User blog comment:B214/Shin DxD 1 discussion/@comment-2A01:E35:8A27:B990:CDFF:A237:45B5:A954-20180721100147

But honestly it would be stupid for issei to lose at the first fight of the tournament because he stayed as rias pawn for 22 volume so its his turn to be in the spotlight as a king and the fight after that are either diehauser ( unlikely) or baalberith and verrine and after that indra ( strongly indicated ) and rias is more experienced but issei is unpredictable so we can't tell before the vol 2 of shin dxd will be out and we wait until i don't know when