Gaming
esports
Everything that unfolded at Red Bull Kumite
All the action from the weekend’s epic Street Fighter V tournament, recapped.
Our recap of the big Street Fighter V event
© Teddy Morellec/Red Bull Content Pool
Well that’s it; the curtains have been drawn on Red Bull Kumite for another year. Players from all over the world travelled to compete throughout the weekend in the Salle Wagram, Paris in the scene’s most prestigious invitational event. Fan favourites fell and new heroes have rose up – we even have a new winner, Japan’s Naoki ‘Nemo’ Nemoto.
If you missed out on any matches or were too busy to catch the stream, we’ve compiled all the highlights in one place for you – right here.
The new challengers
Although Red Bull Kumite proper kicked off on Sunday, Saturday was when all the action really began. As there were two positions still to be earned for 2017’s Red Bull Kumite, players fought throughout a massive bracket on the Saturday to earn their spot in the following day’s tournament.
Out of the 256 entrants, only two would make it. Upsets were a plenty throughout this tournament as favourites, like Packz and Big Bird, fell to lesser known players such as Jacvinjack and Verdoyance.
There were so many close matches throughout the Saturday, but two definite highlights that you need to check out are Verdoyance vs Jacvinjack (who both qualified) in the Grand Finals, and Big Bird vs Tachikawa.
The first match, Verdoyance vs Jacvinjack, was the final match of the day and Verdoyance fought his way through the loser’s bracket to meet Jacvinjack, who surprised everyone with his dominating and very unorthodox style of play.
After winning the first set with Birdie, Verdoyance looked to take a commanding lead, but upon the reset Jacvinjack turned the tides of battle and went two matches up, resulting in Verdoyance switching character to F.A.N.G. From there Verdoyance completely breaks down Jacvinjack’s playstyle in a match-up that should favour Jacvinjack, proving that he was more than worthy of qualifying for the Red Bull Kumite.
Although it wasn’t quite grand finals, UAE’s Big Bird and Japan’s Tachikawa put on a show to be remembered. Both players, fighting for their life in the loser’s bracket, gave all they had. In the previous year Big Bird surprised the competition by defeating numerous favourites in the tournament and placed joint fifth overall. Opposing Big Bird was Tachikawa, one of the youngest competitors at 19, with his Ibuki. Both players would trade rounds ferociously, with Big Bird ultimately triumphing over Tachikawa in some extremely enthralling Street Fighter V matches.
Something to cry about (upsets)
With so many upsets at the Red Bull Kumite 2017 qualifier, it was clear that it was going to be a tournament to remember. Straight out of the gate, Luffy was knocked into the loser’s bracket by PR Balrog, even after his amazing reactions to Balrog’s overhead attack weren’t enough to save him.
These early bracket upsets would continue as Xyzzy clutched out a win over the world-famous Daigo Umehara, Nemo would eradicate Phenom who was hot off his second place Eleague finish, and Gachikun eliminated the Chinese prodigy Xiao Hai.
The surprises didn’t stop in the first round either: as the day progressed, Infexious would go on to completely overcome all expectations beating last year’s winner Infiltration and putting an end to Daigo’s impressive streak through the loser’s bracket.
But even with Daigo’s run cut short by Infexious, Daigo did some damage of his own. After his dangerously close matches with Xyzzy in the first round, Daigo fought his way through loser’s bracket, eliminating Tokido, Phenom, and Bonchan.
Even though it was Nemo that put an end to Bonchan’s current winning streak in tournament, it was Daigo that put the final nail in the coffin in a series of matches that were so close that they were nearly impossible to call.
And now for something completely different
Similar to last year, Red Bull Kumite brought back the combo exhibition to break up the day. Welcoming four competitors to the cage, they were asked to perform a combo, allowing one “reset”, with full meter and V-gauge.
From the competitors we saw some really inspired Ken, R Mika, Akuma, and F.A.N.G. combos. One player, the Akuma player, even utilised a known bug to turn the whole stage into shadow with Akuma’s Raging Demon attack, showing not only his impressive combos, but his understanding of Street Fighter V and its bugs.
Unfortunately the Akuma player would go on to fail his combo after several attempts, but his attempts alone netted him some high scores from the line-up of professional judges. As the Akuma player failed to perform what would surely have been the competition winning combo, the R Mika player would set up an extremely creative combo. He utilised everything in Mika’s arsenal, including two reps of her mic drop attack and finishing with a Critical Art. For his troubles, the competitor won a special PS4 that was designed specifically for the winner of Red Bull combo exhibition tournament.
Something to remember me by
Despite the upsets at Red Bull Kumite, there were also some matches with predictable results which were no less enthralling – the first of which being Nemo vs Phenom. Phenom is known as one of the strongest players in Europe, and his results don’t lie, but Nemo is also widely regarded as one of the best players in Asia. So, when these two clashed in the first round, a match to remember was born. Nemo pulled out all the stops, including some of his infamously tricky mix-ups and took a dominant 2-0 win over Phenom.
After that, Daigo would almost lose to RB in a very close set only two matches into his tournament. Thankfully he was able to turn the tide, even though RB specifically broke out his Balrog instead of Urien, stating that Balrog vs Daigo’s Guile is a far better match up.
But, this streak was short lived as Daigo made his way through the bracket to fight Infexious. Even with Daigo playing the best he has ever played, Infexious showed why he was considered the dark horse of Red Bull Kumite 2017.
Even with the odds stacked against him and the crowd voting heavily in Daigo’s favour to win, Infexious pulled off an impressive 3-1 victory to place in the top three of the tournament. With double KOs, perfects, and some of the fastest adaptations in the whole tournament, this is definitely a contender for the best set in the whole tournament.
The king of the hill
Throughout the weekend loads of names were tossed about for the podium places. Daigo, Bonchan, Phenom, Tokido, and even Xiao Hai were all pegged as favourites, but in the end none of them could stand up to the top three players.
Many spectators were quietly confident in Nemo’s ability to win, but when he first encountered Gachikun, it looked like there was no way Nemo was taking home the gold. After sporadic tournament appearances since Street Fighter V’s release, Nemo had almost been forgotten by some – he was still tied down by his job and often called a “salary man”, regularly showing up to arcades still in his work attire.
But throughout the tournament Nemo would pull off some remarkable feats: put an end to Bonchan’s streak of three tournaments without dropping a set, defeat the European favourite Phenom, eliminate the sole American player PR Balrog, and put a stop to Infexious’s impressive play.
None of these though compare to his impressive rematch against Gachikun in Grand Finals. Nemo lost the first game against his competitor only to go on to winning six whole games straight and take home the grand prize, proving that although he isn’t currently attending as many tournaments as he used to, he’s more than capable of beating the best when he does.
So there you have it, another amazing tournament comes to a close. With more highs and lows than Balrog with full V trigger, for the players Red Bull Kumite is done and dusted for another year – although a few cleaners might still be picking up all that confetti.
That doesn’t mean our coverage at Red Bull is quite over, so be sure to check back over the next few days for more information and follow up coverage on the Red Bull Kumite 2017.
