Although it feels as though the action just kicked off not that long ago, this year’s Capcom Pro Tour season is already entering its final leg where the majority of competitors are going to earn a spot at Capcom Cup 11 in the near future.
With the last CPT Super Premier of 2024 going down in Japan for Street Fighter 6 this weekend, legendary pro BST|Daigo Umehara recently shared some of his thoughts and concerns about the circuit’s current format.
While attending the Singapore Super Premier a few weeks ago, Umehara recorded a video from his hotel room answering some questions from his fans and talking about his experience at the event.
He notes being surprised by how many strong players were sent to loser’s bracket very early like BST|Fuudo, Saishunkan|Nemo, Mouz|Problem X, Mouz|EndingWalker and plenty of others or were even eliminated before the advanced stages.
Daigo then notes that he’s managed to travel to all four Premiers up to that point (now five counting Japan), and how he may be the only person to do so this year because he’s one of the very few players left whose sponsors cover most if not all of their travel expenses.
He laments a bit about the qualifying structure for the CPT now and how only two competitors are going to come out with a Capcom Cup spot — and the rest basically get nothing.
“I mean, I know it’s ultimately gonna come down to two people, of course,” said Daigo. “But going overseas for the first time in a while, and maybe it’s just last-minute desperation, I don’t know, but everyone comes out to these events thinking they have a shot, you know?
“They spend seven or eight hours in transit, spend no small sum of money, only to get eliminated within an hour. And then there’s nothing for them to do”
“They spend seven or eight hours in transit, spend no small sum of money, only to get eliminated within an hour. And then there’s nothing for them to do. There’s something not quite right about this system, huh…
“I can’t help but feel like it is kind of a silly system.”
This isn’t the first time Umehara has spoken about Street Fighter 6’s pro circuit lately recently either.
Previously, Daigo discussed how the current CPT structure gives players fewer incentives to travel to multiple offline events around the world.
That in large part comes to the elimination of the world leaderboard ranking system where even if a player didn’t win a tournament, they could still earn points to try and qualify for Capcom Cup at the end of the year based on their overall performance.
He went on to detail how he believes Japanese players would be consistently dominating the scene again in SF6 like we previously saw in Street Fighter 4, 5 and pretty much every entry in the series if they were given a reason to travel.
The recent CPT results may be backing that up a bit at the moment with CR|Shuto and DFM|Itabashi Zangief each won the last two Premier events after the region had largely struggled to take victories at the global scale in SF6 thus far.
Those concerns don’t mean that Daigo isn’t still grateful for what the community does have, however.
“Of course, if you told me I should be grateful we have these tournaments at all, I wouldn’t have a single rebuttal,” continued Umehara. “It’s just a video game, after all. A toy.
“If you said, ‘That’s what you get for expecting to make money playing with toys,’ I’d be like, ‘Yes, sir, you are correct.'”
He then attempts to draw some parallels to the movie Challengers, which he watched on the plane over, comparing a bit the struggle of pro tennis players and pro fighting game players.
“Those athletes live in a really harsh world, which is only natural because they’re playing at such a high level. But I think whoever loses gets to go home feeling convinced that it really came down to their own weakness.
“I can’t help but wonder if we’ll ever have a system that lets us feel that way. If not, I feel like participation is going to wane rapidly, given the current format.”
As he ponders if that can be achieved, he points to how the concept of a “pro” player still hasn’t really been worked out, structured or defined.
Daigo also notes the issues trying to balance having an open-bracket tournament structure with that of the logistics of running a stream / event and the wants of players at said events.
The current CPT is also putting a lot more focus on the regional aspect of the qualification process and less on offline Premiers.
Although there are 48 players going to Capcom Cup 11 next year, only 10 of them are coming from the 8 Premiers this year.
The rest are all World Warrior regions.
And on top of that, there also will not be a last chance qualifier tournament before Capcom Cup for those who would wish to travel for the opportunity a final time.
Now, there’s just the top two placers at CPT Japan followed by the winner of Blink Respawn 2024 next weekend and then Kings of the World in December.
The decentralized nature of these World Warrior events does allow for more players all around the globe to compete for points on that scale, but it also comes at the price of lowered exposure and added trouble of even well-informed fans having trouble keeping up with who is winning and where.
There’s a ton to juggle for a world-scale fighting game circuit, but Capcom should take a hard look at how the CPT is set up now and figure out a way to improve the experience for both competitors and viewers who want to keep up with the action and follow rivalries / stories as they progress through a season or beyond.
Daigo does go into some ideas he would prefer, which you can check out as part of his discussion below, but we’ll go more over them another time soon.