For Part 1, Read here.
The pre-bracketed tournaments take on a weird form. You always have a team get an early loss and feast on easy teams that lost and gradually increase the competition level. Then you have another team do well all day, get a loss, and then lose immediately. To me, this is the weakness of the pre-bracketed tournament. You give teams a benefit for losing early. In ten quizzes, they usually don’t get challenged until quiz 7 or 8. The team that continues to win is challenged by about quiz 3, signifigantly challenged by round 5 or 6, then they are mentally exhausted by the tough quizzes. The early loss gives you a proportionately easier ride.
Still, it is much better to not lose. But since I told you earlier, that I think Old Paths, Woodside, and FBCCF will finish 6th-5th-4th, I thought I might as well give you more detail about how I think it will go down. First, I think FBCCF will be that team to lose a quiz really early. They will then battle their way into the the top four of the losers bracket. Old Paths will lose much later with a quiz where they really don’t feel bad losing, as they really did fine. I think the last two to lose in the winners bracket will be Woodside and Pleasant View (gutsy, I know). I think in the round of six quizzes, Faith (SC) will get their first loss and Old Paths will be eliminated in another good quiz. That will leave Calvary as the only team without a loss and they and Pleasant View will get a bye.
Faith (SC) will secure a win early, while FBCCF will go into survivor mode and follow Praiselynn to a win. This will give Woodside their second loss and eliminate them. The next quiz will involve the two Florida teams and Pleasant View. Praiselynn will get a lot of questions early and they will attempt to help Calvary, which will be their undoing, as Calvary will get the win with Kelsey having the much stronger supporting cast. FBCCF finishes fourth.
We are now down to the final three that I predicted. I think these three teams are uniquely suited to be where they are. Faith (SC) is the ultimate team at not killing themselves and historically Pleasant View (KY) has been really bad in that area. On the other hand, Calvary (FL) has shown that they may be the worst at quizzing smart and not killing themselves. They will be the last team to lose, but they will also have the most tempermental star. Their only way to get a win with these three teams is to secure the high win. They will not salvage a middle win against these two teams.
Historically this has been Faith’s tournament. They have won more often than anyone else. Calvary has been real good at this tournament, too. They finished 5th last year (far better than they were) and 8th the year before (way better than they were). Pleasant View has just been the best team for over a year and it is now time for them to defend the first of their four major titles. I think this is the one they are most likely to drop as it is earliest in the year, and I think they peak in April.
I think Calvary will lose the first two quizzes, setting up the best two teams. Faith (SC) was for years known as the dominant 2-team quizzing team largely because of their presence in the PQA. Many see Pleasant View (KY) as the new 2-team quizzing dominators as they have won every 2-team quiz they’ve been in for over a year. Who will win? I will predict Faith (SC). They’ve been quizzing competitively since August and they just lost to Pleasant View in Michigan. They will survive and people will criticize me when I vote PVKY #1 again, and Jesse will write an article about how indefensible my picks are.
I realize that if 25% of this comes true, I will be very fortunate. Nevertheless, I think that this is how the order will be and if it is, I want serious props. Poston must then give me dap. Is that OK, Callaway?