MenaRD Wins Final Capcom Cup for Street Fighter V

MenaRD is the final Capcom Cup for Street Fighter V winner!

Mena, who won Capcom Cup 2017 as a fresh-faced youngster, was on hand to win it again as a more grizzled veteran taking the Grand Final over LCQ winner and tournament dark horse, Zhen. 

Mena had been in fine form all week, taking first place in his group over the likes of Pugera, Myrken, JimmY, and Samurai. He was dominant all through the top 16 and top 8, taking down names like EndingWalker and defeating Zhen twice to win the coveted trophy.

He will now win the $120,000 grand prize and will have the distinct honor of being the first-ever player to win Capcom Cup twice. It is even more remarkable that he did it with the same game. 

Now, we can close the chapter on Street Fighter V and start looking forward to a new era of Street Fighter 6. But, this will be a Capcom Cup to remember.

Here are the rankings

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

4th Place

5th Place

7th Place

Top 16

For Capcom Cup, it was a tournament full of stories, and it started way before top 16, but it was at this point things reached critical mass. MenaRD started his triumphant run with a 3-1 win over Takamura who first tried to challenge Mena's Luke with Ken. This didn't work and he tried out Akuma, but it was to no avail. 

Another fascinating storyline was Kawano. The Evo winner did pretty well in his group and was pivotal to his team's (Good 8 Squad) win at the Street Fighter League World Championship. But, when put up against the absolute monster that is Zhen, he couldn't win and his defeat to VegaPatch was one of the biggest upsets of the week. He had also switched to Luke over Kolin, but it did feel like his Luke was not as polished as some of the best in his scene, like Yamaguchi. However, with Street Fighter 6 coming, it is certain that Kawano will be back again. 

Top 8

The first thing to note about top 8 is that for the first time in history, there was no single Japanese player there. This is unprecedented and it does highlight some of the advantages of the CPT's new system of representing more regions. Three Japanese players made it in, and they were all knocked out. Under the former rules, there probably would have been more of them and the odds of them making it to top 8 would have been significantly higher. 

For MenaRD, his next game was against the young prodigy, EndingWalker, who has had the most impressive tournament and who was even considered a favorite by some of the stakeholders of the FGC. Mena came through that test with flying colors, not letting EndingWalker establish his game and sending him to losers'.

EndingWalker's run would end at the hands of iDom who showed that the young Englishman still has some way to go before toppling the best in the world. iDom did lose to Zhen to bow out in 3rd place. Mister Crimson was also in the mix, and he was one of iDom's victims and ended the day in 4th place ending Europe's dream of a first Capcom Cup.

Competitive Street Fighter is in a good place, and Capcom Cup IX was a fitting send-off for one of the best Street Fighter games (yes, I said it) ever made. We hope that Street Fighter 6 brings good memories.