The hot blooded battles of Street Fighter League continue into Week 7 as the top teams continue to assert their dominance. As well as one player in particular, which we will get to in a bit. This week’s matches included UYU’s Kami, Oil King, and JB versus All-In’s iDom, SKZ, and 801 Strider in the first half of the night. On the back half of the evening was Alpha 3’s Punk, CJ Truth, and Nephew against Dynamite’s Smug, MenaRD, and Gamerbee.
UYU kicked the night off banning G targeting 801 Strider, as past weeks have shown banning either Laura or Poison doesn’t seem to affect iDom much. All-In once again banned Rashid targeting both Oil King and JB. The first match of the night was Oil King’s Seth versus 801 Strider’s Urien. Game one ended quickly 2-0 in Oil King’s favor. Oil King was definitely on his anti air game that night knocking Strider out of the sky almost every time. Urien’s wonky hitboxes let 801 Strider take round one of game two though. Oil King tried to V Reversal an EX Knee Drop from Strider in round two but it ended up landing on the other side and Strider punished the reversal taking game two 2-0.
Game three was taken by Oil King 2-1, ending the set by taking the last 10% of Strider’s health with all chip damage. Both players played an amazing neutral game but UYU was able to get on the board for the first match of the night. The second match was a Poison mirror between JB and iDom. JB played his best, even landing an amazing whiff punish with critical art from max range in round two of game one. However, iDom was still able to take both games one and two 2-0, ending the match with a ballsy back throw with 5 seconds left on the clock. Both teams were now tied up 1-1.
The rising star continues to shine
The third match was Kami’s Akuma versus SKZ’s Seth. SKZ took game one 2-0 after an auto correct Mad Cradle into critical art that closed out the second round. Game two then saw some amazing defense from Kami against Seth’s V-Trigger 2 mixup onslaught. Kami continued to play well throughout the match but SKZ was able to take the second game 2-1 after switching from defense to offense and catching Kami off guard. All-In was now ahead 2-1.
The fourth match was Oil King’s Seth versus iDom’s Poison. Idom took game one 2-1, ending round three with another clutch back throw while under a V-Trigger 2 barrage from Seth. An unfortunate drop from Oil King in round one of game two then put iDom on tournament point. Idom proceeded to finish round two by walking slowly backwards from a midscreen Hecatoncheires and winning the night for All-In 3-1. All-In continues its streak going into week 8 5-0, and the inverse with UYU going into week 8 at 0-5.
Alpha 3 kicked off the back half of the night banning G for Smug, and Dynamite responded targeting Cammy for CJ Truth. The first match was the now Cammy-less CJ Truth using Necalli against Gamerbee’s Seth. It was a great back and forth set as Gamerbee took game one 2-1, then CJ Truth with game two also 2-1. In the end though Gamerbee finished game three with yet another 2-1. Gamerbee used to main Necalli and some of that knowledge definitely helped him in this matchup. However it was ultimately a missed critical art input that instead gave CJ a whiffed uppercut that let Gamerbee take the win. Team Dynamite was up 1-0.
The power of pink
Next up was Nephew’s Kolin versus Smug’s Balrog. Some amazing counterpokes from Smug let him take game one 2-0, and despite a valiant effort from Nephew, Smug also took game two 2-1. A full powered Smug with full control of his Balrog was just too oppressive for Nephew, and once again it was all down to Punk. Could he repeat his OCV victory from last week’s Street Fighter League? The third match began with Punk’s Kolin versus MenaRD’s Birdie. With Mena using his Capcom Cup champion costume for Birdie no less. Mena took game one 2-1 but Punk was able to bring it back in game two 2-1. A crazy amount of whiff punishes was seen from both players in every round. Unfortunately for Mena though, some perfect spacing from Punk was enough for him to be just out of range of an EX command grab and take game three 2-0. Alpha 3 had its first win on the board, but Dynamite was still ahead 2-1.
Next up was Punk versus Gamerbee’s Seth. Punk took game one decisively 2-0 and during game two Gamerbee lost two rounds he had in the bag by not spending meter for the kill. Punk is not somebody you want to give a second chance at life though, and he was able to also take game two 2-1 because of it. Team Dynamite remained silent with no team members saying a word to each other moving into the fifth match and final match of the night between Punk and Smug’s Balrog. Punk and Smug have played each other many times over the years at several different major events, and most of the time Punk was the one who came out on top. This was an uphill battle for Smug to win.
Punk won game one going 2-1, ending it with a raw critical art countering each of Smug’s available options with some big brain neutral play. With Dynamite still completely silent, Smug and Punk moved into game two where Punk was able to win 2-0 pulling off yet ANOTHER OCV for two weeks in a row. Alpha 3 won the night 3-2 over Dynamite. Punk seems absolutely unstoppable right now in Street Fighter League, providing some trash talk in a post match interview with RobTV, far less emotional and much more jovial than he was after last week’s OCV.
Can anyone stop Punk’s onslaught?
At the end of the night, All-In remains in first at 5-0, with Alpha 3 right behind them in the standings at 4-1. Week 8 will have NASR versus Psycho Shinobi and All-In against Alpha 3 as the immovable object iDom meets the unstoppable force, Punk. Week 8 of Street Fighter League will take place on December 3, taking next Thursday off for the holidays. You can catch it on the Capcom Fighters YouTube and Twitch channels at 7PM EST.
Published: Nov 21, 2020 09:17 pm