I am so excited about the ice dance competition at Worlds, despite not expecting any surprises regarding the top three and top five. The competition just to get into the FD and then the competition for top 10 is going to be so fierce. I wasn't expecting Wang/Liu to return to competition this season and had practically counted them out, but they are on the Worlds team and skated really well at the Chinese National Winter Games. So it's one more team who can be a threat to some of the expected top 20 teams. I also hadn't expected Komatsubara/Koleto to do so well in the second part of the season as they did at 4CC, or for Harris/Chan to improve so much from the beginning of the season. For instance, looking at the FDs, Lim/Quan should be in the top 20, but the RD is their weaker program, so they are definitely in danger of not qualifying for the FD.
As for the top 10, Chock/Bates, Guignard/Fabbri, Gilles/Poirier, Fear/Gibson, Fournier-Beaudry/Sorensen, Lajoie/Lagha, Reed/Ambrulevicius, Lopareva/Brissaud and Turkkila/Versluis, so 9 teams, are all expected to make it, but it's going to be a fight between the Taschlers, Demougeot/Le Mercier, Carreira/Ponomarenko and, as much as I hate to say it, Davis/Smolkin, for that remaining top 10 spot. Also, the competition between those teams and Lopareva/Brissaud and, especially, Turkkila/Versluis who haven't been very stable this season, is so close, that one more or less serious mistake can be all that it takes for that team to fall out of the top 10.
In short, I just can't wait for that competition.