The online Street Fighter 6 character usage stats for November are in and while there’s plenty to examine across the game’s 20 characters and two control types, the most prominent change is immediately apparent: A.K.I. is dropping off.
The game’s newest character has actually been around since late September, so players have had a few months to start to get the hang of her more technical and unique nature. At the same time, non A.K.I. users have had ample time to figure out how to best fight her, and that very well may be why we’re seeing the downward trends.
The majority of characters don’t move by more than a few tenths of a percent in either direction from month to month, with stats like Ken’s -.9% and Dee Jay’s +.7% standing out as notable movements in the Master category (including both Classic and Modern controls).
Ken remains in first overall despite this steeper drop while Dee Jay’s boost was enough to take him from 5th to 3rd most popular character when it comes to the ranked Masters. A.K.I., however, has dropped a full 1.1% in this category, and it only gets worse when you look through others.
The poisonous fighter is down a whopping 4.9% in Diamond ranks and 4.7% in Platinum. She’s down 2% in both of the lowest ranks, Rookie and Iron, and has dropped off by 4.1% in total ranked usage.
Indeed, regardless of rank or control type, A.K.I. has plummeted by at least 1.1% (and at most 6.1% as seen in Classic Gold). The only statistics that are more surprising than this were A.K.I.’s gains in October, where she increased in popularity by as much as 4-7% in certain categories.
Now it stands to reason that a new character is going to see more movement than others simply because the community is still widely figuring them out, and fair enough, but the other DLC example from SF6’s growing roster, Rashid, did not see anywhere near as big of swings at any point since his debut back in July.
The community has deemed A.K.I. relatively weak, but at the same time seems to hold out that she very well could have hidden potential. Her damage output is notably high (once she’s poisoned you) and her relatively odd maneuvers and pressure strings often serve as tricky knowledge checks for opponents.
You can see the changes for the top 13 most popular characters across Platinum, Diamond, and Master ranks (A.K.I. appears in each) via the thumbnail below. You can see every last stat for the month of November 2023 over at the Buckler’s Boot Camp SF6 page.
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