Winter 2025 Champions Wildcard – Semifinal Preview

5 Comments on "Winter 2025 Champions Wildcard – Semifinal Preview"

1. Eric Clawson | January 19, 2025 at 2:09 pm |

   These were my initial predictions before Champions Wildcard began:

   Finalists:
   Marko Saric
   Will Yancey
   Mehal Shah

   Winner(s):
   Mehal Shah
   (Will Yancey 2nd)

   Obviously, I won’t get all the finalists correct since Mehal and Marko are playing in the same semifinal match. Based on these semifinal matchups, I think the players most likely to make the finals would be Drew, Evan, and Marko. However, anything can happen due to the high amount of variance in tournaments like these. Excited to see who will advance!

2. Rick Hock | January 20, 2025 at 10:23 am |

   Andy! Thanks so much for this useful and informative semifinal preview.

3. Rick Hock | January 20, 2025 at 10:25 am |

   MasterDoge! If you are able, I am interested to read your comments on this week’s semifinals.

   • MasterDoge | January 21, 2025 at 4:54 pm |

     Hi, Rick!

     Sadly, I did not get to that. Usually I write my thoughts in the same weekend that Andy posts the preview, but the last few days were busy enough that it just completely slipped my mind. Doesn’t help that I ended up going through a pretty painful fall last night, either (when getting out of my car, I slipped on some ice that I couldn’t see until it was already too late; nothing is broken, thankfully, but my entire right side is rather sore).

     I should have some comments prepared for the ToC quarterfinals that are ready to go when that preview is released; for the immediate future, though, usually I don’t give my thoughts on the finals of tournaments, but I figure I might as well this time around. 🙂

4. MasterDoge | January 23, 2025 at 4:02 pm |

   [Disclaimer: the entirety of this comment was originally written shortly after the conclusion of the Celebrity Jeopardy game on January 22, 2025, in the notes app on my phone. I intended on posting my thoughts on any potential finals preview that was put out, but never got the chance to do so. I am already aware that one of my notes has not aged well whatsoever, but I am still putting this here as a way to get out my full, unfiltered thoughts. Thank you for understanding.]

   I usually don’t offer my thoughts on the finals of tournaments, but since I missed getting them out for the semifinals of this one, I figured I might as well do this to make up for it. 🙂

   In my mind, there’s a very clear favorite in this matchup – and he’s got blond hair and excellent taste in Hawaiian shirts. I think anything I could say about Drew’s odds have already been said by his statistics ever since he returned to the Alex Trebek Stage – and I’d even go as far as to say peak-performance Drew Goins is almost on the level of peak-performance Juveria Zaheer. The only thing that gives me pause is his more conservative wagering on Daily Doubles relative to the other two – he might need to be a little more willing to emulate the strategies of the only player that’s beaten him to date (David Erb). If he can do that and keep his buzzer mojo going, though… well, Isaac Hirsch and Greg Jolin (arguably the two strongest auto-qualifiers into the ToC) might want to watch their backs!

   As the game on June 3, 2019 proved, though, the best way to beat a high roller is to be a high roller yourself… and considering the fact that he held the season record for highest Daily Double wager prior to two days ago, it should come as no surprise that I consider Mehal arguably the second-favorite in this match. His buzzer numbers are good, he’s fairly accurate when he can buzz in, and he’s incredibly aggressive on Daily Doubles – all of which are skills that suit him perfectly for a ToC environment. The only thing that gives me pause – and I say this while acknowledging the asterisk that a sample size of five is not nearly large enough to draw a proper conclusion – is the fact that he has yet to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy so far. If he can turn that around, though… Drew seems almost unbeatable with his momentum, but if there’s anyone who can take down the big kahuna (nickname chosen deliberately), it’s definitely Mehal.

   As for Will… man, I just can’t figure it out. The dude is absolutely brilliant when he’s in a rhythm, but playing against arguably the strongest player (buzzer-wise) in the tournament by a marathon (seriously – look at Drew’s buzz % in the Jeopardata) might make it somewhat difficult for him to gain that rhythm. So that might mean he’ll have to rely on Daily Doubles to keep up in this match (which might serve him actually very well – his find rate of 12/18, or 67%, is by far the highest in the tournament)… but he definitely makes a decent bit more clue selection missteps than the other two. The only way I can describe Will is “the wildcard-est of all wildcards”, if that makes sense.

   I think what’s most likely to happen is Drew just barely clinching a runaway in the remaining moments of Double Jeopardy in game 2, giving him the win and a ToC spot (and $100K), while Mehal just barely manages to sneak ahead of Will to bag the $50K and ToC spot for second. But I’ve been wrong before, and I may very well be wrong now – so I’m just gonna sit back and enjoy the carnage (with a good connotation) that this final will inevitably end up being. 🙂