Capcom Cup 2015 was a professional ''

Ultra Street Fighter IV is a 2008 fighting game published by Capcom, who also co-developed the game with Dimps. It was the first original main entry in the series since ''Street Fighter III'' in 1997, a hiatus of eleven years. The coin-operated arcade game version was ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

tournament that was held at Moscone Center in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

on December 6, 2015. 32 players qualified for the tournament by winning one of the 16 Capcom Pro Tour Premier Events or by acquiring points at them.

Kun Xian Ho Ho Kun Xian () (born 15 September 1990), better known as Xian, is a Singaporean professional fighting games player. Xian is currently part of Team Razer. He was the winner of ''Ultra Street Fighter IV'' at DreamHack Winter 2015. At Capcom Cup ...

won three of the Premier Events, coming in third place at the Capcom Cup. Many high-profile players, including

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 ...

and Bonchan, lost two consecutive matches during the early rounds of the Cup and were eliminated. The Grand Final was a match between Mad Catz' Daigo Umehara playing as

Evil Ryu is a fictional Japanese fighting character and the main protagonist and master of ceremony of Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' series. Having premiered in the first ''Street Fighter'' in 1987, Ryu appears as the game's lead character alongside his ...

and Kazunoko playing as Yun, the latter winning the match 3–2. Being sponsored by

Sony Interactive Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game industry, video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is ma ...

for the first time, Capcom Cup 2015 and its Pro Tour had a total prize pool of $500,000 USD, $120,000 of which was awarded to Kazunoko. Capcom Pro Tour 2015 saw a rule change where an automatic qualification would be eliminated and converted into points if the top four winners of a Premier Event had already qualified for the Cup. The event was the last major tournament before ''Ultra Street Fighter IV'' would be succeeded by '' Street Fighter V'', which was created with professional competition in mind.

2015 Capcom Pro Tour

Tour background

A series of qualifying events for the tournament were held throughout the year, known as the 2015 Capcom Pro Tour. The Pro Tour consisted of 16 "Premier Events", divided into four "regions", them being North America, Europe, Asia, and "Wild Card". The 16 Premier Events of the 2015 Capcom Cup were: ;North America *Final Round – Atlanta, GA, United States *NorCal Regionals – Sacramento, CA, United States *SoCal Regionals – Orange, CA, United States * Community Effort Orlando – Orlando, FL, United States ;Europe *Hypespotting 4 – Scotland, United Kingdom *Stunfest – Rennes, France *Milan Games Week – Milan, Italy *

DreamHack DreamHack is an ESL Gaming brand specializing in esports tournaments and other gaming conventions. It is recognized by the Guinness Book of Records and Twin Galaxies as being the world's largest LAN party and computer festival with the world's fa ...

Winter – Jönköping, Sweden ;Asia *South East Asia Major – Bangkok, Thailand *

Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in September in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) and Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. The ...

– Tokyo, Japan *Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals – Singapore *Ultra Hyakkishu Cup – Tokyo, Japan ;Wild Card *

Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

– Las Vegas, NV, United States *Canada Cup – Canada *

Brasil Game Show Brasil Game Show (known by the initials BGS and originally titled Rio Game Show (RGS)) is a yearly Brazilian video game convention organized by business executive Marcelo Tavares, that is currently held in São Paulo and is the largest gaming co ...

– São Paulo, Brazil *KO Fighting Game Festival – Kuwait $500,000 USD was made available as prize money for the entire Capcom Cup, donated by Capcom, Twitch, and new partner

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

. Each of the Premier Events had a prize pool of US$15,000 to be split among the Top 8 winners. The 2015 Evolution Championships, one of the "Wild Card" tournaments, had a prize pool of US$50,000, $20,000 of which was awarded to the tournament's champion. Capcom stated in their press release that they had three goals in mind for the 2015 season, the first being to "give fans more ''Street Fighter'' content to enjoy and look forward to," the second being to distribute tournaments and points more evenly across the different world regions, and the last being to increase tournament prize pools in order to incentivize more players to participate. In total, 261 players scored points in the ranking.

Tour summary

The Capcom Pro Tour kicked off on 22 March at Final Round 18 in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. The tournament was won by

. The event was followed by NorCal Regionals on April 3, which was won by Daigo Umehara, and Hypespotting 4 on April 4, which was won by Kenryo "Mago" Hayashi. A wrong version of ''Ultra Street Fighter 4'' was accidentally played during the first four matches of the NorCal's quarterfinals, which prompted tournament organizer Terry "Kineda" Ng to call for these to be replayed. In May, Seon-woo "Infiltration" Lee qualified for the 2015 Capcom Cup by making it to the finals of Stunfest 2015, where he lost to Daigo Umehara. In May, 2015, Capcom released the

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

of ''Ultra Street Fighter IV'', which was developed by

SCEA ''Scea'' is a genus of moths of the family Notodontidae. Species This genus consists of the following species: *'' Scea angustimargo'' Warren, 1905 *''Scea auriflamma'' (Geyer, 827 *'' Scea bellona'' (Druce, 1906) *'' Scea bryki'' Hering, 1943 ...

's "Third Party Production group". This version of the game suffered from severe

lag Lag, or similar, may refer to: Lag * Łąg, Poland * Lag (company), a French guitar maker * Lag (cue sports), a brief pre-game competition to determine which player will go first * Latency (engineering), a slower response time in computing, commu ...

and glitches. Capcom announced that tournaments that are part of the Capcom Pro Tour would keep using older hardware until the issues were resolved. Stunfest was followed by the South East Asia Major in June, where Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi qualified for the Capcom Cup after losing to Mago in the Grand Finals.

Ryota "Kazunoko" Inoue The Pacific herring (''Clupea pallasii'') is a species of the herring family associated with the Pacific Ocean environment of North America and northeast Asia. It is a silvery fish with unspined fins and a deeply forked caudal fin. The distribut ...

qualified by winning at Community Effort Orlando 2015 the next week, followed by Bruce "GamerBee" Hsiang qualifying by reaching the Grand Finals of EVO 2015 in July. GamerBee lost to Capcom Cup 2014 champion Yusuke Momochi, despite the latter's

arcade controller An arcade controller is a collective set of input devices designed primarily for use in an arcade cabinet. A typical control set consists of a joystick and a number of push-buttons. Less common setups include devices such as trackballs or steering ...

experiencing a malfunction during the match, handing GamerBee a free round. In September, Dashio qualified for the Capcom Cup by winning the

, while

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 ...

qualified by coming second to Xian at the KO Fighting Game Festival. The 2015

, held on October 8–12, was won by Brazilian Keoma Pacheco, beating Japanese player Haitani in the finale. SoCal Regionals 2015, which was moved from May 1 to October 9, was won by Masato "Boncan" Takahashi, while Arubi "RB" Kao qualified later that month by coming in third at Milan Games Week. The Canada Cup, also held in October, was won by Tokido, defeating Fuudo by a 3-1 margin in the Grand Final. Yusuke Momochi came in third-place and GamerBee fourth. As all of the top four finishers had already qualified for Capcom Cup, the stake was eliminated and converted into an additional points-based berth, due to a rule change announced after Infiltration qualified for the Cup at Stunfest by coming in third. The Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals 2015 were held on November 13–15. Lee Chung "Poongko" Gon won the tournament by defeating Naoki "Nemo" Nemoto in the grand finals.

Winter 2015, the last Premier Event of the Capcom Pro Tour, was the third Premier Event of the 2015 season to be won by Xian. He defeated French player Olivier "Luffy" Hay in the Grand Finals, though the latter had already qualified for the Capcom Cup through points alone. 16 players, including Darryl "Snake Eyez" Lewis, Kentaro "Misse" Nakamura, and

, qualified for Capcom Cup 2015 by acquiring a large number of points throughout the Pro Tour. Director of brand marketing at Capcom Matt Dahlgren stated in an interview with ''

Fortune.com ''Fortune'' is an American multinational business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The ...

'' that each Premier Event got 300,000 to 500,000 unique viewers, cumulating to a total of 40 million views throughout the season.

Tournament background

Capcom Cup 2015 was held at Moscone Center in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

on Sunday, December 6, 2015. The tournament was hosted on the second day of Sony's

PlayStation Experience PlayStation Experience, also known as PSX, is an annual event for the video game industry presented by Sony Interactive Entertainment used to reveal and advertise PlayStation games and game-related merchandise. The event is open to the public an ...

event. For the 2015 Cup, Capcom increased the maximum player spots from 16 to 32. Players had to win at least two out of three games in order to reach the Top 8. The Capcom Cup had a total prize pool of US$250,000, which was split among the Top 8 players as follows: *1st Place: $120,000 *2nd Place: $60,000 *3rd Place: $25,000 *4th Place: $15,000 *5th-6th Place: $10,000 each *7th-8th Place: $5,000 each The tournament opened at 10:00 AM local time and closed at 9:30 PM. There were two

livestream Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...

s of the event available on the official Capcom Pro Tour website. Prior to the tournament, many fans worried that the character Elena would be a dominant force throughout the tournament. The character was placed at top of most tier lists at the time due to her "awkward" and

healing With physical trauma or disease suffered by an organism, healing involves the repairing of damaged tissue(s), organs and the biological system as a whole and resumption of (normal) functioning. Medicine includes the process by which the cells i ...

Ultra skill. Justin Wong, GamerBee, and Xian had been highly successful throughout the 2015 season playing with the character, though Elena ended up not being used much during the tournament. During the tournament, YouPorn-sponsored player Valentin "Valmaster" Petit was barred by Capcom from wearing jersey advertising a

pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,

website, and YouPorn replaced the jersey with one featuring a

pixelized Pixelization (British English, pixelisation) or mosaic processing is any technique used in editing images or video, whereby an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower resolution. It is primarily used for censorship ...

version of its logo. Capcom Cup 2015 runner-up Daigo Umehara donated his US$60,000 prize check towards the NYU Game Center EVO scholarship award winner.

Tournament summary

Opening ceremony and elimination rounds

According to '' Paste Magazine'', the organization of Capcom Cup 2015 went through a lot of effort to make the tournament appeal to people outside of the fighting game community by using bumpers to explain terminology and using informal polls throughout the livestream asking who would win the next match, the results established favorites and

underdogs An underdog is a person or group in a competition, usually in sports and creative works, who is largely expected to lose. The party, team, or individual expected to win is called the favorite or top dog. In the case where an underdog wins, the ...

. The livestream opened with a recap video cataloging the "best moments" of the past season, followed by commentator Mike Ross introducing the tournament's outline and prize pool. At the start of the tournament, every participant got his own introduction, "emerging from behind a glossy door showing an enlarged silhouette through a puff of smoke." The event's six commentators were also all given an introduction. Early rounds of the tournament saw a few fan-favorites, such as Justin Wong and Naoki "Nemo" Nemoto, lose two consecutive rounds and get eliminated.

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 ...

was the only American player making it through the first round with a win, though he lost against Misse and Kazunoko in the following rounds, leaving Snake Eyez as the only American representative to reach the Top 8. Meanwhile, Pacheco was the first Brazilian player to make it to the Top 8 of a tournament of this size, while Misse used rarely played character

Makoto is a unisex Japanese name although it is more commonly used by males. As a noun, Makoto means "sincerity" (誠) or "truth" (真, 眞). People Given name * Makoto (musician) (born 1977), drum and bass artist *Makoto (Sharan Q) ( まこと), ...

with high skill to beat Bonchan, NuckleDu, and Tokido and enter the Top 8 as well. Xian won four elimination rounds despite pushing it to the maximum number of games three times, while Poongko featured three easy victories over Itabashi Zangief, Yusuke Momochi, and HumanBomb, losing to Xian before entering the Top 8. Both also lost once to Daigo Umehara on his way to the finals. Kazunoko lost his first game of the tournament against Gustavo "801 Strider" Romero, but didn't lose any games from that point onward, defeating Problem X, Misse, and Daigo Umehara before entering the Top 8. Umehara's games during the elimination rounds were less dominant, though he defeated 801 Strider, Snake Eyez, Poongko, and Xian on his way to the finals. Umehara's scored a surprising comeback against Infiltration during the final match of the elimination rounds, turning around the last round of the match despite having only a sliver of health left.

Cup finals

The Capcom Cup finals started with Kazunoko, Umehara, Xian, and Poongko in the winner's bracket and Snake Eyez, Misse, Infiltration, and Keoma in the loser's bracket. Umehara eliminated Snake Eyez and Poongko after being knocked into the loser's brackets by Kazunoko in the quarterfinals. Umehara defeated Xian in the loser's finals 3–0, despite Xian using

Dhalsim is a fictional character in Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' series. He made his first appearance in '' Street Fighter II: The World Warrior'' in 1991. He sometimes goes by the alias "long-arm" and his fighting ability includes stretching his limbs. I ...

as a counter-pick to Daigo because it won him the match a year earlier. Kazunoko and Daigo Umehara finally matched off again in the Grand Finals. Kazunoko won the first round as he pressured Umehara by abusing Yun's command throws, dive kicks, and block strings. Umehara won the second round as he switched up his tactic and became more offensive, using many of

's combos. Kazunoko won the third round, followed by another quick win by Daigo. The final round of the match was won by Kazunoko, making him the Capcom Cup champion.

Results

References

{{Capcom Cup Capcom Cup 2015 in esports 2015 fighting game tournaments Esports competitions in the United States