Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not reflect Shoryuken.com as a whole.
This is one of the more polarizing pieces I will write in the series. Everyone has their own side to Daigo Umehara, and talking about where he is in the game, in relation to everyone else, tends to cause a lot of arguments.
A lot of people will say Daigo is irrelevant in the scene today. Others will say he is still a threat. Some think he is too washed-up to play Street Fighter V properly. His supporters will still say that he is just learning at a different rate. Many argue that he can’t win anymore. There are those will say that he will become a threat very soon. A lot of people will still say he’s surpassed merely winning, and chooses not to.
It’s difficult to objectively analyze a player like Daigo, since he is so wrapped up in mystique and long-term success.
But how do I feel about Daigo’s chances?
Greatest Player Ever
Simply put, Daigo will go down as the greatest fighting game player ever. It doesn’t matter what players like Infiltration do, Daigo will always reign as the Wayne Gretzky of the FGC. There has not been a man who has battled across the plethora of fighting games he has played, and found championships in nearly all of them.
If you want a list of credentials, this man has them by the fistful. He has won top honors in over 14 games, including the likes of Vampire Savior, Capcom vs. SNK, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Guilty Gear XX #Reload, Ultra Street Fighter IV, and the current flagship title of Street Fighter V. For those keeping score at home, he has major wins in 14 different titles. Many people haven’t even played that many fighting games in their lives.
The man has wandered from series to series, learning the mechanics, perfecting his strategy, and winning. He has already done so in Street Fighter V, and it would be foolish to discount the possibility of him doing so again.
He is Still Smart
If people start to discount Daigo, it is to their detriment. Umehara is a smart man who has dedicated his life to playing fighting games. He is an expert at reading situations, and can judge player tendencies better than anyone. People will often say that Daigo cannot win against the top players, but when he plays the highest-level players in Japan, he still wins and can trade matches back and forth with them. Based off spacial intelligence alone in the realm of fighting games, it’s very hard to top Daigo in his understanding of player psychology and mind games.
He Makes it Count When it Matters
Many will say Daigo cannot win anymore. That he was out of his prime after Evo 2010. A lot of people were saying that last year, too. And they said it about him going into Capcom Cup.
Then at Capcom Cup, he proved naysayers wrong by finishing second to Kazunoko. No, he didn’t win the whole thing, but there were a lot of dissenters saying that Umehara would be hard pressed to make top 8. It was a safe bet to make, given that he couldn’t do so at Evolution that same year in Ultra Street Fighter IV, but he went on to prove them wrong. Granted, he still finished within top 12 of Evolution in a veritable minefield, so his loss there is not the end of the world either.
Any doubts that people had about Daigo should immediately be quelled by his ability to show up and do what naysayers believe to be improbable in in whatever circumstance he faces. Further, many people were saying that Daigo would not win a major in Street Fighter V this year, which he has succeeded in doing. Daigo can still win. The world still knows this, even if they want to deny it.
Is He Still on Everyone’s Level?
With Street Fighter V, we know he can still win–but where is he winning, and against whom? At Lockdown, he defeated Ryan Hart in grand finals. At OzHadou Nationals, it was ZOWIE|GamerBee. At Esports Festival Hong Kong, HM|Eita. And at the European Regional Finals, he beat BX3.TP-Link|Phenom. So as of now, two of the four players he has bested in grand finals are on the roster at Capcom Cup. Is this a good thing? This can actually be a toss up, since he has won to players equally who have qualified and not.
But here’s the thing, the players he’s bested in grand finals have run it back. Phenom had the pleasure of doing so in the losers bracket at Canada Cup. Ryan Hart did so at EGX. Daigo can be figured out. And there are players doing it.
Daigo is Human
There was always this worldwide belief that Daigo was beyond human when it comes to Street Fighter. The West had this massive skill gap that put Daigo on a pedestal that they only dreamed of reaching.
The skill gap is not so wide anymore. People started seeing the humanity of Daigo at Season’s Beatings in 2010, when Marn began reading his tendencies with Ryu and punishing them. And the gap has only further become smaller. Daigo is no longer a god of the game, but a mortal like everyone else on the circuit. The name Daigo no longer illicits the same fear and intimidation that it used to. People are more prepared and confident in playing him. It does not mean that they will always beat him, but they are more capable of standing toe-to-toe with him because the fear of his reputation alone has worn off.
His Learning Curve
Street Fighter V has done nothing to reinstall that fear of Daigo into the hearts of players. Daigo struggled early in the process of learning the game. He has not done much to show that he has gotten the game down perfectly. Whereas Daigo is usually the bastion of creative, gutsy plays, he is playing a more textbook approach to his Ryu this time around. He has relied on footsies, and capitalizing on big mistakes to get to wins. This is not a bad thing in itself. But when you are trying to play at the highest level, and you have a Ryu like Tokido to compare yourself to, your style is not always going to get the job done.
Also noticeably absent are his keen hard reads in situations. If you have watched videos of his glory days in Super Turbo, or even Street Fighter IV, Daigo excelled at making hard reads against players that work. This is a man so proficient at landing random dragon punches that they became known as Ume-Shoryukens. This is not what he is doing in this game, and he is getting eaten alive for it. When Phenom can go to Canada Cup and catch Daigo with four straight command grabs to put him into stun without Daigo not reading the situation correctly, something is just simply not right in the Daigo camp.
It is not for lack of practice or effort. It just seems like Daigo is not learning this game on the same pace that everyone else is. He was dominant in Street Fighter IV at the start, but how much longer did Japan have it before the west? Further, he was one of few Japanese players traveling at the time he was winning, so who knows if Daigo was even the best in Japan’s early Street Fighter IV era? It could just be that Umehara, like he mentions in his book, is truly a slow learner, and we’re only now coming to grips with that truth.
Final Thoughts
Daigo is so hard to judge right now. In December, he has the ability to gas it up to high octane, or just dial it in. I just simply don’t know.
I would not count him out of exceeding expectations, but my gut instinct says that he makes top 8, and finishes in 7th place. He has the ability to do it, but I just don’t think with the players he’s going up against being well ahead in the metagame, that he will be able to use a slow-and steady-style to make it to the top.
