Author: Corey "Missing Person" Lanier

As many of you recall, I picked Xiao Hai as one of the players who should make Capcom Cup 2018 after his lackluster 2017 on the Capcom Pro Tour. It was obvious that Xiao Hai was way off his game in Street Fighter V — following ELEAGUE, he fell way off the wagon, with no major results to speak of. Most of this could be attributed to his increased focus on —The King of Fighters XIV — with his aim to win Evo 2017 in the game and compete in the Asian Indoor Games.

2018 saw interest wane in the title, and Xiao Hai began to renew his focus on Street Fighter V. He was able to accrue a large amount of points, putting him just inside the upper half of seeding. He’s struggled to find his way into the top 8 before at Capcom Cup; will this year be his to capture?

Better Sting from the Bee

One thing that has never been questioned about Xiao Hai: his reaction time is unparalleled. As one of the few people that can routinely whiff punish even within the worst of lag in Street Fighter V. While many things could be attributed to him conditioning people to give him desperate things to react to, it is one of many things that impresses me about Xiao Hai’s play.

It is also worth noting that he has a high-level understanding to put him in the midst of top echelon players by simply playing at tournaments. This is typically the most he gets to play, as China’s internet is still not conducive to him being able to achieve high-level play online. This forces him to actually use training mode if he needs to lab things out when he gets a chance, and actually put his theories into practice in tournament situations. This level of preparation — and his ability to take full advantage of it — is hard to rival.

This is a player who won The King of Fighters ‘98 at Canada Cup using only one hand, and won Sailor Moon S at the same event over yours truly — resetting the bracket on me after I put him into Losers Bracket in top 8 — after first playing the game two days before the event.

The Previous Fuudo Issue Rears Its Head Again

But one of the issues I have with Xiao Hai is the fact that he hasn’t taken a tournament of note — in any game, even — since 2016 at SoCal Regionals. Yeah, his wins at Canada Cup are great, but outside of Sailor Moon, his competition was overall outclassed.

But given his renewed focus in Street Fighter V, you would think that he would win something at some point. His year started out with losses at Ranking Events, and ended with him several times being on the cusp of a win at Premier Events. But losses at CEO, Canada Cup, and SoCal Regionals makes you question him. CEO saw him as runner-up coming from Winners Bracket, and the latter two saw him coming out of Losers Bracket, with only one of them creating a reset bracket.

A Glint of Hope

One thing that could truly make people think Xiao Hai has a shot is his development since his worst losses. At CEO, he lost in Grand Finals twice to Fujimura, only to finally beat him at Canada Cup. He also struggled against Justin Wong at the same event, only to re-adjust and beat him handily in the runback.

While he couldn’t topple Tokido’s reign of terror, he was able to keep it down to the last game, last round of a reset bracket. And given that I’ve said that you learn more after a narrow loss than a close victory, this could be a great learning experience for Xiao Hai to topple some of his toughest bracket mates.

The Casual Problem

One thing noted about Xiao Hai is he refuses to sandbag. He only seems to know one gear. So while he is playing casual matches against people, he unleashes the full brunt of his power, given them an open book to read against him.

Case in point: Problem X. During DreamHack Montréal, he played a long set with him after top 16 was determined, where they both used the exact characters they would later use in the top 8 against each other. While Xiao Hai did well in the casual set, Problem X obliterated him in tournament. Problem X later commented that the set they played the day before helped him see what he could exploit to beat Xiao Hai. So, this becomes a major problem in your training if you don’t hold anything back.

Final Thoughts

Xiao Hai’s focused, but it could take a miracle to pull it off. He hasn’t been clutching out tournaments that he needs to, and people are starting to figure out how to play against him. He still struggles against the likes of NuckleDu, and the field only gets tougher as he has to spent the bulk of his time playing theory fighter by himself.

While he could easily make top 16, he needs to have some new things figured out in his vacuum of training mode before he heads to Vegas.

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CAPCOM CUP 2018 ANALYSIS SERIES

• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Tokido finally hoist the cup?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will MenaRD claim the throne once again?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is the third time the charm for Problem X?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: How Sako made me eat my words in two tournament wins
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Fujimura take the title in his third shot at the cup?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is Fuudo more poised this year than last?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Justin Wong finally make top 8?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: How will NuckleDu reclaim his lost throne?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Oil King cut his opponents as short as his shorts?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will NL capitalize on his stellar 2018?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Daigo Umehara finally scale the one height he has yet to reach?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Has Luffy prepared enough to make a serious run this year?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Has Haitani Improved Enough?

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Haitani has thrice found his way into Capcom Cup since the dawn of Street Fighter V. While his Necalli has always been the horse he rode into the fray, many found the character as much a liability as a strength for the player, and as such, Haitani’s runs were never too deep.

This year will see him fully focused on a brand new main in Akuma. But will that new main translate into improved performance?

The Main Problem

Let’s face it, Necalli quickly dropped in the tier lists as time went on. In a game where rampant pressure reigned supreme, a character who had stubby normals combined with iffy spacing tools definitely was definitely found to be lacking.

This caused Necalli to see problems within the meta, and caused players such as GamerBee and Haitani both to struggle within the deeper phases of brackets. Both players would soon find their way to greener pastures… with Haitani, this translated into a shift to Akuma.

While his pick of Necalli made sense based off his old Street Fighter III main of Makoto, his willingness to shift to a character with huge amounts of burst damage and mixup potential made perfect sense if he was interested in making a serious go on the circuit this year. And this change to Akuma has caused his results to be far more consistent.

The Remaining Problems

While his results have been more consistent, his remaining problem is one I also found with Luffy, but in a different angle. While he has done well in making top 8s, and even winning a CPT Premier event, it may not be enough evidence to claim he has gotten to the point where he can take down the toughest bracket in the world.

While I would definitely call the EU Regional Finals bracket the weakest Premier bracket on the circuit this year, the Latin American Regional Finals bracket may be the second weakest. This is not to knock the Latin American region — which I view as increasingly strong — the players there are overall not accustomed to playing against the best players in the world; even Europe has more experience on this front. So when you take down a Premier with your most fierce opponent being Mago, it calls into question how your chances fare in a far more stacked bracket.

Mago has been consistent as a player for a long time, but has been at the lowest echelon of top players, and hasn’t won a single event since August 2016, even a ranking event. So when this is your top competition, it becomes easier for you to capitalize and take a title.

But when it comes down to playing against everyone else in the hunt for the title, he has fared worse. Given this was his only tournament win, and only two other times was he able to breach the top 4, this is a major concern for him.

Final Thoughts

It sounds very easy to dismiss Haitani. He’s still a formidable opponent that no one should sleep on. However, his Akuma play isn’t particularly remarkable — what he’s doing, Tokido is doing better — and his results haven’t been stellar enough to call him a major threat.

While Bonchan hasn’t posted a win on the year, he has done historically better in stronger fields this season, and definitely has strong characters to overtake Haitani’s Akuma with. While it’ll be a hard guess either way, don’t be surprised if Haitani is fighting from Losers Bracket right out of the gate.

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CAPCOM CUP 2018 ANALYSIS SERIES

• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Tokido finally hoist the cup?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will MenaRD claim the throne once again?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is the third time the charm for Problem X?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: How Sako made me eat my words in two tournament wins
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Fujimura take the title in his third shot at the cup?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is Fuudo more poised this year than last?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Justin Wong finally make top 8?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: How will NuckleDu reclaim his lost throne?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Oil King cut his opponents as short as his shorts?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will NL capitalize on his stellar 2018?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Daigo Umehara finally scale the one height he has yet to reach?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Has Luffy prepared enough to make a serious run this year?

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Luffy’s name is always on the tip of everyone’s tongue on the Capcom Pro Tour. The 2014 Evo champion is always a threat not only to make the Capcom Cup finals, but also to hit top 8. The problem is, he has yet to capitalize on it and actually do so. Has he found the inner fortitude this year to do so?

Never Giving Mika Up

Over the course of the last couple of years, few people have stuck wholeheartedly with R. Mika. NuckleDu had never spent his entire time playing the character — first starting with Nash, then moving to his mixture of Guile and Mika. Fuudo had long been a bastion of character loyalty, before 2018 suddenly found him using Birdie, at times.

Luffy may be one of only a few players left that remained loyal to his initial character of choice. While MoJoe and ElChakotay have been flirting with the higher levels of competitive play with the character for a while now, Luffy truly is the highest echelon player who relies solely on R. Mika as his weapon of choice. This type of reliance requires him to be fully focused on finding every flaw and strength, and adjusting his playstyle to hide those character weaknesses that other people can just drop by switching.

While counter-picking has become the rule and not the exception, it’s refreshing to see someone stick to their guns so long.

A Binder Full of Results

One thing Luffy has been well-known for through the years is his ability to always be earning points. There is hardly a weekend where Luffy hasn’t made it far enough in a bracket to make points. Eight top 8s speaks in and of itself, with two of these being a Ranking and a Premier win.

But for anyone that had doubts that Luffy could compete on a global stage anymore, he proved he could emphatically with a stunning fifth place performance at Evo 2018. Where he had not reprised his top 8 role at the tournament since his win in 2014, he finally capitalized and found himself in the thick of it once more, stopping short a streaking THE COOL KID93 before falling short to the eventual runner-up — and unmistakably best player in the world — Tokido.

The Travel Problem, Part III

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it every time I’ve talked about Luffy. His biggest problem has been his lack of travel. Guess what? A year hasn’t changed the same issue that’s been discussed about him since 2016.

While focusing on Europe has secured his slot in Capcom Cup, it does not prepare him for Capcom Cup. I’ve routinely said that Europe is one of (if not the) overall weakest regions for Street Fighter, and while there are great players in Europe, that has not changed in one year. Problem X has rectified this issue by going out through the course of 2018, and what a difference that has made in his play. One would think that Luffy would’ve followed suit. But alas, we see Luffy mostly stationary.

When he has traveled, he has had far less prominent results than his British counterpart. Outside of Evo, he placed in the top 24 at Combo Breaker and outside of top 32 at CEO. While his Evo win is impressive, Luffy needs to be able to achieve more where the biggest international presence lies, and he fails to.

Even his premier win at EU Regional Finals is mired by the fact that there hardly any international presence in the top 32. In fact, the only Capcom Cup qualified player who made the top 8 with him was Big Bird — in the top 32, only Phenom, Problem X, and Angry Bird added their names to the list — all EU regional players. This was a bracket Asian or North American representation could have blasted through, meaning the field of high-echelon players were sparse.

Final Thoughts

This all means exactly what I said it meant last year. Luffy is a strong player, but most of the time he is unable to stretch himself outside of his comfort zone to pull off monumental wins. Europe is his comfort zone, and he is more than confident and beating up Europe’s best — even the highly touted Problem X, due to his familiarity with him.

Again, Luffy is about to be dumped into a shark tank filled with Asian, North American, and Latin American players who are familiar with him– either by playing him, or by seeing his videos. He is far less familiar with them, outside of videos. He clearly hasn’t prepared by either playing them outright, or fully preparing for everything they can throw at them.

So sadly, I feel like expecting him to make top 8 — let alone win — is foolhardy. If he’s ever going to make a serious go at taking it all once more, it is imperative that 2019 becomes the wake-up call to start traveling.

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CAPCOM CUP 2018 ANALYSIS SERIES

• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Tokido finally hoist the cup?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will MenaRD claim the throne once again?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is the third time the charm for Problem X?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: How Sako made me eat my words in two tournament wins
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Fujimura take the title in his third shot at the cup?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is Fuudo more poised this year than last?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Justin Wong finally make top 8?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: How will NuckleDu reclaim his lost throne?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Oil King cut his opponents as short as his shorts?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will NL capitalize on his stellar 2018?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Daigo Umehara finally scale the one height he has yet to reach?

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The fact that Hx.Twitch.CYG BST|Daigo Umehara has found himself in the thick of Capcom Cup once more comes as no shock to anybody. The legendary player who has etched his name in to countless prestigious top 8s and championships has yet to miss a Capcom Cup since 2014 when the field was extended past eight players, and was also one of the invites to the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary event, which was the predecessor to Capcom Cup.

Suffice it to say, Daigo has done nearly everything. In fact, the one thing he hasn’t done is the one thing he and (potentially) 28 others have yet to do: win Capcom Cup.

No Need for Talk

Daigo doesn’t spend his time talking about his gameplay too much. He lets his play speak for itself. In fact, the typical fashion in which his play is analyzed is through an outside observer. But his gameplay warrants far more words than this article can contain.

Having switched to Guile last year after seeing Ryu’s stock plummet in the tier list, he has continued to focus his efforts on the character. He has since become one of the most devastating players of the character, and only continues to become increasingly efficient in dealing with the majority of situations in the game.

Having also switched to primarily using V-Trigger II in Season 3 — as opposed to NuckleDu, who still primarily relies on V-Trigger I — he has shown that he has taken a slow but calculated approach to the character as opposed to the aggression that NuckleDu typically exhibits. He’s more apt to wait for something to punish, or anticipate and counter. He is more interested in forcing people into making mistakes, and his V-Trigger usage makes it even more punishing when that happens.

Let’s Do This

Regardless of his play, you must be able to do this consistently within tournament to be able to consider yourself a true threat to the title. And he has been rather consistent in 2018. Not only has he done so, but he started off 2018 with a large exclamation point, finishing in third at Evo Japan — having only lost to HumanBomb and Infiltration.

But to look at the CPT schedule and see what he has done while focusing only on Premier events — the only person in the top 10 of points to have done so — is nothing short of phenomenal. When you have to perform your best against the largest and most stacked fields in the world, and you are able to do so, it shows your talent.

Had he put any sort of emphasis on Ranking events in 2018, we would probably be discussing multiple wins across a handful of tournaments. However, his four top 8s and eight top 16 placements speak for themselves. In a field full of killers, Daigo’s name is always near the top of the list — and sometimes at the very top, as evidenced in his win at VS Fighting 2018 in England.

The Loss Column

But while even hitting top 16 at Evo is no easy feat, for Daigo that may not be enough to really stake his claim. The problem may not be as much his placement — as several other strong players hit that placement — but his losses.

Yes, North America cheered like crazy when THE COOL KID93 beat him in top 32. But this was a result that can’t bode well for Daigo. This is especially true when you have to factor in that he has potential three Abigail players waiting for him in Las Vegas — all three whom are considered better overall than COOL KID. While this happened off stream, many who witnessed the match — myself included — could see an unsure Daigo trying to figure out how to escape the pressure being put on him by Abigail. This shows some severe issues in his approach with the match, and makes one question how much work he has put into it.

But that’s just the first of many issues, as you look at Caba having eliminated him just inside of top 16. While Caba’s lower ranking in the leaderboard can be explained by less travel this year, the fact that as one of the more consistent Guile players in the world, losing the mirror (as Caba also used Guile) is cause for concern. This is one of the more stable mirror matches in the entire game, so to struggle there makes you ask if there are uncertainties in Daigo’s play that desperately need to be addressed before he can go far in a Capcom Cup bracket, especially when there are two other Guile players guaranteed that could rear their ugly heads later in the bracket.

The Bracket Shakedown

And the biggest problem now for Daigo is that he does have one of those two characters standing in his way toward victory. Should the bracket fall in a certain way, his second round on winner’s side could very well put him up against StormKUBO, a formidable Abigail that is equally as oppressive as COOL KID, and has far more high-level match-up experience than him. He has amazingly (as far as I can find) managed to dance around him in the bracket. Even with Itabashi Zangief — who has switched to Abigail — the one time they faced off was at Evo Japan, where Itazan opted to use Zangief instead.

So with the dearth of visual footage of Daigo squaring off against Abigail, it will truly be interesting to see how much preparation he has made for that match-up. Given that StormKUBO will be facing NL — whom has had a difficult track record against the character as well — it’s a reasonable chance he and Daigo could very well be the second round match. And this, for me, at least, will be a do-or-die point for Daigo.

Final Thoughts

There are so many players that Daigo has struggled with, and they’re all in this bracket — outside of a few outliers, one of whom who could still actually find their way in via LCQ. Whether they’re characters or players, Daigo has some holes he has to plug up to actually take all of this.

Undoubtedly Daigo is likely at home trying to plug up as many as possible in time for a serious run at the title — but will that make the road to the Cup possible for him? Time will tell.

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CAPCOM CUP 2018 ANALYSIS SERIES

• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Tokido finally hoist the cup?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will MenaRD claim the throne once again?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is the third time the charm for Problem X?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: How Sako made me eat my words in two tournament wins
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Fujimura take the title in his third shot at the cup?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is Fuudo more poised this year than last?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Justin Wong finally make top 8?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: How will NuckleDu reclaim his lost throne?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Oil King cut his opponents as short as his shorts?
• Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will NL capitalize on his stellar 2018?

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