2015 Capcom Cup
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Capcom Cup 2015 was a professional ''
Ultra Street Fighter IV is a 2008 fighting game developed by Capcom and Dimps and published by Capcom. It was the first original main entry in the series since ''Street Fighter III'' in 1997, a hiatus of eleven years. Designed for the Taito Type X2 Arcade video game, a ...
''
video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
tournament that was held at
Moscone Center The George R. Moscone Convention Center (), popularly known as the Moscone Center, is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California, United States. The complex consists of three main halls spread out across three bl ...
in
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on December 6, 2015. 32 players qualified for the tournament by winning one of the 16
Capcom Pro Tour The Capcom Pro Tour is a series of international fighting game esports, tournaments sponsored by video game developer Capcom. The Pro Tour culminates in the annual Capcom Cup, a single-day tournament held in the San Francisco Bay Area. 2014 Cap ...
Premier Events or by acquiring points at them. Kun Xian Ho won three of the Premier Events, coming in third place at the Capcom Cup. Many high-profile players, including
Justin Wong Justin Wong (born November 15, 1985), occasionally shortened to Jwong, is an American professional fighting game player residing in Canada. Wong has won more EVO titles than anyone else with nine tournaments won: seven for '' Marvel vs. Capcom ...
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 Mad Catz is an American manufacturing gaming brand of interactive entertainment and PC products, currently produced by Hong Kong–based company Mad Catz Global Limited. It was formerly produced by the original Chinese Mad Catz company until its ...
'
Daigo Umehara is a Japanese esports player and author who competes competitively at Fighting game, fighting video games. He specializes in 2D arcade game, arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and ...
playing as
Evil Ryu Ryu (; Japanese: , Hepburn: ) is a character and the protagonist of Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' series. Introduced in ''Street Fighter'' (1987), Ryu appears as the game's lead character alongside his best friend and friendly rival Ken Masters. ...
and
Kazunoko , in Japanese cuisine, are the eggs or the ovary, ovaries (egg skeins) of the Pacific herring (Japanese: ) that have been Salting (food), salted or dried. Overview ''Kazunoko'' is a product processed by removing the roe sacs (or "egg skeins ...
playing as Yun, the latter winning the match 3–2. Being sponsored by
Sony Interactive Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) is an American video game and digital entertainment company that is a major subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sony, Sony Group Corporation. It primarily operates the PlayStation brand of video game co ...
for the first time, Capcom Cup 2015 and its Pro Tour had a total prize pool of $500,000
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, $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 ''Street Fighter V'' is a 2016 fighting game developed by Capcom, Dimps and Taito and published by Capcom for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows, Windows. The major follow-up to ''Street Fighter IV'' (2008) as part of Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' ...
'', 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 Community Effort Orlando (often shortened to CEO) is an annual fighting game event held in Daytona Beach, Florida. Prior to 2018, CEO was held in Orlando, Florida. Introduced in 2010 and organized by Alex Jebailey, the event is known for its stro ...
– Orlando, FL, United States ;Europe *Hypespotting 4 – Scotland, United Kingdom *Stunfest – Rennes, France *Milan Games Week – Milan, Italy *
DreamHack DreamHack is a Swedish ESL Gaming brand specializing in esports tournaments and other gaming conventions; at its root, a massive LAN party and computer festival, recognized by ''Guiness World Records'' and Twin Galaxies as being the world's l ...
Winter – Jönköping, Sweden ;Asia *South East Asia Major – Bangkok, Thailand *
Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game trade fair and 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 Publication ...
– Tokyo, Japan *Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals – Singapore *Ultra Hyakkishu Cup – Tokyo, Japan ;Wild Card *
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– 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
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was made available as prize money for the entire Capcom Cup, donated by Capcom,
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, and new partner
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
. 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 List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
. The tournament was won by Kun Xian Ho. The event was followed by NorCal Regionals on April 3, which was won by
Daigo Umehara is a Japanese esports player and author who competes competitively at Fighting game, fighting video games. He specializes in 2D arcade game, arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and ...
, 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
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of ''Ultra Street Fighter IV'', which was developed by
SCEA SCEA or Scea may refer to: * ''Scea'', a genus of moths * ''SCEA v. Hotz'', a lawsuit involving Sony * Single choice early action, a type of early admission process offered by some U.S. institutions * Sony Computer Entertainment America, predecess ...
'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, co ...
and
glitch A glitch is a short-lived technical fault, such as a transient one that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among pl ...
es. 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 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 Yusuke Momochi, better known as Momochi, is a Japanese professional fighting game player, particularly of ones in the ''Street Fighter (series), Street Fighter'' series by Capcom. Momochi won the Capcom Cup 2014 championship, as well as winning t ...
, despite the latter's
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experiencing a malfunction during the match, handing GamerBee a free round. In September, Dashio qualified for the Capcom Cup by winning the
Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game trade fair and 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 Publication ...
, 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
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 ...
, 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.
DreamHack DreamHack is a Swedish ESL Gaming brand specializing in esports tournaments and other gaming conventions; at its root, a massive LAN party and computer festival, recognized by ''Guiness World Records'' and Twin Galaxies as being the world's l ...
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
Justin Wong Justin Wong (born November 15, 1985), occasionally shortened to Jwong, is an American professional fighting game player residing in Canada. Wong has won more EVO titles than anyone else with nine tournaments won: seven for '' Marvel vs. Capcom ...
, 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'' 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 The George R. Moscone Convention Center (), popularly known as the Moscone Center, is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California, United States. The complex consists of three main halls spread out across three bl ...
in
San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
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, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming media, streaming of video or Digital audio, audio in real-time communication, real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as ''streaming'', the real-time nature ...
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 ...
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,
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-sponsored player Valentin "Valmaster" Petit was barred by Capcom from wearing jersey advertising a
pornography Pornography (colloquially called porn or porno) is Sexual suggestiveness, sexually suggestive material, such as a picture, video, text, or audio, intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolv ...
website, and YouPorn replaced the jersey with one featuring a
pixelized Pixelization (in 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 censorshi ...
version of its logo. Capcom Cup 2015 runner-up
Daigo Umehara is a Japanese esports player and author who competes competitively at Fighting game, fighting video games. He specializes in 2D arcade game, arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and ...
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 ''Paste'' is an American monthly music and entertainment digital magazine, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with studios in Atlanta and Manhattan, and owned by Paste Media Group. The magazine began as a website in 1998. It ran as a print publi ...
'', 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 ...
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 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 Dhalsim (; Japanese: , Hepburn: ) is a 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 inclu ...
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
Evil Ryu Ryu (; Japanese: , Hepburn: ) is a character and the protagonist of Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' series. Introduced in ''Street Fighter'' (1987), Ryu appears as the game's lead character alongside his best friend and friendly rival Ken Masters. ...
'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