It’s been a little bit since 00|Phenom has released a clip where he interviews competitive players from Japan about their top 5 lists for Street Fighter 6. It feels as though there’s a clear goal with these clips as Phenom has been putting extra emphasis on the fact that top players from Japan aren’t listing Ken as a top 5 combatant.
Phenom’s latest interview is with RB|Gachikun, Street Fighter 5’s Capcom Cup 2018 champion. Of course, Gachikun’s success has carried over into Street Fighter 6 as he has also qualified for Street Fighter 6’s Capcom Cup X as one of the three Offline Premier winners.
Notably, Gachikun was able to qualify for Capcom Cup X with Rashid and is so far the only player to do so with a DLC fighter. Indeed, these sort of achievements certainly add quite a bit of credibility to Gachikun’s opinions regarding Street Fighter 6.
As the latest clip begins, Phenom predictably asks Gachikun about his top 5 characters list in Street Fighter 6. Based on previous clips, we already have a fairly good idea of where this is going.
“I think Luke,” began Gachikun after some visible thinking. “JP. Chun-Li.”
Chun-Li has consistently ranked high on tier lists from those in the Japanese scene. While Chun-Li is in no way considered a slouch in Street Fighter 6, Japan seems to rank her higher than most other parts of the world.
After some more thinking, Gachikun eventually came up with Guile as fourth and Dee Jay as fifth. Once again, Ken was absent from this player’s top 5 list.
Upon hearing this, Phenom then proceeded to question Gachikun specifically about Ken’s placement. Other top Japanese players have typically been listing Ken as being around sixth or seventh.
“I think… sixth, seventh, or eighth,” responded to Gachikun regarding Ken’s placement. Additionally, Gachikun implied that characters like Cammy, Marisa, and Juri were above Rashid.
Gachikun, one of the best Rashid players in the world, gives us his top 5 strongest characters in Street Fighter 6 pic.twitter.com/GW6PYnyrUX
— Arman Hanjani (@PhenomSF) January 13, 2024