prediction, this game can come down to how they decide to build their team. K3ppr has interesting ideas sometimes, but they are at times too idealistic. They depend on specific scenarios and might not actually occur in the game. This is similar to what I said about the Centiskorchers Monothreat.
AAA:
1 True Lycan vs The Number Man - Lycan has only lost like 4 games in AAA across 4 tournaments and 27 games prior to this tournament. Him having already lost 2 games this tournament is really surprising. The games he lost weren't about playing skill, but just really unfortunate matchups so he can't be really blamed for those. The Number Man has been doing decent as well, but going for Lycan because of his long history of dominance in this metagame.
STAB: power vs
trash - trash has been doing really well in STAB so far and does a lot of prep from what I heard, so I'm leaning towards him.
LC:
tko vs dcae - This should be an interesting LC game since both players are actual LC players. I am picking tko because I've seen him do Monotype LC. However, I'm sure dcae would do very well here since he's very good at regular LC and Toadow was doing fine before so teams shouldn't be a problem.
NatDex: Maskun vs
maroon - Both these players have had a solid performance so far. I'm picking maroon because he is the better player and is much more knowledgeable about Monotype NatDex. I heard that the Tsareenas apparently learned that Hoopa-U was banned in this tier right before the weekend on a Friday so...