Karne, I DO know how much you love Max and I just don't understand how he seems to have fallen out of favor with "Some" of the judges. It's so clear to me how far he's come since he won his Championship in 2013. He has done everything right and even took the risk to take on a new SP just for Nationals. Even without Adam, the US still has a deep group of Men. It's how they perform under pressure that I care about. Nathan was under a Tremendous amount of pressure at the GPF and unless he falls more than once, I'm sure he'll win. It's the Silver Medalist who needs to be able to deal with this time. Nathan has proven he can beat the best in the world when he defeated Patrick and Javi. The new #2 needs to bring it at Worlds. I don't know it will be but, there's almost as much pressure on him as he needs to get that 3rd spot back for the US.
Actually, I would say that Nathan wasn't (comparatively) under all that much pressure at the GPF--he was not a favorite to medal against the likes of Patrick, Javi, Yuzuru, and even Shoma...If he ended up 5th or 6th it wouldn't have surprised anyone. At Nationals though, he is the heavy favorite, and everyone expects him to hit all of his quads (and his 3A's) like he did at the GPF. I think he's definitely going to World's no matter what, but I'm interested to see how he performs as the heavy favorite instead of the outside chance.