Good day, friends. With metalworks matches going well into the later half of the week, I decided to take the week off in favor of watching more Open matches because clearly nobody cares about IM anymore (heh). On a serious note, the viaduct matches we saw this last week were pretty intense. The top half of the rankings are pretty much set now after Cisco Adlers Balls teabagged Japanifest Destiny on metalworks, and now that they have their full 6 I don't see them losing any other matches this season. The Grime is all but out of the running now along with Subspace, but a small chance still exists. N2P is hanging on to that 8th place by a thread, while Goldman Sachs and the Yomies will battle it out for the 7th and 6th place.

For a lot of people, being in IM usually is the leg of the journey before trying to break into Invite, and with so many Invite teams on the verge of collapse, one can't help thinking about the current landscape of teams that could possibly make it into Invite based on their season 17 performance. Without a doubt, I believe Blockback Mountain could play in Invite and do decently, albeit only if TicTack (or a player of similar caliber) stays with them. Cisco Adler is pretty much already an Invite team when they have all of their players around to play matches. But the rest of the IM landscape is pretty weak in comparison. Whether or not these teams get moved up remains to be seen, as we haven't even seen what the playoff teams will ultimately be.

If you came here for Pangy predictions, scroll down to the bottom!

• Erika
• TicTack
• Cbn
• Block
• Newspeak
• Freestate

There isn't much more I can say about Blockback Mountain, their road to a perfect season is all but at an end. Sunshine should be a good map for them, as there is plenty of room to kite ubers and maintain advantage. With such a gigantic skybox, cbn should have fun with super high jumps and big bombs, although finding people all grouped up may not always be easy. Their next three matches should all be solid wins, although lately I feel like this team plays a lot differently than they do in scrims than they have in the beginning of the season, just a tad bit sloppier. Either way, God Complex should give them a decent game but I don't see an upset in the cards. Next week, Blockback will dash the Grime's hope of making playoffs and stomp on Satan Take the Wheel.

• dbw
• Tri
• Boink
• Cosa
• Kapow
• Schnell

Sandy and the boys will play Satan Take the Wheel back to back on both sunshine and snakewater, and which should be a pretty smooth finish to the season with all of their people playing. Their last 3 matches were won without losing a single round, a testament to how strong this team is without ringers. As I said before, this team is pretty much already an Invite team, Tri is pretty incredible and the rest of the team is phenomenal as well. Without sucking their dicks too hard, with how this team has been playing lately, I think they will be my best bet on winning IM unless people have real life commitments that pull them away from the game too much. The wildcard they will have to face will be Revenge of the Yomies as their last match of the season on snakewater, which I think could be a closer game than some people may think.

• London
• Doll
• Lunacide
• Conductor
• Kev
• zZa

• Jodd
• BlueberryVillain
• Rekuso
• JDMYoshioka
• Downpour
• River

God Complex had a pretty intense viaduct match against Goldman Sachs that ended 4-3, which is just about as close as you can get. River and Downpour both had a fantastic game, and watching Downpour try to snipe was pretty funny for me. This game was up in the air for me, but had I pounded out the power rankings last week and ignored metalworks this would have been the match of the week. Speaking of, metalworks week was pretty quiet for God Complex who took a 5-1 victory over SYOPS, who have been replacing players all season as people leave the team which almost always makes a team a bit weaker. Looking towards the last few weeks of the season, Blueberry and crew have a bit of a lopsided sunshine week against Blockback and Fantazzmagazzlers. Fantazzmagazzlers also had a good week last week with a win over the Grime, but with all things considered I think it would be difficult to pull a win out over God Complex. Their last week will be facing teams pretty close to them in skill level, but two wins would keep them in the top 4 when its time to seed.

• rchl
• Smile
• GBB
• Xan
• Stochast1c
• silkthread

Satan Take the Wheel have always been pretty good at viaduct, and this week it showed. A solid victory over Revenge of the Yomies after a disappointing loss on metalworks to Goldman Sachs had to feel good, especially in light of their next three matches. The team will be facing Cisco Adler on both sunshine and snakewater, and will end the season contesting the undefeated Blockback Mountain on snake as well. My gut is telling me this means the team will end 10-6, but I would say their seed doesn't really reflect where this team falls in with the rest of the top 8. I wish you all good luck, and hopefully surprise everyone with an upset, but the end of the season is going to be rough for Satan Take the Wheel.

• Zilly
• CJ
• Yeremy
• Saint
• scizor
• pangy

The Yomies have become the wildcard team in IM, coming super close to beating Blockback on metalworks and then turning around to lose pretty convincingly on viaduct to Satan Take the Wheel. I could say a whole lot about how inconsistent this team is, but really what has most impressed me about this team is when they are playing at their best. On a good day, this team could probably beat anyone in IM but until the figure out how to do that all the time, their results are going to be all over the place. CJ is fast becoming one of those pockets that hits all the airshots and makes a lot of the big plays for his team, proving to be one of the better pockets in IM this season. The last four matches of the season present a lot of opportunities for the Yomies with only one match a very likely win against the Grime. This week they'll be playing Japanifest Destiny on sunshine, a match that could go either way depending on how the Yomies play. I expect this team to do something crazy during the postseason, hell they might even be the ones to beat Block this season. Anything can happen.

• MR SLIN
• Goldfish
• Zigzter
• Hooli
• Devon
• Jav

Goldman Sachs came out on top of both of their metalworks matches, putting them in a good place to secure their playoff spot. Unfortunately, viaduct week was not as kind to Slin and his emotionally charged mumble environment, as they lost both matches to Blockback and God Complex. This week, their only sunshine match will be the Match of the Week brought to you by Pangy, age 13. Their last two matches of the season will be intense against God Complex and Japanifest Destiny. The match against God Complex will be somewhat closer than to Conductor and his gang of big gay babies, who beat Sachs on badlands 5-1 earlier this season. God Complex will want to make a repeat performance against Slin to maintain their decent seed at the moment, and with snakewater being a pretty good map for that team's playstyle its hard to say if Goldman Sachs will step up to challenge and lockdown their place in the top 8.

• Valkeri
• Mangachu
• PurpleShirt
• Desca
• Reimu
• ClandestinePZ

Despite picking up soldier extraordinaire Mangachu on pocket, N2P has had a string of bad luck lately. Both of their viaduct matches were pretty brutal against Blockback and Cisco Adler, but hopefully the future will be a bit brighter for N2P. This week they'll be playing their first match against the Grime before they have to play them again next week, and with those two matches they should put themselves in at 8th place to make playoffs. The Grime still has a chance to come back and make this season come down to round wins between N2P, but only if they absolutely destroy them during their matches. While I think the potential for upset is pretty moderate, I don't think N2P will end up losing either of these. With that said, a conservative prediction of ending the season at 10-6 is more than likely at this point, but even losing one match to the Grime wouldn't make that much of a difference. All things considered, I believe we already know which teams will be making playoffs unless something crazy happens.

• MR SLIN
• Goldfish
• zigzter
• Hooli
• Devon
• Jav

• Valkeri
• Mangachu
• Purpleshirt
• Desca
• Reimu
• ClandestinePZ

by Pangy, age 14

This match will determine if Slin moves up to 6th place or if they move down to 8th place. For Slin to win devon needs to be more aware of his teams intentions. All I have to say about N2P is that they lost rave so they cant backcap and they picked up Mangachu who is aliased as Wild which is… cool. I predict a 5-0 in favor of N2P because of this Slin<My team<N2P. That is called the transitive property I think.

Players to Watch: Mangachu, Purpleshirt, Goldfish, Jav