fine
Punny
UU -
Punny vs Poek
Despite the fact that Poek won the UU open, Light Clay is now banned so he has been effectively nerfed to make this matchup a bit more even. Punny's UU teams have been pretty solid albeit unorthodox so far, and Poek's have been good too if not a little cheesy. They both seem to have a pretty solid understanding of this tier and fortunately this is being played in the pre-shifts meta so they won't have any adaptations to make. The reason I'm going for Punny is because I think he's managed to play out his games -really- well, whie Poek has seemed a little more apathetic. I'm not sure who's helping the prep here for either of them but I personally prefer Punny's approach and expect him to take this one but it's close imo, about as close as PU.
RU -
Punny vs Poek
Anyone who's been watching Punny in RU over the past year or two will be very aware of how much he utterly dominates the tier. Between his 2 consecutive RU Open wins, a dominant RUPL, the most ridiculous RUWC imaginable... no matter which iteration he played, be it the 50 SS metas we've seen in the past 3 weeks, SM, ORAS or whatever else, he always seems to figure it out and always finds a way to bring it home. Punny has been known to bring some off-meta stuff in SS RU, though. It's very hit or miss, and in a final like this you really want it to be a hit. Poek has not looked remotely poor in RU; if anything he's actually been pretty great. Being the overall solid player he is, he absolutely has the opportunity to take this, it's not -that- much of an uphill battle, but I'd be a fool to not bold Punny in this tier.
NU - Punny vs
Poek
Poek hasn't actually looked as great as I was expecting in NU, going 1-2 in that tier so far in playoffs. Punny hasn't played it as much but he's looked fine whenever he has if not a bit sloppy. With that said, something in me is telling that Poek is gonna pull up with some nasty ass team that has like, a Carracosta or something, and it'll go crazy and somehow win the game. It's definitely just a gut feeling thing, they've both been fine and Punny has better results but I think he was a little messy in some of the NU games and Poek should be able to take advantage of that to etch this out. My heart tells me this will be a cheesy one.
PU - Punny vs
Poek
PU is a peculiar tier and Poek has actually looked great in its current iteration, ripping Expulso apart last week quite effectively and nailing Charmflash with the most disgusting Beartic I've ever seen. Whoever's helping him out in this tier clearly knows what they're doing, as he's been given teams that seem to have consistently great matchups and is piloting them well on top of that. Punny's looked fine in PU albeit not as dominant as he was earlier in the generation, and I can only imagine the stall slog he dealt with last week when playing Osh didn't help. He did manage to win the rematch, though, after I tabbed out thinking it was unwinnable for him, so props for that. I think as long as Poek's supplier (or maybe even his own work, who knows) brings him another team that hits the nail on the head like the previous two, he should take this one, but do not underestimate the kicker here - they don't call him PUnny for nothing.
LC -
Punny vs Poek
This is a sad bold because both Punny and Poek have looked a bit lost in Little Cup. I get it, it's pretty hard to pick up since it's such a venture from standard level 100 play, I just hope this isn't a G5. Osh pretty effectively dispatched of Punny last week, while Expulso took out Poek - there was a little bit of shakiness in that game on both ends, but Poek's LC performance against Charmflash didn't inspire the most confidence either. I think Punny played his LC games a little more solidly and had more of a handle on the tier, but this one is really just a coinflip. Like I said I really hope this isn't G5 bc that'd be an awkward way to end it.
Only ever had positive interactions with both of these users and I think this is the best final we could've hoped to see. It feels bad to root against friends so I'll just say best of luck to both & I'm glad we'll have a deserving winner one way or the other. Looking forward to watching it live!
