Miky “Samurai” Chea

Being clutch is the most coveted intangible skill in sports. For athletes like Adam Vinatieri, Tom Brady or Kevin Durant their ability to make plays, stay calm and perform under pressure time and time again earns them their reputation as ‘clutch.’

Miky “Samurai” Chea is a professional Street Fighter 5 player, ranked #10 in North America, making a name for himself as one of the top clutch performers in the game during his time in the Street Fighter League on Team Storm alongside Juan “Classico” Sandoval and team captain Derek “iDom” Ruffin.

Street Fighter League is a 3-on-3 double round robin tournament where six teams compete with the winner taking home the Capcom Pro-US 2019 Championship. The tournament’s unique twist is the introduction of character bans, which bring a new level of strategy to Street Fighter 5. Banning a player’s primary character they’ve dedicated hundreds of hours on and forcing them to play their secondary greatly diminishes that player’s performance and impact on the set.

Before each match the captains ban a character then select their match queue order.

Team Storm was caught in a precarious position as their captain IDom is known for being incredibly skilled on his main character Laura, but severely lacking in his secondaries compared to the field. Knowing Laura would be banned for the foreseeable future Team Storm set their match order with Samurai, using his main character Akuma, playing last. Samurai held the responsibility of being the anchor Team Storm needed to clutch out a win.

Samurai (left), Classico (center back), iDom (center) and caster Rip (right)

The first two weeks for Team Storm were rough. The squad dropped matches to Team Psycho and Team Inferno, led by #1 ranked Street Fighter Pro League player Victor “Punk” Woodley.

“In the first two matches against Psycho and Inferno I didn’t have the right mindset. My mindset was ‘Oh, I’m going to win these matches. Don’t worry guys.’ I realized I can’t do that because then my teammates get left behind. I have to think, ‘alright guys we can get this win,’ and change my mindset so my teammates are on board, and we have one goal which is getting the win,” Chea said.

In week four, Samurai’s teammates were defeated leaving Samurai, yet again, as the last remaining competitor. However, his shift in mindset paid off as Team Storm defeated Team Frost with Samurai completing the reverse sweep, also known as a one character victory (OCV).

“After my first OCV team morale went up. The biggest thing was getting the team focused on a main goal. Even if it was up to me I would say, ‘You did your damage, you did your job, now it’s up to me to close it out,”’ Chea said.

The next week Samurai proved his OCV wasn’t a fluke by accomplishing a second OCV against Team Gale running though RobTV, and Shine and their captain NuckleDu.

Samurai continued his dominant streak with his most impressive OCV to date by defeating Team Spirit in week six. Samurai handled Brian_F, Psycho, and fighting game legend Justin Wong. Team Storm chose not to ban Wong’s strongest character Menat.

Samurai came back from the brink of defeat multiple times against Wong, even “laming” him out by taking a round due to time expiring.

Samurai’s week six OCV against Team Spirit.

Team Storm had the competitive advantage with Samurai on a streak and teams still fearing iDom’s notorious Laura.

“They can pick their poison and laugh at iDom and lose or have to face my strong secondary and Idom’s Laura. What do you do? You ban Akuma or you ban Laura?” Chea said.

Samurai’s three straight OCVs made fans take notice. His ice-cold demeanor and patient play under pressure appeared to be levels above other players in Street Fighter League.

For clutch performers mental preparation and practice for these high pressure situations are necessary.

According to Dr Sam Maniar, founder and president of the Center for Peak Performance and former sports psychologist for the Cleveland Browns, clutch performers are able to mitigate the performance drop off that occurs in tense moments.

“When it comes performing under pressure there’s a misconception that people will rise above what they’re capable of doing. Everyone does worse than their capability under pressure, those that are clutch are able to reduce the impact of that pressure. They’re able to perform as close to those capabilities whether they’re under pressure on not under pressure. If I’m a 95 percent free throw shooter you wouldn’t expect me to be 98 percent under pressure. I’d be around 90 percent. Somebody who doesn’t handle pressure very well you’d expect them to be 80 percent,” Meniar said.

This type of performance drop off can be seen from Samurai’s opponents during his OCVs. Samurai maintains a disciplined approach and rarely overextends. As the pressure becomes greater for his opponent to close out the set they begin making mistakes that Samurai capitalizes on.

According to Dr. Meniar what happens under pressure is, for a lot of athletes, they take what is learned out of the unconscious part of their brain and bring it into the conscious part of their brain. In other words, they stop thinking about performance and start over thinking every decision.

Samurai enjoys high pressure moments and uses the times when he couldn’t come back from the brink of defeat as motivation.

“When you get put in a situation so many times you start to get used to it. I’ve lost so many times, man. In a lot of those situations where I’ve had to clutch it out I’ve lost. I’ve lost more than some of those players up there. I want to put myself in tough situations now. I want to be last, I want that pressure,” Chea said.

Street Fighter League casters Vicious (left) and Tasty Steve (right) promoting the Free Laura movement.

After three straight OCVs Team Storm and the commentary started calling for teams to “Free Laura” and ban Samurai’s Akuma. However, week seven saw another team ban Laura and another team fall to Samurai. In Team Storm’s first rematch of the tournament Samurai ran it back against their week one opponents Team Psycho.

“The first two OCVs is when I originally thought they were going to ban Akuma. Then it went up to four, and I was like OK, this is going on a little too long. I knew it was only a matter of time until they were going to ban Akuma. Eventually they’ll let me play,” Ruffin said.

The next week Team Inferno finally decided to finally ban Akuma and free Laura. Samurai, using his secondary Sagat, defeated Brolylegs and iDom’s Laura ran though Punk and JB to secure the team’s fifth straight victory.

The streaking Team Storm had their toughest match yet last week against Team Frost. Surprisingly, Akuma was banned again leaving iDom to run wild as Laura. In the back and forth match, it all came down to iDom vs. UptoSnuff, it was iDom’s dominant Laura coming through for the team taking them to six straight wins.

Sitting at the top of Street Fighter League rankings and showing no signs of slowing down, Samurai and Team Storm are in prime position to take home the Capcom Pro-US 2019 Championship.