Capcom has showcased the fighters for the Year 2 Character Pass in Street Fighter 6. As it turns out, M. Bison is set to be released first on June 26, 2024. Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui, and Elena will join the fight later in the season.
It was quite the surprise to find out that M. Bison is just about ready to be released already and without warning. However, it turns out that M. Bison’s unexpected release date has a problematic overlap with one of the biggest tournaments of the year — CEO 2024.
Indeed, CEO 2024 is scheduled to begin on June 28, 2024 and play out through June 30, 2024. One can easily see how this could cause a bit of a headache for CEO 2024’s organizer, Alex Jebailey.
Ya know what. This is getting exhausting as a TO… https://t.co/TlxLBt2xNs
— Alex Jebailey (@Jebailey) June 8, 2024
This situation bears similarities to what happened with regards to the release of Akuma and the Season 2 patch just a couple of days before Combo Breaker 2024. Due to this, Rick “The Hadou” Thiher polled attendees about whether or not Akuma and the Season 2 patch should be played at the event.
It tends to be a tournament standard to ban a character if they’re released within a certain timeframe of a tournament. After all, tournament participants don’t have enough time to develop strategies against a character new in a game.
Participants overwhelming voted to allow both Akuma and the Season 2 update to be legal at Combo Breaker 2024. Despite concerns about Akuma, character usage stats for the event indicated that only one player was able to make top 32 with the character, and only as a secondary.
Alex Jebailey has opted to instead make an executive decision about the legality of M. Bison and whatever patch is launched alongside him. M. Bison himself won’t be legal at CEO 2024, but setups will be updated to the latest version.
I don’t even think I’m gonna have a vote like CB did with Akuma and put my foot down. Whatever patch comes out with Bison we will have downloaded right before #CEO2024 but not allow him to be used in the tournament since the event isn’t recognized by CPT this year.
Let me rest
— Alex Jebailey (@Jebailey) June 8, 2024
Earlier this year, Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama mentioned plans to release multiple, smaller balance patches for this season. This would differ from how the developers did things in Season 1.
Before the release of the Season 2 patch, there was only one small balance update released. This was done as to not interfere with the Capcom Pro Tour season.
While there will clearly have to be a patch released in order to make M. Bison accessible in Street Fighter 6, it’s unlikely that there will be many significant changes so soon after the Season 2 patch. Unlikely, but not impossible.
Regardless, players attending CEO 2024 should be prepared to play on the latest version of that Street Fighter 6, but we don’t have to worry about M. Bison taking the tournament scene by storm just yet.
