It was announced earlier today that Capcom and online-streaming giant Twitch have partnered to create the Capcom Pro Tour year-long league. The Capcom Pro Tour is a Street Fighter exclusive league, formed from a combination of multiple ranked tournaments, “premier events”, and online tournaments. The tour will begin with Super Street Fighter IV as its chosen game, and will transition into Ultra Street Fighter IV after its official release in June.
According to the press release, several premier and ranking events will be held up through November; the Capcom Pro Tour concludes with the Capcom Cup held in December. Competing players will be able to qualify for the final event by either winning a premier event, or through a new points-based system “which tracks the rankings of players that compete in the tour”. Only 16 Street Fighter aficionados will get the chance to participate in the Capcom Cup, 10 of which will come from premier events. Seven of the ten events have been announced, and are listed as follows:
· Final Round (March 14~16 – Atlanta, GA, USA)
· NorCal Regionals (April 18~20 – Sacramento, CA, USA)
· Southeast Asia Majors (June 20~22 – Singapore)
· Community Effort Orlando (June 27~29 – Orlando, FL, USA)
· Evolution Championship Series (July 11~13 – Las Vegas, NV, USA)
· The Fall Classic (October 10~12 – Raleigh, NC, USA)
· DreamHack Winter (November 27~30 – Jönköping, Sweden)
All of the premier events will retain their personal rules and regulations outside of the Pro Tour, however matches for Super Street Fighter IV and Ultra Street Fighter IV will be streamed via the Capcom Fighters Twitch Channel. While winners of the events listed above will be automatically placed into the Capcom Cup, points are awarded to each of the 16 players after both premier and ranked events. Unlike the above tournaments, ranked events will be held during “both trade shows and independent tournaments”, and will not be streamed through the Capcom Fighters channel. The current list of ranked events are listed below:
· [Concluded] SoCal Regionals (February 28~March 2, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
· PAX East (April 11~13 – Boston, MA, USA)
· E3 (June 10~12 – Los Angeles, CA, USA)
· San Diego Comic Con (July 24~27 – San Diego, CA, USA)
The press release states that points earned during the SoCal Regional will be awarded “retroactively”, with more details regarding other events coming on a later date.
Capcom and Twitch developed the Capcom Pro Tour with the intent of supporting tournament organizers, delivering increased production value to Twitch, and to provide Street Fighter hopefuls with new opportunities to compete, and produce pro-level content. More information about the Capcom Pro Tour can be found through the official website as it releases.