Power Rankings: Nugget Bridge Major, Round One

With all prediction brackets from the first Nugget Bridge Major predictions tournament locked in, I thought it’d be interesting to compile the data to see how the community ranks the players competing in the tournament! Players are ranked by their total top 4 votes (nothing below that is used at all), with the distribution of the top 4 votes being used as a tiebreaker when necessary. The previous (Pvs.) column is currently based on the regular season standings, since there’s no previous week to work off of. In future weeks I might shift people around a little based on recent performance or because of higher ranked upcoming opponents in addition to the drops people will endure from being eliminated, but here is what the community thinks at the beginning:

Rank	Player	1st	2nd	T4	Total	Analysis	Pvs.
1	Wolfey	12	10	11	33	Defacto #1. Predicted to make it at least to round 5 vs Cybertron in almost every bracket.	–
2	Zach	2	6	21	29	By far the most popular choice to come out of shallow quadrant after another Regionals win	3
3	Cybertron	8	5	8	21	Wound up with a ton of picks in spite of difficult schedule, but will be tested nearly every round	2
4	RubeNCB	8	5	7	20	Will be interesting to see how suspended star fares in international competition after time off	–
5	Crow	6	4	8	18	Even with fourth most 1st place votes, seems a little undervalued at 5th after strong 2012	4
6	Nightblade7000	3	4	9	16	If we keep predicting him to win stuff sooner or later we have to be right, right?	–
7	Human	5	2	8	15	Will avoid Wolfe until finals this time, but could run into Illuminate Starmie at any point	–
8	Huy	2	3	5	10	Respectable position for the wily veteran; will be interesting to see what BW2 tricks he finds	–
9	R Inanimate	5	0	4	9	Most lopsided 1st place / total votes ratio of anyone; can he daRk hoRse it?	–
10	Duy	1	2	6	9	Since there’s no way to win a trip to Worlds from this tournament, sky is limit for younger Ha	–
11	Darkpenguin67	1	2	5	8	Pretty steep fall for regular season #1 seed all the way to #11, can he prove why he had it?	1
12	FonicFrog	2	1	4	7	Like the Duke or Kansas of Pokémon predicting, you always know he’ll do pretty well	11
13	Dim	1	1	5	7	Senior World Champ rarely predicted over Zach; should be an interesting match if it happens	–
14	makiri	1	2	4	6	Hopefully won’t be in top cut of any PlayTCG tournament when he needs to do his match	–
15	Fish	2	1	2	5	Typically consistent performer has been off lately, but will still try to get kids off lawn with cane	–
16	JiveTime	0	3	2	5	2012 Regional and WiFi tournament winner; another one of those potential dark horse deep picks	–
17	evan	1	0	4	5	Four users other than evan apparently suffering from severe mental trauma when predicting	–
18	PrettyLittleLiar	2	1	1	4	Anyone feel an ominous chill?	–
19	kingofkongs	1	1	2	4	Likely motivated for deep run after frustrating regional where he deserved better than result	17
20	nachocheese99	1	0	3	4	Strong recent history, but tough potential early foes like makiri, Huy, and R Inanimate	–

On The Bubble: Scott (1-1-2), Fishy (0-1-3), DrFidget (0-0-4)

Dropped Out: N/A

I’m not making any claims as to the reliability of this data because I put it together pretty quickly, so you can double-check for yourselves if you want, except I won’t fix it and the update will be based on data other than the predictions anyway, so there’s really no point. But hey, based on using any data at all this is infinitely more reasonable than the fantasy sports versions of these big boards tend to be, right?

Notes:

According to the community, the top 4 will probably be as follows:

RubeNCB vs Crow
Wolfey vs. Zach

Most popular picks by quadrant:

The four most popular picks are listed below by quadrant. The impact of the top picks is interesting — no one else in Wolfe and Cybertron’s quadrant even cracks the top 20, but the second quadrant is split more evenly and has four people in the top 10.

First Quadrant:

RubeNCB
Human
DarkPenguin67
FonicFrog

Second Quadrant:

Crow
Nightblade7000
Huy
R Inanimate

Third Quadrant:

Wolfey
Cybertron
Scott
Amarillo

Fourth Quadrant:

Zach
Duy
Dim
evan

About the Author

Scott started playing VGC in 2011. He finished 17th at US Nationals, then lost in the final round of 2011 Worlds LCQ. He finished 10th in the 2012 World Championships and qualified for Worlds again in 2013 after going into US Nationals second in CP. Instead of playing, he commentated at US Nationals and the World Championships in 2013 and 2014. Follow him on Twitter @NBNostrom!