Community Effort Orlando. What was once a small community event for hosting fighting game tournaments has now grown in size after its first event six year ago, attracting players all over the world to compete.
In terms of Street Fighter V, the event is a Capcom Pro Tour Premier Event, which brings in a lot of stakes for the highest competitive players to come and join. A win in the finals here will earn an automatic qualification for the Capcom Cup later this year, and good placing nets them high points for the Capcom Pro Tour standings.
Razer|Infiltration, the dominant champion of the previous premier events, is back. Many strong players also made an appearance for that CEO champion belt including Daigo “The Beast” Umehara, Stunfest 2016 winner Momochi and Tokido, who had been second best in a few of the premier events already and have yet to secure a win.
The journey of the emergent winner, taking the CEO winner belt is full of hype moments. Tokido’s loss against Infiltration and his subsequent comeback, beating Daigo, top Necalli player Haitani and Momochi in the losers bracket to challenge Infiltration again in the Grand Finals was definitely the most incredible showing of the show.
Tokido finally took home the big win at CEO 2016, all thanks to his mastery of Ryu’s V-Skill, the parry. The amount of times the parry used in the most unexpected moments certainly caught Infiltration off-guard.
In other news, CEO is known to have heavily inspired by wrestling in terms of its presentation: the belt, the main stage for top matches is in a ring. While we did not see any wrestiling-inspired entrances from the players this year, but we got something similar: an exhibition Street Fighter V match against two pro wrestlers: WWE Superstar Xavier Woods and New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Kenny Omega.
Lots of promos, trash talk, and actual decent matches. The ending where both of them reconcile in a show of sportsmanship is the perfect way to end it.
Here’s the rankings of the Street Fighter V tournament at CEO 2016, courtesy of Shoryuken:
1. Tokido (Ryu)
2. RZR|INFILTRATION (Nash)
3. EG|Momochi (Ken)
4. YD.MJS|Haitani (Necalli)
5. BST|Daigo Umehara (Ryu)
5. Liquid|NuckleDu (Nash)
7. Mago (Karin)
7. CBZ|Onuki (Chun-Li)
9. Coin Up|Ludovic (Chun-Li)
9. Wolfkrone (Laura)
9. HM|GO1-3151 (Chun-Li)
9. NVT|Flash (Vega)
13. GGP|Kazunoko (Cammy)
13. QANBA.Douyu|Xiaohai (Cammy)
13. Secret|PoongKo (Cammy)
13. Stupendous (Zangief)
17. NOeS|Tampa Bison (M. Bison)
17. ESPR|Mono (F.A.N.G)
17. EG|JWong (Karin)
17. XsK_Samurai (Ryu)
17. F3|alucarD (Birdie)
17. Rylander (Dhalsim)
17. BoTB|Vagabond (Necalli)
17. PG|FChamp (Dhalsim)
25. RN|Alex Myers (Cammy)
25. IFC YipeS (Necalli)
25. DTN.PIE|Smug (Karin)
25. LI Joe (Nash)
25. Chris Tatarian (Ken)
25. Circa|LPN
25. YP|Filipinoman (Chun-Li)
25. RB|Snake Eyez (Zangief, Alex, Ryu)
The next premier event will be G-League in China on 7th July, following up on the 15th with the major fighting game event, EVO.