The Capcom Pro Tour 2024 Super Premier Singapore officially kicked off yesterday and the list of registered players competing this weekend is absolutely staggering. Just with the pools action, we have seen several match ups that could have just as easily been the grand finals of any major event, which means we’ve had a ton of top level Street Fighter 6 action to enjoy already.
Before top 96 plays out tonight and decides the top 16, though, we wanted to take a look back at one of the most impressive moments to come out of day 1. During his match up against FAV|Ryukichi, SNB|Fujimura pulled off an incredible comeback in the first game of their set that is an absolute must see.
Fujimura has been playing Akuma this weekend and went up against Ryukichi’s Ken on their trek to the top 96. In just the first match of their 2/3 set, we saw both competitors sit with one round a piece and enter the final round to decide who was going to put a point on the board first.
Ryukichi entered this round with level 3 super locked and loaded while Fujimura began with just under two and a half super bars. Needless to say, the big, momentum-changing super attack was on the table for both players here in this final round of the first game.
How a player uses level 3 in the last round of a match is an interesting dance. Do you choose to use it early in the round for a life lead and to chip away at the opponent’s Drive Gauge? Or should you wait until their health is lower to try and close out with a hard-hitting resource dump combo?
In this case, Ryukichi would lay his cards on the table first opting to use level 3 super when Akuma sat at around 60% health left. The Ken player would ultimately tag Fujimura’s backdash attempt in the corner with a delayed crouching medium punch into Drive Rush, which would lead into a fairly short combo into level 3 as Ryukichi was low on Drive Gauge and didn’t want to enter burnout with an extended sequence.
This combo wouldn’t KO Fujimura, but it would put him at about 10% health left and very close to being down for the count.
With a little over three Drive Gauge bars now stocked after recovering during the level 3, Ryukichi went for the raw Drive Rush oki set up to try and close things out, but Fujimura blocked, survived, and fought off the Ken player with a couple of blocked normals into Drive Rush cancel to escape the corner.
At this point, many players might see this scenario and think, “oh, Ryukichi is in a fantastic spot and is about to close this out!” However, this particular situation actually ends up being very good for Fujimura — and the Akuma player certainly recognized this.
Ryukichi now has a little less than two Drive Gauge bars left and no super, while Fujimura has about the same on the Drive Gauge front, but also Critical Art stocked. The name of the game for Ryukichi is close this thing out as soon as possible, which you can see him try to do as he throws an Overdrive fireball in the fireball war after his Drive Meter built back up past two bars to hopefully catch Fujimura with the final stray hit he needed to win.
This didn’t work, however, and Fujimura was able to block in time and fight on.
You’ll notice that despite having very low health, the Akuma player never really ended up fighting on his back foot here. Instead, he’d press forward and continue to pressure Ryukichi from a safe distance to keep the opponent’s Drive Meter lower and hopefully snag the burnout.
In doing this, Fujimura would end up taking two stray standing light kicks from Ken putting his health even further down to just a sliver left. All the while, Ryukichi’s Ken still had about 75% health left.
Fujimura pushed on, weaving in and out of range for max ranged low pokes and safer fireball pressure to continue chipping away at Ryukichi’s resolve and hopefully find the big opening he needed to land Critical Art. We even see a point where Ryukichi attempts to Drive Impact through one of Akuma’s fireballs, but Fujimura was at a range where Akuma would recover in time to block and stay alive.
Even when Fujimura finally lands a significant opening in an anti-air Dragon Punch, he only goes in once after with a Drive Rush oki set up for a quick blockstring, then backs off again. He continues forward with extremely patient play, poking and prodding to try and open the opponent up and secure the big hit he needs.
We don’t see any major moves from Fujimura here for a good while. No raw Drive Rushes, no jumps, just walking in and out, poking, and trying to walk Ryukichi to the corner. With Ken being pushed back a bit closer to the corner, Fujimura finally strikes and cancels a blocked crouching medium kick into Drive Rush for a quick pressure string that lands him a forward throw and more corner carry.
Now with Ryukichi almost fully cornered, Fujimura goes for the gusto with a raw Drive Rush in, cuts its travel shorter with a standing light kick — which forces Ryukichi’s counter poke to whiff and actually counter pokes it — and this hit is what allows Akuma to cancel into a Drive Rush, continue the combo, hit the Critical Art, and win the match.
What’s really important to note here is that the whole time Fujimura is mounting this comeback, Ryukichi never builds another super until he’s being hit by the game winning combo. And though the Ken player had access to Overdrive Shoryuken as a reversal the entire time, attempting it would, at best, likely mean entering burnout and maybe surviving the big punish and at worst being KO’d for that one gamble should it be baited out.
On top of that, Fujimura’s patient play involved largely staying out of range for a proper reversal attempt from Ryukichi making this whole thing all the more impressive.
This comeback demonstrates a top tier understanding of the current meta, and Fujimura’s impressive display of patience and understanding the situation — and maintaining it even on the big stage — is nothing short of remarkable.
You can check out a brief clip of the comeback in the tweet below, but click the video to jump to the start of the round so that you can see the entire sequence described in this article fully play out.
.@fujimura333 with just a sliver of health??? pic.twitter.com/QEc3qauck6
— Capcom Fighters (@CapcomFighters) October 18, 2024