RBY OU #1:
Vileman / MetalGro$$ / Caetano93 / Peasounay
Peasounay has established and mastered the art of standard RBY to perfection and I don't think anyone in this group has the combination of creativity and playing ability required to topple him, although MetalGro$$ plays a similar style at a very solid skill level too; he should put up a solid display and could maybe steal first with some luck. I've never seen Caetano play because I don't keep up with the scene at large too closely anymore, but I've heard good things about him from good players. On the other hand, I've never heard anyone say anything good about Vileman.
RBY OU #2:
Lusch / roudolf13 / Nails / Hipmonlee
Nails just breezed through most of his SPL competition by cycling the same four teams over and over in all but a few weeks and not many people seemed to have a clue about how to stop him. I don't expect anyone in this group to be able to, either. I think roudolf was slightly lucky to achieve that legendary SPL9 record and his play was not as dominant as the results showed, but he's still a damn good player and I expect him to perform better than a Lusch who had a terrible SPL9 despite having Troller support from the bench, didn't set the world on fire in the following World Cup, and skipped SPL10 altogether. Hipmonlee gifted us the innovation of Surf Starmie, and for that we are all grateful, but most of the creative stuff he brings seems rather rushed and not properly theorized and/or tested, I think it ends up hurting him a lot. Even when he does bring standard he makes more than a few mistakes, and while he'd definitely still beat some other names in other pools, he finds himself in a decent group which I don't expect him to get much from, which is unfortunate, because he deserves a better reputation as a player than the one he currently has.
RBY OU #3:
HML am / teal6 / Kingler12345 / d0nut
This group is impossible to predict. Three players who still make too many mistakes on their off days for me to trust them enough to bold their names, and one player who I've only ever seen play RBY once or twice. d0nut has by far the highest ceiling in here judging from his GSC competence, and of all the people in this group I think he's the most likely to 3-0 because transitioning to RBY on paper shouldn't be too difficult, but he's also the most likely to get washed 0-3 if he hasn't been putting a lot of time into learning the tier. HML am is still not ready to play against top level opponents week in week out and he should thank the skies his official team tour debut is in this group. teal6 is decent but doesn't seem to be passionate enough about the game itself to grind out games of RBY in preparation and I don't see his skill ever advancing past a certain relatively low cap until that changes, but he does have above average instincts. Kingler12345 has the gist of most common situations down, but he still misplays the trickier situations often enough for me to not really rank him decidedly above the rest, but if I had to pick a name most likely to 2-1 or better I guess it would be him.
Realistically, most games in this group will be decided by either luck or players misplaying in situations they are not familiar with. This group will reinforce the community's negative perception of RBY.
RBY OU #4:
Genesis7 / Heroic Troller / rozes / Luispeikou
Troller's WCoP debut gives him a good draw, and a player of his caliber should have little trouble brushing away the other three. rozes is one of my biggest fans and between watching me prep and play as well as actually playing with me I'm pretty sure he's become fairly decent, that said he does suck absolute ass and I would not be surprised to see him 0-3; fuck rozes. Genesis7 used to be pretty solid about one year ago but I've not seen him play RBY much since and I don't trust him to be up to speed, but if he puts in the effort to derust he should manage to put up a good showing. Luispeikou has not done anything of note in his pokemon career to my knowledge.
My Power Rankings:
S rank: Troller, Nails
A+ rank: Peasounay
A rank: roudolf13, MetalGro$$
B rank: Lusch
C rank: Hipmonlee
D+ rank: rozes, Genesis7, Kingler12345, HML am
D rank: teal6, Caetano93
E rank: Vileman, Luispeikou
? rank: d0nut
Overall a very top heavy pool, with over half the teams not managing to find very convincing names. I'm not holding my breath as far as quality of games goes, but it will be interesting to see if any of the less proven players can have a breakout tournament and it will be refreshing to see Peasounay, roudolf and Lusch in an important team tournament again after they skipped SPL10. Sad about Kaz not even finding his way to the bench, he's a quality player.
