Red Bull started their big energy drink redemption rollout last month; if the promotion is available in your region, you should be seeing the special Street Fighter V Red Bull cans on store shelves in your neighborhood. The codes printed on the tabs of these cans are redeemable online for exclusive costumes that can be used in the Street Fighter V game itself — at least on the PlayStation 4 version, anyway.
There are sixteen available outfits; they are Red Bull colored/branded variants of either the default, Story, or Battle Costume for the respective character. (The characters that you can unlock outfits for are Zangief, Chun-Li, Nash, M. Bison, Vega, R. Mika, Rashid, Karin, Cammy, Balrog, Ken, Kolin, Ryu, Laura, Guile, and Akuma.)
If you want a closer look at them in motion, you can see them in all their Red Bullish glory in this promotional trailer!
Raiden, Big Bear, NUMBAH WAN. Whatever you want to call him, this poison spewing, drop-kicking wrestler from the Fatal Fury series shows off ample amounts of both techniques in the latest combo video from King of Fighters YouTuber Persona Entertainment.
Almost every one of these combos kill, a few of them stun, and all of them test your button dexterity with Raiden’s charged dropkicks. Don’t miss the 100% combo that intentionally whiffs a command grab super mid juggle- in true heel fashion, Raiden can showboat his way to a brutal, flashy victory.
Latin America has seen a surge in presence at international Street Fighter events. While they have sent at least one entrant to Capcom Cup every year since 2014, this year sees them sending three. RISE Nation’s Saul “MenaRD” Segundo has quickly risen in the ranks with his brutal Birdie play, to make him one of two entrants from Latin America to get in on points.
Last year’s Dominican representative DR Ray shocked the world by putting Tokido into losers bracket in the first round of play. Will MenaRD continue the trend this year?
YOLO
When I talked to fellow Birdie main ROF in March of last year about approaching the game with Birdie, he talked about how many risks you must take in order to succeed with the character. While he was talking about his own play, he ultimately also described Segundo’s play as well. MenaRD is known to take risks, utilizing EX reversals in a way that can rattle his opponents. This is not an easy feat. It’s expected that players will use EX reversals to escape pressure. MenaRD, knowing how difficult the path of Birdie can be, has calculated when to take those risks with aplomb.
Using some heavy gambles, including well-timed Dolphin Dives, has made him very hard to read for many players, leaving them only trying to apply the pressure to prevent him from being able to play his game. But given that he maintains composure even under pressure, preventing Segundo from playing his game is no easy feat.
Go for the W
MenaRD holds the second-most wins on the Latin circuit by a wide margin. While Brolynho may have had a chokehold on the region, MenaRD was not far behind, usually taking events that Brolynho failed to win. Out of ten events he played, he was able to reach top 8 in six, and win twice.
Further, while I may have chided Brolynho for his lack of travel outside of the region, Segundo did exactly that, and showed what he could do facing the best in the world. With several top 8 finishes in North America, including fourth at Brooklyn Beatdown, he has shown that he has the chops to take out the big names.
Laundry List of Victims
If we’re looking at some of the people MenaRD needs to face down to win this event, he certainly has a few names to boast about beating. At Brooklyn Beatdown, he bested Smug and Haitani. At SoCal Regionals, he beat Verloren and Punk. At CEO he bested Daigo Umehara. At Combo Breaker, he was able to beat Verloren yet again, as well as Momochi.
This is a confident Latin American player, that has the potential to literally beat any top player he comes across. He has been a demon to a couple of these players I’ve listed off, so the sky is the limit.
Final Thoughts
I feel like MenaRD is the Latin region’s best hope at doing well, but I hesitate at giving him the top slot this year. His Birdie can be insanely dangerous, but it can also pose dangers to himself, as the character does carry inherent risks. When his risks pay off, he excels. When they don’t, you tend to shrug him off as incapable of closing it out at the higher ranks.
With Birdie, every tournament is a crap shoot, and you have players specifically training characters to beat characters like Birdie, as evidenced by Mago’s pick of Rashid at OHN. He has a tough road to go down — but if anyone can do it, MenaRD is the man to walk it.
Rivalries are one of the things that bring an extra layer of hype to competitive fighting games. The personal stakes that they add makes matches between players much more meaningful. One such rivalry is the focus of this new Mortal Kombat documentary, by piemaster.
The documentary, called “Babality” focuses on the rivalry between the Valley Stream Monsters and the Midwest back in Mortal Kombat 9. This rivalry was one of the first major rivalries for that game, and eventually led to a grudge match back in 2011. All these, and more, are the focus of the video below.
Bryant “Smug” Huggins wasn’t seen much last year on the CPT. While the first half of the season saw him focus on his studies, the latter half saw him adjusting to a new character, in Balrog. The Dudley main in Street Fighter IV was merely biding his time.
This year saw RISE|Smug bloom into one of the strongest players in North America, earning him a place in the Capcom Cup 2017. Will the mayor of Duff City upgrade his status to president of Duff Nation…?
Duff
While it could be assumed that any solid Balrog player on the CPT this year would ascribe their success to the buffs the character received in Season 2, this would be doing a disservice to Smug. If you look back on his success in Street Fighter IV, Huggins was known for dealing out massive amounts of damage and disrespect with his mix-up-heavy Dudley. In that game, Balrog was far more linear a character. Come Street Fighter V, those same traits that made Smug strong with Dudley allowed him to shine with this iteration of Balrog.
His mix-up game has always been his biggest asset, and being able to deal massive amounts of damage from any given touch makes Smug a beast. Further, Smug is one of the best players at reading player tendencies on the circuit. While he will often be seen doing seemingly-random EX uppercuts and dash punches, these moves are often calculated on the belief that his opponent will be pushing buttons. He’s right more often than he is wrong.
More Duffs
Since the start of the year, he has taken his beatdowns on the road, and it has proven profitable for Huggins. Having entered 13 tournaments solely in North America, he has eight top 8s and one win to his name on the CPT this year. When you also factor in top 8 appearances at Brooklyn Beatdown, Northern Arena Knockout, and E3, as well as just narrowly missing the cut at ELEAGUE, Smug has had a banner year.
Less Duffs
One of the biggest challenges Smug faces is his own character. It’s argued across the world that Balrog is one of the strongest characters in the game, if not the absolute best. Much like Sagat in Vanilla SFIV — or Yun in SFIVAE — when you are the best, people are dissecting their personal match-ups against that character to learn how to beat them. In Vanilla SFIV, you never really saw a Sagat win a major, and in Arcade Edition, only a scant few Yuns made that ascent. This is because despite tier lists undisputedly ranking them tops, the true competitors will learn to exploit everything there is to exploit about the character.
To date, there is only one Balrog in Capcom Cup — although the Last Chance Qualifier could change that. But make no mistake: the world is ready for Smug, as he is widely accepted as the best exponent of Street Fighter V’s best character.
That’s why we’ve seen him struggle with the likes of Phenom, MenaRD, and Fuudo. While he has a habit of beating top players like Daigo Umehara, there are still demons left in the bracket that will make it tough for him to progress.
Final Duffs
Smug has the potential to make it to top 8 — even win it all if he pulls out all the stops. There’s still a swath of Japanese players that struggle against Balrog, and some of them reside in the Capcom Cup bracket.
The problem is the Western players are overall ready for him. He’s got a tough hill to climb to put himself in the position to take it all.
He’s already covered the Master of the Fist in Tekken 7, now desk has set his sights on King of Fear and notorious bad dad, Geese Howard. With Geese having the capability for big damage, as well as flashy extensions through the use of his Max Mode, desk has put together some impressive combos for this showcase.
As with anything made by desk, expect some impressive editing work as Geese clobbers any challengers that dares oppose him. While Geese’s bizarre adventure has him short-hopping between different stages, desk makes sure to finish the video back at the Howard Estate — with a 100% damage combo from the big man himself. If you’re looking for Estate-specific combos, take a look at our special tech round-up, dedicated to the eye-watering strings you can perform on this special stage.
He’s already covered the Master of the Fist in Tekken 7, now desk has set his sights on King of Fear and notorious bad dad, Geese Howard. With Geese having the capability for big damage, as well as flashy extensions through the use of his Max Mode, desk has put together some impressive combos for this showcase.
As with anything made by desk, expect some impressive editing work as Geese clobbers any challengers that dares oppose him. While Geese’s bizarre adventure has him short-hopping between different stages, desk makes sure to finish the video back at the Howard Estate — with a 100% damage combo from the big man himself. If you’re looking for Estate-specific combos, take a look at our special tech round-up, dedicated to the eye-watering strings you can perform on this special stage.
When the road to top 8 closed at Evo 2017, one name on the list of players left most people confused. Naoki “Moke” Nakayama shocked the world in his ascent to top 8 in his very first international event, and at the biggest one of all, at that. He continued to wow until he bowed out in fifth place from a loss to Itabashi Zangief.
After a rapid rise in the ranks at Evo, he continued to mesmerize, quickly amassing enough points to find himself in Capcom Cup 2017 in his first year of competitive play. Will he be the story of the year in taking it all?
The Funnel Cloud
Moke is one of the few players I see use Rashid’s entire repertoire well. While Oil King is strong in the neutral and Gachikun’s aggression rattles players, Moke is about that and more. He is able to play a strong zoning game, while also pushing players further into desperation with his aggression. He also takes some pages from Xiao Hai’s book by baiting people to make desperate attempts to escape the corner and then punishing, either by taking a step back to get a Spinning Mixer, or by going far enough away to land a V-Trigger into a full combo.
Further, Rashid players are so used to applying pressure that they have difficulties escaping it themselves. Moke is again the exception, utilizing a mixture of V-Reversal and EX Spinning Mixer to escape pressure. Many Rashids are afraid of using V-Reversal based on the mix-up potential of V-Trigger, but Moke has been smart in utilizing both tools to keep himself alive.
Short Season
Moke was able to make Capcom Cup on an abbreviated season. While we talk about his international debut at Evo, his first collection of points came from an online event in June. From then on, he was collecting points like it was going out of style. In the second half of the year — from Evo on — he made five top 8s out of 10 tournaments, including a win at OzHadou Nationals in Australia.
This burst of results not only netted him a sponsor, but enough points to easily secure himself Capcom Cup. He was also able to turn some heads with some wins against high profile players, including MOV at Evo 2017, and others he might face Capcom Cup this year.
After Evo
After Evo however, he was only able to replicate his success in a Premier only once: with a fourth place at D3 in Chengdu, China. While he was able to take out Capcom Cup-qualified players such as Momochi, GO1 and Verloren on the way to that, he was ultimately sent home by Yukadon and Fuudo, both players ranked within the top 10 of the season.
Beyond that, his success was relegated to ranking events. In Premiers, he was having great difficulties in making it happen. The more stacked the event, such as Japan Cup, the more he faltered — even losing to players not even in contention for Capcom Cup. While this may initially sound like he’s not as solid as his Evo finish may state, it stands to mention that some semblance of familiarity came into play. Being eliminated by all Japanese players shows that they just simply knew his tendencies: having started from playing online solely, players within the region were familiar with Moke.
By October, Moke was finding his stride. He did well at Canada Cup and nearly made top 8. However, he was eliminated by Justin Wong and 801 Strider, two players also qualified for Capcom Cup. While he may have discounted the explosiveness of Laura to give Strider the leg up, Justin is a player who would possibly have been the underdog against Moke. Yet, Moke clearly was found lacking in the match, making people question his ability to close it out on the bigger stages.
Final Thoughts
There is no way you can discredit Moke’s sudden rise: he’s earned it. However, in his first year of international play, he’s definitely going to — and has — hit some speed bumps.
His play against the best of the best is questionable right now, and can show streakiness that possibly alludes to a pattern they’re catching on to with his play. He’ll learn how to break through this at some point. But right now, let’s just say he’ll be fortunate to get two wins before bowing out in this kind of competition.
Up until this point in Tekken 7, the most feared stage for combo manipulation in tournaments was arguably the Forgotten Realm. Its combination of multiple floor break opportunities into wall combos meant that, versus a knowledgeable opponent, every conversion hurt more then they normally could.
This is assuming, of course, that there were still floor breaks in play: after a balance patch in the arcade, only one floor break was allowed per combo. It also meant that some characters were just blatantly better and pumping out absurd damage on that stage then others, perhaps most notably King and Lili.
After the most recent patch, though, some tournament players may breathe a sigh of relief when they get Forgotten Realms. The alternative is that they could have ended up on the dreaded Howard Estate!
Geese Howard’s home stage has three breakable walls, all within a deliberately-placed close proximity of each other, for maximum carnage.
Hwoarang, Asuka, Law, and Xiaoyu Howard Estate combos from cutcc.
And if that weren’t enough, there’s a balcony break looming just beyond the Estate’s breakable walls!
Kazumi, Shaheen, Lili, Hwoarang, Xiaoyu, Asuka, Law, Bryan, Leo, Paul combos by hfblade.
In a lot of these early combos, a key to consistently high damage seems to be saving your Screw Attack for after the last wall break. Since juggle scaling is usually quite high by this point, this will help you figure out a proper tool to reach the balcony.
Considering the short amount of time the Howard Estate has been out and the wide range of characters already capable of exploiting its stage layout, it’s easy to see that jockeying for wall positioning early on will be a big part of most player’s strategies on this stage.
After nearly a year of absolutely fierce competition, the weekend of Capcom Cup 2017 is finally almost upon us. For three action-packed days, we’ll be able to witness the 32 strongest Street Fighter V players in the world today battle it out in a double-elimination tournament to crown a new Street Fighter V World Champion.
Capcom’s Esports Social Media Manager, Michael Martin, posted on the PlayStation Blog outlining all the key details that fans, attendees, and competitors will need to know to get in on all of the action this weekend in Anaheim, California.
Beginning on Friday, December 8th, the Last Chance Qualifier will be held. This open tournament will decided the final spot in the Capcom Cup bracket, as the victor will enter as the 32nd seed, and will face off with the top seed, Panda Global’s Punk, in the opening round. If you’ll be heading out to California and would like to take your shot, registration for the open tournament will be $40 on-site, but you’d better be quick before the 256-player cap is reached (101 spots remain open, as of this writing).
Admission is free to spectators for the first two days at the Anaheim Hilton Hotel, but a PlayStation Experience badge will be required for admission into the Sunday finals at the Anaheim Convention Center. The festivities will run from 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM PT on Friday and Saturday, before the finals day lasts from 2:00 PM – 8:00 PM PT.
The funds from the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour DLC have been tallied up, and will be adding over $120,000 to the base $250,000 prize pool, allowing these World Warriors to compete for over $370,000, and the chance to have their name permanently engraved on the Capcom Cup trophy — which remains on display at the Capcom USA offices.
If you can’t be there in person, you can still enjoy all three days of the action, including some “special announcements,” at twitch.tv/capcomfighters. You can see the official trailer for Capcom Cup 2017 below, and don’t forget to check out our ongoing Capcom Cup Player Analysis seriesfor more info on the competitors, as well as the planned brackets.
To date, there is only one Balrog in Capcom Cup — although the Last Chance Qualifier could change that. But make no mistake: the world is ready for Smug, as he is widely accepted as the best exponent of Street Fighter V’s best character.
