The 2017 Capcom Pro Tour was the fourth edition of the

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 ...

, an annual season of ''

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'' ...

'' tournaments that are officially sponsored by

Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...

. The 2017 Capcom Pro Tour followed several months after the "Season 2" update of ''Street Fighter V'' and started off with

Final Round 20 Final Round 20 or Final Round XX was a fighting game event that took place in Atlanta on March 10–12, 2017. Being the first of the eleven ''Street Fighter V'' Premier Events of the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour, the winner of the tournament automaticall ...

on March 10. Much like the 2016 season, this season featured fifteen Premier Events, a few dozen smaller tournaments, several online tournaments, and the Evolution Championship. In these tournaments, competitors gained points needed to qualify for the 2017 Capcom Cup, which was held in December.

Background

Shortly after

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 ...

was played, Capcom rolled out a major update for ''Street Fighter V'' titled "Season 2". Various characters were buffed or nerfed in the update: R. Mika and Chun Li were made weaker in the update, while

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 ...

got numerous buffs. Notably, "Dragon Punch" moves and light anti-air attacks were also made less useful. Infiltration criticized the update, saying that various characters were too harshly nerfed or too strongly buffed. In an interview with ''Core-A Gaming'', Infiltration said that "It might be time to swallow your pride and just go with a top-tier haracter" In the months following the Season 2 update, the ''Street Fighter V''

metagame A metagame, broadly defined as "a game beyond the game", typically refers to either of two concepts: a game which revolves around a core game; or the strategies and approaches to playing a game. A metagame can serve a broad range of purposes, a ...

evolved strongly and characters such as Guile,

Urien Urien ap Cynfarch Oer () or Urien Rheged (, Old Welsh: or , ) was a powerful sixth-century Brittonic-speaking figure who was possibly the ruler of the territory or kingdom known as Rheged. He is one of the best-known and best documented o ...

Balrog Balrogs () are a species of powerful demonic monsters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. One first appeared in print in his high-fantasy novel ''The Lord of the Rings'', where the Company of the Ring encounter a Balrog known as Durin's Bane in ...

, Laura, and

Zangief Zangief (; Japanese: ), often called the , is a character in Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' series. Considered to be the first grappling-based fighting game character, he made his debut in '' Street Fighter II: The World Warrior'' (1991). In the ...

rose in tier lists, despite not having been as viable in the 2016 Tour. In February 2017, Capcom announced that the prize pool of the Capcom Pro Tour would total $600,000

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

, $100,000 more than the year before. In total, 827 players scored points in the overall ranking.

Point accumulation and Cup qualification

In the 2015 and 2016 Capcom Pro Tours, players automatically qualified for the Capcom Cup if they won one of the fifteen Global Premier events. However, in a December 2016 interview, Capcom's Neidel "Haunts" Crisan suggested that the company might do away with this auto-qualification mechanic as players who win high-profile tournaments are likely to earn enough points to compete in the Capcom Cup either way. The qualification system of previous Capcom Pro Tours had been deemed confusing by fans, especially when more than one player wins several Premier Events. Similarly, the Global and Regional leaderboards used in previous Pro Tours were considered overly complex and Regional Events were abused by international players with higher travel budgets. Of the 32 players who qualified for the 2017 Capcom Cup, 30 did so through garnering points by consistently placing highly in Pro Tour tournaments. Premier Events rewarded more points than smaller Ranking Events, and the

Evo 2017 The 2017 Evolution Championship Series (commonly referred to as Evo 2017) was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas on July 14–16 that was part of the long-running Evolution Championship Series. The event offered tournaments for various fighti ...

''Street Fighter V'' tournament offered more points than any other tournament of the season. The 2017 Capcom Pro Tour saw an increase in online Ranking Events, with each region having four of such events. The Pro Tour was again split into four regions: North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Regional tournaments returned to the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour, and qualification for these was based on points acquired exclusively in the applicable region. Only eight players could qualify per Regional tournament, one of which qualified from a "last chance" tournament held the day before the tournament proper. One of the two auto-qualifications went to

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 ...

for winning the 2016 Capcom Cup. NuckleDu was still incentivised to compete in the Pro Tour because his

seed In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be Sowing, sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds ...

in the Capcom Cup depended on his leaderboard placement. The other auto-qualification was granted to the winner of the Capcom Cup Last Chance Qualifier held the day before the Capcom Cup.

Tour summary

The Capcom Pro Tour kicked off on February 17, 2017, in an event that saw various professional ''Street Fighter'' players compete in show matches. This event took place in

Folsom Street Folsom Street is a street in San Francisco which begins perpendicular to Alemany Boulevard in San Francisco's Bernal Heights district and ends perpendicular to the Embarcadero on the San Francisco Bay. For its southern half, Folsom Street runs ...

San Francisco 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 ...

and featured show matches such as Filipino Champ vs

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 ...

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 ...

Snake Eyez Darryl S. Lewis, better known by his in-game name Snake Eyez, is an American professional fighting game player. He is considered one of the best Zangief players of ''Street Fighter IV'' and ''Street Fighter V''. Lewis was the highest seeded player ...

, and a rematch between Capcom Cup 2016 finalists

and Ricki Ortiz. The event was simultaneously the launch of

Lupe Fiasco Wasalu Muhammad Jaco (born February 16, 1982), better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco ( ), is an American rapper, record producer and Music education, music educator. Born and raised in Chicago, he gained mainstream recognition for his gue ...

's album '' Drogas Light''. The first tournament in the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour was

, taking place on March 10–12 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 ...

. Competitors had roughly two months to familiarize themselves with the Season 2 changes to ''Street Fighter V'' before the first Premier Event. Final Round 20 was won by Kun Xian Ho, earning 400 points in the process. The second Premier Event and first European tournament of the 2017 Pro Tour, "Ultimate Fighting Arena", was held in the Stade Jean-Bouin in Paris on April 8–9. This tournament was won by Tatsuya Haitani after a nine-game win streak. The 2017 NorCal Regionals were held in Sacramento, California on April 14–16. This tournament was won by Victor "Punk" Woodley who defeated

in the final game. Punk played

mind games Mind games (also power games or head games) are actions performed for reasons of psychological one-upmanship, often employing passive–aggressive behavior to specifically demoralize or dis-empower the thinking subject, making the aggressor ...

during this match, distracting NuckleDu on the character selection screen and

teabagging Teabagging is a slang term for the sexual act involving placing the scrotum into the mouth of a sexual partner for sexual pleasure, or onto the face or head of another person, sometimes as a comedic device. The name of the practice, when it ...

NuckleDu's character whenever he went down. The Premier Event held on April 28–30 – DreamHack Austin – was also won by Punk, beating Kun Xian Ho in the finals. Punk spent little time taunting his opponent during this tournament compared to his behavior at NorCal Regionals. Reporting on DreamHack Austin, Damian Alonzo of ''

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

'' noted that the character Ibuki was rising in prominence among professional ''Street Fighter'' players. The character was mostly unused in the 2016 season, but Xian, Fujimura "Yukadon" Atsushi, and Goichi "GO1" Kishida all have since started using the character. The fifth Premier Event of the 2017 Pro Tour was Battle Arena Melbourne 9, or BAM 9, held in the

Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), colloquially referred to as Jeff's Shed, is a group of three adjacent buildings next to the Yarra River in South Wharf, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The venues ar ...

on May 12–14. This tournament was won by Bonchan, using the character Nash to defeat all his opponents. On May 26–28,

Combo Breaker 2017 Combo Breaker 2017 was a fighting game event that took place in St. Charles, Illinois, on May 26–28, 2017. Twenty different tournaments were held during this event, including a 2017 Capcom Pro Tour Premier Event for ''Street Fighter V'', which w ...

was won by NuckleDu, defeating Snake Eyez in the finals despite losing to him earlier in the tournament. Punk wasn't able to compete in this tournament due to a schedule overlap with

Eleague ''ELeague'', shortened as ''EL'', and stylized as ''Ξ''LEAGUE, is an esports league and American television program that airs on TBS. It was announced in September 2015 as a partnership between Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG ...

. Community Effort Orlando was won by Snake Eyez, defeating Punk in the finals. In August, Haitani won the 2017 Japan Cup, defeating

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 ...

's R. Mika in the finals. Later that month, on August 25–28, Daigo Umehara won the Hong Kong Esports Festival; this constituted his first win in a Premier Event in nearly a year. In September, the SoCal Regionals were held. This tournament was dominated and won by Japanese player Atsushi "Yukadon" Fujimura.

Capcom Cup

The Capcom Cup concluding the 2017 Pro Tour was held in December. MenaRD from the Dominican Republic, won using Birdie.

Downloadable content

In April, Capcom announced that it would release new Capcom Pro Tour-themed

downloadable content content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can be added for no extra cost or as a form of video game monetization, enabling the publisher to gain ad ...

(DLC) for ''Street Fighter V'', as they did in 2016 as well. 30% of the proceeds of Pro Tour-related DLC packs goes towards the overall prize pool of the tournaments, while 50% of the proceeds is invested in the production of the events. Ryu and Ken were declared to be the "featured fighters" of the 2017 season and fans could purchase alternative outfits for these two characters. Among the Pro Tour DLC packages is a "Premier Pass". Owners of such a pass receive monthly in-game objectives in which they can acquire in-game money. These DLC packages are only available for a limited time and the 2016 Pro Tour DLC was not re-released during the 2017 season.

References

External links

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Pro Tour Schedule
{{Capcom Cup Capcom Cup