With Dartmus drawing ever closer, the next stop on the road to Ally Pally is the Westfalenhalle in Dortmund for the European Championship.
Unless you've kept a close eye on the 13 events of the European Tour season - in which we've seen 10 different winners - you might be surprised to learn that Nathan Aspinall and Martin Schindler have bagged the top two seeding spots, with Luke Littler and Luke Humphries in fourth and fifth respectively.
The Asp won his third European Tour event of the season at the weekend to deservedly finish top of the Order of Merit although Luke Littler's decision to skip most of the tournaments staged in Germany certainly didn't help his cause to finish at the summit.
Here's a quick reminder of how the tournaments were won;
Littler obviously wouldn't include the European Championship on his list of German events to unfold but it will be interesting to see what kind of reception he gets from the Dortmund crowd and whether it puts him off his dominant stride.
This tournament is one of the few majors that neither Littler nor Humphries have on their incredible CVs but in fairness to the world champion, he's only attempted it once and that resulted in a shock early exit to Andrew Gilding.
That result highlighted how the best-of-11 leg format in the first round can contribute to big name casualties and last year we saw plenty more throughout the weekend, which ended with 200/1 outsider Ritchie Edhouse thrashing Jermaine Wattimena in the final.
I'll now go through each quarter of the draw in a quest to predict who will win the 18th staging of the European Championship.
Odds to win the quarter: Rock 5/2, Aspinall 9/2, Van Duijvenbode 5/1, Wattimena 11/2, Noppert 11/2, Cross 7/1, Springer 22/1, Pietreczko 33/1
Nathan Aspinall has enjoyed the best season out of everyone on the European Tour with three titles and interestingly, all of them - as well as as finishing runner-up to Stephen Bunting in Riesa - happened in front of German fans.
You'd expect his confidence levels will be key against 2019 and 2021 European champion Rob Cross, who has endured a difficult couple of months in all competitions, but then it's going to be a whole lot trickier in round two.
Dirk van Duijvenbode has been playing brilliantly of late and as recently as this weekend, he posted a 117.74 average and hit a nine-darter en route to the final, where he almost managed another perfect leg before bowing out to Aspinall.
However, he has an awful opener against recent World Grand Prix semi-finalist Danny Noppert who will be hoping that kind of form helps him go one step further than he's managed in each of the past two seasons.
In 2023 he was narrowly beaten 11-8 by Peter Wright in the last four, while 12 months ago he succumbed to Jermaine Wattimena at the same stage in a deciding leg.
The former UK Open champion also has a World Masters semi-final run on his list of 2025 achievements so I fancy him to come through this quarter of the draw.
Josh Rock is favourite due to his fine season as a whole but in recent weeks he's lost a little bit of his sparkle and could be vulnerable in round two to either rising star Niko Springer, who recently beat Noppert in the final of the Hungarian Darts Trophy, or the in-form Wattimena.
The latter thrashed Aspinall in a Pro Tour final earlier this month, then reached a semi-final the next day before posting three big 100+ averages in a row at the weekend's European Tour event.
He's actually averaged over 100 in 11 of his last 16 matches and while this should put him on our radar, I really do feel Noppert has more major appeal overall in this quarter.
Odds to win the quarter: Littler 10/11, Humphries 11/4, Anderson 7/1, Wade 12/1, De Decker 18/1, Menzies 20/1, Ratajski 33/1, Van Barneveld 50/1
Luke Littler resumes his not so love affair with Germany and certainly has a score to settle with the Westfalenhalle having crashed out to Andrew Gilding at the first hurdle of his European Championship debut.
In long format darts, the world champion is proving to be pretty much unbeatable but in a tournament that reaches a maximum of best-of-21 legs, these are the occasions when his rivals have a greater chance of springing a surprise.
I can't see the current version of Raymond van Barneveld repeating the feat of Gilding but the bigger names in this section - James Wade, Luke Humphries and Gary Anderson - certainly won't fear the challenge.
Humphries is clearly the obvious threat but you have to wonder what temporary damage that heavy World Grand Prix final defeat did to his confidence.
If the following two Pro Tour events were anything to go by - in which he suffered a pair of early exits - there have to be some concerns but you'd like to think the big stage will see him spring back to life.
Overall, I can't really see past Littler unless he has a random off day that an opponent capitalises on.
Odds to win the quarter: Van Veen 15/8, Clayton 7/2, Schindler 6/1, Chisnall 8/1, Searle 11/1, Heta 11/1, Joyce 14/1, Woodhouse 18/1
Gian van Veen has never been favourite to win a quarter of a major draw before and while nobody takes note of such a detail, it does at least underline how much his stock has risen over the season.
The young Dutchman, who reached the European Championship semi-finals on debut two years ago, may have only picked up one title in 2025 - which came way back in March - but his numbers and performances have been statistically high all year while he also enjoyed impressive runs to the World Matchplay and UK Open quarter-finals.
Since recording a match average record at the World Grand Prix that was incredibly only good enough to take two legs off Luke Littler, van Veen has booked his place in the World Youth Championship final and also reached the last four of the weekend's European Tour event.
During that run he thrashed a below-par Jonny Clayton 6-1 but despite this, I'm going to side with the Ferret to come through this section and launch a strong title challenge.
Clayton's resurgence on the big stage this season started by finishing runner-up at the World Masters - which went right down to the wire against Humphries - as well as three semi-finals at the UK Open, World Matchplay and World Grand Prix.
In two of those - the UK Open and World Grand Prix - he was swept aside by Luke Littler but thankfully this time he won't have to deal with the Nuke until the final. And maybe someone will have already done the dirty work for him by then.
The Welshman has picked up a couple of titles this season - including one on the European Tour - while his consistently impressive numbers mean his average of 97.44 since the start of July puts him inside the top six.
Odds to win the quarter: Price 15/8, Bunting 9/2, MVG 11/2, Nijman 15/2, Smith 8/1, Dobey 11/1, Wright 18/1, Gurney 20/1
Michael van Gerwen's swift exit at the World Grand Prix and subsequent failure to qualify for the Players Championship Finals have overshadowed what has been an otherwise a encouraging couple of months for the Dutchman on the oche.
The four-time European champion, who hasn't got his hands on this trophy since 2017 would you believe, claimed a brilliant and emotional victory over Luke Littler to win the World Series of Darts Finals back in September while his average in the second half of the season is comfortably in the top 10 (97).
It's no disgrace for anyone to crash out at double-start at the first hurdle and the whole reason why he won't qualify for Minehead is mainly down to not entering enough events and missing the last three of them for a family holiday.
That may sound like a strange reason on the surface for a pro sportsperson but with what he's gone through off the oche this year, you can understand why family comes first.
This shorter format tournament is more suitable for his chances right now - like the World Series was - and while he finds himself in a tough section with the likes of Stephen Bunting, Gerwyn Price and the ever improving Wessel Nijman, I feel he can find the same kind of inspired level we saw last month.
Nijman was one of his victims in Amsterdam before he took care of Rob Cross, Luke Humphries, Josh Rock and Littler while Bunting hasn't shown his best on the big stages this year despite picking up lots of titles elsewhere and Price is a familiar foe he won't be afraid of.
At 11/2, he's quite a big price just to win this quarter of the draw, but as he's in the bottom half away from Littler, I'll have an each-way stab at him to win the title.
Thursday October 23
TV Coverage: ITV4 (1800-2200 BST)
Round One (Best of 11 legs)
Friday October 24
TV Coverage: ITV4 (1800-2200 BST)
Round One (Best of 11 legs)
Saturday October 25
Afternoon Session (1145-1600 BST)
TV Coverage: ITV4
Round Two (Best of 19 legs)
Evening Session (1800-2200 BST)
TV Coverage: ITV4
Round Two (Best of 19 legs)
Sunday October 26
Afternoon Session (1145-1600 GMT)
TV Coverage: ITV4
Quarter-Finals (Best of 19 legs)