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NL Wins Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition at Combo Breaker 2018

NL breaks through at Combo Breaker to take his first Street Fighter V premier event.

Ozzie Mejia

May 27, 2018 5:47 PM

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Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition has concluded at Combo Breaker 2018. In keeping with the theme of the weekend, there was a newer face that popped up at the top of the pack. South Korea's Sim "NL" Gun has been on the cusp of breaking through for a while now and he has done so on Sunday. He defeated Xian (Kun Xian Ho) to take the Combo Breaker 2018 victory.

Despite having beaten Xian in Winners Finals just minutes prior, Xian was game for this matchup and continued to fight back, despite being down 2-1. But NL fought through Xian's Ibuki, as well as through his own jitters, and was able to land a key Critical Art in the tournament-deciding round. Xian was still alive, but one more hit sent him to stun and allowed NL to take the Combo Breaker trophy.

The Losers Finals looked to be another stepping stone for Seonwoo "Infiltration" Lee, as he quickly put Xian behind the 8 ball. Going up 2-0, it looked like Xian was going to be a quick out, but Xian quickly started to figure out the Menat matchup and used Ibuki's quickness and V-Trigger II to make a dramatic comeback from down 0-2 to advance to Grand Finals. It was a case of double jeopardy for Infiltration, as Xian had also sent him to Losers Bracket earlier in the weekend.

Earlier on Sunday, Infiltration faced off with Capcom Pro Tour points leader and long-time rival Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi. Infiltration came out on top to send Tokido to a 9th place finish. This is noteworthy, because Infiltration's third place finish just barely keeps him in second place on the CPT standings. A Top 2 finish would have made Infiltration the new CPT points leader.

To this point, NL had finished in several Top 32s over the past two seasons, but most recently came off a 1st place finish at Saigon Cup. Xian is a big story himself, though. While he's a former Evo champion in his own right, Xian was sitting in 27th place on the Capcom Pro Tour standings prior to Combo Breaker. Both of these players will quickly climb these standings following this weekend's Premier placement.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?