1. Pohjis vs 16. Yelodash
Yelodash hasn't looked bad in the tiebreaker games. He does seem quite unfamiliar with RBY, but his first three games vs Finch were honestly pretty good; played well for the most part and had two really good matchups (ADV/DPP). The series vs swordstrike was less stellar but still good enough. However, he now faces one of the biggest menaces in tournaments, the one, the only, the Pohjis. Pohjis being first seed is no surprise, and while he's never exactly put up results in an official tournament, he is the ribbon master. I think as long as Pohjis doesn't let his team choice get the best of him, he'll have the upper hand in this matchup, but given the kinds of teams Yelodash has used I think Pohjis will need to be smart.
2. august vs 15. Isza
I honestly had no idea Isza made playoffs until seeing this thread LOL since when does this guy play old gens... I honestly haven't seen him play a single old gen game except maybe some RBY on smogtours (??) so I can't really gauge what kind of performance to expect from him. I think august has a tendency to falter once he reaches the later stages of tournaments, and is inconsistent in his pre-DPP play at times. If he seriously cares about this tournament, I think he'll make a deep playoff run and would favor him vs a lot of potential opponents. If he doesn't, I wouldn't be surprised to see Isza win here. As for Isza, my only real experience with him is 1. playing ORAS in SPL on the Classiest with me two years ago and 2. beating mono Ground with mono Poison somehow. While the latter is an impressive feat, he did not look very good in the former. Again, hard to really gauge how good he is at these tiers, but generally I'd just go with the safe predict.
3. GaryTheGengar vs 14. Kristyl
I'm really only familiar with these two in BW and DPP, so predicting this series isn't really going to be the most accurate. I favor Gary because he's been around longer, he's good at BW, and he's more familiar with the older generations, I imagine. Kristyl was the more impressive player during SPL; used very cool teams and played them well in pretty much every game until she decided to use rain and got trounced. I can't help but wonder how much support she received during the tournament, though, between Ojama and osgoode, and how much she'll get now. I do think Gary is a very interesting player; I like how he's branched out this year in BW and used a lot more interesting teams (from the games I've seen). Again, hard to really predict this one because there's 3 gens that are question marks for them to me, but I'll favor Gary.
4. twash vs 13. Jisoo
From the games I've seen, twash has seem to just be stumbling around and finding wins from time-to-time. His DPP game vs johnnyg2 comes to mind as the most prominent example, but he also seemed very ill-prepared for very standard teams when I played him during ADV Cup, and did not make up for it with his play. While my experience with him is quite honestly only my series with him and the public DPP Cup replays, I don't know if I really would predict for him. Jisoo started off very hot this classic and was poised for playoffs early on, but cooled down and only narrowly qualified. Jisoo made a deep BW, which definitely isn't his best tier, but goes to show that he's not just "the menace" that he was a year ago. As long as he doesn't sabotage himself with bad teams, I favor Jisoo here slightly.
5. SoulWind vs 12. hellpowna
SoulWind is so much better of a player here that as long as he doesn't use garbage in every gen, he'll farm. Unfortunately, he has a serious tendency to and is convinced that GSC Stall is broken, so my thoughts are with him for this series.
6. Conflict vs 11. McMeghan
McMeghan has been playing very well this year in my opinion, but has, as always, a tendency to sabotage himself with terrible teams. Fortunately for him, Conflict is also notorious for using questionable teams outside of GSC, so if it were to come down to purely who's better, I'll be taking McMeghan every time. If McMeghan is able to tame his creativity and use things that, while maybe are unorthodox, are actually good, I think this will be a swift series. If only it weren't as swift as their scheduled time...
7. M Dragon vs 10. ABR
ABR, quite frankly, has cemented himself as the best player ever without a doubt at this point in time. M Dragon has not put up the same kind of results as he did in years past, and the SPL game between these two was incredibly one-sided that I question if M Dragon will take a game. However, I will say I've seen plenty of games where M Dragon just gets every play right for many turns in a row, and has a serious tendency to do these when he plays a good player. He also has been playing all of these tiers longer than anyone else in these playoffs has been on Smogon, but that only means so much vs someone who rarely has slipups and is very smart with team selection. Not that this is really a "hot take", but I think this series is either intense and extremely enjoyable or ABR farms with nothing in between happening.
8. Gilbert arenas vs 9. Luigi
I honestly have no idea how to predict this one tbh. These two players are both similar in the sense that either they have really good games or really bad games. This series is assuredly going to be a mess and I have no idea what the outcome will be, but I'm favoring marcop here because I believe he's the better overall player. He is also, however, the more "hit or miss" player of the two. Luigi is not going to either outplay super hard or horribly choke a game; marcop is. Marcop has done significantly less of the latter, especially in recent months, so I'm gonna favor him.