Street Fighter 6 at East Coast Throwdown 2023: Shine's Statement Win

The first East Coast Throwdown for Street Fighter 6 is now over and the winner was the veteran of the East Coast, Shine, who defeated Naji 3-2 in Grand Final to take his first big title in Street Fighter 6. 

The top eight was as follows:

• 1st place — Shine
• 2nd place — Naji 
• 3rd place — Burkish
• 4th place — Space boy
• 5th place — iDom and crispe117
• 7th place — Docta Afrikan.EX and Zykles

Top 8 Recap

This was easily the largest bracket ever at an East Coast Throwdown ever with almost 500 competitors looking for the win. This was about half of the total entrants for the competition which saw just over a thousand entrants. That said, some of the heavy hitters of the North American scene were missing including Punk, and MenaRD (who was in Singapore) 

Top 8 started with a match that was the Grand Final of last year's ECT which iDom won as he steamrolled his way to a successful 2022. However, in Street Fighter 6, while iDom has been impressive, it is also true that he hasn't been remotely as dominant as he was in Street Fighter V. This many, think, is due to his character choice. Manon is a fun character to watch if you are into her technicalities, but, she is certainly not remotely in the top tiers. 

That said, Shine doesn't use a high tier character either in Kimberly, but he was the better of the two in what was a close match, but Shine clutched it out andd sent iDom to losers'. Naji vs Space Boy was next. Space Boy was very close to qualifying for Capcom Cup last year when he took second place in the NA East online premiere losing to Punk. Meanwhile, Naji has been recording some really impressive results in Street Fighter 6 with his Juri. 

The two faced off with Naji getting the better of Space Boy and taking out one of his two tournament lives. Losers' bracket saw crispe117 defeat Docta Afrikan. EX, before one of the players of the tournament, Burkish, defeated Zykles. 

What Burkish did next was truly remarkable as he faced iDom with Rashid and dominated iDom. iDom tries to slow the pace of a game down to his advantage and win. This was how he recorded the longest ever perfect seen in fighting games, but against Burkish, he seemed to be caught up in Rashid's fast pace and could not keep up. Burkish ensured that he kept iDom in the corner and smothered him there. iDom tried to challenge with light pokes, but they didn't work, and his command grab game wasn't as dangerous as it usually is. 

Burkish would win the match 3-0 in what can only be described as an upset, if not because of the result, but more about the manner in which it was achieved. 

Meanwhile, Space Boy and crispe117 played a very close set, but Space Boy prevailed and moved on to losers' Semi-Final. 

Winners' final saw Shine do something different. He switched to Chun li to counter Naji's Juri. This could likely be because Kimberly doesn't do so well against Juri and Chun with her walk speed and reversal options, reliable anti-airs, and decent damage, was the better pick. So it proved as Shine made quick work of Naji and won the set 3-0. 

Naji now in losers' final, had to wait for the winner between Space Boy and Burkish. Burkish's amazing run continued as he Space Boy, the man who sent him to losers' in the first place. 

However, he could not continue this against Naji who was able to defeat his Rashid easily and win 3-0 to set up a runback against Shine. 

Eager to avoid what happened in winners' finals, Naji went for a surprising choice — A.K.I. 

Using the poison lady, he tried to challenge Shine's Chun li, but he kept dropping his combos and it looked quite clear that he was not going to make a dent in Shine's gameplan. He switched back to Juri and had a much better time against Shine pushing the champion towards a reset. But it was not to be as Shine showed his quality and won the set. 

It's Shine's first major tournament win in Street Fighter 6 and he will be hoping for more.