This weekend is DreamHack Summer 2016 in Jönköping, Sweden and it's the next Global Premier Tournament on the Capcom Pro Tour. The list of expected players is a list of killers. There will be some of Europe's finest, such as Falcon Arena's Ryan Hart, Red Bull's Olivier "Luffy" Hay, and BX3's Arman "Phenom" Hanjani.
Joining them will be some of Japan's strongest fighters: Red Bull and Twitch's Daigo "The Beast" Umehara, Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi, Kenryo "Mago" Hayashi, Evil Genius' Yusuke "Momochi" Momochi, YouDeal Majestic Athletic's Tatsuya "Haitani" Haitani, and dark-horse candidate Hiromiki "Itabashi Zangief" Kumada. As for other representation, Singapore will be sending on of their strongest in Razer's Kun "Xian" Ho.
As with any large international tournament, the projected player pool will be chock-full of hopefuls and world-class fighters; DreamHack Summer is no exception.
The favorites
Two names should be on the top of the list for potential tournament winner -- Tokido and Momochi. Momochi's showing from Stunfest and Street Fighter Crash in South Korea is a perfect example of just how deadly he is as a player. From the end of Street Fighter 4's lifespan until now, Momochi proved that superior understanding of the game's mechanics, hard reads and unpredictable options could fluster even the greatest of opponents.
His set against Tokido from Stunfest was a prime example of how often Momochi is willing to risk everything to take down a round or confuse his enemy. Whether he woke up with a forward jump, low forward, or reversal uppercut, the man is incredibly hard to plan against.
On the other hand, Tokido should be regarded as the picture of Street Fighter V consistency. He has been on the cusp of winning a Premier Tournament multiple times, and this could be the one to finally break the drought. With Tokido, viewers expect an immaculate ground game, exploitation of the risk and reward system that comes in Street Fighter V, and maximization of resources. He realized early on that jumping in was met with little consequences and that using a critical art at any time was a positive effect because of the ease in meter-building. The player pool caught up to his advances, but Tokido's fundamentally sound play and overall world-class pressure game separated him from everyone.
How to win a Premier
Many of the common factors to winning a large tournament reside from the strengths of the DreamHack Summer favorites: understanding the game's mechanics, judgment of risk and reward, hard reads and unpredictable options, and superior fundamentals. Add it all together and a tournament winner could be created. The small factor of bracket luck may play a part as well, such as an opponent that caters to the player's overall style, but it will ultimately be the responsibility of the fighter.
It's not enough to just work on setups, execution, or play your local community to be the winner of a Premier Tournament, you need something extra. With Momochi, he crushed Stunfest because his pace of play was unmatched. The pressure he generated from Ken was a mix from his understanding of risk and reward when it came to wake-up options and unashamed jumping to his use of V-skill (Ken's run). He focused less on a ground-heavy approach or fireball game and flustered opponents with his unconditioned play. It's not enough to be fundamentally-solid; you need your share of hard reads and unpredictability.
The dark horses
Like any other Capcom Pro Tour event, there will be a number of players that will emerge into the top-8 with little expectation and shock the community. In DreamHack Summer, there are a few that may just take down the entire tournament with little fanfare before it. Itabashi Zangief will enter with one point. If hard reads and unconditioned play was a player, Itabashi Zangief embodies both those points. Whether it's a shameless use of one button to trap a player, constantly jumping, or command grabs at every opportunity, Itabashi Zangief may just run a train on the player pool.
Ryan Hart is Europe's standard of excellence. He also has a penchant for performing well on the grandest stages -- note his performance at Capcom Cup 2015. The factors are set for Hart to once again put on a show and represent his countrymen.
The last name that could do it all is Haitani. He was regarded as the best in Japan when the tournament season began, but his name was lost in the flurry of Tokido, Umehara, and Momochi. There's less pressure and expectation from his name and that could be exactly what he needed to jump onto his Premier victory.