Season two of STREET FIGHTER LEAGUE: Pro-US 2019 is here and it begins with forming the teams! The top two teams from season one will return and be joined by four new teams drafted this week in episode one! Here’s a recap of the draft and the teams that will be facing off in this exciting new season!
Want to catch up on Season One?
If you missed any of season one and want to get caught up before reading further, check out the STREET FIGHTER LEAGUE: Pro-US 2019 Season 1 Archive or the Capcom Fighters YouTube channel’s STREET FIGHTER LEAGUE: Pro-US 2019 video playlist for the full episodes.
Format:
The competition consists of six teams of three players who will compete in a fierce 3-on-3 tournament format. The top two teams from season one, Punk‘s Team INFERNO and NuckleDu‘s Team GALE, return for season two. The other four teams will be formed by a draft conducted by the team captains.
This season’s new captains are CJ Truth for Team SPIRIT, 801 Strider for Team STORM, Smug for Team Psycho and Dual Kevin has returned for season two as captain of Team FROST! The draft selection order was determined by a competition where the captains faced off against one another in a captain bracket. After the fierce matches were concluded (see results below) CJ Truth and Team SPIRIT earned the first pick followed by Dual Kevin’s FROST, 801 Strider’s STORM and Smug’s PSYCHO.
Player selection for the League used a snake draft system. The order of the first round follows the order determined by the captain bracket starting with Team SPIRIT. In the second round the order reversed, so Team PSYCHO picked first (resulting in back-to-back 4th and 5th picks) going back to Team SPIRIT for the final pick.
The Draft Player Pool:
The four new team captains had a pool of players to draft from to complete their teams. Four of the players are from an Online Warrior category who earned their spots by fighting their way through fierce online competitions. The other four players are Crowd Favorites who were voted into the draft pool by the community. Each team captain had to select one Online Warrior and one Crowd Favorite.
The player pool for season two’s draft included two returning favorites from season one in Samurai and iDom. New to the Online Warriors category is Mo-Joe and Dankadillas. For the Crowd Favorites there are four new players in Sherryjenix, Sabin, Automattock and Tommy2Step. Each of these players is incredibly talented and you can learn more about each using the links to their full bios.
The Final Teams:
Before the team draft process each of the prospect players played an exhibition match. These matches allowed the team captains to get a look at each player’s skills and which characters they used. Due to the League’s unique twist of being able to ban a character during a Team Battle, being able to play more than one character at a high level is also an important consideration.
Once the draft was completed we finally had the four new teams that will be competing in season two! The full roster of teams for this season can be seen below!
Character Bans in Season Two
One of the League’s unique twists is the ability to ban a character from the opposing team during a Team Battle and season two we’ve made an important tweak to the rule. This season a team can only ban a specific character once in a Team Battle match-up. A team plays each other team twice over the course of the competition, so a specific character can only be banned for one of those. This means that team captains not only have to consider what character to ban, but when!
The Competition Begins Next Thursday!
The teams are all set and the STREET FIGHTER LEAGUE: Pro-US 2019 competition is ready to begin! Tune in next Thursday to watch the next exciting episode featuring the hosting talents of Rip and play-by-play commentary by Tasty Steve and Vicious!
Catch it on Twitch and YouTube at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern.