@sanamida well it would be his first loss since entering B2, so he still has a chance to get promoted if he can keep on winning his other matches.
But if he loses that means he’s out of the Lion King tournament correct ?
But this is a tournament entry match, not a rank placement match. I think the two are mutually exclusive. Someone else pointed this out, but figured I'd reiterate.
@ykyrlv A title is still out of reach for him. He is only a 4-dan. There are a lot of strong opponents. He needs to reach Shimada level first.
As someone else pointed out, Rei is a 6-dan. He was 4-dan when he first became a pro, but that's the entrypoint for all pros, if I recall correctly. He's advanced in rank at least twice since then.
To clarify, 4-dan is the same thing as saying he was in Class C Rank 2 (C-2), and he rather readily moved up to C-1 (aka 5-dan), but then stalled for a year due to aimlessness (it's when he had three straight losses in his ranking matches, and then got psychologically assaulted by Kyoko, probably because she saw it as an opportunity to make him forfeit matches and drop himself in rank to hurt him... but he defied expectations and managed to keep winning and maintain rank), before pushing ahead last year to advance to B-2 and 6-dan.
This year, he's up for advancing to 7-dan and B-1.
Also worth noting he's faced A-ranks successfully, such as his battle against Fujimoto Raidou where he spilled the beans about his 'fiancee' to his fellow pros.