Street Fighter V’s Sordid EVO History Ends on a High Note

In 2016, Street Fighter V released and, to the great frustration of its fanbase, was a disappointment. From its dreadful netcode, to some questionable mechanics and roster decisions, Street Fighter V was a mess. In the six years since, Capcom has done a tremendous, if not totally successful, amount of work to set the game on firmer foundations. In spite of its rocky start, it’s still Street Fighter—the poster child of the fighting game genre. 2022 will likely be its last year on the mainstage at the fighting game tournament EVO, on account of the upcoming release of Street Fighter VI, but it left with a style and grace that most games could only dream of.

You could not write it better if you tried. Kawano and iDom, two young up-and-comers from the game’s largest regions, Japan and North America respectively, were pit against a veritable murderer’s row of the series’ best players—including Daigo, arguably the game’s most famous player, who hasn’t managed to break into EVO Top 8 since 2013. Street Fighter V’s final tournament felt like a passing of the torch, one in which the series’ greats came back around for one last ride, only to come face to face with the ambitious upstarts who will come to define the game’s next few years.

iDom began the finals in the losers’ bracket. EVO uses a double elimination format, meaning that players have to lose twice before they’re removed from the tournament. iDom had to fight four of the best players in the world, without losing, to make it to the grand finals. Traditionally, double-elimination tournaments have all of the winners’ bracket matches, followed by all of the losers’ bracket matches, and then grand finals. This allows the top player in winners’ to rest for a while, while the victor of the losers’ bracket arrives at the grand finals on an adrenaline fueled hot streak. Capcom adjusts this format by interweaving winners’ and losers’ brackets, leaving both players on more even footing for the finals, and drawing out the tension of who will be facing who in the last bout.

iDom’s losers’ bracket games were dominant, winning 3-1, 3-2, 3-0, and 3-1 respectively. The only challenger that seemed to phase him was Daigo, arguably the physical embodiment of an early era of Street Fighter and EVO’s respective histories. EVO Moment 37, as it’s called, changed fighting games. Daigo perfectly parried 16 consecutive hits from Chun-Li’s super, exhibiting an astounding level of technical mastery. You’ve probably seen the video:

As the scene has continued to develop, moments like this have become more and more frequent. However, iDom didn’t beat Daigo with the commonplace technical mastery of the newest generation of fighting game players, he beat him by correctly predicting his opponent with supernatural precision and consistency.

iDom plays Laura, a firmly mid-tier character with incredible offensive potential and a limited defensive toolkit, but he plays her unlike anyone else. During his obscene win streak, commentators joked that his version of Laura had different frame data, meaning that she was mathematically better than every other version of Laura in the game. Laura’s excellent offensive pressure is balanced not only by her defensive weakness, but her average damage. This mid-tier damage means that Laura has to not only make perfect predictions to defeat her opponents, but that she has to do it over and over again. To be successful as Laura, you need near-utter mental domination over your opponent. To borrow a phrase from James Chen, “It doesn’t matter if you’re always right.”

Opposite iDom in the finals was Kawano, who utterly devastated the winners’ bracket. He not only won his games, but appeared invincible as his opponents struggled to eke out even a single round against him. His greatest threat was Gachikun, who pushed him all the way to a 3-2 record. However, despite how close the game looked on paper, Kawano’s performance was astounding. He seemed unbreakable until his fights with iDom.

Grand finals opened with an utterly dominant performance for iDom, who pulled round after round out from Kawano. While iDom finished most of these rounds with a nearly empty health bar, it never felt that way. His ability to force astounding momentum swings was such that, in spite of life leads, he never felt like he was on the backfoot. iDom is the kind of player who feels in control even as he gets his ass kicked. This was best evidenced by a moment in which he completely whiffed an attack, and instead of scrambling to switch to defense, he used it as a mixup opportunity to catch Kawano off-guard and win the round. This read-heavy style of play would eventually win iDom the first set.

In the second set, Kawano managed to swing momentum in his favor, for real this time. Where iDom could previously force an astounding come back, he now struggled to keep up with Kawano’s terrific pressure and, in a few key moments, fumbled his inputs, leaving him vulnerable to Kawano’s pressure. With both players on their tournament point, Kawano exhibited a final, dominant performance, winning him the EVO title.

Regardless of the outcome of that final round, the Street Fighter V top eight were some of the best matches the game has seen in years, and represent a massive generational shift for the game. A twenty three year old won one of EVO’s most prestigious main stage events, against a twenty five year old gamepad player who developed his skillset through NYC-based local events and online play. That both of these players were able to reach this point is a sign that the landscape of fighting games has legitimately shifted through the online-heavy pandemic era, and that a new wave of talent is going to shake every part of the scene.

Displays of new talent weren’t limited to Street Fighter V. The utter dominance of Arslan Ash and Khan, two Pakistani players, in Tekken, both of whom rose to prominence in early 2019 by exhibiting a prowess unique to their home arcade, the surprise star of Melty-Blood: Type Lumina, Kiri, and Guilty Gear Strive’s newest champion, Umisho, all represent massive shifts in the landscape of their respective games.

Fighting games are, as we are often reminded, something so great. And I am extremely hopeful to see the scene develop into a new, hungrier era in the coming years.