*Disclaimer: I realize that this might be coming a little too late since we’re already halfway through September, meaning the 2016 CPT Season only has ~2.5 months until its end, but I think it’s still worth posting to clear up some confusion surrounding the Capcom Pro Tour and how people qualify for the participation in Capcom Cup via various events this season includes.
Since this post turned out to be rather big (bigger than I thought it would be, heh), so to save you time and in case you don’t want to read the whole thing - I’ll be providing a TL;DR at the bottom of this post. Hopefully it might prove useful to somebody!*
What is Capcom Pro Tour?
Capcom Pro Tour is the premier championship series for Street Fighter, organized by Capcom and various members of the Fighting Game Community, with events scattered all over the world and spread across the year.
Players from around the globe take part in the Pro Tour to enter some of the toughest competition between the legends of Fighting Games and many newcomes, showing incredible skills and talent, for the title of a Grand Champion and the best Street Fighter player in the world
This year’s season officially began on February 26th in Cannes, France, with the closing date for the finals of the Season, Capcom Cup, is December 3rd. Now that we know what the Capcom Pro Tour is about - let’s proceed to the main course - the tournaments
Capcom Pro Tour Events
Typically, each season of the Capcom Pro Tour includes two types of events - Ranking and Premier events. A ranking event only rewards the players with the Capcom Pro Tour points, while a premium events automatically qualifies the winner for the Capcom Cup AND gives the CPT points.
When it comes to the 2016 Season, however, there were some changes compared to previous Seasons
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- The tournaments are now divided into 4 regions: North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, each with its own Ranking Leaderboards
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- Starting with the 2016 Season, the Pro Tour now has Global and Regional leaderboards
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- Each region now has a Regional Finals tournament, all of which are essentially Premier events (its winners are automatically qualified into Capcom Cup)
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- Each region also now has Online Tournaments (2 per region), which serve as Ranking events (and its winners are qualified for the respective Regional Finals)
With this, the 2016 Capcom Pro Tour season consists of…
- 48 Ranking events
- 11 Premium events
- 8 Ranking Online events
- 4 Regional Finals
- EVO
- Capcom Cup
It’s also worth noting that this year the qualification system went through some minor changes, the explanation of which you’ll be able to find below. But first, let’s talk about the Point Allocation
CPT Point Allocation
In addition to automatically qualifying for the Capcom Cup by winning a Premier tournament, players can also qualify by accumulating enough points throughout the Season. In previous years, Capcom Cup picked all the winners of the Premier Events + the set amount of Top Players from the leaderboards.
In the 2016 Season, you’re looking at 32 players in total, 8 of which qualify via Regional leaderboards, 4 via Regional Finals, up to 12 from Premier events, and another 8 via Global leaderboards. Now, remember how I mentioned that this year the Season was divided into 4 Regions? That’s because the players can accumulate points for both the Global leaderboards AND the specific Regional leaderboards, so every player can accumulate points in every region, but he or she will have to carefully pick grinding a specific region vs placing high in the Global leaderboards.
Before we dive deeper into the whole Points thing, let me remind you how players are rewarded for specific Tournament type. Bear in mind also that while Evolution Championship Series is considered as its own thing, it is still, for all intents and purposes, a Premier CPT event, just that the rewards are increased compared to other events since it’s such a massive tournament that happens only once per year.
Ranking & Online Events
Player Number | Finishing Place | Points
1 | 1 | 128 (+ qualification for Regional Finals)
2 | 2 | 64
3 | 3 | 32
4 | 4 | 16
5 | 5 | 8
6 | 5 | 8
7 | 7 | 4
8 | 7 | 4
9 | 9 | 2
10 | 9 | 2
11 | 9 | 2
12 | 9 | 2
13 | 11 | 1
14 | 11 | 1
15 | 11 | 1
16 | 11 | 1
Premier Events
Player Number | Finishing Place | Points
1 | 1 | 256 (+ auto-qualification for CapCup)
2 | 2 | 128
3 | 3 | 64
4 | 4 | 32
5 | 5 | 16
6 | 5 | 16
7 | 7 | 8
8 | 7 | 8
9 | 9 | 4
10 | 9 | 4
11 | 9 | 4
12 | 9 | 4
13 | 11 | 2
14 | 11 | 2
15 | 11 | 2
16 | 11 | 2
EVO Championship Series
Player Number | Finishing Place | Points
1 | 1 | 1024 (+ auto-qualification for CapCup)
2 | 2 | 512
3 | 3 | 256
4 | 4 | 128
5 | 5 | 64
6 | 5 | 64
7 | 7 | 32
8 | 7 | 32
9 | 9 | 16
10 | 9 | 16
11 | 9 | 16
12 | 9 | 16
13 | 13 | 8
14 | 13 | 8
15 | 15 | 8
16 | 15 | 8
So as you can see, even getting 2nd place at EVO is still a very good reward because of how many CPT points you are given, which generally gives you a huge boost towards the higher placings in the Leaderboards. Bear in mind though, that winning or placing high enough in a Premier event or at EVO does not grant you any points for the specific region said event is held in, they only reward you with points towards your Global ranking, and it does not count towards your Regional ranking.
This is important to remember because even scoring a 2nd place at a Premier event does not guarantee you qualification into the Capcom Cup based on the Regional leaderboards alone, which might result in other players dethroning you from such a position, which essentially forces you to take part in continuously take part in Ranking events to keep yourself safe.
Regional Finals also do not reward players with any points for neither the Regional nor Global leaderboards, but winning said events does automatically qualify the player into Capcom Cup, since the Regional Finals are essentially Premier events.
Now that we made clear how are the points allocated from specific events, let’s proceed towards the most confusing part of the Capcom Pro Tour - how does one actually qualify for the participation in the grand finals, the Capcom Cup.
Capcom Cup Qualification
As I mentioned above, the players have several means of qualification for the Capcom Pro Tour finals, the Capcom Cup:
Winning EVO
EVO (or Evolution Championship Series) is the biggest open-bracket fighting game tournament that takes place in Las Vegas on an annual basis. What started out as a small American local event for Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 players grew into a massive competitive event in the world. What also makes it special is that it’s an open-bracket event, welcoming players of all skill levels and from any region, creating some of the toughest and sometimes unexpected competition for the championship title in one of the presented games
This is the ultimate test of skill, stamina, endurance, and how lucky you are with your brackets throughout the tournament. This is a one-time-per-year opportunity to qualify for the Finals of Capcom Pro Tour. This, aside from winning the Capcom Cup itself, is the ultimate tournament that thousands of players from around the globe grind and strive towards every single year. As such, not only does scoring a 1st place here automatically qualifies you for the Capcom Cup participation, it also grants you a whole 1024 points for the Global leaderboards. This year, however, no player has qualified for the participation in Capcom Cup, as Infiltration (who was already qualified prior to EVO) took the 1st place.
Winning a Premier Event
One could argue that such events are as hard as EVO, if not because of the stamina requirements to survive the pools, then at least due to the level of the competition you generally see at Premiers, latest examples being Stunfest, CEO and Japan Cup. Much like EVO, Premier events also automatically qualify you for the participation in the Capcom Cup, although they give 4 times less CPT points - 256 instead of 1024, for getting 1st place.
It’s worth noting that, unlike previous seasons, this year Capcom has made changes to the ruleset, making so that if an already qualified players wins either EVO or a Premier, the next highest ranking player in the same tournament does not automatically qualify anymore, unlike 2015 where we had cases of getting more playes qualifying via Premier tournaments, i.e. when in 2015 Infiltration qualified by finishing 3rd at NorCal Regionals, since Momochi and Daigo were already qualified for Capcom Cup at previous tournaments.
Also, because Street Fighter V is a new game to which the Pro Tour made a switch this year, although Kazunoko won Capcom Cup last year - he is not automatically qualified for Capcom Cup 2016 either. But I digress, so let’s carry on.
Getting into the Top-8 of the Global Leaderboards
This is the most reliable method of qualifying for Capcom Cup among others. Every Ranking event (56 of them this year alone, including the Online Events) grants the Top-16 placing participants CPT points of various amount, going from 128 points down to 1 point. This grants players some freedom of choice in terms what they want to strive towards for if they intend to qualify for Capcom Cup - they can either compete in the Premier events to get 1st place and qualify automatically, or travel all around the world/their specific region, accumulating points and qualifying into the Capcom Cup on that alone.
Of course they still can and should compete in Premier events and EVO, since the point rewards are higher even for the lowest finishing places in the Top-16. But anyway… According to CPT rules, 8 players are picked for qualification for Capcom Cup via their position on the Global leaderboards, unless more spots are opened up if a player that already won a Premier event wins another Premier event (or Regional Finals). In this Season, for example, such an scenario has occured two times: Infiltration won Final Round, which automatically qualified him for Capcom Cup, but he also won NorCal Regionals and EVO 2016, which opened 2 more Global leaderboards qualifying spots. Later GamerBee won Japan Cup, which also automatically qualified him for Capcom Cup, and he also won EGX, which opened a 3rd additional Global leaderboard qualifying spot.
Right now, the players that qualify via Global points are the following:
Notice that I ignored Infiltration, Tokido, Xian, Xiaohai, GamerBee, and Phenom. This is because although the winners of EVO and Premier Events still get CPT points that go towards their Global leaderboards position, they are already qualified for the participation in Capcom Cup for winning a Premier event or EVO, and thus are not considered when picking additional players via Global leaderboards, which essentially makes Justin Wong the #1 non-qualified yet player in this Season.
Getting into the Top-2 of a Regional leaderboard
This is where it gets somewhat more compilcated, and also opens up another option for certain players to qualify by simply being the best in a certain region, if they just don’t see any opportunity getting in via Global leaderboards. Because the CPT events are not region-restricted (unless we’re talking about Online CPT Events, in which only players from a specific region can take part), any player can go to a Ranking Event of their choice to accumulate CPT Points for themselves.
I’d say if we’re talking strictly about points - this is where the competition gets tougher than other way of qualifying because while Global leaderboards invite 8 players into Capcom Cup, only 2 top-placing players from each region can qualify for CC, which makes things that much more interesting, since at any given point - those two spots can be either stolen by other players within the same Regional leaderboard, or if the player qualifies to Capcom Cup via Global points, leaving the next highest scoring player to face even fiercer competiton for his spot. For example, right now K-Brad and Misterio are mere 2 points away from each other in the South American leaderboards, and if Brolynho manages to get in via Global leaderboards - there’s going to be some serious rivalry between K-Brad, Misterio and Kusanagi.
Notice that I ignored Justin Wong despite him being at №2 spot in the LATAM region points-wise - this is precisely because Justin is already getting into Capcom Cup via Global leaderboards, therefore you can pretty much just pretend his name isn’t present on the LATAM Regional leadeboards.
Winning a Regional Finals event
Oh boy, this is where things get kinda confusing. So, Regional Finals are limited to 16 players, 14 of which are picked from winners of Ranking events or Online CPT Events, and the last 2 being highest placing players in the Last Chance Qualifier. So, basically, think of the Regional Finals as the Red Bull Kumite - both have somewhat similar-formats (Regional Finals are essentially invitational and have open qualifiers the day before).
The interesting part here is that a player that is qualified for Regional Finals may or may not decide to attend it. For example, at this moment - Justin Wong is qualified to compete in the Regional Finals in **North America, Latin America, and Asia. But he is also qualified for Capcom Cup via the Global leaderboards (as mentioned above), so unless he wants to guarantee his CC qualification by winning a Regional Finals event - he can just skip it entirely. The only problem in that case is since the Regional Finals are limited to 16 players, that would either mean that the missing spots would be filled out by the Last Chance Qualifier players, or we’d simply have less players compete in the actual Finals. I suppose Capcom would go with the former, since that seems the most logical option
Note that if a player wins the Regional Finals but he is already qualified via other means (via Global points, Regional points, by winning EVO, or by winning a Premier event) - another qualifying spot will be opened up in the Global leaderboards, which guarantees meeting the Capcom Cup 32-player quota
Phew. We’re finally done with the qualification process! I suppose since this thread is already getting pretty big, it’d make sense to list the already-qualified players and the remaining CPT events, so here you go!
Players Qualified for Capcom Cup
for current Capcom Pro Tour standings you can visit the following link - http://capcomprotour.com/standings/
via Premier Events
Player Name | Nationality | Event Name
Infiltration South Korea First Attack 19
Tokido Japan CEO 2016
Momochi Japan Stunfest 2016
Phenom Norway Dreamhack Summer 2016
Xiaohai China G-League
GamerBee Taiwan Japan Cup
via Global Leaderboards
Ranking | Player Name | Nationality | Points
2 Justin Wong USA 980
3 Fuudo Japan 804
5 Julio USA 547
6 Daigo Japan 555
7 Xian Singapore 510
9 NuckleDu USA 469
11 Eita Japan 418
13 Go1 Japan 412
14 Filipino Champ USA 398
16 Mago Japan 390
17 Chris Tatarian USA 382
via Regional Leaderboards
Region | Player Name | Nationality | Points
North America
- Ricki Ortiz USA 239
- XsK_Samurai USA 138
Latin America
- Brolynho Brazil 305
- Misterio Chile 203
Europe
- CCL Belgium 333
- Mister Crimson France 321
Asia
- Kazunoko Japan 183
- Haitani Japan 176
Note that each of the above mentioned Regional Leaderboards players are eligible for participation in the Regional Finals of their respective (or, in some cases, multiple) regions, so they might not even be worried about Regional leaderboards and just directly qualify to Capcom Cup via Regional Finals, unless of course they manage to get into it via a Premier event or accumulating by enough points
*- Haitani, MOV, CCL, Yukadon, Mister Crimson, and Luffy are on the verge of taking away a qualifying spot from Chris Tatarian, should they finish 2nd or higher at any of the remaining Ranking events or 4th or higher at any of the remaining Premier events, in which case CCL and Mister Crimson would open up a path for Capcom Cup qualification to other players in Europe and Asia via Regional leaderboards
-
PR Balrog, John Takeuchi, Alucard and Flash are on the verge of taking away a qualifying spot from XsK_Samurai should PR Balrog and John Takeuchi finish 4th or higher, or should Alucard and Flash finish 2nd or higher, at The Fall Classic in USA
-
Luffy is on the verge of taking away a qualifying spot from Mister Crimson should he finish at least 4th or higher at any of the remaining European Ranking events
-
Tse4444 is on the verge of taking away a qualifying spot from from Haitani should he finish at least 2nd or higher at any of the remaining Asian Ranking events*
Players Qualified for Regional Finals
in North America (3 spots remain)
[list]
[] Chris Tatarian via West Coast Warzone 5
[] Julio via Texas Showdown 2016
[] Filipino Champ via Northwest Majors VIII
[] NuckleDu via Dreamhack Austin
[] Ricki Ortiz via Toryuken V
[] Flash Metroid via Combo Breaker 2016
[] K-Brad via Defend the North 2016
[] XsK_Samurai via Online CPT Event NA 1
[] Alucard via Summer Jam X
[] Snake Eyez via Absolute Battle 7
[] John Takeuchi via First Attack 2016
[] Ludovic via East Coast Throwdown 2016
[*] Anbu Punk via Online CPT Event NA 2
[/list]
in Latin America (2 spots remain)
[list]
[] Justin Wong via JAM Festival 2016
[] Misterio via Lima Salty 3
[] Chris Tatarian via Japonawa X
[] K-Brad via The Fight 2016
[] Ericke Piquet via SANA 2016
[] Kusanagi via Online CPT Event LATAM 1
[] Julio via Furia Tica 2016
[] Brolynho via Fight in Rio
[] Baek via Argentina Pro Gaming Series
[] DR Ray via CPT Online Event LATAM 2
[] Crossover via Fighting Fest 2016
[] Filipino Champ via Thunderstruck IV
[] Jiewa via Never Give Up 2016
[] DarkH18 via Treta Championship 2016
[/list]
in Europe (4 spots remain)
[list]
[] Mister Crimson via Cannes Winter Clash
[] Problem X via Hypespotting V
[] Phenom via FrogByte 2016
[] CCL via FFM Rumble 9
[] Xian via Moscow Fighting Arena 2016
[] MOV via Sonic Boom Summer Edition 2016
[] Akainu via VSFighting 2016
[] Cobelcog via Online CPT Event EU 1
[] ImStillDaDaddy via Online CPT Event EU 2
[] Luffy via Celtic Throwdown 2016
[] Daigo via Lockdown 2016
[] Jiewa via Fighting Games Challenge 2016
[/list]
in Asia (4 spots remain)
[list]
[] Eita via Thaiger Uppercut
[] Haitani via Battle Arena Melbourne 8
[] Kazunoko via Tokyo Button Mashers
[] Mago via TWFighter Major 2016
[] Xian via Online CPT Event Asia 1
[] Daigo via Well Played Cup
[] Tse4444 via Yangcheng Cup
[] GamerBee via eSports Festival Hong Kong 2016
[] Itabashi Zangief via OzHadou Nationals 14
[] Xiaohai via Ze Fighting Game Championships
[] Justin Wong via Manila Cup 2016
[] Go1 via Abuget Cup 2016
[/list]
Remaining CPT Events
For the full schedule and archive of past events you can visit the following link - http://capcomprotour.com/schedule/
Event Name | Location | Event Date | Event Type
South East Asia Major 2016 | Singapore | Oct 7th - 9th | Premier
The Fall Classic | Raleigh, USA | Oct 7th - 9th | Ranking
Geek Weekend | Dubai, UAE | Oct 7th - 8th | Ranking
Liga Official PlayStation Tournament | Barcelona, Spain | Oct 8th - 9th | Ranking
SoCal Regionals 2016 | Los Angeles, USA | Oct 14th - 16th | Premier
Milan Games Week | Milan, Italy | Oct 15th - 16th | Regional Finals
FV Cup | Malaysia | Oct 22nd - 23th | Ranking
Online CPT Event Asia №2 | Eligible Countries | Oct 22nd | Ranking
Canada Cup | Toronto, Canada | Oct 28th - 30th | Premier
Red Bull Battle Grounds | Seattle, USA | Nov 4th - 6th | Regional Finals
Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals | Busan, South Korea | Nov 17th - 19th | Regional Finals
Capcom Pro Tour Latin America Finals | TBA | TBA | Regional Finals
Capcom Cup 2016 | Anaheim, USA | Dec 2nd - 3rd | Season Finale
Didn’t read the whole thing? Here’s a TL;DR!
- Capcom Pro Tour is the premier fighting game tournament for Street Fighter series
- The 2016 Season began on February 26th and will end in December
- Each Capcom Pro Tour season ends with a Grand Finale in form of Capcom Cup
- The Capcom Pro Tour is divided into Ranking, Premier, and Regional Finals events
- The Capcom Pro Tour is now also divided into 4 regions: North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia
- Only 32 players will qualify to take part in Capcom Cup
- Up to 12 players will qualify via Premier Events, 8 will qualify via Global leaderboards (unless additional spots are opened by a qualified players winning a Premier event), 8 will qualify via Regional leaderboards, and the last 4 will qualify via Regional Finals
- Winning EVO or a Premier event grants an automatic qualification to Capcom Cup and Global CPT points
- Winning a Ranking event grants Global and Regional CPT points (depending on the region the Ranking event was held in)
- Winning an Online CPT event grants rewards similar to those of Ranking events
- Winning either a Ranking or Online event also qualifies a player for the Regional Finals
- Regional Finals, however, do not reward the players with any CPT points
- 14 such players will be qualified for the participation in the Regional Finals, while the 2 additional spots will be determined by a Last Chance Qualifier
- The Last Chance Qualifier is an open bracket tournament (akin to the one Red Bull Kumite had prior to the main event this year)
- There are currently 6 players that automatically qualified for the Capcom Cup via winning a Premier event
- Unlike the previous seasons, if the winner of a Premier event is already qualified, the Capcom Cup spot is not given to the next highest placing player
- On the other hand, this rule now applies to the winner of a Regional Finals event
- Also unlike previous seasons, the winner of last year’s Capcom Cup was not given an automatic qualification for this year’s CC
- There are 3 Premium events left in this Season
- There are 6 Ranking events left in this Season, one of which is an Online CPT event
- Capcom Cup will take place on December 2nd-4th during PlayStation Experience 2016 in Anaheim, USA