Taniguchi “Tokido” Hajime never got a chance to play for Team Topanga’s three-man squad on the first day of Street Fighter 5 Crash. The rest of the competition were simply outplayed.
Team Topanga, consisting of Tokido, Momochi Yusuke, and Hayashi “Mago” Kenryo, only needed to use the latter two members on Sunday to win Group A and advance to the second stage of Street Fighter 5 Crash in Seoul, South Korea. Team GPS, composed of Shinji840, NeoTheSinger, and Jun8, overcame an early loss to advance in second place.
The first stage of the competition consists of 16 three-player teams, split into four groups. Each group competes in a double-elimination tournament. The top two teams from each group advance to a similarly-structured second stage, moving on to a four-team single-elimination bracket to determine a champion.
Topanga’s Momochi opened the competition by sweeping Team First Blood’s Riribbong, Q-Q-Q-, and DibloDoc to send his squad to the winners’ final. He suffered a defeat at the hands of Team SNK’s Verloren, but Mago stepped up and completed a three-game sweep of Verloren, Xyzzy, and NL to send Topanga through, so Tokido wasn’t required to play.
Team GPS fell to Team SNK in a hard-fought 3-2 match in the opening round, but Shinji810 would not let his team get eliminated. He defeated all three members of First Blood, then did the same to Team SNK in the losers’ final.
Team Topanga’s second-round group will include the winner of Group B and the runners-up of Groups C and D. Team GPS will be joined by Group B’s runner-up and the winners of Groups C and D.
Group B will compete next Sunday, and is headlined by Team Razer, composed of Lee “Infiltration” Seon-Woo, Ai “Fuudo” Keita, and Kun Xian Ho.
Group C, which will take place on Apr. 24, will feature Team Qanba, led by Zeng “XiaoHai” Zhuojun and Su “Dakou” Haojun.
Group D, which will compete the following week, will be led by Team South East Asia composed of Jonny “HumanBomb” Cheng, Bruce “GamerBee” Hsiang, and Gon “Poongko” Lee-Chung.
