For years the Evolution Championship Series hosted in Las Vegas has been the be-all and end-all for professional fighting game players. To win one of the events at EVO was the equivalent of winning the Super Bowl -- the culmination of a year's work with a championship and a relatively large purse for a fighting game competition. That has all changed with Capcom's introduction of the Capcom Pro Tour, putting its newest game -- Street Fighter V -- at the forefront of fighting game esport titles. The winner of this weekend's world championship will walk away with $120,000, the largest prize ever awarded to a fighting game tournament winner.
Thirty-two prize fighters will descend on Southern California for the chance to become the lone champion and capture the $120,000 prize. After a year of regional tournaments across the world, the Pro Tour has reached its endpoint. By Saturday's end, one individual at the Anaheim Convention Center will not only have a fatter wallet, but the distinction of being known as the first world champion of SFV. Then on Sunday at 8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2 will broadcast the final rounds in a 90-minute show.
So what can we expect as we head into this year's Capcom Cup?
The South Korean Android
"Download complete," Lee "Infiltration" Seon-woo stated at EVO 2016 when he won the tournament in dominant fashion. Infiltration enters the field as the top seed and the heavy favorite to outsiders who watched EVO, but the android's circuitry hasn't been up to snuff in his past couple of tournaments. Infiltration soared through the first half of the year, ending in his grand television debut on ESPN2 at Evolution, but has had a difficult second half. He hasn't won a competition since the summer came to a close and failed to win in his homeland of South Korea, finishing a disappointing (for him) seventh at the Capcom Pro Tour Asia Regional Finals.
Was the Street Fighter legend simply biding his time until the World Finals, or is there cause for concern for a man who appeared superhuman at SFV's launch?
Mr. Consistent
Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi is the face of consistency. Whereas Infiltration has fallen behind since temperatures dropped, Tokido has continued his pace of placing in the top four of almost every tournament he entered. Strangely enough, the only Pro Tour event he failed to finish in the top four was at Evolution, where he was expected to have a climactic clash with Infiltration in the final but flamed out before the top eight. Don't expect that to happen again come the World Finals; if there was one player you could count on to make a deep run in the bracket, it would be "Murderface" Tokido himself. With two titles to his name already in 2016, a world championship would be the perfect hat trick for Japan's ace.
The American Dreams
Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid, rivals for almost a decade as esports clubs, bring the two Americans with the best chance of toppling the Asian contingent at the World Finals. Justin Wong is no stranger to championships and big events, and "Mr. Evil Geniuses" himself will be one of the main contenders to take home the world title in Anaheim this weekend. The NA Regional Finals was the best premier event of the year so far for Wong, as he came in fourth place and established himself as the third seed in the World Finals bracket.
For Team Liquid, Du "NuckleDu" Dang might be the hottest player momentum-wise coming into the tournament, having won the same NA Regional Finals tournament in which Wong finished fourth by taking out Tokido in the finals. After starting the year as a Nash player, NuckleDu grew his fighter pool by adding Guile and R.Mika, which helped him win two premier events leading into the grand showdown.
While the storyline of the first half of the year was the South Korean Android versus Japan's Murderface, don't be too surprised if Liquid's American Hope is the biggest story of the weekend.
The Beast
The Beast. The Legend. The Messiah of Street Fighter. Daigo Umehara, 35, became the first world champion of the previous edition of Street Fighter, SFIV, back in 2009 when Evolution was the Super Bowl of the game. He has a chance to capture another Capcom title in its first full year at the World Finals this weekend. Can he do it, though? His results for 2016 were solid -- good enough for the ninth slot in the overall standings -- but is he strong enough at this age, in this environment, to bring home another world title in the largest Street Fighter competition of all time?
Statistics say it isn't likely.
Yet, he's Daigo, and he's in the 32-man bracket, and that means -- favored or not -- there's always a chance for another magical moment with Street Fighter's greatest.