Evo 2024 Viewer's Guide: Street Fighter 6
Street Fighter 6 made its Evo debut with the largest offline tournament in fighting game history last year, a 7,083-entrant monster of a bracket. The top prize and the hotly contested Capcom Cup X qualifying spot eventually went to AngryBird and his Ken, but not until after an incredibly tense Grand Finals set against MenaRD.
These two remain among the favorites as the entire fighting game world descends upon Las Vegas for another crack at the largest open brackets the fighting game community has to offer and the first qualifying spot for Capcom Cup 11. But this time, it's going to be a bit of a different game. Season 2 has already started to shake things up even beyond the arrival of Akuma, with new faces and unexpected characters already taking home major tournament wins in the short time since the game's first major patch earlier this summer. Today, we'll take you through everything you need to know to get ready for the second Street Fighter 6 bracket at Evo.
SETTING THE STAGE
Season 2 of Street Fighter 6 will still be recognizable to those who watched Evo 2023. But May's major patch brought a number of changes that seem to have leveled the playing field a bit compared to the last season and its dominance by Luke, Ken and JP. Many of the game's most rewarding normals received damage nerfs, and that means that Luke who mashed Crouch Medium Punch all game now needs to find an extra hit to close out most rounds.
Look no further than the first large offline bracket held in the wake of that patch, COMBO BREAKER 2024, won by ElChakotay's Lily. One of the major additions of the patch was the new wake-up Drive Reversal option, particularly useful for characters like Lily who lack invincible reversal specials. Lily was one of the least common characters, both of Evo 2023 and the rest of Street Fighter's first season, but ElChakotay has already shown you can't write her off in this new era.
The later additions to season one -- Ed, A.K.I., and Rashid -- will all be making their Evo debuts for Street Fighter 6. But no character's shadow looms larger over Evo 2024 than the most recent addition to the game: Akuma. As usual, Akuma is both an offensive monster and a zoning menace, combining ridiculous damage with incredibly strong ground and air fireballs. Will his lower health be enough to keep him in line? Evo's bracket will be the ultimate test of the Raging Demon's strength, as players around the world have been hard at work learning him since his release.
Street Fighter 6 also introduced Modern Controls. The power of one-button specials and supers had a lot of players curious about the potential of this new control scheme, but Evo 2023's bracket was mostly ruled by Classic players. Modern players were designed with new players in mind, but funnily enough, the player to make the most of them in 2023's bracket was Haitani, one of Japan's Five Gods of Fighting Games and a player who had appeared on Evolution finals stage once before -- 10 years and two Street Fighter games ago.
It will be fascinating to see if another year to get used to this new control scheme will change things. But yet again, it might be the veterans who make the most out of it. The best result from a Modern player at recent majors came from Tachikawa, a Street Fighter and Dragon Ball FighterZ legend, whose run to 2nd place with Modern Ed at Battle Arena Melbourne earlier this summer once again showed the potential of this new control scheme. Expect Classic to be the choice of the majority once again in 2024, but don't be surprised if there are some nasty Modern Warriors in the mix late in the bracket.
MAJOR STORYLINES
Players in Evo 2024's Street Fighter bracket aren't just playing for the trophy and the cash prize. Once again, the winner will earn a spot in Capcom Cup and a chance at its $1,000,000 grand prize. This will be the first official event of the 2024 Capcom Cup season, and just about all of the world's best players will be in Las Vegas to try and punch their ticket.
The aforementioned Haitani has retired from competition, but the other five players to make the finals stage last year should all be considered among the favorites to win in 2024. AngryBird's appearances since Capcom Cup have been few and far between as he dealt with some health issues earlier in 2024, but he was unbelievably consistent in 2023, taking another trophy at FAV Cup and a strong second place at Gamers8. As the returning champion, we already know he has what it takes to make the grueling run through the largest Street Fighter bracket of the year.
The player who took him down at Gamers8, Kakeru, has already shown that nerfs to JP won't be slowing him down. At Evo Japan 2024, an early loss to Ryukichi's Ken forced him to fight through losers. Fight he did, winning 10 straight sets over players like Tokido, VxBao, Lexx, and even the runback against Ryukichi before finally falling to MenaRD for second place.
Evo Japan 2024 marked the first Evo championship for MenaRD, who fell just short against AngryBird in Grand Finals last year. With that win, his Street Fighter League championship, a Red Bull Kumite win, and his two Capcom Cup wins, MenaRD has proven himself on Street Fighter's biggest stages over and over again. The Evo Vegas title is one of the few accolades he's missing at this point, so you know The Bull will be locked in.
Now that Tokido's soul character Akuma is in the game, it's his time to shine, right? At Battle Arena Melbourne, his first offline major of the Akuma era, Tokido indeed took home the gold, his first win at a major offline tournament in Street Fighter 6… but he did it with Ken. With three Evo titles in three different games (Capcom vs. SNK 2, Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter V) dating all the way back to 2002, Tokido has always found a way to adapt and thrive, no matter the era. Is year 2 going to be his time in Street Fighter 6 just like it was in V?
Like Tokido, it took Punk until 2024 to win his first major offline Street Fighter 6 bracket, but he was able to break through this winter at Frosty Faustings, and he did it again in a bracket stacked with international talent at CEO 2024. Punk's consistency in major brackets has been absurd, though, as he didn't place outside of the Top 6 a single time at an offline Street Fighter 6 bracket until his 33rd place finish at Evo Japan 2024. In a game both so explosive and so full of international talent, Punk's consistency sometimes feels impossible. But when you combine his skill and his confidence, there's no opponent too strong to handle.
Chris Wong didn't attend last year's Evo, but at the other biggest brackets of the year, he made a strong case for consideration as the best Street Fighter 6 player in the world. He entered the other two Capcom Pro Tour premier tournaments in Singapore and France, taking second and then qualifying for Capcom Cup with a win in Paris. At Capcom Cup X, only UMA's Juri could stop his run, and he came away with second place there as well. Coming off another Top 8 performance at DreamHack Dallas, Chris Wong is still looking extremely strong as Season 2 kicks off.
The international nature of Street Fighter 6 has produced so many talented players that it would be impossible to feature everybody who has a chance at this year's trophy in a single article. But here's a quick lightning round of some other players who have put themselves on the radar:
British players Problem-X and EndingWalker both qualified for Capcom Cup X. EndingWalker is at full power thanks to the return of Ed and the buffs to Ryu. Problem-X, after a slow start by his lofty standards, has been looking particularly strong since settling on a character in Blanka. He's coming off a second place finish at DreamHack Dallas.
Phenom also represented Europe well at DreamHack, taking third, still on Ken even after the nerfs, an excellent follow-up to his ninth place finish at Capcom Cup X.
Zhen has continued to thrive with Dee Jay even after the Season 2 nerfs. In his first two tournaments after the patch, he took out Chris Wong to win Fight Club Arena in China's first Season 2 major and placed a strong fourth at DreamHack.
Gachikun, the winner of last year's Singapore Premier and third place finisher at Capcom Cup X, is looking just as strong, if not stronger in Season 2. His victory at DreamHack showed off the power of Season 2 Rashid, who is looking like one of the biggest winners of the new patch.
Big Bird showed the world the power of Marisa in Season 1, most notably in his win at Red Bull Kumite South Africa and his fourth place finish at Gamers8. But Marisa's inconsistency made the longer grind of open brackets like Evos rough. Will Big Bird be back with a different approach in 2024? Perhaps a return to Rashid?
Remember the group of death from Capcom Cup X? Out of a group featuring MenaRD, EndingWalker, Caba, NeroTheBoxer and AngryBird, the winner was South Korea's Leshar. Originally known to the FGC as a nasty King of Fighters player, Leshar exploded onto the Street Fighter scene with his fifth place finish at Capcom Cup X. Leshar hasn't had a repeat of that performance yet, but you can't sleep on anyone who takes out MenaRD, AngryBird, EndingWalker, and Xian at the same tournament.
We're just scratching the surface of the Street Fighter 6 action at this year's Evo. The game that produced the biggest fighting game bracket of all-time last year also delivered one of the most electric Top 8s of all-time. With so much international talent in the venue and so much at stake, you're definitely not going to want to miss the sequel.
