Joesitz said:But we are talking big stars here. They get lots of points for medaling in whatever. What about Romanovskaya/Grachev? Nam/Lefteris? Karademir? Young?
Romanovskaya/Grachev and Nam/Lefteris won't be affected for seeding at Worlds (should they qualify for their countries' world teams) because nothings has changed for dance or pairs -- compulsory dances and pairs' SPs will still be a random draw as before.
Let's look at the singles skaters. Take Karademir for example. She's currently ranked 56th, which is actually quite good for a skater without a full set of triples. Considering that many of the skaters ranked ahead of her won't be at Worlds because of retirement, being the fourth, fifth, or lower ranked ladies within the US and Japan or third or second from countries that only have two or one spot at Worlds, or random reasons like injury, there's a good chance that when you rank the ladies who actually go to Worlds Tugba will be among the top 24 using today's rankings, which if I'm right about the draw being by groups of 12 would give her just as good a chance of skating her SP in the third-to-last group as whoever is the 13th-ranked skater at Worlds. Even if the draw is by groups of 6, she would still be in one of the middle groups, and not one of the early ones for unranked or really-low-ranked skaters.
Would it be possible for her to pull up to a top-12 ranking (among the skaters who actually go to Worlds, not in the list as a whole)? Well, if she has a great season -- worked hard to improve her speed and add new triples to her repertoire, great choreography, and then performs that improved skating well at her assigned competitions, let's say winning a non-GP senior competition, placing 3rd or so at her GP event, and top 5, maybe 3rd at Europeans, by the time she gets to Worlds she could indeed have that high a ranking.
If she's not good enough to beat most of the skaters she'll be facing at Skate Canada, then why should she be ranked higher than them in the world standings? She does have one advantage over many of them, which is that she will surely be sent to skate at Euros and Worlds, whereas Hawker, Onda, Czisny, even Leung and Taylor, can't count on that.