The big finale to the Capcom Pro Tour 2023 is kicking off this weekend. With eight days of action spread over the next two weeks, Street Fighter 6 fans will be tuning in from all over the world to see who will reign supreme and take home the Capcom Cup champion title, as well as $1,000,000 in prize money.
There are 48 players competing in the finals, the majority of which having qualified by winning major qualifying events, and the final spot is going to the competitor who wins the Last Chance Qualifier this weekend. Just yesterday, Capcom Fighters held a showcase in which the group drawing took place and determined which players would be going up against each other at the start of the competition, and one of the groups chosen in particular has many people very unhappy right now.
The player drawing aimed to place the 48 competitors into eight different groups of six in order to divide everyone up equally and have them slug it out in round robin format. When all is said and done, the top two players from each group will move on to the Capcom Cup X top 16 to then close out the event by determining a grand champion.
Each group had designated slots for players from specific regions, and when it came time to draw for that region’s spot, the player names of those who qualified through said region were put into a lottery draw machine where a ball was randomly picked out of the bowl. Whatever name was selected would be placed in the group that was being drawn for, and while randomly selecting players in this way feels like it should be pretty fair, some of the designated region slots this time made for some unpleasant pickings that have some fans — including some of the Capcom Cup X competitors themselves — fairly upset.
If you hop onto FGC Twitter right now, you can’t take five steps without running into a tweet about Capcom Cup X’s “Group F.” To put it bluntly, this group is absolutely stacked, and the player drawing resulted in Group F consisting of the following players: Bandits|MenaRD, Bandits|Caba, MK|NeroTheBoxer, DRX|Leshar, Mouz|EndingWalker, and NASR|AngryBird.
Now, it’s likely easy to see right up front that this particular group is basically shark infested waters. Included within this group are some of the strongest players in the world right now, with two major Street Fighter champions that are easily favorites to win the whole event.
But let’s look at the specifics of what has fans so unhappy about Group F. For starters, MenaRD and Caba are fellow competitors representing the Dominican Republic, close friends, and are going to have to face each other in the starting rounds of the event.
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Granted, this is a competition and at the end of the day players should be prepared to take on anyone and everyone to get the gold. With that having been said, however, it is definitely disappointing that two prominent DR players will have to face each other early on and potentially eliminate one another quickly — which reduces the country’s potential chances of being represented higher up in the results and lessens the chances of having a champion from the region.
MenaRD, a Street Fighter champion who takes competing extremely seriously and has a ton of pride for his country, was understandably not happy with this drawing. He quickly took to Twitter to share some tweets about the picks.
The first tweet Mena put out in response to the Group F drawing was one of disbelief. He simply wrote a “…” in said tweet shortly after the drawing was made, which many fans were quick to discern was directly a response to having both him and Caba in the same group.
…
— Bandits MenaRD(最強) (@_MenaRD__) February 15, 2024
Mena followed up by saying that he needs his competitive drive to not fail him in this event, and again addressed the drawing by saying, “my heart is broken.”
I wont ask God for skill and patience for this event.
I just need my competitive drive to not fail me for the first time…
My heart is broken…
— Bandits MenaRD(最強) (@_MenaRD__) February 15, 2024
Another reason people aren’t pleased with the Group F picks is that both Mena and AngryBird are considered among the best Street Fighter 6 players in the entire world, and there’s likely an argument to be made that they are actually the two overall best. But with Group F’s drawing, what very well could have been (and still might be) the grand finals match up for all of Capcom Cup X is going to have to take place very early on in the event, and there’s a chance that one or neither player might not get through to the top 16 now.
AngryBird, the Street Fighter 6 Evo 2023 champion, also took to Twitter to express his disappointment with being placed in Group F. Before the drawing happened, he wrote, “Please don’t draw me in group F ,” and when his name was finally selected AngryBird sent out another tweet asking for a re-do.
Whaaaaaaat !!!!!!!! Please redo this
— Nasr| AngryBird (@FGC_Angrybird) February 15, 2024
So, Group F is going to have the SF6 Evo 2023 champion (AngryBird) taking on the Evo 2023 runner-up/Capcom Cup IX champion (MenaRD) in the early stages. It’s also going to have two of the strongest competitors representing the Dominican Republic facing each other early, not to mention that rising star and very young contender EndingWalker also has about as tough of a road ahead as it gets if he hopes to get to the top 16.
Beyond Group F, another two competitors from the same country are also slated to have to face each other in the early stages. South African qualifiers GG|Jabhim and Ren are both in Group H and are looking at a very similar situation to Mena and Caba, which is certainly unfortunate.
Thankfully, players like Mena and AngryBird did send out a couple of tweets later on expressing how they are ready for the challenge ahead regardless of the drawing. But even with the players having accepted how things have turned out, the tweet from Capcom Fighters that shares the group drawing results is currently littered with comments from fans demanding a re-do, sharing alternative ways the drawing can and should have been done, and simply sharing their dislike for the results.
$1 million dollar tournament and the top seed has to fight his fellow countryman and team mate in the first round group stage. Nice
— sogekingu (@SogeKingu2000) February 15, 2024
Compare group F to group G and ask yourself whether this system works.
— I’m what you might call a “White Claw” problem. (@Absolutely_Clm) February 15, 2024
Please think about a redraw. Pool F is way too stacked. In some aspects having players of their level play this early is a test but with the amount of money on the line it’s utterly unfair to the competitors. I wish them all the best of luck and am excited to see them play
— Cabot Wiggett (@ItAintEasy160) February 15, 2024
At the end of the day, though, the drawing has been finalized and these will likely be the groups we see duke it out when the group portion of Capcom Cup X kicks off on Wednesday, February 21. Regardless of the unfortunate drawing picks, fans should still expect an excellent show jam-packed with high quality Street Fighter 6 action.
The group stages will be played from February 21 to 23, and the top 16 finals for Capcom Cup X are taking place on Sunday, February 25. Before that, though, the Last Chance Qualifier will run for three days and begins tomorrow, February 16, so we can look forward to the action starting up very shortly.