CEO 2014 Results! It’s been an awesome weekend of competition here in Orlando, FL at the scenic Wyndham Resort. Players from all around the world flocked to Orlando to fill out this 391 man bracket, and we saw a number of upsets on our way to top 32. PIE | Smug sent the Japanese Nishikin to Loser’s Bracket on Day 1 of the Capcom Pro Tour Premier Tournament, and that was just one of many headlines to grace viewers who tuned in. We also saw Infiltration get dropped down to the Loser’s Bracket by DL | Fourwude, certainly an unexpected outcome.
In Top 16, we saw up and comers and veterans alike go down. CJ Truth, EG | K-Brad and DIG | Ryan Hart all fell early in the top 12 alongside players like EMP | Nuckledu who seem to always just fall short of top 8 at majors.
Regardless it was a tense crowd at we approached top 8 with some of the best Street Fighter we’ve seen this year – and with Ultra now released, the age of the character specialist was finally over and they player with the better overall Street Fighter knowledge seemed to win out more often than not.
Let’s get right down to the matches, where we saw Evil Geniuses once again dominating the Winner’s Side of the bracket heading into top 8!
Winner’s Semifinals – EG | Justin Wong (Rufus) vs EG | Momochi (Ken)
| Winner’s Semifinals |
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| EG | Justin Wong | EG | Momochi | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | ||
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| Game 3 | ||||||
EG’s Justin Wong has long been one of the most consistent North American Street Fighter champions, and his #1 standing on the Capcom Pro Tour coming into this event showed it. However, at premier events, he’s always seemed to just fall short – he’d be looking to change that today. However, he had quite the uphill battle against his teammate EG | Momochi, who was making a rare US appearance in preparation for EVO next week.
Things kicked off with some nice zoning from Justin Wong to keep Momochi’s Ken out, followed by some great aggression which gave Justin round one. Momochi slowed down the match to his pace in round two with solid fireball work, to which Justin (seeming a little too eager to put damage in) took a little bit too much damage – this gave Momochi the easy win in round 2. In round 3, fireball chip damage nearly gave Momochi the round, but after Justin landed his Ultra 1 on a whiffed EX Shoryuken from Momochi the first game went to Wong.
Great defense from both players to start game 2 but Justin’s aggressive divekick combos gave him round 1. Momochi struck back with aggressive throws and step kick combos to take round 2, and when Justin tried for a Galactic Tornado setup, he ate a fierce shoryuken to close the second game.
Game 3 also went in Momochi’s favor – Justin seemed a little rattled after eating that last Shoryuken in game 2, and thus was dropped into Loser’s Bracket to kick things off in Winner’s. EG’s Momochi moved on and continued to show why he’s a feared player.
Winner’s Semifinals – EG | PR Balrog (Evil Ryu) vs EG | Ricky Ortiz (Rufus)
| Winner’s Semifinals |
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| EG | PR Balrog | EG | Ricky Ortiz | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | ||
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| Game 3 | ||||||
EG’s Ricky Ortiz is another player who’s had poor luck in premier events, and he was up against the current tied for 1st (as well as Capcom Cup qualified) EG | PR Balrog – so yet another steep road to climb for another player not guaranteed to be at the Capcom Cup.
It was a great start for Ricky Ortiz in round 1 – a dominating display of divekick combos, combined with his typical crouching lows to open up PR’s defenses. His momentum was halted momentarily by a nice focus attack combo in round 2 from PR Balrog. However Ricky was just too dominating to be stopped. He took the next three rounds without breaking a sweat. In particular, he landed a great Ultra in Game 1 Round 3 to close out the first game after PR took the life lead. This evened things out and allowed Ricky to play for trades rather than just straight damage.
PR Balrog seemed shaken after the first game, and went down without much more resistance in the second game, nearly (but not quite) getting perfected. PR Balrog drops down to loser’s while Ricky Ortiz moves on to face Momochi later in the tournament.
To find out what happened next, head over to eSportsMax!
For those of you who want the short of it, Infiltration moved through the Loser’s side of the bracket, slaying Evil Geniuses member after Evil Geniuses member along with some other top competitors like Chris G, until he ended up in the Grand Finals against South East Asia Majors champion EG | Momochi!
Grand Finals – EG | Momochi (Ken/Juri) [W] vs Infiltration (Akuma) [L]
| Grand Finals |
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| EG | Momochi [W] | Inflitration [L] | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | ||
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| Game 2 | ||||||
| Game 3 | ||||||
| Game 4 | ||||||
| Game 5 | ||||||
This was it – the Grand Finals of CEO 2014 were set to kick off. Though some people were disappointed to see two foreigners in the Grand Finals, many stayed til the late hours of the evening to catch this matchup where plenty was on the line. Not only was there a pot bonus from Capcom and Twitch, there was also a spot at the Capcom Cup in December on the line, in addition to 256 Capcom Pro Tour points, which will effect seeding at the Capcom Cup. Momochi was already qualified for the Capcom Cup, so now it was down to Infiltration to qualify by winning this match. Either way, both players desperately wanted the title for their own and were unwilling to back down.
Infiltration got off to a great start in game 1. His aggression was peerless, and there was very little Momochi could do to stop him. However, it did seem like Infiltration was entirely too eager to get in, as he ate several fireballs in the process. This sent the match back to character select, where Momochi swapped over to Juri, a good choice against the aggressive Akuma player. This would mean that Infiltration would have to be extremely selective about going for wakeup setups, as an EX Pinwheel would easily punish most attempts, especially with the delayed wakeup system in Ultra.
It seemed like this might work out for Momochi in round 1 of game 2, but solid fireball work from Infiltration was able to chip away at Momochi’s health enough for Infiltration to go in and land a few solid combos, taking round 1. In round 2, great use of EX Pinwheel knocked Infiltration away enough for Juri’s fireball game to do a number on Akuma – this just wasn’t enough to stop the pressure from Infiltration who rallied in round 3 to close out the game with solid medium punch -> Hurricane Kick -> Shoryuken combos.
Momochi was able to close out one game through solid use of both his Ultra on Juri to give his fireballs a bit more oomph and solid careful zoning that kept Akuma out, though it was still a close round. Game 4 was a completely different story. Infiltration seemed to have figured out Juri by this point and was able to divekick in and take the game easily, sending Momochi down to join him in the Loser’s Bracket.
Bracket Reset – EG Momochi (Decapre/Juri) vs Infiltration (Akuma)
| Grand Finals, Bracket Reset |
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| EG | Momochi | Infiltration | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | ||
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| Game 2 | ||||||
| Game 3 | ||||||
| Game 4 | Perfect | |||||
| Game 5 | ||||||
With the bracket reset, it was all or nothing for Momochi. Hoping to catch Infiltration up with an unfamiliar matchup, he pulled out Decapre. This seemed like a solid choice given her recent release, and the fact that zoning characters didn’t seem to work well on Infiltration. What better way to counter aggression than with another rushdown character like Decapre.
That was the theory anyway, and it seemed to work in round 1, as Infiltration definitely seemed a little bit at a loss in the matchup at first. He tried to play cautiously, very unlike his usual style and got punished for it in round 1 – in round 2 he chose to go with more constant pressure, and it paid off in spades, easily catching Decapre after a teleport divekick and closing out the round from there. In round 3, the game went to Momochi after he switched his tempo up a bit to throw Infiltration off, capitalizing on the unfamiliarity of the matchup once again.
In game 2, Momochi continued his dominance and it looked like Infiltration might be in some trouble after Momochi landed a ridiculous 17-hit combo that easily gave him the round due to a solid life lead. However, Infiltration decided he had enough of that, as he began to be extremely careful in his approach in both round 2 and 3. Solid footsies combined with some awesome combo work gave him the game fairly easily.
Game 3 went similarly in Infiltration’s favor – it seemed like he had finally adapted to all of Momochi’s tricks with Decapre, and was able to anticipate his moments well enough to punish effectively. Momochi nearly pulled out the victory in round 2 of game three, but a blocked EX teleport dive kick allowed Infiltration to use Raging Demon at point blank range while Momochi was still recovering. This seemed to rattle him quite a bit, as we saw quite the pause in between rounds on the character select screen.
With Decapre figured out, Momochi figured his best chance was to go back to Juri, hoping that Infiltration’s rhythm would be thrown off. However, Infiltration is one of the best players in the world at adapting to new situations as we would see in Game 4. These two rounds were probably some of the most dominating Street Fighter I’ve seen in a long time. Once the match started off, Momochi was quickly backed into the corner on some impressive pressure from Infiltration. From there, a series of low kicks, shoryukens and sweeps saw Momochi stunned – this allowed Infiltration to take the perfect, making it look easy. With the match now on tournament point for Infiltation, Momochi seemed absolutely crushed and his play showed it. Though he displayed some nice use of neutral jumps for anti airs and was able to get some damage in on Infiltration, great use of throws, footsies and the continued great combo work was too much for Momochi to handle!
And with that Infiltration is your CEO 2014 champion, qualifying for Capcom Cup! He becomes the 4thplayer to do so this year, alongside EG’s PR Balrog, EG | Momochi and DIG | Ryan Hart. He also takes the point lead in the Capcom Pro Tour with 642 points, with the closeset following player being PR Balrog with 498.
Final Results:
1. Seonwoo “Infiltration” Lee (Akuma, Chun-Li, Hakan, Ryu)
2. Yuskue “EG|Momochi” Momochi(Ken, Juri, Decapre)
3. EG|Ricky Ortiz (Rufus)
4. Eduardo “EG|PR Balrog” Perez (Boxer, Evil Ryu)
5. EG|Justin Wong (Rufus, Elena)
5. Darryl “RG|Snake Eyez” Lewis (Zangief)
7. Christopher “GG|NYChrisG” Gonzalez (Elena, Sakura)
7. Bryant “PIE|Smug” Huggin (Dudley)
9. Chris “CJ Truth” Jayson (Fei Long)
9. Henry “CCG|Chi-Rithy” Oung (Cammy, Chun-Li)
9. Akimo (Elena, E. Honda)
9. Ryan “DIG|Prodigal Son” Hart (Sagat)
13. Ari “fLoE” Weintraub (Yang, Sagat)
13. Jonathan “RG|Rico Suave” Deleon (Abel, M. Bison)
13. Du “EMP|NuckleDu” Dang (Guile)
13. Kenneth “EG|K-Brad” Bradley (Cammy, Decapre, Chun-Li)
And if you’re interested, eSportsMax did some awesome coverage of the tournament other than this recap, including Interviews, Photo Galleries and more! You can check out the interviews and other recaps here.
And you can check out the Galleries by clicking the links below:
EVO is next! For now, this has been Dustin Steiner from eSportsMax – we’ll see you guys at the most prestigious tournament of the year!