Next week’s going to be all about Street Fighter 5 and the fighting game community has been pretty quick to bring Capcom’s latest title into the fold. It’s deposed Ultra Street Fighter 4 from this year’s EVO roster, although it’ll be truly interesting to see how the cross-play functionality and servers hold up at launch.
Outside of EVO, fans have been looking forward to what Capcom does with the Pro Tour. It’s basically Capcom’s chance to support Street Fighter in as many countries as possible and, thankfully, the company confirmed that Australia is part of their plans.
72 events will feed into Capcom’s Pro Tour this year, with points earned from the events going towards an overall leaderboard. The top 32 players, who will also earn points from global premier events that include the EVO championships, will then compete at the Capcom Cup in December.
Australia’s Battle Arena Melbourne 8 will act as a ranking event for the Asian portion of the Pro Tour, with the winner of that qualifying to the regional finals. Our region isn’t easy: Australia’s grouped together with China, Hong Kong, Japan (which has two regional events, as well as the MadCatz TGS global event on September 15).
Here’s the list of all the ranking events in Asia, announced on Red Bull:
Asia/Oceania: Australia, South East Asia, Japan, Korea, and China
Battle Arena Melbourne 8 – Australia – May 13-15
Ze Fighting Game – China – May 28-29
Yangcheng Cup – China – August 13-14
CGA – Hong Kong – August 20
Manila Cup – Philippines – September 10-11
Abugetcup – Indonesia – October 1
Thaiger Uppercut @ Thailand Game Show – TBD
Japan Ranking 1 – Japan – TBD
Japan Ranking 2 – Japan – TBD
TBD Event in Thailand
There’s a second event that Red Bull didn’t list, but was reported by Eventhubs from the Capcom stream. The OzHadou Nationls will also be a part of the regional events, taking place in Sydney across August 26-28.
Couchwarriors and OzHadou noted in a press release that the SF5 winners from BAM8 and OHN14 will go to the Pro Tour Asia Finals in South Korea, where the winner gets a direct spot at the Capcom Cup. The release says the Capcom Cup is being held in November, rather than December, but that’ll be clarified going forward.
Another important part is the leaderboards. Everyone earns points across two sets of leaderboards. The top two players with the most Global Points and Regional Points respectively will also get a spot at the Capcom Cup at the end of the year, although unless you had the money to travel all across South East Asia, Japan (three times, including the MadCatz TGS event), China twice and Hong Kong, you’ll probably need to win the regional finals event to make it through.
Bit of a mouthful, really. But hey! If you like Street Fighter, there will be plenty of action over the next year. And that’s not including all the daily and weekly tournaments on the side.
Comments