Grats to the teams who made it to finals, to pay them some respect, here are my thoughts on highlights from the SS players so far:
SS: OnArceus v. Meri Berry
From OnArceus, I thought his best win this tournament was in semifinals here:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-628334
So winning with sun vs Sand Stream Hippo is pretty impressive although two things made it much easier for OnArceus imo: Tentacruel was opponent's bulky water (very frail physically vs Darmanitan) and a couple key turns of "hax" like Lava Plume burning Hippowdon early on. But it was a very calm game from OnArceus, no crazy plays made by him but he just kept bringing in Hatterene to cause massive damage every time. I assume he didn't have CM (HW is very common on Sun and he probbaly would have set up on turn 4 if he had it). But overall, I think he played a very risk free game after he had an early advantage.
From Meri, I thought they had a very good win here:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-628891. Obviously if Crobat died early on it would have been a gg not in their favor, but the prep really worked out here with Nasty Plot Crobat completely dismantling the defensive core the opponent brought. It wasn't that hard to see, but it was still very appropriate play by Meri to quickly being Crobat back to full health on crucial turns like turn 13 and turn 17. So they can make very sound game plans.
What do I get from these two games? Well, OnArceus can win when they get an advantage. Meri's supporter can give excellent prep and they are good at identifying win conditions. In the game look out for these things to guess the winner.
SS: Sirwings v. avg
From Sirwings, I thought this was a pretty interesting game from him if only because he brought Kingdra and substitute Celesteela:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-625793. So yeah he can bring some cool techniques even though if there was some very critical hax in the game (Draco missing Amoonguss). Not really sure what Kingdra is about but Celesteela at least really does well to identify a few trends as it can abuse Amoonguss before Spore, Tangrowth and Toxic Hippowon much better than Protect Celesteela. I will also mention he just won the pia! 100 day anniversary with a variety of teams including stall so he's really quite a varied player.
From Avg, this was a pretty clean conversion from him after his opponent didn't seem to play optimally:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-621458. Avg played the lead just fine to guarantee SR staying up and getting some chip on Zygarde which puts it in like Psyshock range from Azelf or something I'm sure. Azu on turn 4 as the first set up sweeper was a nice pick since it stops Dhelmisse from spinning and pressures Registeel into Gyarados range although I wasn't sure why he used Aqua Jet. In any case, the rest of his play was spot on to set up the winning Goltres sweep which he executed without issue.
So from these two games, I'd say Sirwings has a big edge in creativity but similar to like a crossover of Meri/OnArceus, Avg is very good at finding out the win con and playing out games with an advantage. It's a great MU for sure.
SS: TheKingKarp v. adem
From TheKingKarp, I thought this game had both strokes of genius and just strokes which made for a very good watch:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-620084. First for a normal but good play: t3, it's very hard to just predict a switch out when there is a +2 Scizor but it's so obvious that adem isn't going to risk getting Foul Played so the U-Turn works out very well for TKK. A stroke though: t10 and t11. No idea why SD was selected as the move on turn 10 when he could have went straight to Thundurus instead on a fairly telegraphed Defog. Defogs help airfare at this point because TKK's Rocker has lost Leftovers and will not be able to outlast Mandibuzz. The genius (or at least very good though): t26 double to Azelf to force out the telegraphed Scizor. Very nice and the next series of plays almost led to an autowin with Scizor but airfare gets a timely burn which forces TKK to play a tight rest of the game which he still ends up winning. Nice stuff.
From adem, he got the mileage he needed out of all his mons in this game:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1580277588-svvtg0artp027pas1b53mfzctch0f01pw. He did face a rain team but had just enough super bulky users to deal with the onslaught and I do think his opponent misplayed Kingdra a bit. I particularly thought the whole maneuvering on turn 16 and 17 was very good, albeit a tad risky (he probably lost to Azu if Tang died?). Setting up a Future Sight then baiting the Amoonguss with Tangrowth worked out superwell to make Tangrowth much more threatening for the rest of the game.
So from these two games, I'd say...both of these players have high ceilings. Which is good! But when two people with high ceilings play, there is a good chance people can make crazy bad plays too. Should be a good watch.
VS 
