NorCal Regionals 2017 (sometimes shortened as NCR 2017) was a ''

Street Fighter V ''Street Fighter V'' is a fighting game developed by Capcom and Dimps and published by Capcom for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows, Windows in 2016. An Arcade game, arcade version exclusive to Japan was released by Taito in 2019. Similar to th ...

'' tournament that took place in

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

on April 14-16. Being one of the eleven Premier Events of the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour, the winner of the tournament automatically qualified for the Capcom Cup in December 2017. This was the 15th NorCal Regionals event and the second to feature a "death pool" for competitors who failed to register ahead of time. The tournament was won by Victor "Punk" Woodley, who spent much of the final match

taunting A taunt is a battle cry, sarcastic remark, gesture, or insult intended to demoralize the recipient, or to anger them and encourage reactionary behaviors without thinking. Taunting can exist as a form of social competition to gain control of the tar ...

his opponent

NuckleDu Du Dang (born May 12, 1996), more commonly known by his nickname NuckleDu, is an American fighting game player known for playing Guile and Decapre in Ultra Street Fighter IV, Guile and Zangief in Street Fighter X Tekken, and Guile and Rainbow Mi ...

Background

NorCal Regionals 2017 was hosted in Sacramento, California on April 14-16. Much like in 2016, NorCal Regionals 2017 featured a "death pool" for all competitors that registered on-site rather than in advance. Tournament organizer John Choi stated that this featured returned because "people really liked avingexciting matches right off the bat." The winner of the 2016 death pool, Martin "Marn" Phan, registered in time, but told ''

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

'' that he planned to de-register himself so he can battle through the death pool again, stating that he wanted to do it every year. Competitors in NorCal Regionals 2017 included

, Tatsuya Haitani,

Yusuke Momochi Yusuke Momochi, better known as Momochi, is a Japanese professional fighting game player, particularly of ones in the '' Street Fighter'' series by Capcom. Momochi won the Capcom Cup 2014 championship, as well as winning the EVO 2015 title for ' ...

Justin Wong Justin Wong, occasionally shortened to just Jwong, is a formerly American and now Canadian professional fighting game player. Wong has won more EVO titles than anyone else with nine tournaments won: seven for '' Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of ...

Daigo Umehara is a Japanese arcade fighting video game player. He specializes in 2D arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and or "Ume" in Japan, Daigo is one of the world's most famous ''Street Fig ...

Tokido , better known as Tokido, is a Japanese fighting game player who plays the '' King of Fighters'' and ''Street Fighter'' franchises. He is known for playing multiple fighting games on a competitive level in addition to Street Fighter, including ' ...

Fuudo , better known as , is a Japanese electronic sports player specializing in the ''Street Fighter'' series. Fuudo entered the fighting game scene in 2005 playing ''Virtua Fighter 4''. Fuudo has won various fighting game tournaments, including the ...

, and Eduardo "PR Balrog" Perez. A few days before NorCal regionals,

Evo 2016 The 2016 Evolution Championship Series (commonly referred to as Evo 2016 or EVO 2016) was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas on July 15–17. Being hosted on the twentieth anniversary of the Evolution Championship Series, the event offered to ...

-winner Lee "Infiltration" Seon-woo announced through

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

that he had canceled his flight tickets for Sacramento, stating that he was not yet ready to attend Capcom Pro Tour events. NorCal Regionals also features other fighting game tournaments, such as for ''

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a crossover fighting video game developed by Capcom in collaboration with Eighting. The game features characters from both Capcom's video game franchises and comic book series published by Marvel Comics. It was released for the PlayStation ...

'' and ''

Tekken 7 is a fighting game developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is the seventh main and ninth overall installment in the ''Tekken '' series. ''Tekken 7'' was released to arcades in March 2015. An updated arcade version, ''Tekken 7 ...

''.

Finale

The finale of NorCal Regionals 2017 came down between

Capcom Cup 2016 Capcom Cup 2016 was a ''Street Fighter V'' video game tournament that was held in December 2016. 32 players qualified for the tournament by winning one of the eleven Capcom Pro Tour Global Premier Events, Evo 2016, one of the four regional event ...

-champion

Du "NuckleDu" Dang Du Dang (born May 12, 1996), more commonly known by his nickname NuckleDu, is an American fighting game player known for playing Guile and Decapre in Ultra Street Fighter IV, Guile and Zangief in Street Fighter X Tekken, and Guile and Rainbow ...

and

Panda Global The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white animal coat, coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is ...

's Victor "Punk" Woodley. After NuckleDu bested Punk in the winners semifinals, Punk entered the finals from the loser's side of the brackets and had to beat NuckleDu in two best-of-five sets in order to win the tournament. Punk won the first set three-to-one, using the character Karin to counter many of his opponent's

Guile Guile may refer to: * Astuteness, deception. * GNU Guile, an implementation of the Scheme programming language * Guile (''Street Fighter''), a video game character from the ''Street Fighter'' series * Guile (''Chrono Cross''), a video game chara ...

's attacks. After this, Punk started to play

mind games Playing mind games (also power games or head games) is the largely conscious struggle for psychological one-upmanship, often employing passive–aggressive behavior to specifically demoralize or dis-empower the thinking subject, making the a ...

, distracting NuckleDu on the character selection screen and

teabagging Teabagging is a slang term for the sexual act involving someone placing their scrotum in the mouth of their sexual partner for sexual pleasure, or onto the face or head of another person, sometimes as a comedic device. The name of the practi ...

during subsequent matches. After a successful

combo Combo may refer to: Technology *Combo television unit, a television with either a VCR or a DVD player built into a single unit * Combo drive, a type of optical drive that can read CDs and DVDs *A guitar amplifier incorporating one or more loudsp ...

or stun attack, Punk frequently pressed "down" on his controller to make Karin crouch,

his opponent. Punk took the second match three-to-one as well, winning the tournament. NuckleDu is known for teabagging himself as well. After the tournament, Punk told ''

Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

'' that he uses teabagging to undermine and distract his opponents, stating that the taunt "gets in certain people's heads and messes them up." Though this behavior was answered by laughs and cheers from the crowd, Punk's teabagging proved controversial throughout the

fighting game community The fighting game community, often abbreviated to FGC, is a collective of video gamers who play fighting games such as '' Marvel vs. Capcom'', ''Mortal Kombat'', '' Soulcalibur'', ''Street Fighter'', ''Guilty Gear'', ''The King of Fighters'', '' ...

References

{{Capcom Pro Tour 2017 2017 fighting game tournaments 2017 in California