ESL's first offline Street Fighter V event, The Brooklyn Beatdown, will play out on October 1-2 in the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn, New York. A prize pool of $75,000 has led to one of the most stacked tournament brackets outside of the Capcom Pro Tour.
The top 16 current players in the CPT overall standings (based on points), with the exception of Chris Tatarian and Bruce "Gamerbee" Hsiang, will be in attendance. There will be heavyweights from North America to Asia; it will be a massive feat to just exit the pools without too many battle scars. That said, here are the favorites.
The strongest region: Asia
The Brooklyn Beatdown will be Asia's tournament to lose as Japan will arrive in force with some of the country's best. The list reads like a who's who in fighting games:
Keita "Fuudo" Ai (third, overall standings)
Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi (fourth, overall standings)
Daigo "The Beast" Umehara (sixth, overall standings)
Yusuke "Momochi" Momochi (13th, overall standings)
Tatsuya "Haitani" Haitaini (16th, overall standings)
Ryota "Kazunoko" Inoue (23rd, overall standings)
Hiromiki "Itabashi Zangief" Kumada (66th, overall standings)
And that's only Japan. The best from the list, with the chance to really contend for the tournament crown, are Fuudo, Tokido, Kazunoko, and Haitani. These four players perform at a consistently high level and place accordingly because of it.
In addition, the world's number one player, Lee "Infiltration" Seon-woo, will return to the tournament scene as the automatic favorite to take it all down. Infiltration, the Evolution Fighting Game Championships' winner, may not come with recent momentum but it hardly matters with the best player in the game. Just like Infiltration, Kun "Xian" Ho will represent his country as its sole player. His trek to prove every tier list wrong with his world-class F.A.N.G may not come a breakthrough tournament victory just yet, but New York may prove to be the best place to do so. Xian is at his best when the stakes are highest.
And lastly, there will be elite Chinese representation courtesy of Johnny "HumanBomb" Cheng and Zhuojun "Xiao Hai" Zeng. Both players are absolutely capable of putting up a big-time performance.
Best from the west
While most of the attention will be on the Asian players, the west will provide plenty of threats of its own. There's plenty of narrative and motivation for the western players to truly do well including country pride and catching up to the rest of the world. The best hopes will lie on the shoulders of Justin Wong, Julio Fuentes, Arman "Phenom" Hanjani, Du "NuckleDu" Dang, and Ryan "FilipinoChamp" Ramirez. That said, the top placers from this list will be NuckleDu, Justin Wong, and Phenom.
It will be a massive undertaking to take home the title of champion from The Brooklyn Beatdown, but it should provide for plenty of entertainment. The prediction here is an Infiltration and Kazunoko final. Without the road block of Gamerbee, this is Kazunoko's chance to truly stamp his mark in Street Fighter V.