Welcome to part two of our coverage of the Street Fighter League, with Week 3 of Season 3. This week saw Team Dynamite, consisting of Smug, MenaRD, and Gamerbee against Team UYU with Oil King, JB, and Kami. Then HotDog29, Caba, and Xian of Team Psycho Shinobi took on Punk, CJ Truth, and Nephew of Team Alpha 3. It was an intense week of matches so let’s get right into it.
To start off, Dynamite went with Rashid for their ban pick. A very smart move considering that JB is arguably the best Rashid in the country and Oil King has a very strong pocket Rashid as well. UYU decided to ban Balrog, specifically targeting Smug. Even though Smug has already shown that his G is just as effective as his Balrog. The first match was Gamerbee’s Seth against JB’s Poison. This match was a blowout with Gamerbee winning 2-1 in game one and 2-0 in game two for an almost clean sweep.
The second match was MenaRD, coming off qualifying for Capcom Cup just a few days prior, and his Abigail against Kami’s Akuma. Kami took game one 2-0, ending round two with a Shoryuken going straight through Abigail’s V-Trigger II, Hybrid Charge. This seemed to set the tone for the rest of the match, but MenaRD quickly turned the momentum completely around in his favor. He proceeded to take game two 2-0 and game three 2-1. Team Dynamite was now up 2-0 and Oil King was the last member of UYU standing.
Smug’s presidential power on full display
Oil King and his Seth put up a valiant fight but Smug proved why he is one of the best to ever play the game, Balrog or no Balrog. Smug and his G took games one and two 2-0, in a complete sweep. Team Dynamite won 3-0 in a dominating performance, with UYU only taking 4 rounds out of 16. UYU is now currently the only team in the standings that is 0-2 and the Rashid ban clearly hurt their overall effectiveness. This is only week three of sixteen however and UYU has plenty of time to mount a comeback.
Next up was Psycho Shinobi versus Alpha 3. Psycho Shinobi was hot coming off their amazing week two win that was led by HotDog29’s outstanding performance. Likewise, Alpha 3 had a lot to prove going into week three with a 0-1 record. Alpha 3 wisely banned M. Bison to weaken HotDog29 after seeing how well he performed last week. Psycho Shinobi picked Karin for their ban, to try and handicap Punk.
The first match was a Kolin mirror with HotDog29 and Punk. Punk started off Alpha 3’s week with a bang, sweeping the first match going 2-0 in games one and two. Punk dominated the neutral, highlighting his expert ground game with Kolin, even netting a Perfect KO in round two of game two. The second match was Caba’s Guile against CJ Truth’s Cammy. This was about as classic as a Street Fighter match as we have seen so far in Street Fighter League. Two excellent players with two top tier characters that have remained strong practically their entire competitive life in Street Fighter V.
Caba is shown the Truth
However, CJ Truth was able to take the win in an extremely grindy match taking game one 2-0 and game two 2-1. With only four seconds to go in round three of game two CJ Truth clutched the win with a beautiful anti-air Cannon Spike. Alpha 3 was now in the lead 2-0 and Psycho Shinobi’s fate rested in the hands of Xian. The third match was Xian’s Seth versus Nephew’s Kolin. Xian took game one 2-0 and game two 2-1 with a decisive victory putting Psycho Shinobi on the board for the first time that night.
However the fourth match would not go as well. Now facing off against Punk’s Kolin, Xian put up a good fight but Punk has one of the best ground games in Street Fighter V and this match showed why. Punk took game one 2-1, baiting two EX Mad Cradles out of Xian in rounds 2 and 3 respectively. Punk then went on to take game two 2-0, ending it by punishing a missed axe kick attempt from Xian in the final round. Alpha 3 was able to put up their first win for Street Fighter League season 3 with some amazing reads and challenges courtesy of Punk.
In a post match interview with RobTV, Punk said that the team wasn’t affected much by their week one loss. Currently All-In is first in the standings with the only 2-1 record, with every other team currently at 1-1. That being except for UYU, who is currently sitting last at 0-2. Alpha 3 and Dynamite were both able to move up in the rankings thanks to their wins. It is still a very close event though, and with 13 weeks still to go no team should be counted out at this point. Next week in week four, Team Dynamite takes on NASR and the top ranked All-In will face off against Psycho Shinobi. The stream will start on October 29 at 7 PM ET and you can catch it on the Capcom Fighters YouTube and Twitch channels.
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