Panda Global’s Victor “Punk” Woodley is a player that needs no introduction to fans of Street Fighter V. Since his 1st place victory at NEC 17 last December, the Karin player has proven to be an absolute force in the scene, taking home first place at events such as Winter Brawl XI, West Coast Warzone 6, Norcal Regionals 2017, DreamHack Austin 2017 — and of course, becoming the grand champion of the ELEAGUE Street Fighter V Invitational. Though he fell to Echo Fox’s Tokido in the grand finals of Evolution 2017, he quickly bounced back with a victory at DreamHack Atlanta 2017, and most recently, a 2nd place finish at Defend The North 2017, leaving him as the top-ranked player on both the Capcom Pro Tour global leaderboard and our own SRK world rankings. Many believe him to be the absolute best player of the game in the world today.
Following all of this great success, “Da God” recently released his current tier list for Season 2.5. While he has some of the usual suspects, like Balrog, Ibuki, Zangief, Necalli, and Akuma, placed at the very top, with his own character sitting as the 6th best, he has a unique candidate sitting at the very top of the class: Rashid of the Turbulent Wind.
Though the character has seen his fair share of success in the hands of players like ZOWIE|OilKing and Moke — who made top 8 at Evo this year — it’s perhaps a surprise to see one of the world’s strongest players declaring him the absolute best in the game’s current climate.
During a conversation with fellow Panda Global teammate, Raynel “RayRay” Hidalgo, Punk offered a better look at his reasoning for the character’s high placement. Dubbing him “mad cheap,” Punk feels that Rashid, “just does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and you can’t stop him from doing it,” but was quick to note that this is not a matchup problem, as he “always beats him.”
During the Season 2 balance changes, Rashid received improved hitboxes on his standing medium kick and standing heavy punch, increased damage on his Spinning Mixers and light and medium Eagle Spikes, as well as several improvements to his combo potential. You can see Punk’s full tier list, created using MMCafe, as well as his string of tweets about it, below. Abigail was left unranked, due to Punk’s lack of experience in the matchup, as of now.
Do you believe Punk is right in that we could see a Turbulent Wind blowing through the Capcom Pro Tour, or do you believe he has rated him a bit too high? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. For an alternate perspective, you can see Bonchan, Fuudo and Haitani’s Season 2.5 tier list here.
Sources: MMCafe; PunkDaGod (Twitter)
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