Capcom Cup 2016 was a Street Fighter V video game tournament that was held in December 2016. 32 players qualified for the tournament by winning one of the eleven Capcom Pro Tour Global Premier Events, Evo 2016, one of the four regional events, and/or by scoring high on the game's leaderboards. Street Fighter V was released shortly before the start of the 2016 Capcom Pro Tour, replacing Ultra Street Fighter IV from the previous season.
The first day of the Capcom Cup was held at the eSports Arena in Santa Ana, California. Despite scoring highly during the Capcom Pro Tour, Infiltration and Tokido were eliminated during the preliminary rounds without a single win. The finals, held in the Anaheim Convention Center, were won by Du "NuckleDu" Dang, who defeated Ricki Ortiz in the final match.
Capcom Pro Tour
Tour background
The year 2016 featured the fourth annual Capcom Cup and the third presence of the Capcom Pro Tour. The 2015 Pro Tour featured Ultra Street Fighter IV as the played game, though Capcom released Street Fighter V shortly before the 2016 season. In an interview with Engadget, game designer Yoshinori Ono stated that the company "want[ed] to reset the entire game so that we can reset the playing field and let lots of new people jump in and start competing." Street Fighter V gained some negative attention among the fighting game community due to a poor launch and an inherent input delay discovered during the 2016 season. Xian, whose main character Gen was not yet included in the game, stated in an interview with International Business Times that he had to "relearn everything again" and that "in Street Fighter V, I am worried I can't live up to the expectations."
The return of the Capcom Pro Tour in 2016 was highly expected after Matt Dahlgren, Capcom's director of Brand Marketing and eSports, repeatedly mentioned the importance of esports to the success of (the then upcoming) Street Fighter V. The Tour features a "baseline" prize pool of $500,000 USD, to be spread out over its events. The first major tournament of the Tour, Final Round 19, took place approximately one month after the release of Street Fighter V. In total, 523 players scored points in the ranking.
Point accumulation and Cup qualification
The Capcom Pro Tour is a series of worldwide qualifying events where players can accumulate official Regional and Global Points in order to qualify for later Capcom-sponsored events, including the Capcom Cup. If a hypothetical player earns 20 points in the North American region and 10 points in the Latin American region, that player will have 20 points on the North American leaderboard, 10 points on the Latin American leaderboard, and a total of 30 points on the Global leaderboard. Each region has a series of ranking events where players can earn points in this manner.
The 2016 Capcom Pro Tour consists of 72 separate events across four different regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Among these 72 events are eleven Global Premier Events, as well as the 2016 Evolution Championship Series (Evo 2016), each of which grand an automatic qualification for the Capcom Cup to the winner. The 2016 Global Premier Events, including Evo 2016, are: Final Round 19: Atlanta, Georgia – March 18–20 NorCal Regionals 2016: Sacramento, California – March 25–27 Stunfest 2016: France – May 20–22 Dreamhack Summer: Sweden – June 18–21 Community Effort Orlando: Orlando, Florida – June 24–26 G-League: China – July 9 Evo 2016: Las Vegas, Nevada – July 15–17 Tokyo Game Show Japan Cup: Tokyo, Japan – September 15 EGX Rezzed: London, England – September 22–25 South East Asia Major 2016: Singapore – October 7–9 SoCal Regionals 2016: Los Angeles, California – October 14–16 Canada Cup 2016: Toronto, Ontario, Canada – October 28–30
Furthermore, each region would have a closed Regional Finals event. The four champions of these events would similarly automatically qualify for the Capcom Cup. The 16 remaining slots would be filled through the Global Points Leaderboards (eight slots) and the four Regional Point Leaderboards (four times two slots). If a competitor wins more than one Global Premier Event, an additional Capcom Slot opens up on the Global Points Leaderboards. Those that come in second or lower in a Global Premier Event do not automatically qualify for the Capcom Cup as happened last year. Competitors for the Regional Final Events are determined by 12 Ranking Events and two Online Events.