The South East Asia Major in Singapore will convene this weekend on Oct. 14-15 with the best Street Fighter players from different parts of Asia participating. All eyes will be on Echo Fox's Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi, the reigning SEAM champion, who has been on a string of high profile wins, notably at Brooklyn Beatdown in New York and the illustrious Evolution Championship Series in Las Vegas.
With Tokido taking the game to its peak efficiency, even opting to bring measuring tape to see exactly how far his eyes are from the screen, the fighting game community is looking to put a halt to his winning streak.
And the challengers looking to do exactly that are Razer's Kun Xian "Xian" Ho from Singapore and Douyu Qanba's Zhuojun "Xiao Hai" Zeng from China. Xian started the year strong with a first place finish at Final Round XX in Atlanta, but has yet to follow it up with another first place finish of that caliber.
Xiao Hai, on the other hand, has had a more muted year, especially compared to 2016. Last year, Xiao Hai won Brooklyn Beatdown, but this year he came in 25th (to that point, he has been placing well in smaller, regional tournaments).
Other notable players include Team Grapht's Joe "MOV" Egami, DetonatioN Gaming's Hiromiki "Itabashi Zangief" Kumada, Echo Fox's Yusuke "Momochi" Momochi, Godsgarden x G-Tune's Ryota "Kazunoko" Inoue, and Kenryo "Mago" Hayashi.
Interestingly, Echo Fox's Justin "JWong" Wong will also be in attendance, but will not be competing in Street Fighter V, but rather the new Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite title.
Two Japanese players will be missing from this year's SEAM lineup: Masato "Bonchan" Takahashi, who is dealing with medical issues, and Twitch/Red Bull, HyperX and Cygames' Daigo "Daigo" Umehara. Although Daigo has yet to qualify for Capcom Cup, he has opted to not attend SEAM 2017 so that other players can have a chance at qualification.
"He doesn't feel good about taking their opportunity away, so that's the reason why he has been refraining himself from the CPTs in general since he won the Hong Kong premiere," a representative for Daigo told ESPN.
Despite the legend's absence from the stage, SEAM remains one of the biggest fighting game events in Asia, housing a multitude of titles including Tekken 7 and Windjammers.