Evo Street Fighter 6 Top 6 Recap

Street Fighter 6's Evo 2024 was won by Punk who has capped a phenomenal year with his biggest career win. Punk was a finalist in 2017 on the back of a ridiculous season and just lost out to Tokido. 

In 2023, Punk was close again, but crashed out in 3rd place. 

However, 2024 turned out to be Punk's year as he was able to overcome the setback of a reset and clutched it out in the final round against Big Bird. 

The top 6 looked like this:

• 1. Punk
• 2. Big Bird
• 3. EndingWalker
• 4. Momochi
• 5. Nemo
• 5. Zhen

It was heartbreak for Big Bird who was once again only second place after losing in 2019 to Bonchan. He had defeated EndingWalker twice and Punk once and was a missed low block away from winning Evo to follow in the footsteps of AngryBird who won last year. 

For EndingWalker, this was only his second Evo experience and being able to take third place defeating Momochi cements him as the best Ed in the world. 

For Nemo, he had been the one to take out both the Evo Japan champion, Mena, and last year's Evo champion, AngryBird just to get his spot in the top 6. There, a controller malfunction might have gone a long way in condemning him to a defeat to Momochi. Meanwhile, Zhen, the other top 6 contender could do nothing about EndingWalker's composure as he too bowed out to a fellow young prodigy. 

For Punk, this had been looking like his year with some pretty decent results including qualification for the Esports World Cup, a win at CEO 2024, a win for the United States at the World Cyber Games defeating both team Japan and Team Korea. Big Bird on the other hand was also the winner of DreamHack Sweden and had also posted some pretty impressive results.

Punk's win makes him the first American to win Evo for Street Fighter since Snake Eyez in 2010, but that was for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD remix. The last time an American has won Evo for Street Fighter in a mainline SF game was for Super Street Fighter II Turbo and that was John Choi. 

This win also means that Punk is qualified for Capcom Cup in 2025 and is the first winner of a major CPT tournament. 

Next is the Esports World Cup which will see many of these players return for the biggest prize pool in esports so far.