The first day of the Brooklyn Beatdown, ESL One's first ever Street Fighter V tournament with a massive $75,000 prize pot, featured top level play and major upsets. With the current world champion and Red Bull's Daigo "The Beast" Umehara eliminated uncharacteristically quickly, the grand finals will take place on the main stage Sunday with Evil Geniuses' Yusuke "Momochi" Momochi of Japan and Qanba's Zeng "XiaoHai" Zhuojun of China fighting it out.
Although it was a notable upset that Daigo was eliminated before top 16, the biggest upset was yet to come on Saturday, with South Korean Evolution 2016 champion Lee "Infiltration" Seon Woo losing to the unknown Sons of Asgard player Thomas "Brolynho" Proença out of Brazil. In losers bracket, just like Daigo before him, Kenryo "Mago" Hayashi eliminated Infiltration from the tournament. It didn't faze the world champion too much, as his ultimate goal was to experiment with his Balrog against Mago, whose Karin is considered to be the best in the world.
The American favorite, Evil Geniuses Justin "JWong" Wong, was running through winners bracket until he ran into Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi out of Japan. In losers, JWong had to face fellow teammate Momochi. Momochi, using a good mix of footsies, or neutral ground gameplay, and aggressive approaches, handily took the match 3-1. With JWong out, only Asian players remained in the tournament.
XiaoHai, on the other hand, was sitting comfortably in grand finals, having beaten out Tokido's Ryu in a very close and intense set. Both respected each other greatly, never unabashedly rushing in, and playing a strong footsie game. The differentiating factor was XiaoHai's ability to turn on the aggression with Cammie, even if his health was low. Tokido dropped to losers' bracket finals against Momochi.
In losers bracket, Momochi had clearly found a rhythm. He was flying through on a second wind, using a great mix of reserved and aggressive play. The standout moment was when both he and Tokido threw four fireballs out at each other simultaneously, playing a game of chicken with hadoukens. But even with such a close match, Momochi absolutely destroyed the final game. Without sustaining any damage, he beat Tokido with a perfect KO.
Usually fighting game tournaments reserve all of the top eight for Sunday, but that will not the case for ESL One. On Saturday, pretty much the entire tournament had taken place, minus grand finals. This changes the dynamic because the losers bracket finalist and the winners bracket finalist will be on equal footing in terms of fatigue. On Sunday's ESL One main stage for the grand finals, it really will be anyone's game.