Punk wins Street Fighter 5 at Combo Breaker 2019

After beating the defending EVO world champion in Grand Finals, Victor 'Punk' Woodley emerged as Street Fighter 5 champion at this year's Combo Breaker.

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It's been a busy final day of competition at this year's Combo Breaker from St. Charles, IL. The biggest fighting game tournament of the midwest brought out the fighting game world's best titles for the final Sunday and among them was Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition. Though it was placed in a rare early afternoon slot, the Street Fighter action delivered. The Grand Finals came down to current Capcom Pro Tour points leader Victor "Punk" Woodley and defending EVO world champion Benjamin "Problem-X" Simon. But this year continues to belong to Punk, as he defeated Problem-X 3-0 in the second Grand Finals set to win this Capcom Pro Tour premier event.

Following the Grand Finals reset, Punk regrouped and went more aggressive with his Karin. He pressured Problem-X's Abigail with close-up combos, while baiting out the Abigail shoulder charge and punishing the miss. Problem-X looked for some come-from-behind wins, but without Abigail's V-Trigger I, a lot of Abigail's comeback potential was off the table. Combined with Karin's parry provided by her V-Trigger II, Punk was able to cut off any Abigail comebacks. Having fully adapted to Abigail's arsenal, Punk was able to easily take the second Grand Finals set 3-0 to win Combo Breaker 2019.

Following a Winners Finals loss to Punk earlier, Problem-X changed up his strategy to start Grand Finals, switching from Bison to Abigail. Abigail's straight-up power advantage allowed him to bully Punk's Karin early on. One thing different about Problem-X's Abigail is that he opted for the character's V-Trigger II, which proved to make a big difference, as he was able to extend his combos with an unbreakable shoulder charge. The character switch paid off, as Problem-X quickly took the first Grand Finals set 3-0.

Defending Capcom Cup champion Gachikun was in the Top 8, but couldn't get beyond that. He fell to a 5th place finish following a Winners Semifinals loss to Punk and a 3-0 loss to a very game Masahiro "Machabo" Tominaga and his Necalli.

Punk adds to his Capcom Pro Tour points lead with Sunday's victory. Problem-X will remain in third place, ahead of Gustavo "801 Strider" Romero. Next for the Capcom Pro Tour is DreamHack Dallas next week, with the Taipei Major premier event coming in just a few weeks.

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?

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