2. (b)
+1 (1/8)
I think for the most part all of these goalie stats can be misleading. In a situation like this, you’d almost always want to have the veteran player with all the experience. While having a strong young goalie bodes well for the future - that can sometimes prove to be a liability in pressure games. Overall I’d prefer to have Justin Time in my goal, but either goalie are good enough to help their team win the cup.

2. (e)
+1 (2/8)
Odds are an eagle can get itself into a situation where a lion wouldn’t be able to attack it. Given this stalemate nature, the options are to force them into a situation where they’d be forced to fight, in which case a lion would easily win. Likewise, if done in an open world, I think lions would eventually evolve and adapt to create flying machines or air-based weapons to eventually win in the very long con.

2. (f)
+1 (3/8)
Just as before, I don’t think using modern methods like “data” or “analysis” is very fun or even all that helpful in deciding games like this. So to decide this time, I will be going to google coin flip to decide things. Since Baltimore is the home team, I will give them heads for flip results and take it from here. This is how the finals will go. 1: SFP (spoilers), 2: BAP (spoilers), 3: SFP (tails), 4: SFP (tails), 5: BAP (heads), 6: SFP (tails). The coin dictates that SFP wins 4-2.

10.
+3 (6/8)
Given that the last two WCJ tournaments have been won by Team Norden, I think they are the clear favorites (without having looked too indepth). That said, the USA squads are quite strong, and could absolutely pull some surprises. Also not to be slept on is UCORAL, who on paper is typically just about as strong as Team Norden. Given the single elimination nature of this tournament, the range of outcomes that can play out are massive, given that the clearly best team could easily drop a random game and see their entire tournament run come to a screeching halt. For units like Team Norden, UCORAL, and the USA squads, this will be the second biggest obstacle. The biggest? Avoiding playing against these other favorites for as long as possible. Having big time matchups in the quarterfinals is the most sure fire way to not win a medal for any of these groups. Last tournament both Canada and Team World benefitted not having to play a power house team in the final 8, and it led them both to podium games.  Regardless of the parity, I’d expect Norden (gold), URCOAL (silver), USA Blue/white (bronze) on paper alone.

11.
+2 (8/8)
Ju-gong is yet to be declared to an IIFH nation, which is mostly just a consequence of making a payer from South Korea. Obviously they would play for South Korea given that fits the player, but being currently unassigned, it’s not so obvious. To some degree I do like the ability to pick which team the player gets assigned too, on the other front it might feel a bit strange for the player as a player. I very much value the story of the player over anything else, so while picking an IIFH team with friends would be fun, if its nonsensical to happen to a real player, I’d rather avoid that path. Because of these restrictions, the nation’s Ju-gong could currently end up playing for in my mind are Canada, Japan, and Russia. Canada makes sense because Ju-gong plays for (Montreal/Quebec) and could easily gain citizenship at that rate. Japan because it’s the closest nation to his home, and has been there many times for games. Russia too as he had a fondness for the Russian game, and did very important training there as well.