It is the end of the regular season and two of the four spots to the Playoffs were still up for grabs this week. NASR X BANDITS earned enough points to secure first place and the first seed the first seed and ENDEMIC locked down the second spot. In these last two Team Battles the bottom four teams had one final chance to earn points. Each of the four teams mathmatically still had a chance at a Playoff spot at the very end, although PANDA GLOBAL’s odds were long and things had to fall just right to get into fourth place.
The first of this week’s Team Battles was UYU as the home team taking on CL Gaming. CL Gaming was in the most secure position of the remaining teams with 190 points in third place after a huge 40-0 win against PANDA GLOBAL last week. In fourth place was UYU at 165 points. They were only 5 points ahead of RED ROOSTER coming into this week and really needed to win big or for RED ROOSTER to lose likewise.
Next up was PANDA GLOBAL as the home team against RED ROOSTER. PANDA GLOBAL took their toughest loss of the season last week against CL GAMING and their chances of making the Playoffs was slim, but possible. RED ROOSTER had an important victory against NASR X BANDITS last week and were within 5 points of UYU in fourth place.
If you missed any of season 5 and want to get caught up before reading further, check out the STREET FIGHTER LEAGUE: Pro-US Season 5 Archive or the Capcom Fighters YouTube channel’s STREET FIGHTER LEAGUE: Pro-US Season 5 video playlist for the full episodes.
UYU (HOME) vs CL GAMING (AWAY)
Away Team Player and Character Order: 1) Justakid (Juri), 2) Filipinoman (Rose), 3) ChrisCCH (Luke), SUB) Samurai
Up until this season UYU has not had a good record in STREET FIGHTER LEAGUE and at points here in season five it looked like the trend might continue. In the last few weeks the team has really come together moving themselves from last place into fourth. They have hit a stride they have not experienced up until now, culminating in this spectacular win against CL GAMING this week.
UYU got a near-perfect clean sweep here against CL GAMING, getting a much needed 40-0 score with not a single game lost. NL with Luke in the first match against Justakid’s Juri was a dominating performance, winning four rounds straight with one of them being a perfect. Oil King’s Rashid going in against Filipinoman’s Rose in the second match was more contested but the result was the same with two rounds straight for Oil King. Filipinoman’s Rose found it very difficult to keep the highly mobile Rashid from continuously getting in for offense.
UYU only lost a round in this Team Battle in the third match as DCQ’s Urien took on ChrisCCH’s Luke in the anchor position. It was a 3-0 win for DCQ but it was not easy as ChrisCCH made virtually every round a close one. DCQ had some exceptional spacing here making use of Urien’s long limbs to strike out at Luke. At critical points DCQ would deploy the mirrors and most of the time managed to open up ChrisCCH’s defenses to get a big juggle combo. Several rounds looked to be going to ChrisCCH but DCQ would make a big play at the end to steal the round.
Sometimes in competitions it’s not just the wins and losses that are important but about peaking at the right time. UYU did exactly that here, ending the regular season with a clean sweep against a great team in CL GAMING and going into the Playoffs with tremendous momentum and sky-high team confidence. UYU earns its first Playoff spot in team history and it will be exciting to see what they do next week.
| Match | Player | Team | Character | | Player | Team | Character | Result |
| 1 | NL | UYU | Luke | defeated | Justakid | CL GAMING | Juri | 2-0 |
| 2 | Oil King | UYU | Rashid | defeated | Filinoman | CL GAMING | Rose | 2-0 |
| 3 | DCQ | UYU | Urien | defeated | ChrisCCH | CL GAMING | Luke | 3-0 |
| Tie-Breaker | – | – | – | defeated | – | – | – | – |
| SCORE | TOTAL | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Break |
| HOME | 40 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 0 |
| AWAY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
PANDA GLOBAL (HOME) vs RED ROOSTER (AWAY)
Away Team Player and Character Order: 1) Mono (F.A.N.G.), 2) HotDog29 (M. Bison), 3) Ajax Fidelity (Ed), SUB) Smug
With UYU’s win in this week’s first Team Battle PANDA GLOBAL’s chances of making the Playoffs have disappeared but for RED ROOSTER still had a chance. Following that result RED ROOSTER now needed to get enough points to surpass CL GAMING’s 190 points and so would need a clean sweep to make that happen.
Punk, who usually anchors for PANDA GLOBAL, went in first to face off against Mono’s F.A.N.G. in the first match. It started well enough for Mono as he used F.A.N.G.’s great movement, tricky normals and poison to great effect to win the first game against Punk’s Necalli. From then on it was downhill as Punk made adjustments to his spacing and made effective use of Necalli’s Culminating Power seismos to make it difficult not only for F.A.N.G. to start any offense but also to shrug off any poison. The members of CL GAMING, looking on from the gallery, cheered on Punk between rounds hoping he would put an end to RED ROOSTER’s Playoff hopes. Punk would go on to win the next two games to finish Mono 2-1 to shatter RED ROOSTER’s chances of making the Playoffs.
After Mono’s loss the next two matches were for pride with both teams now eliminated. HotDog29 made a strong final showing of the season in a dominating performance with his M. Bison against Kami’s Luke. The anchor match between Nephew’s Kolin and Ajax Fidelity’s Ed was an appropriately epic end to season five in an intense set between two players who thrive on fast-paced offense. This was a truly back and forth match with both players trading momentum. Toward the end Nephew was able to more consistently make it hard for Ajax Fidelity to get his offense going consistently. In the very last round of the match Nephew made an incredible mix-up using Kolin’s ice-drop to score the final damage to win the match.
| Match | Player | Team | Character | | Player | Team | Character | Result |
| 1 | Punk | PANDA GLOBAL | Necalli | defeated | Mono | RED ROOSTER | F.A.N.G. | 2-1 |
| 2 | HotDog29 | RED ROOSTER | M. Bison | defeated | Kami | PANDA GLOBAL | Luke | 2-0 |
| 3 | Nephew | PANDA GLOBAL | Kolin | defeated | Ajax Fidelity | RED ROOSTER | Ed | 3-2 |
| Tie-Breaker | defeated |
| SCORE | TOTAL | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Break |
| HOME | 30 | 10 | 0 | 20 | 0 |
| AWAY | 10 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
TEAM STANDINGS
Below are the final standings as the regular season is officially over and we move on to the Playoffs, where the top four teams will compete to go to the Finals in February.
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK!
Be sure to catch the next episode on Twitch and YouTube on Friday at 4:00 PM Pacific, 7:00 PM Eastern!