The ELEAGUE Street Fighter 5 (SFV) tournament really hit its stride yesterday, with the apparent \u2018group of death\u2019 delivering the best day of Street Fighter action to date. Well, tell you what \u2013 today\u2019s Group D is the secret group of death. In fact, it\u2019s hard to see if anyone in this group will go 0-7, like all the other groups to date. Group D looks like the most well-rounded group of the lot.<\/p>\n
RYAN HART<\/p>\n
The sole UK representative in the tournament, Ryan Hart is a bona fide fighting game legend. He\u2019s not just an amazing Street Fighter player, but has won tournaments worldwide in almost every fighting game you can think of, and has been doing this for years. He started to find his feet in Street Fighter V towards the end of Season one, qualifying for Capcom Cup and putting together some impressive results. Who will he bring to ELEAGUE, though? Ken, his solid Guile or his Akuma?<\/p>\n
LPN<\/p>\n
LPN is a multi-character master and a real technical wizard. There\u2019s very little about the game \u2013 if anything \u2013 that LPN doesn\u2019t know. What might scupper him is that he plays as Alex, who is one of the worst characters in the game right now. Expecting a fair buff in the rebalance coming at the end of April, sure, but right now, he\u2019s not great. If LPN picks Alex, he\u2019s in for a long night, but he\u2019s definitely got at least an Akuma and a Birdie under his belt.<\/p>\n
LI JOE<\/p>\n
The real American hero, who made top eight at EVO 2016 and captured the hearts and minds of the new TV audience for competitive fighting games. Things went a bit quiet for LI Joe after that, but he\u2019s had some impressive results recently after his favoured character \u2013 Urien \u2013 got a considerable buff in Season two. Definitely the sleeper in the group.<\/p>\n
XIAO HAI<\/p>\n
Headed into Capcom Cup, Xiao Hai was one of the in-form players. That was until he met NuckleDu, who beat him and went on to win the tournament. Xiao Hai might very well be the best Cammy player in the world and with her getting some nice buffs soon is setup to have a really good 2017 \u2013 is ELEAGUE where it starts?<\/p>\n
NUCKLEDU<\/p>\n
The Capcom Cup winner and the best player in the World\u2026 until the start of Season two. In recent tournaments he\u2019s come undone against fellow young stars Smug and Punk, who are both qualified for later ELEAGUE rounds. NuckleDu has two excellent characters in his locker, with Guile and Mika providing him decent cover for almost every matchup in the game. Du is likely looking to re-establish some Street Fighter dominance with a strong showing in his group.<\/p>\n
LUFFY<\/p>\n
Former EVO winner and king of using the PlayStation 1 pad, Luffy is one of Europe\u2019s best. Winning a lot of tournaments in the region and putting on a decent performance around the world. Luffy\u2019s Mika is a formidable force, but where does she stack up in a tournament featuring NuckleDu and Fuudo? He likely has enough to make it through the group stage.<\/p>\n
CHRIS TATARIAN<\/p>\n
Chris Tatarian is the other American Ken player in the tournament, who said on a podcast recently that should Ken receive any more nerfs he might look to another character. Now, although they\u2019re not here yet, Ken is getting rebalanced a bit in the April patch. Will that be playing on his mind? Is this his last hurrah with his beloved Ken? Either way, he\u2019s one of the best in the World on that character, worshipping at the altar of Momochi.<\/p>\n
PHENOM<\/p>\n
The third and final European player in the tournament and the one who has had the best start to 2017. One of the Street Fighter scenes young talents, alongside Punk, Smug and NuckleDu, Phenom finished in the top 16 at Final Round XX and got his first CPT points of the season on the board. The only Bison player in the tournament, a character that Japanese players have been saying is top tier, recently, as well as having a Necalli main, Phenom can beat anyone on his day and already has a few legendary names on his hitlist.<\/p>\n
PREDICTIONS<\/p>\n
NuckleDu and Luffy to take the first two places, making Mika players worldwide extremely happy. LPN and Chris T to miss out, but this will definitely be a much closer group than any of the other three so far. I don\u2019t expect anyone to wash out with the horrid 0-7 result out of this set of players. In fact, it wouldn\u2019t be surprising if deciding on the players who qualify and the two that miss out goes right to the final round of matches. It\u2019s going to be an exciting one tonight at the ELEAGUE studios in Atlanta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ELEAGUE Street Fighter 5 (SFV) tournament really hit its stride yesterday, with the apparent \u2018group of death\u2019 delivering the best day of Street Fighter action to date. Well, tell you what \u2013 today\u2019s Group D is the secret group of death. In fact, it\u2019s hard to see if anyone in this group will go … <\/p>\n