Every Capcom Pro Tour event is important; that’s what a $500,000 prize pool will do. Even beyond picking up guaranteed slots at Capcom Cup, gaining points by placing favorably in Ultra Street Fighter IV tournaments throughout the early months means an easier end-of-year; sure, prize money will always be on the line at these individual events, but once players have a pile of points stowed away, their chance of making it to the final showdown in San Francisco greatly increases.
But we’re well beyond the beginning of the year; in fact, just over a month separates us from what could prove to be one of the most exciting Ultra Street Fighter IV tournaments to date–appropriately sending the game off before the era of Street Fighter V can fully begin. It’s crunch time. In this final month, Capcom Cup hopefuls who’ve yet to make the cut need to perform well at the Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals, DreamHack, and/or Canada Cup in order to make sure their personal tours aren’t cut short.
With players and viewers alike feeling the heat, it’s good to have actual numbers to work with to figure out just how much pressure we should all be feeling. Bavo Bruylandt, who many of you may recognize as the man behind Shoryuken’s player ranking system, recently published a post on Reddit to address this issue. As you might expect, this data comes from his dedicated tracker, which was then consolidated with a list of top players known to be attending Canada Cup created by r/Kappa’s fgcdrmike.
The list in question includes players that have already directly qualified for the Capcom Cup and are simply seeking better seeding: Evil Geniuses’ Momochi, Bonchan of Redbull, Razer’s Fuudo and Xian, GamerBee of AVerMedia, Mad Catz’ Mago, and, last but not least, free agent Kazunoko. Any of these titans making it into the top eight would come as little surprise, and by going so far as to take first place–and, perhaps, additional spots following that–these players could potentially feed Canada Cup’s qualifying spot to a lower-than-expected placement.
Next come those already qualified by points: Redbull’s Snake Eyez, Justin Wong of Evil Geniuses, Razer’s Itabashi Zangief, 801 Strider of Winterfox, and YOMI’s Dieminion. As you’d expect, these players stand to shake things up quite a bit. In the event that one of them directly qualifies at Canada Cup, we’ll see a shift in the qualification range that will allow players to make it in from points alone. This is due in part to Team YP’s Valmaster, whose current point total of 148 would become the new number to beat in order to qualify. That total currently stands at 160, held by Gackt of Razer.
From there, we move on to the final two areas, which make up the bulk of the list. Players like Ricki Ortiz and K-Brad of Evil Geniuses, Team Spooky’s Sabin, MOV, and a handful of others need various amounts of points to gain entry to the finals; the best bet would, of course, be directly qualifying at Canada Cup, but gaining substantial points totals would work just as well in many cases.
Below them come those whose only hope to make Capcom Cup would be outright qualifying in Canada. This list includes the likes of Cast Blanka, Alex Valle of Level|Up Series, Canada Cup Gaming’s own Chi-Rithy and Air, and the ever popular Kitasenju DJ, who will be representing r/Kappa.
These players each have their own following, and everyone likely has more than one favorite from the list of hopefuls; with so many big names it’s nearly impossible to choose only one to cheer on. So, who will you be rooting for this weekend? Feel free to let us know in the comments.
Canada Cup takes place this weekend from October 30 to November 1. Preliminary brackets can be found through Challonge, and the full list of Capcom Pro Tour point totals are available on our ranking page.
Source: Bavo Bruylandt
