---
title: 'How IGN Won a Team Fighting Game Tournament - Street Fighter 6 New Challengers'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=6Xpy0UVKQpE'
video_id: '6Xpy0UVKQpE'
date: 2026-06-26
duration_sec: 1142
---

# How IGN Won a Team Fighting Game Tournament - Street Fighter 6 New Challengers

> Source: [How IGN Won a Team Fighting Game Tournament - Street Fighter 6 New Challengers](https://youtube.com/watch?v=6Xpy0UVKQpE)

## Summary

Mitchell Saltzman from IGN recounts his team's victory in the Capcom New Challengers tournament for Street Fighter 6, detailing the tournament format, team composition, and the coaching from pro player Nephew that helped them succeed.

### Key Points

- **Tournament Victory** [0:00] — Team Nephew wins the Capcom New Challengers tournament for Street Fighter 6.
- **Tournament Format** [0:55] — Four teams of creators paired with a pro, trained for 1.5-2 weeks, then compete in a tournament where top two teams play until one reaches 70 points.
- **Team Skill Tiers** [1:34] — Teams divided by skill: top player (~1700-1900 MR), high master (~1600 MR), intermediate, and beginner (no prior SF6 experience).
- **Team Members** [2:00] — Team: Blood Thunder (beginner, speedrunner, Tekken player), Bricky (streamer, some fighting game experience), Mitchell (senior guides producer, fighting game fan), Brawl Pro (top player, former Tekken coach).
- **Nephew's Coaching Impact** [3:42] — Nephew provided crucial coaching, including counterplay for specific characters (e.g., Honda's butts slam), and feedback on Mitchell's gameplay.
- **Key Coaching Tips** [5:07] — Nephew advised Mitchell to throw more to make shimmies effective, avoid burning out by overusing drive rush, and stop pressing offense when it's not his turn.
- **Local Scene Support** [6:03] — Mitchell thanks the Las Vegas local scene for additional coaching, including Prototype, Roach, Side, Mugs, and Gagan.
- **Tournament Matches Overview** [7:22] — Mitchell describes key matches: vs. CarQu (Honda), Blood Thunder vs. Kyle Bossman, Brawl Pro vs. Feisty, Bricky vs. Doki Bird, and the finals against Team JB.
- **Adjustments Against Huntress** [16:32] — Nephew drilled Mitchell to stop using dive kicks and instead use regular jump-ins for frame advantage, and to walk more instead of dashing.
- **Final Victory and Personal Growth** [18:04] — Brawl Pro closes out against Hotashi, securing the win. Mitchell reflects on his improvement from plateauing at 1600 MR to nearly 1700 MR.

### Conclusion

Mitchell's team won the tournament thanks to Nephew's coaching, local support, and individual adjustments, demonstrating that structured training and community can elevate a player's performance significantly.

## Transcript

That's it.
>> Oh my god. Don't say it. Don't jinx it.
>> OH, HE MISSED.
>> OH YEAH, WE GOT IT.
>> WE'RE GOING TO FORTNITE.
>> WHAT'S UP EVERYONE? My name is Mitchell
Saltzman with IGN. And what you just saw
was our team for Anga and Nephew winning
the Capcom New Challengers tournament
for Street Fighter 6. This was such an
amazing, awesome experience and I
thought I would do a video kind of
walking through walking everyone through
uh what what this tournament was, what
went down, uh some of the the the key
reasons that I think our team ended up
coming up on coming out on top and uh
yeah, just kind of go through the
process of becoming a better Street
Fighter 6 player when you're coached by
someone as good as Nephew. So, let's
dive into I never thought I'd be able to
do one of these videos, but this is how
Team Nephew won the Street Fighter 6 New
Challengers tournament. So, to start,
let's just go over what this event is.
This is the third year that they've that
Capcom has done these new challenger
tournaments. The idea is that it's
similar, if you're familiar with the
Sega Jam Slam, it's pretty much Capcom's
own spin on it. The general idea is that
there are four teams that are made up of
creators. Each of those teams gets
paired with a Street Fighter 6 pro who
trains them up for a period of about a
week and a half, maybe two weeks. And
then at the end of the training period,
we all come together. We play in the
tournament where the first round
everyone plays each other. The top two
scoring teams move on to the finals
where they keep on playing each other
until one team reaches 70 points. The
teams themselves are divided by skill.
So you have the top player who's kind of
like you know I would say around 17800
maybe even 1,900 MR. Um you have the
level below that which is the high
master tier. Uh that's generally people
who have reached 1 1600 MR or or you
know are a little bit above or a little
bit below. Then you have the
intermediate tier and then you have the
beginner tier which is people that for
the most part haven't played like a
single second of Street Fighter 6 prior
to this event. On my team, we had Blood
Thunder in the beginner tier, who is a
speedrunner, also a very skilled Tekken
player. We We really lucked out with our
beginner seed here.
>> They're going to have to definitely
leave uh leave Blood Thunder alone on
the next round of this.
>> Uh they they need to try to make this be
Blood Thunder's last game.
>> Uh Blood Thunder grinded this game like
nothing I've ever seen before in my
life. He he was doing like 12-hour
streams. He started out as a rookie and
then grinded his way all the way up to
platinum 2, which is insane. Just above
that, we have Bricky, who is a very
popular streamer. Doesn't typically play
a lot of fighting games, but has in the
past competed in a stage jam slam, so he
had a very stable base in Street Fighter
6 to start with.
>> Oh my god.
>> Hold on,
>> bro. When are we watching?
>> This was a free 20. We thought just I
thought it was a free 20,
>> bro. I thought so, too. But Ricky said,
"Nah, you thought this was free. Uh-uh.
Look at this setup, offense." And then
we have me. And if you're not familiar
with who I am, basically my job at IGN
is a senior guides producer, which means
that my main job is to focus on guides
content. But that job doesn't always
keep me busy throughout the year.
Sometimes there are slow periods. And so
during those slow periods, I like to
take on reviews. But most relevant to
this tournament is the fact that I am a
huge fighting game fan. And these games
are really why I spend a lot of my free
time playing after work. And then above
me as our top player, we have Brawl Pro.
He's an amazingly talented fighting game
player. He used to be a coach on the
very first SAM slam for Tekken. But he
also has a damn good Zengeef in Street
Fighter, as we'll see in just a little
bit. So that's the format. That's our
team. And now I figure it would be a
good idea to kind of look into the
training sessions and just talk about
the nephew factor of it all because man,
I can't speak for everyone else on my
team, but nephew was such a huge, huge
factor in me performing the way that I
did in this tournament. Our first
training session started with a little
bit of going through some common
knowledge checks that my opponent's
characters like to use. For Caruse's
Honda, a big part of it was butts slam
counterplay. This is a tricky move that
a lot of Honda players like to use a lot
since it's plus on block leads to a
knockdown on hit which puts you in a
strike throw mix up when you get back
up.
>> I think it's neutral jump and air throw.
>> That way you'll get to both sides.
>> Yeah, cuz I think jumping back or
forward actually messes up like the if
it detects your if it's behind you or in
front of you.
>> And sure enough, this came in handy in
the actual match.
Yeah, that was a that was a little bit
of a little bit of a a run through to
start things off. Oh my god, the air
throw for Chunley. We covered her
cross-up jump that she likes to use to
get out of the corner, calling out the
instant air legs by just crouching next
to her on wake up, ways to deal with her
fireball, etc. Stuff that I'm going to
be honest, I still need to work on. But
perhaps the most valuable thing was
having Nephew simply watch me play some
ranked matches and give me feedback on
what I was doing wrong or what I was
missing out on that could be better.
>> Yeah, it was good up until you you did
the ex again and burned yourself out.
>> It was good until you did something
really stupid.
>> One of the big and easily fixable notes
that he noticed was that I was often
defaulting to shimmying instead of
establishing the threat of the throw.
Once I started throwing more, I found
that my shimmy started becoming more
successful, which not only led to me
getting big damage, but also made it so
that opponents weren't getting out of
bad spots as often. Another big tip,
which was something that I already knew,
but it was good to have reinforced, was
that I was burning myself out far too
often. A bad habit of mine was just
getting too hungry by doing drive rush
cancels in situations where the return
just wasn't worth it. And the last note
that I had to focus on was that I was
often pressing my offense when it wasn't
my turn. This can work against opponents
that don't know when it's relatively
safe to press a button on defense, but
at the level I was playing against,
moving forward after three jabs were
blocked was getting me killed, and I
needed to respect when my turn was over.
We practiced doing three jabs on block
into an instant air dive kick, which
will beat people trying to take their
turn back with a low. I also want to
take a moment to shout out the Las Vegas
local scene because while Nephew was my
main coach that I had throughout the
tournament, I also had some side
coaches. You know, one of the great
things about going to locals is that
when you get to play people uh in
person, you can talk to them after a
set. You can find out what you did
wrong. You can learn more about the
character that they're playing and you
make friends with people who can help
you. So, I especially want to shout out
and thank Prototype who took some time
out of his day to run a set with me and
then walk me through some of the holes
in my game. He was specifically telling
me that I was leaving too many gaps in
my pressure strings, which basically
allowed people to get out of my pressure
and continue their own combo by pressing
a button in between those gaps. Roach,
who also ran a set with me and told me
that on the flip side of Prototype's
advice, I shouldn't be afraid on defense
to press my fastest medium button to
find the gaps in my opponent's pressure
because often they're also not airtight
and are relying on me being too afraid
to press a button to get out of it. I
got to thank Side for the Chun Lee
matchup experience. Mugs for the Honda
experience. You know, you always hear
support your locals. Well, I mean, this
is this is going to sound really cheesy,
but I felt like my locals supported me
and it was an awesome feeling. So, shout
out to the Las Vegas local scene. And
one last shout out to my buddy Gagan who
really helped me out with the Cammy
matchup experience and just in general
my Cammy knowledge. Uh, I only got to
play Fee once in this tournament, but if
I had to go up against him again, I felt
pretty good about the matchup. So, let's
talk about the actual tournament itself.
So, it started off I had the first match
against CarQu and uh like I was talking
about earlier, I felt uniquely prepared
for this for this matchup. I feel like
you can't really grind up to to master
rank without knowing how to deal with a
lot of Honda's gimmicks. He's a
character where if you do not know how
to deal with them, you'll just get
knowledge check in cuz it's going to be
a a free win for him. And one thing that
I noticed that ended up paying off
really well. And this also kind of goes
back to Nephew telling me to throw more.
But I noticed that every time he did a
headbutt, he would just kind of stop
there and block because, you know, it's
not his turn. So, he didn't want to
press the advantage when it wasn't his
turn. So, I used that as an opportunity
to just simply walk up and throw him.
And I did this basically every time that
he headbutted me, which ended up adding
up to a lot of damage. Also, one of the
weaknesses of Honda is that his only
real non-s super reversal special move
is his EX headbutt, which is vulnerable
to grabs. So, I went in with the
strategy of making sure that I was
grabbing him constantly on his wake up
>> there. It was interesting to see the
level of matchup knowledge there, man.
>> I feel like um that was like that he had
a str that was a strategy.
>> The next matchup was Blood Thunder
versus Kyle Bossman. And look, a lot of
people probably don't know this about
me, but I am such a huge Kyle Bossman
fan. I actually stole my my salute from
him, but Blood Thunder just grinded too
hard to to lose the kind of style that
that Kyle was employing here. Actually
didn't even really know that AI had a
way to completely bypass fireballs
because I use Cammy. She doesn't have
any projectiles. But Blood Thunder knew
this matchup really well and just, you
know, did what he does. The next matchup
was Brawl Pro versus Feisty. And we I
think we all we all knew that this was
going to be a tough one. I think Feisty
has the highest MR of anyone that
participated in this tournament. So,
this was always going to be a really
tough fight and Brockport did a really
good job. He took a game off of her, but
ultimately uh Feisty Kim was too strong,
so we lost this one. But then we came
back with Bricky versus Doky Bird. I
know this was a match that Bricky was
was a little bit worried about. I think
we were under the impression that Doki
was going to use Honda because that's
who she had used in previous uh
tournaments, but she switched it up on
us. She used Mai, and I think uh Bricky
might have had a little bit of
unfamiliarity in this matchup, but he
ended up doing really really well. I
think Bricky showed really good
knowledge of Street Fighter 6's
mechanics. He was using his drive rush
to get plus frame. He was using drive
impact in the corner to get the stun and
just played really solidly overall,
allowing us to take the victory over
Team Shine with a score of 30 to 20.
COME ON, BRICKY. OH, YES. YEAH.
>> LET'S GO, BABY.
>> LET'S GO, BRICKY.
>> Hell yeah. Our next match up was against
Duel Kevin's team, and this time Bricky
was first up at that. And I feel I feel
kind of bad for Bricky because he had to
he basically all of his matchups were
against newer DLC characters. He had to
go up against Mai, he had to go up
against C Viper, and then later he had
to go go up against Alex. So again,
there was a little bit of unfamiliarity
going into each of these matchups for
him, but again, he did a great job. Uh
he ended up losing this one, but he did
manage to take it to the last game, last
round, and it was even really close. He
was looking really good at the beginning
of the round, but then his opponent
Ricky Peacock hit a level three that
kind of just flipped the momentum of the
match and he ended up losing the set.
>> Gear to DI.
>> Wake up.
>> Wake up level one.
>> Yeah, I I was like, is he Ricky going to
do wake up level one? But the thing is,
it doesn't matter cuz if he did wake up
level one, the size would have still
blown it up. And Ricky Peacock taking
game number one for dual Kevin. The next
match was a bummer because it was the
one I was most looking forward to was
the mirror match between me and FDX. I'm
a huge fan of FE's Tekken content. He
has basically single-handedly made me
into a halfway decent Tekken player. So
getting to play against him in Street
Fighter was was kind of awesome for me.
Uh but unfortunately he kind of
steamrololled me, but you know he just
kind of out camied me. Uh he did a
really good job of using uh spin
knuckle, heavy spin knuckle to get in
and just, you know, put me in a
situation where I had a guess between
strike or throw and his reads were just
on point. He was DPing me whenever I
went for aggression. He wasn't biting on
any of my bait. He was just he just
played really really solidly. If I did
end up playing him again, I was going to
be ready to check those heavy spin
knuckles. So, at the very least, that
would have been different if we ended up
playing again. But yeah, man, I got no
excuses. He played he played a better
Cammy and I ended up losing this match.
>> Yo, can they play again? Bro, that was
hype. I like that match a lot. The next
match was our 20 point match. And
anytime we had an opportunity to put
Blood Thunder in the 20point match, uh,
we were going to take it and I think
it's pretty clear to see why. Uh, I
don't think anyone at this beginner
level really had the tools to deal with
Blood Thunder. And he ended up taking
this 20 over Abby King Sm. And that
ended up making this next match between
Brawl Pro and Beckman really important
because we were tied up going into this
final match, which is a position I think
Brawl Pro kind of ended up finding
himself in a lot. He kind of was our
closer and for good reason. I thought
this was going to be an interesting
match because on paper I think Ingrid
has a really good a really favorable
matchup against Zangie just because her
her range game is so oppressive. But at
the same time, if Zangief gets in, uh
boy, uh Ingred's in a lot of trouble.
And I think that's kind of exactly how
it played out here. Brawl Pro was just
able to bully his way in. Beckman made a
couple of losing guesses and ended up
taking some SBDs and that's really all
it takes.
>> Let's go.
>> Oh, let's go.
>> Clutch.
>> Kill her, bro.
>> Then we had to face off against our
rivals in this competition, Team JB. The
first match was Skull Volver versus
Blood Thunder. And this was probably one
of my favorite matchups to watch just
because of the sheer earnestness of
Skullvolver's Zangief. You know, you can
kind of hear it in our chat. We we
didn't want Blood Thunder to lose, but
if if he did, you know, we would have we
would have cheered on Skullvolver for
for pulling it off.
>> Oh man, he is aggressive.
>> Oh my god. We were
>> We This is the poster child for Modern
Death.
>> I love him so much, man.
Oh.
>> Oh, he tried to grab the leg.
>> What's funny is it should have worked.
>> Yeah. Fortunately for us, Blood Thunder
knew all the counters to all the things
that he was doing and we ended up taking
those 10 points.
>> GG. Blood Thunder. 10 points on the
board for Team Neph. Which brings us to
the first of what ended up being four
matchups for me against Huntress. And uh
this this first one didn't go very well
for me. I tried to play this match like
how I would normally play it, which is
doing a lot of dive kicks, trying to
kind of bait out a response, and nothing
was working. The dive kicks just weren't
effective. Whether it was because I was
just hitting them too high, or I was
just landing too close to her feet
without touching her feet, which led to
a punish, she wasn't falling for my
hooligan throw, which is something that
I rely on a lot until people give me a
reason not to rely on it. So, I ended up
losing this 2-1. But I did end up
getting a lot of information that I put
to use in our subsequent matches. That
was godlike. Yo, Huntress Huntress Chan
Lee is nasty, dog.
>> No, she she got a good Chung Lee. Her
Chung Le is really really good right
here. The next matchup was Bricky versus
Con. And I think this was probably
Bricky's finest hour. Coney actually had
a full rank advantage over Bricky. His
Alex was diamond three. Bricky had a
platinum three Chun Lee. And so I think
a lot of people probably expected Coney
to just kind of roll through Bricky. But
this matchup, which ended up being a
best of five, worth 20 points because
team JB had the home team advantage,
which allowed them to select the 20
point matchup. And Bricky actually took
the first two games pretty clearly. He
played like a Chun Lee. Absolutely
possessed.
>> Yo, are you kidding me?
>> Nephew.
>> Yeah,
>> dude. Bricky, you're playing so good.
>> Oh my god.
Unfortunately, Con made some really
smart adaptations in the next three
matches and he ended up taking the whole
set. But man, this was a really hype set
to watch and I urge people to check it
out because I think it's a really good
encapsulation of what the new
challengers tournament is all about.
>> Level three.
>> He blunts. My god.
>> Oh my god.
Cody back to the wall. The pressure of
his team all on his shoulders down 02 in
grand finals and he brings it all the
way back. So that tied up the score
between us and team JB going into the
final match of Garpro versus Hotashi.
And it really should come as no surprise
considering Hotashi is a former EVO
champ in Guilty Gears drive. But man,
Hotashi's fundamentals in neutral
throughout all these matches really
against Brawl Pro were just so good. I
think the only thing that really held
Hotashi back throughout this whole
tournament was a couple of drop combos,
like crucial drop combos. But in this
first match up against Brawl Pro, he did
end up getting the better of us, which
ended up giving us our first overall
loss in the tournament to Team JB,
giving them the number one seed spot and
us the number two spot going into the
finals. I'm not going to go into every
individual match of the finals because
it's a lot of just us playing the same
people, but I did want to go over my
matches against Huntress and talk a
little bit about the adjustments that I
made that Nephew kind of drilled into
me. So, Nephew kept on pushing on me
that I need to stop doing dive kicks,
which was hard for me because I'm so
used to doing dive kicks as Cammy. It's
it's like untraining muscle memory. But,
Nephew was right. I found a lot of
success just hitting her block with
regular jumpins, which for those that
don't know, puts you in kind of a strike
throw mixup because when someone blocks
your jump in, you are at a frame
advantage. You can either shimmy to try
to bait out a throw, press an attack,
which will usually counter their own
attack since you have frame advantage,
or you can just do a throw yourself.
Little four drivers to get him.
>> Good.
Look at the damage on that. Big damage.
Do it again.
Ro can't afford to drive impact anymore.
Ooh,
nephew also noticed that she kept on
catching my dash up. So, I tried my best
to do more walking and less dashing.
These adjustments paid off and I ended
up taking game two. I lost game three in
a very close set and then came back in
game four to win a very crucial win that
ended up taking a lot of pressure off
our team and ensured that we would go to
a final match with Hotashi and Brawl
Pro.
YES. LET'S GO.
>> LET'S GO.
>> THAT'S MY RABBIT. That's my rabbit.
>> I saw you're always a little bit ahead.
So, I was like, what did he do?
>> Which then brings us to the very
beginning of this video where Brawl Pro
was able to close it out against
Sotashi, giving us the opportunity to
>> WE'RE GOING TO FLORIDA.
>> AND THAT'S ABOUT IT. I can't even really
begin to describe how amazing of an
experience this was for me. This has
been something that I've I've literally
dreamed about being able to be a part
of. Never really thinking that I would
actually get to do it. So, thank you so
much to Capcom. Thank you to all my
teammates. Thanks to all the other
teams. Thank you, Nephew, for helping me
up my game. I' I I used to think that
master was an unattainable level for me.
And then I hit it and I never thought I
would hit 1,600. And then I hit 1,600
and I plateaued there for probably the
better part of the last year or so. And
with Nephew's help, not only have I
blown past 1,600, I've gotten as close
as like 1670. I'm almost at 1,700, which
is crazy to me. 1,700 now actually feels
like a goal that I can actually attain.
Uh, man, I love Street Fighter. I love
fighting games, and I hope you guys do,
too. Thank you all so much for watching,
and until next time, I'll see you then.