Studio Gible (5) vs (5) Orange Islanders
SV OU: mind gaming vs aesf - this'll be mind gaming's second trip to finals in the year, both rocking outstanding records. last time didn't go particularly well: this time i fully believe in the power of gaming. rip rubyblood
SV OU: Piyush25 vs Welli0u - welli0u is in top form right now after dispatching oldspicemike and xavgb back to back
SV OU: Fogbound Lake vs Wolf - big matchup. wolf has been very consistent the whole tournament but fogbound has been just explosive this season, and should be the favorite on paper as long as he doesn't load (checks notes) hisuian lilligant and 2 healing wishers
SV Ubers: Fc vs Exiline - i don't really watch this tier and i literally can't start now so im just going off records
SV DOU: z0mOG vs JRL - the jrl has been a solid contender for all of this tournament, posting a perfectly average 5-5 record. obviously z0mog has good fundamentals but i don't know how active he's been in SV DOU
SV UU: Eternal Spirit vs pdt - matchup of the week. pdt comes in with a great record but did blink briefly in semis, and i'm getting the feeling that the magician can pull a rabbit out of the hat.
SV RU: cleann vs robjr - one of two problematic tiers for gible. things went better in semis with cleann posting a win over ajna but i can't see robjr falling to an upset here
SV NU: etern vs Danny - etern is one of the clear top-tiers of the NU field. i had a line here about how the tier leader is probably really well-equipped to deal with the rapidly changing meta but i forgot danny's also on the council
SV PU: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs DugZa - i'd be a fool to bold against this record at this point
SV LC: ninjadog vs Hacker - the other problem tier for gible. luckily ninjadog is activated now but hacker has played more
very curious stylistic matchup here in terms of team composition. gible has a lot of really heavy hitters but a couple of vulnerabilities, while islanders are all-around solid with potential to win anywhere. your big flashpoint matchups are fog/wolf, dou, uu, ubers: any of those flip and it could decide the series
