Theory Group League Line-up Theory/Prediction

[Kaoz]

So since I revised my line-up prediction for the matches against Switzerland and Australia for the millionth time, I'm going to actually explain my thought process. For starters, here are the necessary resources:

Mifune's Notes

Spoiler: HS Reps

1. Byoudouin
2. Tanegashima
3. Watanabe
4. Tokugawa
5. Oni
6. Ohmagari
7. Kimijima
8. Tohno
9. Ochi
10. Mouri
11. Date
12. Irie
13. Hakamada
14. Nakagauchi

Spoiler: MS Reps

1. Atobe
2. Yukimura
3. Shiraishi
4. Sanada
5. Akutsu
6. Tooyama
7. Marui
8. Fuji
9. Niou
10. Ishida
11. Oishi
12. Kite
13. Kirihara

The basis for my prediction is the line-up against Greece, or more specifically the players selected. We have two of the stronger HSers, two of the weaker ones, one of the stronger MSers and two weaker ones. Chances are Mifune is trying to win all three matches, so I feel like the teams will be fairy even in terms of overall strength. If we add up the nomination numbers of the team vs Greece we get (2 + 4 + 8 + 9 + 3 + 11 + 13) = 50. So if we assume Mifune cares about the numbers (which you could argue the dice indicate), the other two teams should add up to 50 as well.

More facts or assumptions:

• Atobe plays against Australia.
• Byoudouin and Oni are on different teams.
• Oni plays Switzerland. Reasoning: Mifune has three sheets of notes, presumably one against each of the group league opponents. The second one indicates Atobe, so that should be the one vs Australia. Furthermore, Oni's name on the top sheet is circled, indicating Mifune has decided to use him against this opponent - since we know they are not playing against Greece, the top sheet must be the one against Switzerland.
• Byoudouin plays Australia.
• Sanada plays Switzerland (circled name).
• Assuming there is a trend in the upcoming volume covers of Ochi (18), Tohno (19), Kimijima (20), Ohmagari (21), Kimijima and Ohmagari must play against the second opponent who I believe to be Switzerland (and if this turns out to not be the case you can basically forget about this whole thread).

So following all that, we can create two core teams:
Vs Switzerland: Oni, Ohmagari, Kimijima, Sanada (5 + 6 + 7 + 4) = 22 --> 28 left
Vs Australia: Byoudouin, Atobe (1 + 1) = 2 --> 48 left

We can also be reasonably certain that Duke is going to play. However, if we added him to the Switzerland line-up it would be impossible to reach 50 points with the remaining two MS slots (since only Kite and Kirihara add up to 25 and Kirihara plays against Greece), so he has to join Byoudouin and Atobe vs Australia, leaving them with 5 --> 45 left.

So that means we have the following possible combinations (and I hope I didn't forget any):

Spoiler: VS Switzerland

Mouri, Tooyama, Kite
Mouri, Fuji, Ishida
Date, Akutsu, Kite
Date, Marui, Ishida
Date, Fuji, Niou
Irie, Tooyama, Ishida
Irie, Marui, Niou
Hakamada, Akutsu, Ishida
Hakamada, Tooyama, Niou
Hakamada, Marui, Fuji
Nakagauchi, Yukimura, Kite
Nakagauchi, Akutsu, Niou
Nakagauchi, Tooyama, Fuji
Tooyama, Ishida, Kite
Marui, Niou, Kite

Spoiler: VS Australia

Mouri, Hakamada, Ishida, Kite
Date, Hakamada, Niou, Kite
Date, Nakagauchi, Fuji, Kite
Irie, Hakamada, Fuji, Kite
Irie, Nakagauchi, Marui, Kite
Irie, Nakagauchi, Niou, Ishida
Nakagauchi, Hakamada, Tooyama, Kite
Nakagauchi, Hakamada, Fuji, Ishida

It admittedly looks somewhat overwhelming, so let's try to narrow it down a bit more. Let's assume that all the names on Mifune's sheet will make an appearance in one of the matches. Leaving out both the players that are currently up against Greece as well as members of the core teams, the following are still unaccounted for: Hakamada, Niou, Marui, as well as possibly Date if the 11 on the dice indicate him (it could refer to Oishi though).

Furthermore, we can be reasonably certain that Fuji has two more new techniques to show off, so if we also assume that he uses one new one each match like he did with the original triple counter and furthermore that he won't have more than one appearance in the main tournament, we can add him to the list as well.

This leaves us with two to three more positions. Since Oishi and Kirihara got to play, this may indicate that the lower ranked MSers are supposed to be strengthened here, so that would give us Kite and Ishida as easy shoe-ins, which means we'll want to include the following players somewhere in the line-ups still: Marui, Fuji, Niou, Ishida, Kite, Hakamada. As mentioned earlier, Date could possibly be the final player, but as it turns out there is no possible combination that satisfies the number condition with these 7 players, so my assumption is that the 11 referred to Oishi.

So because of that we don't who the last player could be. However, out of all the combinations I listed, there is actually only one possible from what I can tell (and I may be wrong on this because there are a lot of possibilities as I'm sure you'll agree), which is the following:
Vs Switzerland: Marui, Niou, Kite (7 + 9 + 12) = 28
Vs Australia: Nakagauchi, Hakamada, Fuji, Ishida (14 + 13 + 8 + 10) = 45

So our teams would look like this:
Vs Switzerland: Oni, Ohmagari, Kimijima, Sanada, Marui, Niou, Kite
Vs Australia: Byoudouin, Duke, Hakamada, Nakagauchi, Atobe, Fuji, Ishida

Now that we've got this down, what about the line-ups? For Switzerland, the circled names on Mifune's sheet may indicate that those players will be in singles. We also know that Marui wants to play together with Kimijima (chapter 140), so that would leave us with Ohmagari, Niou and Kite for the remaining positions. Out of those guys I feel like Ohmagari is the only one who could possibly stand a chance in singles, so we'll go with that:

Vs Switzerland
D2: Kimijima/Marui
D1: Niou/Kite
S3: Ohmagari
S2: Sanada
S1: Oni

I'm not sure if it's easier or harder to do the line-up vs Australia. Byoudouin and Atobe are almost certainly going to play singles, but it's tough to form pairs with the remaining players. It's possible that they'll keep Duke/Fuji since they actually won against Germany, but I have a hard time seeing either of the others in singles. In other words, anything besides S1 is a complete shot in the dark for me:

Vs Australia
D2: Nakagauchi/Fuji
D1: Hakamada/Ishida
S3: Atobe
S2: Duke
S1: Byoudouin


Well, that's it. Congratulations if you've made it this far and I apologize in advance if it turns out in 4 weeks that this has been a complete waste of your time. And yes, I do realize I didn't include Yukimura, Akutsu and Kintarou, you could call it a bold prediction.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

Hmm. While you make good points, something just hit me. Regarding Mifue's notes, does Mifune know about Atobe's altercation with Dorgias? Because if he doesn't then every theory we have goes out the door. I don't see Atobe sitting back playing singles 3 when Dorgias seems like a singles 2/1 player.

 

[Kaoz]

Hmm. While you make good points, something just hit me. Regarding Mifue's notes, does Mifune know about Atobe's altercation with Dorgias? Because if he doesn't then every theory we have goes out the door. I don't see Atobe sitting back playing singles 3 when Dorgias seems like a singles 2/1 player.

He probably doesn't know, but it's also possible that Australia will try to win D2, D1, S3. I could see Atobe in S2 as well if Duke ends up in doubles, whatever spot saves Japan from defeat is fine.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 14, 2016, Original Post Date: Aug 14, 2016 ---

Also, bonus thoughts on the Switzerland doubles: I'd find it super interesting if Niou illusioned Kimijima and Kimijima himself pulled off a negotiation across two matches.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

There's always the possibility that Mifune wrote Atobe's name on vs Switzerland (Atobe doesn't know this yet) but when he's revealed to be against Switzerland he will ask for special permission to (or switch with someone) vs Australia. I mean he has a score to settle with Dorgias. We know, as readers, Atobe wants to play against Australia but Mifune doesn't know.

 

[Kaoz]

There's always the possibility that Mifune wrote Atobe's name on vs Switzerland (Atobe doesn't know this yet) but when he's revealed to be against Switzerland he will ask for special permission to (or switch with someone) vs Australia. I mean he has a score to settle with Dorgias. We know, as readers, Atobe wants to play against Australia but Mifune doesn't know.

If this were real life that would be a valid consideration, but since it's fiction and the author has control over all events, it probably isn't the case. I also doubt it's possible to change line-ups once they've been submitted, so in that case Atobe would just have to deal with it and leave Dorgias to someone else. That said, there's always the possibility Irie went to Mifune after seeing Atobe practice and suggested to him to pit Atobe against Australia.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

That said, there's always the possibility Irie went to Mifune after seeing Atobe practice and suggested to him to pit Atobe against Australia.

Yes that could also be a possibility (there's many possibilities regarding Atobe). But Irie doesn't know about Dorgias. He assumes Atobe's interested in Australia. But why would Mifune even listen to Irie? XD

 

[Kaoz]

Yes that could also be a possibility (there's many possibilities regarding Atobe). But Irie doesn't know about Dorgias. He assumes Atobe's interested in Australia. But why would Mifune even listen to Irie? XD

Because Irie can see through the hearts of other people and it's in Mifune's best interest to form strong line-ups. We already know that the reps' input matters to some extent as seen with Oni (opening the gate), Byoudouin (allowing the MSers to challenge the G10) and Kimijima (seemingly had input on the Pre-WC pairs) and while he's a clown, Irie probably has an equivalent reputation among the people that know more about him.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

What would Irie's words be to Mifune for that to happen though (in theory) - to convince Mifune to plot Atobe against Australia. We've never really seen a fully serious Irie on screen (his match with No.20 was off-screen serious).

 

[Kaoz]

What would Irie's words be to Mifune for that to happen though (in theory) - to convince Mifune to plot Atobe against Australia. We've never really seen a fully serious Irie on screen (his match with No.20 was off-screen serious).

Just tell him that Atobe's incredibly motivated to play against Australia, what more do you need? And Irie was nominated to be part of the 1st string during his second year already, even if he didn't join in the end, they know he is on that level.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

That might of not been enough. There are many different methods to convince someone. While Mifune was convinced of the Revolutionary Brigade, he hardly knows about Atobe other than "Richie rich".

Hmm, looking back Mifune's notes, "Hamakada" was above "Execution" but they are in different teams. We know Tokugawa and "Seaweed MSer" are in the same team, even though Tokugawa was crossed out. "Slanty eyes" and "gum" look like they might be a doubles pair.

 

[Kaoz]

That might of not been enough. There are many different methods to convince someone. While Mifune was convinced of the Revolutionary Brigade, he hardly knows about Atobe other than "Richie rich".

It's not clear in the translation, but literally everyone but Byoudouin has some sort of nickname on the notes, it doesn't mean anything like that.

"Slanty eyes" and "gum" look like they might be a doubles pair.

So... who do you think slanty eyes is then?

 

[ChinkyCandie]

You told me its likely to be Kimijima. Marui does have an admiration for him so it does make sense. Even if Kite/Marui wasn't a bad combo.

 

[Artsci]

@Kaoz love and impressed by your idea that the lineup would equal to a sum of 50. Not sure if it is coincidence or not but 50 seems to be a powerful number. Seems like I have to re-make my lineup for the two matches. I wonder if that's the reason why Konomi have to re-order Date and Irie's ranking. One thing I worry about is that seems like Konomi doesn't really care about the ranking of the MSers, their numbers are not mentioned in the introduction scene before the match against Greece and haven't mentioned at all in the entire series.

One of my theories is that most of the guys who played in the pre-WC will not play in the group stage. I guess Konomi would try to diversify the lineup and let different people play (except Atobe who has extremely high popularity and Tokugawa being the most popular HSers and one of the best players in the team) Therefore, Fuji, Yukimura, Irie would probably be saved for the knockout stage. I am not sure about Duke since he is also one of the best HSers.

Also, I wonder if the three lowest ranking HSers (i.e. Date, Hamakada, Nakagauchi) would have a chance to play even one match in the WC. I think all three of them would either have chance to play one match or all three of them will not play a single match at all. Before I thought there would be an all MSers team led by Oni against Australia. But now, I tend to believe that every HSer and MSer will all have chance to play at least one match. Therefore, the three lower ranking HSers would probably play their first and only match during the rest of the two group stage matches. Gin being one of the weakest and unpopular MSers would probably also play his first and last match during the group stage. I am guessing Date, Nakagauchi, Gin are going to play against Australia and Hamakada will play against the Swiss. In addition, I still believe that Oni will play against Australia and Byodoin against Switzerland even though Oni name is circled in the sheet against Switzerland. I will try re-create my lineup later to see if my combination would get a sum of 50.

 

[Kaoz]

@Kaoz love and impressed by your idea that the lineup would equal to a sum of 50. Not sure if it is coincidence or not but 50 seems to be a powerful number.

So, this may blow your mind and is probably completely meaningless at the same time, however, in the Pre-WC:

Duke (3)
Fuji (8)
Irie (12)
Atobe (1)
Tokugawa (4)
Yukimura (2)
= 30

I.e. it was 30 for three matches then and now it's 50 for five matches vs Greece. Like I said, most likely doesn't mean anything, but it's an interesting piece of trivia right now.

One thing I worry about is that seems like Konomi doesn't really care about the ranking of the MSers, their numbers are not mentioned in the introduction scene before the match against Greece and haven't mentioned at all in the entire series.

Yeah, Hardy also brought up that point a while ago when we were discussing something else and it's worth noting that while the HSers are shown in order in chapter 178 (with the ones facing Greece removed and shown in 179 instead), the same isn't true for the MSers. On the other hand, there definitely was an order when they were nominated and they are listed in that same order still in the vol 18 intro.

Either way, it's obviously the main premise for my prediction, so if it doesn't apply the rest falls apart as well.

One of my theories is that most of the guys who played in the pre-WC will not play in the group stage.

I was thinking about that too, but I also wanted to account for my older theory that every player is only allowed to play once in the main tournament as well (4 matches times 7 players = a team of 28) and I believe Fuji still has two more moves to unveil, so I had to put him into my line-up no matter what. I'm also somewhat comfortable with leaving Kintarou out for that matter since he already got TnK and there may not be many places he can go from there. Same for Yukimura, really, Akutsu's the one out of the three who I feel would need another match the most.

 

[Artsci]

I was thinking about that too, but I also wanted to account for my older theory that every player is only allowed to play once in the main tournament as well (4 matches times 7 players = a team of 28)

Although I am still not convinced by your idea, if that was the case, Gin, Hakamada, Date and Nakagauchi would probably not play in the group stage and will play in the first and second round of the knockout stage instead. On the other hand, Irie, Yukimura and Fuji would probably be back on the starter lineup. However, it seems to be impossible to have a sum of 50 for the rest of the two lineups without all those low ranking HSers and Gin.

I am guessing maybe there will be some restrictions that a player cannot play more than 2 matches in the knockout stage. Otherwise, Japan can just send Byodoin, Tane, Tokugawa, Oni, Yukimura, Atobe and Kintarou for the rest of the matches and this formation can probably easily make it till semi-final.

 

[Kaoz]

I am guessing maybe there will be some restrictions that a player cannot play more than 2 matches in the knockout stage. Otherwise, Japan can just send Byodoin, Tane, Tokugawa, Oni, Yukimura, Atobe and Kintarou for the rest of the matches and this formation can probably easily make it till semi-final.

Pretty much. If they are able to use the same players over and over, a 28 men team is complete overkill. I almost feel like even 2 or less might be too lenient since that's still only about half the team. The main problem with my idea is that it'll be a bit weird if any of the top teams use their star players before the finals, but maybe saying you have to use 21 different players in the first three rounds and can then pick anyone for the finals would be a good compromise.

 

[Artsci]

Not sure if it is true or not, but people from Baidu said that Mifune's note has been updated in volume 17. Four new names have been added on the sheet that has Oni and Byodoin's name being crossed out. The four names are Oni (once again), Kimijima, "monkey" and "bad boy/ rebellious teen" (not sure which translation is more appropriate)
Monkey is probably referring to Kintarou and bad boy is Akutsu. Again, I can't find the any images that has the four new names on it so not sure if it was true or not.

 

[Kaoz]

Four new names have been added on the sheet that has Oni and Byodoin's name being crossed out. The four names are Oni (once again), Kimijima, "monkey" and "bad boy/ rebellious teen" (not sure which translation is more appropriate)

This is at least partially true. The crossed out names actually aren't there at all anymore. That said, I'm not sure if it actually says Oni because this one's written in a different name than the circled one and I don't see why that would be. There's also an extra name on the top sheet. Can't read any of it though, obviously.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 21, 2016, Original Post Date: Aug 21, 2016 ---

The name on the first sheet is dekahage (Big Baldy), so Gin. It's right underneath Akaya's btw.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 21, 2016 ---

So I'd guess that Oni and oni refer to different people. One would be the person itself and one someone else who could have that nickname - not sure who the latter could be though.

 

[Kaoz]

So, there are several difficulties when trying to figure out the line-ups based on the new notes, but I think it can be done:

• There are 19 names and 3 dice for 21 players. If the dice refer to 3 different people we're one over, if they refer to only 1 we're a person short, but most importantly, Ochi, Shiraishi and possibly Oishi don't show up in the notes at all. You could argue that there's supposed to be some surplus of players, but if the number is so close to the one required I'm not sure if that's really the case.
• Do the three sheets still refer to three different matches or is it just the collection of names that matters? I don't have an answer to this.
• Let's suppose the order the MSers were nominated in doesn't matter; what about the order they were listed in in chapter 178? For reference: Kintarou, Sanada, Yukimura, Fuji, Marui, Kite, Akutsu, Niou, Ishida, Atobe.

Here are all the names listed again for reference:
HS: Byoudouin, Tanegashima, Duke, Tokugawa, Oni, Kimijima, Tohno, Hakamada
MS: Atobe, Sanada, Akutsu, Kintarou, Marui, Fuji, Niou, Gin, Kite, Kirihara
Other: Ghost/Demon
N/A: Ochi, Shiraishi, Oishi

Fuji is my current guess for Slanty Eyes, but maybe there's someone else it could apply to, not sure. In case someone is about to say Ochi, I find it more likely that it references a middle schooler since the name is grouped together with four other MSers.

Anyway, I think one of the keys to figuring out the line-ups is to understand what the name pairs mean (where one name is written directly above the other one). Have a look at the following ones:
Hamakada | Execution
Seaweed MSer | Big Baldy
Byoudouin | Tane | Frenchie (technically not a pair, but follows the same pattern)

Out of those groups, one person each participated in the match against Greece whereas the others did not. So what if the groups aren't pairs, but it's a matter of including one or the other in the line-up against a particular team? Which would mean that the following:
Slanty Eyes | Assassin
Gum | Swindler
will be split up, one of each group is going to play vs Switzerland, the other vs Australia. And the same would go for Byoudouin and Duke from the earlier group. It's not possible to deduce which one's which for now, so let's just say team 1 and team 2.

What else do we know? Byoudouin and Oni are on different teams, so Oni would be part of the same team as Duke. Now let's come back to the dice. Like I said at the beginning, if we say they're referring to players that aren't on the sheets already, the numbers don't add up anymore. So what if they're instead for players that are already there, but indicate some grouping, like which players are together on the same team? There are three possibilities in that case:

1. Tanegashima, Tokugawa, Oni
2. Yukimura, Sanada, Akutsu
3. Sanada, Fuji, Marui

The first can't be for obvious reasons. The second I also think it can't be because Yukimura's name isn't on the sheets, which leaves us with Sanada, Fuji and Marui on the same team. Using all the previous assumptions, this also means Kite and Niou are on the other team instead. So we're looking at this right now:
Team 1: Byoudouin
Team 2: Oni, Duke
Team A: Sanada, Fuji, Marui
Team B: Niou, Kite
Remaining: Kimijima, Hakamada, Atobe, Akutsu, Kintarou, Ishida, Ghost

This is where we run into the problem with Ghost. Not only do we not know who he is specifically, we also don't even know if he's a MSer or a HSer. The rest of my theory relies on Ghost being a MSer, so keep that in mind.

We have 2 HSers and 5 MSers left. So the next question we should be asking ourselves is how they're going to be distributed. We could have the following team compositions:

• Team 1: 4 HSers, 3 MSers; Team 2: 1 HSer, 6 MSers
• Team 1: 3 HSers, 4 MSers; Team 2: 2 HSers, 5 MSers

Out of those, the first one makes more sense to me for two reasons: Firstly, there were 3 dice possibly indicating that one other team will have only 3 MSers. Secondly, I just think when keeping in mind that there are 3 MSers playing against Greece it looks cleaner to have them in a 3/3/6 pattern than a 3/4/5 one - that's certainly arguable though. Running with that reasoning, however, we get these two teams:
Team 1: Byoudouin, Atobe, Akutsu, Kintarou, Niou, Ishida, Kite
Team 2: Duke, Oni, Kimijima, Hakamada, Sanada, Marui, Fuji

Personally I'd still put the first team against Australia since it has Atobe in it, but I could see an argument being made for it being the Switzerland line-up based on what Tohno said.

So that's it, right?
Ghost.
We've wrapped up everything quite nicely I must say.
Ghost.
All factors are accounted for, the reasoning got a little sketchy at times I'll admit, but it's pretty decent for what it is.
Ghost.
...Alright, alright. Let's talk about Ghost. Like I said yesterday, I'm pretty convinced that one of the "Oni" doesn't actually refer to Oni himself because I don't see why his name would be written differently the second time unless there's a good reason. But, well, there actually is a ghost on the Japanese team, I don't know if you knew. Now you might say that's impossible - and you might be right - but there is still a slim chance of it coming true: remember this?

Vs Switzerland
D2: Hakamada/Fuji
D1: Kimijima/Marui
S3: Sanada
S2: Watanabe
S1: Oni

Vs Australia
D2: Ishida/Kite
D1: Akutsu/Niou
S3: Tooyama
S2: Atobe
S1: Byoudouin

 

[ChinkyCandie]

While reading your post, I did think ghost referred to Ryoma. It would be less obvious than samurai.
I have to wonder though, what nickname would Mifune give to Irie.
Random point: I honestly don't see Duke playing in a different team to Byodoin. Not sure about Akutsu/Niou pair. That looks totally random.
I personally think Irie will play against Australia. He'll play before Atobe, lose on purpose, so Atobe has extra motivation to destroy Dorgias.