Evo 2016: Street Fighter V Finals impress the TV audience
“Download complete” for your Street Fighter V Evo 2016 champion, as the hype definitely translated for the TV audience.
Street Fighter V. On ESPN 2. On a Sunday night, right as ESPN was airing a Sunday Night Baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Evo has grown a fair bit ever since its “Battle by the Bay” days, but never has it seen a bigger moment than at Evo 2016.
With Seth “S-Kill” Killian and Mike “Mike Ross” Ross commentating the action for the TV audience, viewers were treated to what may be the very best Street Fighter V action in a tournament that we’ve seen so far. Many giants and killers fell in the Top 128, Top 64 and Top 32, but the Grand Finals did present a strong matchup between Keita “Fuudo” Ai and the pre-competition favorite, Seonwoo “Infiltration” Lee.
Infiltration had one of the hardest challenges of any Grand Finals participant at Evo 2016. Despite being on the Street Fighter V Winners Bracket, he had to face Fuudo in Winners Finals, immediately face off against Atsushi “Yukadon” Fujimura’s Nash mirror in Losers Finals, then face Fuudo immediately again, once more.
Furthermore, Fuudo’s early first game win meant Infiltration had to adapt his style of play when facing Fuudo, including going for a lot more Critical Art punishes to guarantee that 40% damage. It helped establish a pace that Infiltration felt most comfortable utilizing, leading to a 3-1 bracket reset.
Infiltration was on fire during Street Fighter V Grand Finals, getting three Perfects in the first set to send the Evo 2016 crowd wild. It allowed him to get to 2-0 quickly, although Fuudo stole another game as Infiltration changed up his style. In the end, Infiltration ended with the command grab and is the first Street Fighter V champion at Evo with the 3-1, 3-1 victory. He played with the efficiency of a robot, even providing a “Download Complete” quip when interviewed post-match.
Shoutouts in Top 8 Street Fighter V Finals must be given to Joseph “L.I. Joe” Ciaramelli, who really shined as the lone US representative. Not only did he handle insane pressure and brought some key come-from-behind victories, but he handled his loss with the grace of a champion.
His matches helped concurrent viewership for Street Fighter V peak at just over 194,000 viewers on the main Twitch channel. Due to the late finish, the Grand Finals did not reach the viewership of Super Smash Bros Melee. It did, however, surpass viewers for Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator, Marvel vs Capcom 3, andMortal Kombat XL Finals.
Here are the Top 8 final results for Street Fighter V play at Evo 2016.
- Seonwoo “Infiltration” Lee
- Keita “Fuudo” Ai
- Atsushi “Yukadon” Fujimura
- Goichi “GO1-3151” Kishida
- Joseph “L.I. Joe” Ciaramelli
- (T-5) Jo “MOV” Egami
- Hiroyuki “Eita” Nagata
- (T-7) Naoki “Nemo” Nemoto
What a great weekend for Street Fighter V, Evo 2016, and the fighting game community. With the interest infused into the scene with the help of PS4 and ESPN 2, only bigger and better things await the FGC on the horizon.
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