Character discussions are heating up in the Street Fighter 6 community as we rapidly approach Capcom Cup X with some pros shaking up who many thought to be at the top of the foodchain.
00|Phenom continued his trek of questioning the top Japanese competitors at FAV Cup 2023 about their top 5 picks for the strongest fighters in SF6, and the latest to join in on the fun was none other than the runner up of the big event and former Evo champion Rohto|Tokido.
Like his other previous “guests”, Phenom asks the legendary professional to quickly name names for what he thinks right now.
“Strongest characters? Okay,” begins Tokido. “JP. Luke. Chun-Li. Dee Jay. And…Ken!”
From the previous picks of BST|Daigo Umehara, GyoGun|Moke, and Saishunkan|Shuto, we can spot some patterns about how the top Japanese players are viewing SF6 from this standpoint.
The Murderface, Tokido, gives us his top 5 strongest characters in Street Fighter 6 pic.twitter.com/gsaRVnMTER
— Arman Hanjani (@PhenomSF) January 2, 2024
Three out of the four put JP as number 1 with Shuto saying he’s number 2 though that’s definitely not the only similarity.
All of them included Luke and Chun-Li high in their rankings as well though it seems they don’t all agree on Dee Jay, Cammy and Guile.
Tokido has been the only one of them so far to actually put Ken in his top 5 solidly while the others tended to place the Shoto around 6th or 7th.
There has been a push outside of Japan lately trying to claim that Ken is not as good as Luke and JP in the top tiers, and those who feel that way are feeling a bit vindicated by these lists.
That being said, however, the top 2 finishers at the FAV Cup main event both played Ken with the second being Tokido himself.
It’s not a hard rule for him, but Tokido also trends to picking who he feels to be the strongest character he likes.
That’s a bit interesting considering Tokido did start out SF6’s competitive season maining Luke for a few months before switching to Ken, who he says here is weaker than his initial choice.
As of just a few weeks ago, Luke and Ken were by far the most popular characters picked among players qualified for Capcom Cup in February.
This by itself doesn’t necessarily mean that Ken is indeed as strong as Luke, but the dude is winning tournaments in the hands of players just as much as if not more than anyone else.
You can get a further breakdown on our thoughts on Ken’s power level in SF6 as well as the other top tier contenders in our video below as well.