Street Fighter League Week 2 Recap

The second day of action for Street Fighter League Japan was underway today and we got another three scintillating matches to watch as the best in Japan gathered to fight one another. 

The three matches on display were:

• Shinobism vs DetonatioN FocusMe
• Gyogun vs Cyclops Gaming
• FAV Gaming vs Nagoya Oja Body Star

Shinobism vs DetonatioN FocusMe

The first match saw Shinobism Gaming who had suffered a defeat last time around, up against DetonatioN FocusMe who were playing for the first time this season. DetonatioN FocusMe did not have a great time last year in the league as they were one of the teams at the lower end of the table, and perhaps in a bid to fix that, they enlisted the help of one of the best players in the world, Fuudo. With Fuudo joining Itabashi Zangief and young starlet, John Takeuchi, DetonatioN look like a well rounded team. They also have really nice character diversity with Fuudo able to use Dee Jay and Dhalsim while Itazan is world famous for his Zangief while John Takeuchi has cast his lot with Jamie. 

Shinobism, however, were eager to show that their loss last week was merely a fluke and they went on to defeat DetonatioN 40-0. This seems like a blowout, but the individual matches were actually a lot closer. The first match was between Momochi and Itazan. The former stuck with Ken while Itazan went with his favorite grappler. While Itazan certainly played the footsie game well and used Zangief's lights well, Momochi's ability to ensure that he was the one dominating the corner game rather than Itazan played in his favor. While Itazan tried to keep Ken in the corner, Momochi simply got a confirm and used the Tatsu combo ender to carry Itazan to the corner. The set ended 2-1 with it going down to the last game, last round. 

The second game was similar with Fuudo's Dee Jay causing serious problems for Fujimura. But, Fujimura isn't considered a robot for nothing and was able to find a way to clutch out a victory. This left John Takeuchi with Jamie against Yamaguchi who instead of using Luke, chose to use Dee Jay. This was not a close match at all, and Yamaguchi won 6 rounds straight to defeat John Takeuchi 3-0 and perhaps forcing the Jamie player to reconsider his character choice.

Gyogun vs Cyclops Gaming

The second game saw Cyclops Gaming who also lost last week come up against Gyogun who were led by Mago and feature an unchanged lineup for the season. As with Shinobism, Cyclops were also able to win this time, 30-10. 

Machabo took the first game with Ken against Kazunoko's Cammy. Machabo was really good in Street Fighter V and usually used Necalli and he dabbled in Cammy a bit. It seems he has joined the Ken army for SF6 and it seems to be working out for him as he recorded an important win. Mago was next against Dogura and this one was a bit of a mismatch. Mago's Juri was no match for Dogura and Dee Jay. Dogura is one of those players that you perhaps don't hear about a lot but is an absolute monster. He was one of the clutch players last season with Good 8 Squad and was easily one of the biggest reasons they were able to win the championship. He  was able to overcome Mago rather easily and it might simply be a bad match for Juri. 

The final set of the match  was between Go1 and Moke. Go1 was close to securing his team a victory over Good 8 Squad last week, but lost to Tachikawa in the first to one. He was gearing to go against Moke. Moke, while waiting for Rashid, has set up shop with Chun li and has done really well with her so far. But, against Go1, he was unable to establish his game. Go1's Luke is polished and after an early setback was  able to rally and get a much needed victory for his team.

FAV Gaming vs Nagoya Oja Body Star

The third match saw FAV Gaming, one of the favorites to win the whole thing, show their dominance. Last week, the star-studded team won 40-0, and this week they did it again. Sako's Chun li is looking unstoppable and he quickly dispatched of Kei B (otherwise known as BNBBN) while Bonchan was able to see off Torimeshi. The last match was between Tokido and Akira. 

Akira  is a fan-favorite due to his total rushdown style and his upfront disposition when he is playing. That said, Tookido used Ken's  st.LP to  great effect checking all Cammy's dashes and blowing up her normals.  He won the set and got FAV another welcome 40 points. This means that at the end of the second week, FAV Gaming are undefeated . This isn't an easy feat to pull off and even though we aren't far into the season, FAV are already the favorites to win. 

There will be one more set of games next week before the league goes on a break for Evo 2023.