Street Fighter League World Championship Ends In Pulsating Final

Capcom Cup 11 ended its singles tournament on the 8th of March 2024, with Kakeru becoming the latest FGC millionaire. But the job was not done as there was the small matter of the Street Fighter League World Championship which pits the winning teams of SFL Japan, Europe, and USA against one another. 

In the end, Good 8 Squad were victorious, making it their 2nd world championship win in the last 3 years. 

Pre-Game

Going into the tournament, it was so hard to call who would win. Traditionally, the Europeans teams usually seemed weaker than the American and Japanese teams, but this time, they were probably the strongest on paper with a team comprising of Norwegian champion Phenom, Evo 2023 winner AngryBird, Evo 2024 finalist Big Bird, and European titan Veggey. 

There was also the fact that Punk’s FlyQuest were pretty dominant in the SFL USA season, winning in emphatic style against MenaRD-led Bandits. This is not to overlook Good 8 Squad who had already won this championship before and had also defeated a REJECT team that had until then looked unbeatable. 

The way the schedule worked was that instead of the normal first-to-70 matches that would have been the norm, the system instead was for each team to play each other once, with the team with the most individual wins moving on to the grand final. 

Group Stage

The first match of the day was between Ninjas In Pyjamas, and they started on the home side which meant G8S were obligated to release their order and character choice, which NIP could then counter-pick. It was Gachikun first, then Pugera, and then Kawano. 

The match started explosively, with Gachikun taking the first set against Phenom. NIP went with an order that was their go-to during the season, which was Phenom, then Big Bird, and then AngryBird in the anchor spot. This is partly because AngryBird is the strongest player and also infamously hates the ft2 format. 

Unfortunately, it was not enough as they got absolutely bodied and lost the tie 0-40 which left them with all to do in their match against FlyQuest. As it turned out, Veggey wasn’t used and they were able to defeat FlyQuest with AngryBird winning the decisive set against Punk. 

This left team USA against Japan, and it was here that Punk showed what the crowd could expect. FlyQuest has two Kimberly players in Shine and Psycho, and Kimberly being a character that isn’t too popular in Japan meant that there was a bit of an advantage there. Kawano went up against Psycho’s Kimberly, and the former Evo winner showed himself too strong and took the set. The next set saw YHC-Mochi face Shine. Shine has been in great form since the SFL USA finals and was in great shape again, defeating the Dhalsim master to earn his team 10 points. This left a final anchor match. There was an expectation that Gachikun could go up against Punk’s Cammy, but the captain seemed to want to avoid Punk and sent up Pugera instead. Pugera’s Juri has become quite dangerous and, as a fundamentally sound player can go up against anyone. He pushed Punk to the brink, but the ‘definition of clutch’ was on hand to take the set and win the tie for FlyQuest. This meant that it was going to be Team USA vs Team Japan yet again in Grand Final. 

Grand Final

Grand Final was a bit more conventional and was a first-to-70 match. G8S started on the home side since they had the highest number of wins. 

With Psycho, Shine, and Punk as the players, Kawano went up against Psycho again. But, Psycho showed once more why he should be a much more respected name in the scene as he took the set against Kawano to start his team off in a commanding position. Gachikun went up against Shine for the next game and took the win to equalize. Once again it fell to Pugera to try and get a result against Punk. Once more, Punk was too strong, but it was another close set that ended 2-3 with Pugera almost getting the win, but falling short. 

Then came the next set of matches, and this is where FlyQuest could have clinched things as the first two matches went their way with Psycho again defeating Gachikun and ChrisCCH getting a chance to Shine and defeating Pugera. This meant that the anchor match, which saw Kawano against Punk, could have ended the entire tie if Punk could only get the win. It was 10-50 at this point, and it seemed only a matter of time before FlyQuest were pronounced winners. But, Kawano had other ideas. Kawano is a player that is undoubtedly world-class, and while he doesn’t have the most consistent results, his ability is terrifying and so it was as he absolutely demolished Punk and won 3-0. 

This meant that there was one more match between the two and with the wind in their sails, G8S started to mount their comeback. FlyQuest were away again and put out an unprecedented 3 Kimberlys with Shine, Psycho, and Punk all using the character. Pugera was sent against Psycho this time and he was successful in getting the win, and then Gachikun also got the win over Shine which leveled matters and left the final game between Punk and Kawano being the decider. 

While Kawano had completely obliterated Punk’s Cammy, he was not familiar with his Kimberly. Punk started explosively and raced to a two-game lead. But, Kawano being the sort of player he is started to pick out Punk’s tendencies and started challenging Punk’s buttons, punishing optimally and reeling Punk back round by round. Soon he pulled it back making it two games. 

The final game was a tense affair with each player getting a round. In the final round, Kawano started explosively, took Punk to the corner, and started laying on the offense. Punk tried to escape with a wake-up level one super, but Kawano knocked it out with an enhanced fireball. Then Kawano proceeded to throw Punk in the corner four times to end the tie. 

The win also meant that all Good 8 Squad members are in Capcom Cup 12 along with their $80,000 prize money. This means that along with Kakeru who won Capcom Cup, there are already 5 Japanese representatives.