Somethings I want to note down on Ryuuka, I'm going to be seriously disappointed if she does have an ability, because well Senriyama is supposed to be a school with just straight up good players (excluding Izumi of course). Mainly because, wasn't Sera supposed to be the strongest player in Senriyama?
Plus I'm going to call complete bullshit if Ryuuka turns out to be 'the true dragon lord' people keep calling her. Because it would imply that she easily gets dragon tiles, meaning she get yakuman hands when everyone else has to work for the, even though's with abilities, as shown with Teru, having to snowball into a yakuman, Saki having to build her kan streak to pull off a 4 melded kans, Hatsume has to get into the north seat and she doesn't always get the wind tiles that she needs, Komaki has to actually get the right goddess spirit to pull of yakumans, and finally Takami has to build up Yakuman for the final round. So I would find it very stupid if she could just bring dragon tiles into her hand, when everyone else has to work so hard to pull off yakuman hands.
Sorry I don't mean to sound mean to Ryuuka, but I find it annoying everyone calling her true dragon lord, when she supposed an example of a good non ability player.
Also with regards to Shiriaitoai, not being as powerful as their were foreshadowed to be, first off their in the semi-finals, meaning the best 8 in Japan, so their going to start having trouble, besides we know that Sumire can just ditch her ability and still play decently, while Takami still has the chance of spamming yakuman hands if she becomes dealer (And Seiko just sucks), and I have to point this out, there is nothing wrong in showing even the strongest team has weaknesses.
On the whole debate on 3rd years tenpai speed and dangerous first years, I'd say that Koromo, Jimdai and Kei were taken note of because o f how they won, Koromo winning mainly through haitai rouyai, it seems that Jindai pulled of multiple nine gates in the last tournament, and Kei possibly comes from the fact she's second only to Teru.
And I would like to point something to those who compare Achiga and their training with the Nagno teams. You all seem to forget that Achiga trained with Kazekoshi and Tsugura after the training camp Hisa held, meaning that they would all improve and be harder for Achiga to beat.
Also after training with Kei, Ako did have a line where she said they had trouble at first, but once they got going things improved for them.
Also with regards to when Achiga faced Ryuumbuchi, we don't know how Shizu and Koromo's match went, from the looks of it though Koromo did not win through busting her, meaning Shizu broke out of Koromo's tenpai hell and managed to win a few hands against her.
It seems to me in this image that Teru and Sumire might be worried about Awai awakening, could it be a case of Awai can't control her ability probably or that they think that she is revealing her true strength way to soon?
Also if Ryuuka gets to have Toki adising her with calls, Himeko gets double wins off of Mairu's wins, I say since Shizu is wearing Ako's uniform, she will suddenly gain Ako's potency to quickly build hands, or gain her calling sense, meaning that during her dealership she'll be able to build up a healthy score and sink someone below zero.