As some of you may know, Bavo Bruylandt is the mastermind of the fighting games World Rankings we’ve promoted heavily here on Shoryuken. In this first article of a brand new series, he uses the site’s recently-added stat features to break down various character ranking perspectives across Street Fighter IV’s multiple iterations.

Introduction

This is part one of an elaborate Street fighter IV character analysis. With the help of Shoryuken and the fighting game community overall, we have built a large database of tournament results. The ultimate goal is to rank players, which you can read all about in here. With this system comes an enormous dataset on character usage and how they performed over the years. A lot of words have been said about tiers, using matchups as a base for ranking. Now we can look into what actually worked, using hindsight on a lot of metrics.

The data will be elaborated in in separate phases:

Top of the pops: Ranking the characters by several criteria and seeing how that changed over time. This zooms in on the strongest performers and is (by accident) the most verbose. Balance analysis: Detailing the whole range of characters in a version to find out how close or far they are to each other taking a more graphical approach. Character history: Analyzing each character metrics one by one diving deeper into how they evolved and what their unique metrics are.

I would like to thank explicitly the following sources that, one way or another, were an influence to this story: Kyosuke of ssfranking (Arcade battle data), Kuroppi (historical tournament results), the staff at Shoryuken for up-to-date tournament reporting, the SRK forums community for fixes and suggestions, George at freedamage.com (for ideas and cropped images), SpeedBrkr (8-bit SFIV images), Lyn (MvC3 images), Tokidoblog (Asian coverage), and countless people on Twitter for suggestions.

Character ranking perspectives

When we use http://rank.shoryuken.com/ stats/ to get an idea an the character strength we can see three strong trends emerging:

Characters that have accumulated the most tournament points (performance)

Characters that have appeared the most in rankings (occurrence)

Characters that are used most often as main (popularity)

The first category tells something about the character performance. They may not be mained often, may not even appear that much in tournaments, but those who play them rank really high and score points. This is an indication of the character strength, as weak characters are not likely to end up in the highest ranks, but it is also highly reliant on player strength. The second category says something about popularity, but is also influenced by how much those who play a character enter tournaments. The classical example is Rufus, who is seen a lot in the high ranks but is not necessarily the most popular character. The statistic is relevant because it reflects which characters you may most likely be facing. If this is a bad matchup, your character may be a tough choice. We call it occurence.

The third category reflects popularity. The more players using the character as a main, the more popular the character is. However, this does not correlate to high performance nor occurrence. The players choosing the character may have a hard time ranking high, or even at all. Anyone that is seen at least once in a tournament conclusion will affect this statistic, even if they were last in a circuit-type tournament. To indicate whether a character is still popular among the highest level of players, there are more in-depth stats focusing on the top 100 and top 50 of the rankings, which you can find at the ranking site.

Tournament Popularity

To find out which characters are the most popular choices in the tournament field, we rank them by number of ranked players that choose that character as main. This list is taken from http://rank.shoryuken.com/ stats/ and sorted by ‘Main Total’, a metric that counts the number of players that dominantly used that character.

Street Fighter IV

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When we look at Vanilla we get (total main usage between braces):

Sagat (37), Ryu (19), Balrog (12), Akuma, Rufus, Dhalsim, E. Honda, C. Viper, Blanka, Zangief

Sagat wins by a very large margin. He was considered S-tier back then, and looking at both the Japanese as well as the American rankings, he was highly prevalent. Knowing in hindsight that he was dropped as soon as he weakened in tier, he was likely chosen because a lot of players felt there was no other choice than to fight fire with fire. Second is Ryu, who was very much the poster boy at the time, and perhaps legends like Daigo Umehara and Valle inspired a lot of players. Balrog scores his highest position in Vanilla, and Dhalsim does well too.

Overall, you can say that the original World Warrior cast scored really well, which makes sense as this game drew in the old Street Fighter II fanbase.

Super Street Fighter IV

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Things got shaken up hard in Super.

Ryu (14), C. Viper (9), Balrog (9), Akuma, E. Honda, Chun-Li, M. Bison, Vega, Rufus, Dhalsim

Most noticeably, Sagat drops his crown and goes straight to oblivion. Chun-Li, Vega, and Bison enter the top ten as World Warrior cast, pushing back Rufus, Zangief, and Dhalsim. This indicates a surge in charge characters, but we will see later if they performed better as well. The odd one here is C. Viper, who indeed did really well in Super. Sanford and Uryo were Viper players back then, and Wolfkrone was making a name for himself. As she is execution-heavy, Super may have been the version where tournament players who were technically evolving went for characters like these.

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

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Then Ono added in Yun and Yang in Arcade Edition.

Yun (16), Fei Long (13), Yang (10), Sagat, Akuma, C. Viper, Ryu, Zangief, M. Bison, Dhalsim

Avoiding any discussion on performance and tournament prevalence for now, the twins were surely popular for new characters, especially given the fact that the list in Super has no mention of roster additions at all. They come in straight at spots one and three. Fei Long also gained a lot of traction starting in this version, which continued through to ver. 2012.

Yun and Yang’s popularity, however, was very short-lived, likely related to their inherent character strength rather than their attractive playstyles. In this version, Ryu also starts to lose, but he eventually made top five in popularity in each version, making him, together with Akuma, the most stable choice. All of the newly-added Super Street Fighter IV characters keep low profiles even in this version.

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition ver. 2012

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It did not take long before they rebalanced the game with ver. 2012. This version has very detailed statistics up until today, and we can see one name in particular popping up out of nowhere.

Cammy (33) Fei Long (33) M. Bison (30) Akuma (28) Ryu (28) Balrog (25) Adon (25) Guy (25) Rufus (23) Sagat (22)

The most commonly-mained character list has Cammy and Fei fighting for the first spot. This is barely a surprise, as these characters are also contenders for performance as well as occurrence. At the third place, however, we see Bison, which contradicts his other statistics. He is a character that gets mained often, but is not seen in the higher regions of tournaments on a regular basis nor does he accumulate score well.

The choices for Akuma and Ryu are more in line with Street Fighter IV tradition. Then we have Balrog, who suffers the same fate as Bison, except that PR Balrog does help him place high on the performance and occurrence charts. A surprise to me is that Adon ends up at seventh place, although we only have GamerBee making him really successful despite his status as a slightly more niche Street Fighter character overall. Chances are that Bison, Balrog, and Adon benefit in this list from the “easy to pick up” factor, but are harder to master.

Next comes Guy, who may end high due to his fun playstyle, then Rufus, who surprisingly ranks before Sagat. That may be the Evil Geniuses factor boosting him up, as Sagat was previous king in vanilla.

Tournament Occurrence

Popularity does not mean the characters are actually fighting the most. Popular characters who are not played by great players or who have inherent flaws may rarely get into the top sixteen and drop off early in tournaments. Let’s see how this differs and focus on Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition ver. 2012, which has the largest dataset available of all versions.

The following table shows the players sorted by occurrence in tournament results. You can find it at here, sorting by “Times listed.”

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition ver. 2012

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Occurrence rank is the rank obtained sorted by “Times listed,” and “Popularity rank” is sorted by “Main Total“. The “diff” is occurrence versus popularity, with positive indicating a character occurs more than they are popular.

Character Times listed Main total Occurrence rank Popularity rank Diff Rufus 142 23 1 9 +8 Cammy 140 33 2 1 -1 Fei Long 125 33 3 1 -2 Akuma 115 28 4 4 Sagat 114 22 5 10 +5 Ryu 109 28 6 5 -1 C. Viper 97 17 7 18 +11 Guile 89 19 8 15 +7 M. Bison 86 30 9 3 -6 Balrog 84 25 10 6 -4 Sakura 80 16 11 21 +10 Honda 73 16 12 22 +10 Zangief 70 21 13 12 -1 Vega 60 20 14 13 -1 Adon 59 25 15 7 -8 Seth 57 16 16 23 +7 Dhalsim 56 18 17 17 Ken 54 21 18 12 -6 Gen 54 13 19 27 +8 Ibuki 53 20 20 14 -6 Guy 51 25 21 8 -13 Abel 51 19 22 16 -6 Yun 48 12 23 28 +5 Rose 45 11 24 30 +6 Chun-Li 43 15 25 24 -1 Makoto 37 17 26 19 -7 Blanka 37 17 27 20 -7 Oni 35 10 28 31 +3 Cody 34 15 29 25 -4 El Fuerte 27 12 30 29 -1 T. Hawk 26 8 31 35 +4 Juri 23 14 32 27 -5 Gouken 21 5 33 37 +4 Evil Ryu 19 4 34 39 +5 Yang 18 9 35 32 -3 Hakan 14 9 36 33 -3 Dudley 14 6 37 35 -2 Dee Jay 7 5 38 37 -1 Dan 4 1 39 39

A large difference between popularity and occurrence is often explained by looking at the players. A strong player can make even a very unpopular character a real threat that other top players have to train for. Looking at the list, we see characters who appear more often than they are mained:

C. Viper (+11): She really dropped in popularity in ver. 2012, after a third-place finish at the end of Super and ranking sixth in Arcade Edition. But even so, she is one of the most common characters to play against at highest levels. This is thanks to players such as Wolfkrone, Uryo, Latif, Will2pac, Jayce the Ace, and Kyabetsu, all of whom are good performers.

She really dropped in popularity in ver. 2012, after a third-place finish at the end of Super and ranking sixth in Arcade Edition. But even so, she is one of the most common characters to play against at highest levels. This is thanks to players such as Wolfkrone, Uryo, Latif, Will2pac, Jayce the Ace, and Kyabetsu, all of whom are good performers. Sakura (+10): Residing in mid-tier for popularity, she still scores at the top for occurrence. Uryo and Humanbomb are respected high-level players, but it is NYChrisG who made her common thanks to 40+ tournament entries with her as his main.

Residing in mid-tier for popularity, she still scores at the top for occurrence. Uryo and Humanbomb are respected high-level players, but it is NYChrisG who made her common thanks to 40+ tournament entries with her as his main. E. Honda (+10): Exactly the same as Sakura; he receives a boost from veterans such as Mike Ross (23 times used in ver. 2012) and Hoodaman (15 times).

Exactly the same as Sakura; he receives a boost from veterans such as Mike Ross (23 times used in ver. 2012) and Hoodaman (15 times). Rufus (+8): Perhaps the most eye-catching, as he jumps from the ninth spot in popularity (which is already good considering his character design) to the first in occurrence. He is almost completely carried there by Justin Wong and Ricky Ortiz, who took him to tournament finals a whopping 90 times in ver. 2012. One can not disregard the Rufus matchup in the United States, but in Europe and Japan this is a whole different story; Andreas and Perplex only combine for a total of 14 appearances.

Perhaps the most eye-catching, as he jumps from the ninth spot in popularity (which is already good considering his character design) to the first in occurrence. He is almost completely carried there by Justin Wong and Ricky Ortiz, who took him to tournament finals a whopping 90 times in ver. 2012. One can not disregard the Rufus matchup in the United States, but in Europe and Japan this is a whole different story; Andreas and Perplex only combine for a total of 14 appearances. Guile, Sagat, and Gen also do a lot better, being carried there by Dieminion, Bonchan, Sanford, and Xian, respectively. Looking at the reverse (characters that are popular but do not often reach finals) we see: Guy (-13): His high popularity in ver. 2012 comes as a surprise and it is clear why, he does not generally do that well

His high popularity in ver. 2012 comes as a surprise and it is clear why, he does not generally do that well Adon (-8): One could think that Adon should fall into the same category as Gen, a character with a very strong advocate. But GamerBee cannot sustain his rank alone. Gen needs high skill and lots of work, giving him lower popularity to start with, while Adon is actually quite popular in the lower skill levels but only has GamerBee to make him win. The next Adon players are Ramen Addict and Yoro, already in the 100+ ranks.

One could think that Adon should fall into the same category as Gen, a character with a very strong advocate. But GamerBee cannot sustain his rank alone. Gen needs high skill and lots of work, giving him lower popularity to start with, while Adon is actually quite popular in the lower skill levels but only has GamerBee to make him win. The next Adon players are Ramen Addict and Yoro, already in the 100+ ranks. M. Bison (-7): Like Guy, he is surprisingly high in popularity but is not able to maintain good tournament results. If you dive deeper into the stats, he has a high number of players in the top 100 (6), but none in the top 50. That’s the sharpest drop-off from high- to very high-level play.

Like Guy, he is surprisingly high in popularity but is not able to maintain good tournament results. If you dive deeper into the stats, he has a high number of players in the top 100 (6), but none in the top 50. That’s the sharpest drop-off from high- to very high-level play. Ken, Ibuki, Makoto, and Blanka are all mid-level in popularity, but a lot lower in occurrence.

Tournament Performance

Analyzing occurrence already gives a very good indication of which characters do well. However, there is one misleading influence. They may be promoted by a player that generally does well, but never does great. A player that gets a lot of top sixteen placements influences the number as much as one that always ends up first.

To find out which characters really got the fight money, we need to look at the score that they earned for their players. The result is a sum of some very large pots, like winning Evo, and of grinding a lot of smaller tournaments. The auto-weighting system of tournaments in the World Rankings is built to make sure that scores are distributed based on the quality of players competing, and thus becomes a great base to find out the best characters.

Together with the scores, I will also list the players that made that happen. The site features two character scores: total score and decayed score. For this article, we will consider the generation overall, and look at evolution within a version (using decayed scoring results) in a later article. The stats can be retrieved by going to here and sorting on “Score.”

Street Fighter IV

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Vanilla featured most of the World Warrior roster in arcades, incorporating fighters from later iterations of Street Fighter II as well as the Alpha series for home versions.

Ryu: Going head-to-head with Sagat in Vanilla, Daigo emerges on top. Whoops, did I say Daigo instead of Ryu? Well, Daigo winning Evo makes all the difference. This was a time where old-school players like Alex Valle and John Choi represented Ryu at high-level, and even Fuudo and Poongko were Ryu players. Sagat: At this time it was actually Mago taking him to the highest level, placing first in the Street Fighter IV arcade rankings in Japan, edging out Daigo. RF was his closest Japanese contender, while in the United States it was LI Joe who reigned with the king. Ryan Hart did the same thing for Europe. Rufus: He was from the start a very American character, getting support from Justin Wong, Ricky Ortiz, and Marn. The latter even scored better than Ricky at that time, performing very well in overseas tournaments in Europe. Japanese support was provided by MDR and Kindevu. Balrog: Clearly PR Balrog, but also Gootecks and Afrocole. He also needed help from Justin Wong using him in the Evo 2009 finals to score this high. Akuma: One may forget that Ed Ma placed third at Evo 2009, but he did and did it with Akuma. Oddly enough, this ranking comes almost entirely from American and European players, and not from the Asian Akuma demons we know today. C. Viper: Only at half the score of Akuma, she was mianed by Uryo and Flash Metroid, but got most of her points as the secondary character of Sanford Kelly, Marn, and Kindevu. Dhalsim: Not actually by Filipino Champ, but by Iyo and Arturo Sanchez. Champ only started scoring in Super. Abel: Combofiend and Juicebox made Abel a considerable threat in Vanilla.

Rose, Fei Long, Cammy, Vega, Gen, and El Fuerte were barely listed back then. Perhaps people were sleeping on Fei and Cammy, as they eventually landed at the top three in ver. 2012. Vega and Fuerte, however were ill-fated from the very beginning. Gouken, Sakura, and Dan cannot even be found; for Dan this is canon, but for Gouken it is far beneath his status in the storyline.

Super Street Fighter IV

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Super added in a large cast of new characters as well as a lot of balance changes for the Vanilla cast. In the World Ranking, this has slightly more data than Vanilla (but still a lot less than ver. 2012), making it pretty dense when compared to the previous version. While in Vanilla the characters above top eight were almost irrelevant, in Super this goes down gradually until 25th place.

Listed are the top characters and the (difference in rank) versus the previous version.

Ryu (+0): Daigo generates three times the score of the next main player, Alex Valle, by winning Evo and Canada Cup in 2010. At that time, we also consider Ryan Hart to main him, and Infiltration starts making an appearance using the series’ protagonist as well. Rufus (+1): He did not jump over Sagat–Sagat simply disappeared from the performance charts in Super. Rufus is still being backed by Justin Wong and Ricky Ortiz at peak performance during this time. Future Evil Geniuses teammate Floe adds in some points as well. Akuma (+2): This is where Tokido starts making moves in Street Fighter IV, using Akuma in ten tournaments and scoring especially high in Europe against high-caliber international players. Infiltration comes out of nowhere to take third at Evo 2010. C. Viper (+2): Wolfkrone is peaking now, playing in eleven tournaments and winning five. He is still the only competitor (with the exception of Marn at times) to do well. Her performance is slightly worse than her popularity at this time. Fei Long (+16): Jumping from the worst to one of the best, mainly thanks to Mago dropping Sagat in favor of Fei but also due to European players Starnab and Evans. Fuudo has yet to join the kung fu army. Dhalsim (+1): Dhalsim did really well in Super, which was arguably the most defensive version. Filipino Champ, Arturo Sanchez, and YHC-Mochi were very strong at this time. Cammy (+10): Following Fei on his way out of nothingness, she made ripples when played by Sako and Alioune. Rose (+14): Rose’s best days lie behind her, but in Super her added Ultra 2 was a godsend. Sako and Gootecks used her on occassion, and Luffy and Arturo Sanchez were doing well too. Luffy continues to keep her relevant at high levels in later versions. Guile (+6): Dieminion of course, but the charge friendliness also convinced Daigo to select him. And remember Warahk? Balrog (-6): PR Balrog mainly, but Canadian player JS Master also knew how to use his strengths in Super.

The best new character is Adon at 11th place. He was popularized by GamerBee, of course, but was also used by Justin Wong later in the game’s lifespan. Compared to Vanilla, Sagat dropped to 13th place and Abel to 17th. The biggest winner this version was clearly Fei Long, followed by Rose and Cammy.

Trailing at the end are Gouken, T. Hawk, Cody, El Fuerte, and Sakura. For Gouken this remains a sad sad story. New additions Cody and T. Hawk were perhaps not balanced as they should have been. In Sakura’s case, however, she may have just been really underrated back then.

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

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In an effort to relive the arcade scene, Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono took a weird approach to balance in Arcade Edition. He added characters and made sure that they would become everyone’s demon in the hope that this would make the game polarized and interesting. Looking at the eventual character performance, the unbalanced part was indeed achieved with excellence.

Yun (-): He totaled a score of 14,000 points, which is nearly double the second-ranked character in this version. His greatness lured Daigo, Momochi, and Ryan Hart to use him, but Kazunoko and Hsien Chang arguably mained him to the fullest potential. Fei (+3): Fuudo started off his reign in Arcade Edition using Fei Long, embedding him as a top-tier character that was mainly slept on and giving us many inspiring battles between student and master (Mago). C. Viper (+1): This is a rushdown game and Wolfkrone and Latif play their best here. Latif puts Viper on the map at Evo 2011, beating Daigo’s Yun before eventually being stopped by Fuudo. This may have led to her being nerfed harder than she should in future versions. Akuma (-1): Infiltration is warming up to start his ver. 2012 killing spree, and Tokido is now one of the hardest-hitting opponents in the scene, providing a perfect representation of the word vortex. Seth (+20): Arcade Edition can be seen as the age of Poongko, as he placed Seth on the map nearly by himself. Just like C. Viper, he got hit hard later on in ver. 2012. Symbolically, he completed the triumvirate of crazy rush-down in Arcade Edition together with Yun and C. Viper. Sagat (+8): He brought nobody to the top in Arcade Edition, which makes his rank surprising. That being said, he was still backed by veterans such as RF, Leslie, Bonchan, and Sanford. Rufus (-5): Justin Wong and Ricky Ortiz continue to keep winning in a version that favors their character. Ryu (-7): For the first, time Ryu loses his grip of the top spot. His master abandoned him in favor of Yun and he has to do with Laugh and Air. Luckily, both were (and still are) very smart players that gave a lot to the community and did the character justice. Yang (-): While ninth place for a new character is very good, he actually ranks a lot lower than expected looking at the popularity, where he scored third. He needs a lot of work to win, work Nemo didn’t shy away from when he closed out the era as fourth in Japanese arcades. Dhalsim (-4): Filipino Champ and Arturo Sanchez kept at it, even if it was a very uphill battle against the rush-down style in Arcade Edition.

Seth really pops out as a victor here, but Sagat is able to regain a bit of composure too. On the losing side we have Dan, T. Hawk, Juri, El Fuerte, Gouken, and Dudley, who are hurting. Cody actually got out of the bunch, but Chun-Li dropped down very hard in this version after doing pretty well in Super. The new demons Oni and Evil Ryu were largely ignored, with Evil Ryu not even receiving a ranking.

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition ver. 2012

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The community asked for a less twins and got it. The main focus was to tone down the imbalance caused by the offensive characters.

Akuma (+3): Tokido still does well, but Infiltration was unbeatable up to a point. He was the first to challenge everyone’s opinion that Daigo Umehara was the best Street Fighter IV player ever and at a certain moment even caused fans to cry out of sheer hopelessness. The strength came from his highly-optimized vortex combined with great footsie-ability and unparalleled escape options in a game that became knockdown heavy. Not being able to be hit by unblockables is a major plus here. Fei (-): He got a little bit harder to use but overall mastered the horizontal space. Hard to knock down and driven to heights by the ultimate skill of Fuudo, surpassing Mago and bringing VF-style reactions to Street Fighter. Gackt and CJ Truth started making their mark on the character as well. Cammy (+23): After all the complaining, you might assume Cammy took top honors. She does not, but she does do an unprecedented run from low-mid-tier to high-tier. Cammy players over the world bring in surprises over veterans, especially if they play Akuma. K-Brad, Xiaohai, Chi-Rithy, and Alioune all win majors easily. Rufus (+3): Overall Justin Wong and Ricky Ortiz have poorer performances than in previous editions, but are still strong enough to keep Rufus in the top five. Sagat (+1): Ryan Hart always does well, but Bonchan does the unexpected: he wins at the highest levels with Sagat in the Topanga Leagues. Ryu (+2): Which makes it a happy coincidence that Ryu ends up a spot after him, as Daigo Umehara was Bonchan’s nemesis throughout ver. 2012. Daigo dropped Yun and often fought an uphill battle versus Akuma, Cammy, and Gen. As it took a long time to overcome this, finally winning Topanga World League with Ryu at the dusk of this installment was a huge story. His first-to-ten exhibition matches against Infiltration and Xian are among the greatest Street Fighter IV showcases ever. Gen (+13): Gen has only one high-level tournament player and that is Xian. The Singaporean competitor still holds the ultimate number one spot in the World Rankings due to numerous international wins. He made every top player study this matchup in anticipation of running into him near the end of tournaments. Balrog (+13): Same goes for Balrog, who had his fight money controlled by Eduardo. His killer reputation earned him an invitation into the most prestigious Topanga League, resulting in very rare and exciting high-profile matches in Asia by a Western player. Viper (-6): While having strong players behind her, they do not reach top twenty in this version Sakura (+3): NYChrisG was not just dominating every Marvel tournament, he also entered Street Fighter IV using Sakura and did well, sometimes even great. He ends up playing 43 (!) tournaments using Sakura in ver. 2012, taking the United States ticket to Capcom Cup 2013. Guile (+5): This is all Dieminion, who traveled to China and even resided in Europe for a while. Adon (+10): After a worse period in Arcade Edition, GamerBee started performing again in this version, fighting some great bouts in Topanga World League. Yun (-12): After Daigo dropped him, only Kazunoko tried to keep competing, but even he began switching to Seth if things got rough. Evil Ryu (+26): A major boost from Arcade Edition, but still rather low compared to the hype he delivered in the hands of Sako. Oddly though, no high-ranking players mained him. Ken (-1): Chris and Momochi were well-known Ken players, but it is thanks to Michael-tan and Dakou that he built up steam.

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Great players make a great difference. This is clearly proven by the ranks of Gen, Balrog, Guile, and Adon. But, of course, strong characters also need to be sustained. Take a look at the Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition ver. 2012 World Ranking now that Ultra Street Fighter IV is on the horizon. Data is already trickling in and it looks like the game is once again going to be changed.

That’s all the listomania for now–next up is a look at how each version was balanced, so stay tuned for more. Once again, thank you all for contributing!

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So, what do you think? Feel free to provide your opinions on this data in our comments.