This is issue #8 of thegametwok newsletter, where I share Street Fighter V stats and findings.
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Mister Crimson is back in the postseason! He pulled off the losers bracket run to win the Capcom Pro Tour France/Spain/Portugal title and earn the spot in Capcom Cup 2021.
Using Dhalsim start to finish, he is the third player to win a CPT event using that specific character, the last to do it was Didimokof who won the 2017 Latin America Regional Championship.
There were a lot of numbers that came out of his tournament win, which was entertaining from start to finish.
Here is the big one: Crimson is the first player to win a CPT event starting Top 8 in losers bracket in since Sept. 28, 2019, ending a streak of 42 regular season events.
I've talked about my concerns regarding the streak, and we'll get into this in a later issue of the newsletter. For now, let's celebrate the streak being over, where Crimson won six consecutive matches, including two big wins against Luffy in the championship series.
To get to the finish line, Crimson played 63 rounds. That is tied for the eighth most rounds played in a regular season CPT Top 8 for a player who won the event. Mago holds this specific record at 71 rounds played when he won the 2016 Asia Regional Final.
He played so many rounds because he was either behind in a lot of his matches or pushed to the distance. His tournament run could have been over in his first match against Link Exelo, who forced a Game 5. Against Kilzyou in Losers Final, Crimson fell behind 2-1 and then won four rounds in a row to get to Grand Final.
Luffy and Crimson played 25 rounds in the championship series. That is tied for 14th most all time and was 3 from the record held by Urbanflow and 801 Strider at CPT Online North America 3 on Aug. 5, 2017.
Throughout the streak of 42 events, I wondered whether anyone starting in losers bracket would be able to break through.
Streaks don't seem to emerge until they swell into something that can’t be ignored. After Idom won his event, five players started a Top 8 in the losers bracket and got to the championship series, finishing second. At the very least, those players were making a deep attempt.
Of the 19 events in 2020, only 3 players starting Top 8 in losers made it to the championship series. It was about two-thirds of the way through the season did I start to notice only what was happening in 2020. It registered fully when Alex Myers made it a complete 19-for-19 in the season by getting to grand final of the final event to face XsK Samurai; the two players had both started their Top 8 run on the winners side.
The only other player in 2021 aside from Crimson who started a Top 8 in losers and got to the championship series was Kusanagi.
Crimson was the 10th since Idom's win to get to the championship series. Even then, things were not guaranteed.
In Grand Final, Crimson lost Game 3 Round 2 to fall behind 2-1. At this moment based on the score and the bracket and his status of the tournament — he was facing elimination and Luffy was not — his match win expectancy was 26.8 percent. And that's just to force a reset final!
Crimson's tournament win expectancy was 12.2 percent, a little more than a 1-in-9 chance of overcoming this deficit, getting the bracket reset and then winning it all.
Then came Reset Final, he was down 2-1 starting Game 4 to Luffy. He loses Game 4 Round 1 to Luffy, now he's on the brink of a loss. At this point, Crimson had a 7.01 percent match and tournament win expectancy.
It's incredible that Crimson won both championship series matches where he allowed 2 games to his opponent first. He's the third player all time to comeback from a 2-X deficit in both grand final and reset final.
Whenever I thought the streak would end, I thought it would end with a whisper. It definitely was not that on Sunday.