Theory Final Tournament Line-up Discussion/Predictions

[Kaoz]

Who do you think will play in which round of the final tournament and what do you think the outcome of those matches is going to be?

Here's the draw again as well as projected match-ups for future rounds:

1. Spain vs China
2. Russia vs Denmark
3. USA vs Belgium
4. Portugal vs Switzerland
5. England vs France
6. Japan vs Aramenoma
7. Canada vs Taiwan
8. South Africa vs Germany

Spoiler: Round 2 (Projected)

1. Spain vs Russia
2. USA vs Switzerland
3. France vs Japan
4. Canada vs Germany

Spoiler: Semifinals (Projected)

1. Spain vs Switzerland
2. Japan vs Germany

Spoiler: Finals (Projected)

1. Switzerland vs Japan

 

[ChinkyCandie]

Kind of discussing this in the current chapter thread :P

 

[Kaoz]

Let's try to get something productive going here. I think at this point in time we have approximately four ways to help us determine what the upcoming line-ups could look like.

(1) Line-up Restrictions & Player Pool

At the danger of beating a dead horse, it's still highly likely that some restrictions will be placed on the teams regarding how often each player is allowed to participate in a match throughout the tournament. It just wouldn't make sense to not have any since then we'd see a team of {Byoudouin, Tanegashima, Irie, Oni, Yukimura, Atobe, Kintarou} each round. I've seen some arguments that this wouldn't happen due to fatigue, but fatigue between matches has never been an actual issue in the entire series, even when the nationals quarters and semis were played on the same day.

Ultimately, I think we are left with one of the four following options:

1. Each player can only be used once throughout the tournament: This is the most straight-forward variant. It would make some sense to do it this way because we've got a 28 player team that can be split cleanly into four 7-man teams. Of course Japan's down a couple people by now, so they'd either have to play around this or get a replacement on board (which wouldn't be difficult to do since all the Japanese MSers are right there). Either way, in this case the player pool consists of everyone.
2. Each player can only be used once in the first three rounds: This would essentially mirror the group league and then there wouldn't be any restrictions for the finals. The biggest argument in favor of this variant, in my eyes, is that Japan's player pool is already much closer to 21 than 28 depending on how you look at it. It's easy to argue that Date, Nakagauchi and Hakamada won't get a match, Tohno was still shown limping, meaning he might be incapacitated for the rest of the tournament, and Akutsu and Ryoma aren't currently present. This means we're already down to 22 players and it wouldn't be odd if someone like Gin (who was already being supported by Duke at the end of the Switzerland match) was left out.
3. Each player can only be used once except the captain: Don't have much to say about this one. I don't really like it because it's not very "clean", unlike the other two, but at the same time it would explain why Camus is going to face Japan in R2 rather than Germany in the SFs.
4. Each player can only be used, but are only considered used if they actually played a match: I'm adding this for the sake of completeness, but it contradicts the group league rules completely, so I don't think it's a likely option.

(2) Captains & Associates

Supposing we're looking at one of the first two options listed above, the team for each round will probably be assigned a temporary captain again. In turn this means that no two captains can participate in the same match. Byoudouin, Oni and Tanegashima are the obvious candidates since they've already done it once, but Duke, Tokugawa and Atobe are also viable options I think.

Now what do I mean by associates? Basically players that are closely related to each other and might always play the same match as a result. Easy example: Byoudouin and Duke. You could easily say that Duke could face France and Byoudouin will only make an appearance later on against Germany or America, but can we actually expect Duke to play in a team Byoudouin isn't in?


(3) Singles & Doubles

One way to get a bit more structure into the player pool is to think about which players are highly likely to play doubles (e.g. Oishi) and which are highly likely to play singles (e.g. Kintarou). Since there are exactly four doubles and three singles slots for each match, it's a bit easier to draw from the respective sub-pools first and then fill in the blanks at the end rather than considering everyone for every spot.


(4) Match Order

This might not seem like such a big deal at first glance, but can be depending on the circumstances. Unfortunately we don't know at this point whether the main tournament will continue to use the order from the group league or switch back to the one used in the nationals. This question probably affects D1 pairs more than any other position. For instance, it wouldn't feel out of place if Volk and Tezuka played D1 in the fourth match of the round, but in the second? Pretty much no way that's going to happen. On the flipside you probably wouldn't expect a pair made up of relatively unremarkable players to show up that late.

Like I said, we don't know what to expect here. But I would recommend deciding on one of the two and at least maintaining internal consistency.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

Lineup restrictions No.4 sounds plausible.
Oni/Byodoin would be reserved for the tougher teams. Duke definitely would play against France, his former team. The lesser players would play in the first round but will never play again after that. I'd like to see Ochi play with different doubles specialists, which means he'll play more than once.
Against the four unknown teams vs Japan, what do you think the scoreboard would look like for each country?

 

[Kaoz]

Duke definitely would play against France, his former team.

Will Byoudouin also play vs France or do they not count as a "tougher" team?

Against the four unknown teams vs Japan, what do you think the scoreboard would look like for each country?

I think it depends on whether all matches are played out regardless of when a winner is determined or not. If yes, 5-0, that's how it's always been historically. But if we stop after one team has won three matches, I could also see it being a 3-1 in the interest of showing more players. Chances are either Oni or Irie would sit in S1 without playing in that case.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

Byodoin will be saved for USA and/or Germany.
Whoever ends up being Japan's first opponent, I don't expect much from them. The matches won't get interesting until France.

 

[Seakay]

I do think there will be some team restrictions during the final tournament. Limitation to one match per player is the simplest, but I do like it being lifted for the finals.

An important point to consider is what format would work best for Ryoma, assuming he goes over to Team Japan in the finals and if they’re against Team USA. The expected quarter-finals of Spain vs USA has Medanore being the biggest hurdle, while Amadeus awaits the winner in the semi-finals. Ryoma isn’t a Doubles player, so he should be against somebody strong in Singles.

I don’t think Ryoma will play against Medanore though. My expectation is for one of the stronger American players to defeat Medanore, while Ryoma would (somewhat) avenge Japan by defeating Amadeus. If each player can only be used once, then Ryoma needs an important match before switching over to Japan for the finals, where he’ll play Ryoga I assume. That also means Team USA is quite confident if Ryoga doesn’t feel the need to face Medanore and Amadeus earlier.

 

[Kaoz]

I do think there will be some team restrictions during the final tournament. Limitation to one match per player is the simplest, but I do like it being lifted for the finals.

The biggest advantage of having everyone available during the finals again is that you can use one of the first three rounds to give some exposure to the guys that are going to be important in the finals and also for it to make more sense why some of the stronger players would be used early on. In that sense I'm a bit surprised that despite going with this assumption (?) you don't have Ryoga against either Amadeus or Medanore.

That also means Team USA is quite confident if Ryoga doesn’t feel the need to face Medanore and Amadeus earlier.

...Which leads to the obvious question: if Ryoma is going to beat, say, Amadeus and Ryoga won't play before the finals, then who's going to defeat Medanore? Ralph?

 

[ChinkyCandie]

Question for whoever sees this: Do you think we will see each country vs country match or do you think they will be played on different arenas at different times and Konomi will only concentrate on Japan's matches? With the occasional US/German team flashes.
I personally want to see each country play against other countries. I would love to see how Konomi draws team China/Russia. It'll also be good to see the other team members of the big 4.

 

[Kaoz]

Given how focused the narrative is, I don't have high hopes for seeing all matches. The way the draw is set up makes it likely that Germany is just going to walk over their first two opponents and while Russia and China upset Argentina, I wouldn't be surprised if there was still a significant gap between them and the Swiss. We might get to see bits and pieces of France vs England I guess.

Other than that, we're obviously going to have all of Japan's matches in the focus, but I think there's a decent chance we'll see most of the US matches too. They've got a tough bracket with Belgium, Spain and Switzerland and if it makes sense to give any team besides Japan screentime it's these guys. Not only are they one of the two teams Japan is likely to face in the finals, we've actually already been "introduced" to more than seven of their players, so there's more material there than one match can cover.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

I heard Konomi wants to make NPoT longer than PoT (chapter wise). it it were true, it would make sense to show the other matches. Even if its a couple of panels/pages. New characters would be interesting - what kind of names will be used.

 

[Hardy]

It's just a theory, he said PoT was just a small piece of Ryoma's whole story, but god knows what he meant with that.

In any case, I'd assume he would make more chapters after the tournament (more arcs) rather than just needlessly extending this one.

 

[Kaoz]

I mean, as far as number of chapters is concerned you don't really need to try hard to finish with more than PoT at this point. We're already up to 226/379 and if we're really going to see six or seven team matches here, that's easily enough to push the count up by another 150 and more.

Anyway, how about we talk a bit about Japan vs Germany? This one should be relatively easy to predict since we can be reasonably sure of the players Germany is going to field. Chances are they'll use a combination of the six guys we saw in the Pre-WC and the two pros we haven't seen yet. So seven out of {Volk, Pro B, Pro D, Q.P., Bismarck, Tezuka, Frankensteiner, Siegfried}. What specific line-up are you expecting here and which Japanese players are the likely opponents?

 

[Hardy]

Ah I'm not expecting to see Bismarck again tbh, I headcanon him as the worst of the German HSers. That would make it 3 MSers, QP, Volk and the 2 German pros.

Edit: So:

Spoiler

Volk
Tezuka/QP
Pro
Siegfried/Pro
Frankensteiner

Something like that, unless you expect Tezuka in singles or paired with Volk.

 

[Kaoz]

Yeah, I agree that Bismarck will most likely be left out. Originally I thought maybe Volk would be used against a different opponent since we've already seen a fair bit from him, but I don't see why they'd have to waste him or either of the other two pros on Canada and Taiwan.

Regarding the line-up itself, I'm honestly kind of expecting a Volk/Tezuka pair in D1 (provided D1 is the fourth match), mostly because QP hinted at them having a Howling and there's no other chance for us to see it. If this does happen I also think Japan might win 3-1 in total though.

 

[Artsci]

Yea, I guess Germany's lineup against Japan is 99% gonna be : Volk, Pro B, Pro D, QP, Tezuka, Siegfried and Frankensteiner

Fuji is probably gonna face Tezuka, eitehr in single or doubles. However, if Tezuka is really pairing up with Volk, who is gonna be Fuji's partner? I think only Byodouin and Tokugawa are capable of playing against Volk but I am not sure if Tokugawa is gonna take on Volk again.

For the USA, the lineup for final is probably gonna be Ryoma, Ryoga, Ralph, Dudu or Kiko, and two random MSers. Either Dudu or Kiko will play in the final and whoever left out will get some screen time playing against Spain or Switzerland.

One more thing that I wanna mention is that so far we haven't seen a foreign MSer playing in single against Japan. I don't think Germany will send any MSers for single except Tezuka. But I do wonder if France or Aramenoma will send a MSer to play single. I guess it would be more exciting to see a foreign MSer to play against a Japanese HSer, like a France super rookie playing against Ochi or Kimijima.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

I personally don't think we'd see Siegfried again. In fact besides Volk and Tezuka, I think Germany vs Japan would have new members. Fuji would definitely be on team Japan against Tezuka. They finally have the match where Fuji somehow defeats Tezuka.
Tanegashima/Fuji vs Volk/Tezuka? Tanegashima did say he would be able to return Wirbel Taufe.

 

[Kaoz]

However, if Tezuka is really pairing up with Volk, who is gonna be Fuji's partner? I think only Byodouin and Tokugawa are capable of playing against Volk but I am not sure if Tokugawa is gonna take on Volk again.

I think Byoudouin would be cool. Fuji paired up with Duke in the Pre-WC and while I don't think we'll have a repeat of that, Byoudouin would be sort of a logical progression in partners. I'm also reminded of the exchange Byoudouin and Duke had during the Australia match where they said that Fuji's talent is as great as their own.

What also speaks against Tokugawa is that we've historically had very few repeats when facing an opponent for the second time. There were none in Rikkai 2 and the only overlap between Hyoutei 1 and Hyoutei 2 was Momoshiro vs Yushi, which still went from doubles to singles at least.

For the USA, the lineup for final is probably gonna be Ryoma, Ryoga, Ralph, Dudu or Kiko, and two random MSers. Either Dudu or Kiko will play in the final and whoever left out will get some screen time playing against Spain or Switzerland.

Wait, why Dodo or Kiko? With the line-up you got there, that's exactly seven people for seven slots, no?

Also, I already mentioned this briefly to Hardy, but there's something pretty interesting about the way the US is set up right now. I know people are going to disagree with me on this, but if (1) the rules follow option 1.2 I brought up here; and (2) America wins the first three rounds 3-0, we've been introduced to the perfect number of HS reps. We've seen nine of their HS reps, so you can divide those perfectly into three sets of three (for the first three matches in each round, obviously) with MS partners in the doubles. What's more, if we return to the national play order, that makes exactly three MS reps too, i.e. presumably the exact number they need for the finals.

One more thing that I wanna mention is that so far we haven't seen a foreign MSer playing in single against Japan. I don't think Germany will send any MSers for single except Tezuka. But I do wonder if France or Aramenoma will send a MSer to play single. I guess it would be more exciting to see a foreign MSer to play against a Japanese HSer, like a France super rookie playing against Ochi or Kimijima.

That's true, mostly because there was only one singles each time and it always featured the opponent's strongest player. For what it's worth, Zeus was a 1st year against the 3rd year Tanegashima. Not sure if we're going to see a JP!HS vs Foreign!MS match-up in the first two rounds, but I would it if it happened.

As for Germany though, I really don't think they're going to go with a MS only pair either, so if Tezuka ends up in doubles, one of their other MSers is almost inevitably going to play singles. That said, they'll most likely go up against someone like Sanada.

I personally don't think we'd see Siegfried again. In fact besides Volk and Tezuka, I think Germany vs Japan would have new members.

I think you could make an argument for that, but I also think you'd still have to include QP no matter what. We haven't seen almost anything from this guy yet, I can't imagine him not playing again.

Tanegashima did say he would be able to return Wirbel Taufe.

He also said he'd still lose though, so I dunno. Maybe he'd fare better against one of the other pros?

 

[ChinkyCandie]

If Tanegashima had Fuji as his partner, it would boost the chances of winning. Volk wouldn't use it unless he had to, such as against Howling.

 

[Kaoz]

Well, he won't not use it or use it too late either though. The far bigger problem is that if Tanegashima can't defeat Volk despite being able to deal with Wirbeltaufe, the difference in their basic abilities should be notable. And thinking further along this line, Fuji would have to be quite a bit stronger than Tezuka by now to make up for it which I don't really see happening. That's also not factoring in Volk and Tezuka's Howling, which would be the main reason to have those two in the same doubles in the first place.

Either way though, I think it'd be neat if the three captains from the group league went up against the three HS pros. Although I wouldn't be surprised if Kintarou got to play Pro B or Pro D either. With that in mind, maybe this kind of line-up could work out:

S3 Sanada
D2 Tanegashima/Shiraishi
S2 Kintarou
D1 Byoudouin/Fuji
S1 Oni