OU:
Lopunny Kicks vs Eeveeto - For those who thought Lopunny Kicks was falling off, he just beat Tace in impressive fashion and the dude is clearly a great player. BK has been surging and some of his other losses have been under less-than-ideal circumstances I feel. Lopunny Kicks is a great metagamer -- he gets the tier, he knows what innovative picks show potential, and he is not afraid to search for the midground between unpredictable techs and efficient strategies. On the contrary, Eeveeto always swings for the fences, trying to find the most ambitious strategy to get the job done, no matter how unorthodox. I align more with the philsophy of Lopunny Kicks and also view him as a more proven battler. Eeveeto earns some style points for some of his brings and also his recent success, but this is not enough for me to go against one of the guys I was highest on going into the tournament.
OU: Santu vs
High Impulse - Fact: people always lose a couple games in team tournaments played immediately after winning individual trophies. Sure, Santu fell to BIHI last weekend, but that was right before he played for GSlam finals and also is just one game. Santu is obviously the favorite, but Amir will find some bizarre way to win to keep this clearly-true fact alive for the sake of preserving random Smogon narratives that have only been discussed a small handful of times and applied to a select number of contexts to poke fun at people losing random games.
OU:
Bloody alfa vs le LLiolae - le LLiolae is not the solution to the Taipans OU. He has gotten 6-0d in more games than not when trying to play SS OU in officials if my memory serves me correct. Bloody alfa had a rough go last week, but he's clearly the better of the two and has some cool ideas in the builder.
OU:
Leo vs Void - Void is the more proven player historically, but Leo is not as far behind as you might imagine, knows SS OU well, and looked good against Sacri'. I am curious as to why he continued to EQ against my Urshifu, but I imagine he was banking on me only possibly being Life Orb, thus only getting 2-3 kills, or did not realize Kyurem lived a +2 Blackglasses Sucker Punch from Adamant Urshifu (or thought Draco Meteor gave away that he may have been Modest, which it did not given the dmg). Either way, it was complicated and likely not super favorable for him, so getting 3 chances to crit EQ was not the worst thing in the world and if this is the only gripe directed towards him as a player, then he is the favorite to take this one against a guy who is inexperienced in the tier.
DOU:
qsns vs Kiichikos
UU: Ramolost vs
Adaam - Ramolost's teams are cool, but Adaam is more consistent as a player I feel.
RU:
soulgazer vs Expulso - I hope Roman is alright as I thought he was a great addition to this line-up, but obviously SG is a competent lower tier pilot regardless of tier. Expulso has not stood out as a player and strikes me as overly ambitious at times. I pictured him as more of a utility than anything else, but here he is. This will be a rough one for him against a proven veteran I feel.
NU: CyberOdin
vs
aim
PU: pokemonisfun vs
tlenit - Klang cannot actually be a good idea and because of that I will favor the guy who did not use it.
LC: frisoeva vs
Osh - friso getting his wish to play non-OU, but against stiff competition in an LC debut. Rough start, but he will get it together if he is granted a larger sample in the metagame, especially if he encounters non-top players as opponents in the future. Osh is great and he got this one.