Akuma tends to be top tier in almost every game he’s in, and he’s been in Street Fighter 6 for a full 12 weeks now.
In the lead up to his May 22 release the community imagined how he might thrive in the specific context of Street Fighter 6’s offense-heavy, Drive System-defined atmosphere, and whether or not Capcom developers had figured out a way to make him both strong and balanced upon initial release. While the answer is still elusive in many ways, we do have three months worth of direct experience, tournament results, and top player opinions to help elucidate the picture.
Akuma was first designed not as a competitively viable option for the character select screen but as an overpowered boss who boasted enhanced versions of Ryu’s moves. This status was somewhat seared into his identity, and so he’s almost always had conspicuously stronger abilities than the series poster boy.
On top of exceptionally powerful fireballs, hurricane kicks, and uppercuts, Akuma has been accumulating additional moves as he tends to get a new maneuver or two every time he appears in a new Street Fighter entry; he’s been one of the few characters (Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li are the others) who has been in every game since his initial debut.
“The Beast himself, the player who pulled off Evo Moment 37, has been using the demonic character since release and has yet to win much with him.”
Knowing that he’s got the potential to thrive amid almost any Street Fighter title, developers at Capcom have made sure to consistently give Akuma an Achilles Heel: low vitality. The demonic warrior virtually always has less health than most or all of his roster mates, but even so he still tends to be among the best as a rule.
A recurring and central question surrounding his SF6 debut inquired as to whether or not his having 9,000 health in a game where everyone else (save for Marisa, E. Honda, and Zangief, who have more) has 10,000 would be enough to balance Akuma.
This wasn’t really the case in either Street Fighter 4 or 5 where Akuma had similar relative health, but Street Fighter 6 tends to be two things that aren’t good for low health characters: volatile and unforgiving.
There’s a bit of a discussion in the SF community right now as to whether SF6 is more volatile than its predecessor, SF5. Street Fighter 5 was volatile widely because of V-Triggers, which did not come into play until later in rounds, while Street Fighter 6 garners its volatility from routine interactions that begin when the round starts.
A stray hit in Street Fighter 6 usually means losing around 40% of your health, being pushed close or in to the corner, and dealing with unfavorable pressure immediately after. Most characters take at least 3 touches to KO in this game, but Akuma’s life deficit often means he can only survive 2.
Next we consider how SF6 has a ton of matter of fact mental stack (the amount of relevant options a player must be simultaneously ready to defend against at any given time) thanks to the pounce-heavy nature of Drive Rush and the extension of combos thanks to Drive Rush Cancels.
Pair this all with the fact that most SF6 normal attacks used in block pressure strings are not advantageous, and thus aggressors can suddenly go from being on offense to having to guess to avoid being hit themselves, and you can quickly see how scary having low health is in this game.
Still, Akuma does boast an incredible tool kit. Incredible walk speed, powerful normals, painful combos, delay-able fireballs, air fireballs, the multifaceted Demon Raid (Flip), and an invincible reversal are just some of the abilities that give him viability in almost every situation he may find himself in.
Here in lies perhaps another subtle weight around Akuma’s neck: choosing from his wealth of options can be overwhelming in the heat of battle. Indeed legendary player BST|Daigo recently described Akuma as especially complex, alluding to the idea that he’s amazing on paper, but that might not (ever) translate when it comes to human execution.
The Beast himself, the player who pulled off Evo Moment 37, has been using the demonic character since release and has yet to win much with him. In fact, Akuma has yet to win much in general as we’ve gathered results from 15 major events we’ve covered here on EventHubs since his release (we did not include Combo Breaker as it took place just a few days after Akuma dropped).
Said events vary in terms of competitive intensity as they range from tournaments like Evo and the Esports World Cup to smaller regional ones. Below you’ll see our findings as we list how many Akumas made it into respective top eight brackets and/or the character’s highest placement.
• Esports World Cup
1 Akuma in top eight, 2nd place finish.
• Esports World Cup Last Chance Qualifier
2 Akumas in top eight, 3rd and 5th place finishes.
• Defend The North 2024
0 Akumas in top eight, highest place was 13th.
• Crossover 2024
0 Akumas in top eight, highest place was 9th.
• Evo 2024
Akuma used as an alternate by winner (Punk), highest placing by Akuma as main character was 17th.
• S-Factor 11
1 Akuma in top eight, 7th place finish.
• The Mixup 2024
0 Akumas in top eight, highest place was 9th.
• 5th Topanga Championship
2 Akumas in top 8, 2nd and 6th place finishes.
• 5th Topanga Championship Last Chance Qualifier
1 Akuma in top eight, 2nd place finish.
• Second Wind 2024
0 Akumas in top eight, no Akuma mains placed in our results.
• CEO 2024
Akuma used as an alternate by winner (Punk), highest placing by Akuma as main character was 5th.
• Only The Best 2024
0 Akumas in top eight, no Akuma mains placed in our results.
• DreamHack Summer 2024
1 Akuma in top eight, 3rd place finish.
• DreamHack Dallas 2024
0 Akumas in top eight, highest place was 17th.
• Battle Arena Melborne
Akuma used as an alternate by winner (Rohto|Tokido), no Akuma mains placed in our results.
It’s clear Akuma has a presence in major tournaments, and was even used to win the international CEO event despite not being Punk’s primary pick throughout the bracket. While we are seeing him perform, we’re really not seeing him win despite the fact that he’s quite popular among players.
It’s almost a guarantee that you’ll have a handful of Akuma users in your event, which tracks with the fact that he’s been the most popular character online since his debut. Indeed he was used a whopping nearly 13% of the time across all online Street Fighter 6 ranked bouts according to the July character usage statistics.
So what does this tell us? He’s popular and he’s decent? Perhaps that places him in the top 5, but not a matter of fact top 1? A number of prominent figures in the community have offered their early opinions on the matter, and so we’ve collected the tier lists we’ve shared on EventHubs since Akuma’s release to see where he tends to be placed.
• Tigers|Crossover – 4th place.
• HDG|Pochoclo23 – 2nd (Pochoclo’s note – “Akuma is theoretically stronger than Ken (1st), BUT in practice, Ken is more effective and requires less effort to play”).
• 801 Strider – 4th place.
• EH|DreamKing – 3rd place.
• VesperArcade – 3rd place.
• Saishunkan|Nemo – 6th place.
• Punk – 5th place.
• RB|Gachickun – 7th place.
• Nephew – 4th place.
• NIP|Phenom – Top 6 (placements not ordered).
• Veggey – 1st place.
• Smug polled many players at Evo for their top 5, here are some of the notable players who mentioned Akuma in their answer:
– X-SET|iDom
– Mouz|Problem X
– Mouz|EndingWalker
– BST|Fuudo
– RC|Haitani
– Falcons|MenaRD
– DFM|Itabashi Zangief
– GG|Xian
– SR|NuckleDu
– Falcons|NL
– CR|Dogura
– VARREL|Moke
There appears to be a good amount of faith in Akuma, even if he’s yet to come into or realize his paper potential in actual tournaments. On this front, however, we should note that legendary Japanese competitor Tokido (known for playing Akuma, but only when he regards him as top tier) decided to ultimately stick with Ken instead of switching to Akuma.
Here we are with a handful of interesting data points, opinions, and actions taken by the community that paint the character as a likely top 5 placer.
We are only three months into the journey, and it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see a competitor figure out how to take Akuma to a whole new level nor would it be surprising to see the character fail to get results long enough to fall more into the top 10 range.
What do you think of Akuma thus far? Have we unlocked his potential and found that he’s good, but not the best? Will he wind up climbing once people figure out tighter strategies with him, or is the pairing of low health and complex options leading him down the tier list?
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the character thus far in the comments below.