Closing out the Evolution Championship Series for the third year in a row will be Street Fighter V. Despite seeing a slight dip in attendance from 2017, as did every game in the lineup except Tekken 7, over 2,400 entrants is nothing to scoff at. With the largest pot of Capcom Pro Tour points up for grabs Friday through Sunday at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, you can expect every player to put forth their best effort in what is surely the most stacked Street Fighter bracket we've seen all year.
If you were looking for a who's who of Street Fighter players, then look no further than this bracket. From the legends Daigo "The Beast" Umehara, Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi and Justin Wong, to the European hopefuls of Benjamin "Problem X" Simon, Arman "Phenom" Rabiee Hanjani and Olivier "Luffy" Hay, to the younger generation of Saul Leonardo "MenaRD" Mena Segundo, Du "NuckleDu" Dang and Bryant "Smug" Huggin, this bracket has it all.
While there has been plenty of outcry from the community pertaining to the issue of character diversity, as only a few characters have dominated the meta, there has been no shortage in variety of tournament winners this year. There have been six Global Premier tournaments thus far, and only one player, Fujimura Atsushi, has repeated as champion. Daigo, Sim "NL" Gun, Lee "Infiltration" Seon-woo and Tokido have all their time in the spotlight this year.
Fujimura and his flashy Ibuki have taken the CPT by storm, as he's managed to beat some of the best players in the scene on his way to wins at Stunfest 2018 and CEO 2018. Whether it was Daigo, Infiltration, Li-Wei "OIl King" Lin or Zhuojon "Xiao Hai" Zeng, no one has been safe from Fujimura's wrath. Surely everyone has studied the tape by this point, but whether they'll be able to put a stop to it is another story.
Speaking of Daigo, he did manage to get his revenge from Stunfest by taking down Fujimura in the grand finals of the most recent major event, VSFighting. Daigo had racked up plenty of respectable placements throughout the year -- second at NorCal Regionals and fourth at Stunfest being his strongest ones to date -- but had not managed to win this year until last weekend. With his now-signature Guile allowing Daigo to show shades of the legend that has six Evo wins under his belt, the Beast is once again on the prowl.
While they haven't won any premier events in 2018, the conversation isn't complete without the mention of both MenaRD and NuckleDu -- winners of the past two Capcom Cups. MenaRD might have a guaranteed spot in the 2018 Capcom Cup by virtue of winning it all last year, but he's been struggling recently, with just one ranking event win to his name this season. A win at Evo could be just what he needs to put himself back at the forefront of the conversation. NuckleDu, meanwhile, was just signed by Ghost Gaming and is fresh off a win at Defend the North 2018 last weekend. He's never finished higher than fifth at Evo, but with both Guile and Cammy, two of the highest-ranked characters in the current meta, NuckleDu is primed to fight his way back to the top.
Then there's Tokido and Victor "Punk" Woodley, the Evo 2017 grand finalists. Despite Punk being at the height of his career heading into that match, he couldn't outlast Tokido's illustrious Akuma, and Punk hasn't looked the same since. While Tokido has continued to pull in victories -- winning TGU 2018, NorCal Regionals 2018 and Battle Arena Melbourne 10 -- Punk has yet to crack into the top four all year. He's bounced between characters, trying out the likes of Cammy and Chun-Li before settling back with his trusted Karin heading into Evo. This certainly could be Punk's time to step back into the spotlight, but with so many players coming on strong in the past few weeks, his struggles very well might continue.