Oh boy!
1/
Jordn vs 8/ Racool
The long-suffering Maple Leafs fan, Betty-White-dab-poster, and ex-Bidoof J(o)rd(a)n is riding an immense wave of hype right now after winning AAA Open. It's unclear how far outside of AAA and MnM his playing abilities extend, but he'll need to step up his game in order to defeat fan-of-my-predictions racool, particularly in Sketchmons (where racool is the
Official Fissure slayer) and in Monotype (which Jordn didn't even enter). I think he will prevail in the end, but this will be a close one. As we saw last year, it is clear that seeding in OMGS is pretty much pointless, lol!
2/ Level 56 vs 7/
Quantum Tesseract
Level 56 is an all-around good player who presents a tough matchup for virtually anyone in virtually anything. That said, the artist formerly known as P1101560 (WHICH I TYPED FROM MEMORY) is a Runner-Up™ for Best OM Player™ and has a more expansive knowledge of individual OMs that I believe will ultimately propel him to victory.
3/
terrors vs 6/ Akashi
One of the few players to actually make it into playoffs based on solid performances in a variety of opens (unthinkable!), terrors hails from Mono originally but seems to be competent at enough other things to give me an excuse to pick against jeran. You can bet that, win or lose, the user no one actually refers to as Akashi-san will have some choice words for his opponent.
4/ Lax vs 5/
Megazard
As I see it, the outcome of this matchup will ultimately turn on whether or not Lax tolerates any of the OMs included enough to get through a match in them without offering some of his patented acerbic criticisms. With Anything Goes and Sketchmons recent additions to his list of tiers almost as bad as BH s2g, it seems that Lax will have to win all three of Mono, AAA, and MnM in order to emerge triumphant in this best of five versus the world's most inexplicably feared OM player, Megazard. Mono and AAA are very strong points for Lax, but Megazard not only made it to MnM finals but endured perhaps one of the
worst battles in OM history. I do not think Lax will stick around for 1300-1400 turns.
edit: I also like racool for what it's worth. just getting this in there before the large light blue text posts overwhelm me