Nephew qualifies for Street Fighter 6 Esports World Cup alongside Kobayan, while the twins fulfill their destiny in 2XKO: The week before Combo Breaker 2026

This week, the FGC has been relatively mellow compared to the Evo Japan week, but that might be what the community needs before the gargantuan event this weekend: Combo Breaker 2026.

However, that doesn’t mean that absolutely nothing happened over the weekend, so I’m here to break it down for you guys, going over the highlights from DreamHack Atlanta to Red Bull Knockout.

From Alan “Nephew” Sun qualifying for the Esports World Cup alongside Kobayan to the twins, Toshi and Haru, fulfilling their destiny of being the best duo in 2XKO, here’s everything that happened last week in FGC!

Team Liquid’s bad luck with qualifying in the FGC side of the EWC continues as Nephew, a player the team had let go earlier this year, has qualified for the Esports World Cup after taking second place at DreamHack Atlanta 2026.

Nephew’s run at the tournament was nothing short of impressive. He beat the six-time EVO Champion Zeng “Xiao Hai” Zhuojun to qualify for the top eight on the winner’s side, then he proceeded to sweep the house on his way to the grand finals. However, Kobayan was also having one hell of a tournament, and the two titans clashed in the grand finals and grand finals reset, reaching game five.

Ultimately, Kobayan won the whole thing, but Nephew will be more than happy to take second place and the last-minute qualification for EWC.

Last year, Team Liquid let go of Son “Qudans” Byeong-mun and Michael “Riddles” Kim, both of whom qualified for EWC 2025 shortly after. This year, the two are still looking to qualify for the million-dollar tournament.

According to Liquipedia, 10 slots remain for the Street Fighter 6 EWC 2026. Two will be handed out this week at Combo Breaker 2026, two at Evo Vegas 2026, one at an unnamed tournament, and five at a last chance qualifier tournament, which will be held near the main event’s date. 

Over on the Tekken bracket of DreamHack Atlanta 2026, Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique has finally clinched a spot at EWC after finishing third in the tournament. It’s important to note that Arslan Ash seems to still have problems with finding a character in this season of Tekken, as he used Nina, Anna, and Alisa in rotation this tournament.

Tekken is filled with character loyalists and specialists, with a lot of them looking down on people hopping onto whoever is strong that season.

With that said, he gave the eventual champion Han “Mulgold” Jae-gyun a run for his money with a five-game set. Mulgold managed to wiggle out of Arslan Ash’s grasp, however, and moved on to the grand final. Arslan Ash fell 0-3 against the Kazuya specialist Takaba “Keisuke” Keisuke in the loser’s bracket. Both Mulgold and Keisuke have also qualified for EWC 2026 for their performance in this tournament.

After winning the tournament, Mulgold sent out a tweet saying that he hasn’t practiced Claudio much because he got nerfed in season 3. However, after seeing Hafiz Tanveer’s Claudio at Evo Japan 2026, he got inspired and picked the character back again. Hafiz Tanveer got third at Evo Japan 2026 and lost to the legendary Tekken player Bae “Knee” Jae-Min.

Liquipedia lists that there are 15 slots left for Tekken 8 at EWC 2026. The tournaments Combo Breaker 2026, Evo 2026, SOOP Super Tournament 2026, The MIXUP 2026, and the Last Chance Qualifier are all handing out slots.

Notably, Tekken legends such as Yuta “Chikurin” Take, Daichi “Nobi” Nakayama, and Jeong “Rangchu” Hyeon-ho have yet to qualify for EWC 2026. If the Team Liquid Curse (or blessing?) kicks in, Marquis “Shadow20z” Jordan has a chance to qualify for this EWC because he was dropped by the team earlier this year. Only time will tell.

While Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 still have quite a few tournaments handing out invites for EWC 2026, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves only has three left and 12 slots remaining. Shoji “Fenritti” Sho has clinched an EWC invite to DreamHack Atlanta 2026 by winning the whole tournament.

Fenritti won the whole tournament without dropping a set. His grand finals opponent was Daniel “Dany” Fuentes Garcia, a player he had sent to the loser’s bracket earlier in the tournament. Together with Fenretti, Luo “Vxbao” Yanxin, Kao “RB” Fu-pin, and Charalampros “H-DOPE” Lamprou have also received an EWC invite for their performance in the tournament.

On Twitter, the player simply celebrated with a single tweet, saying he can finally rest after securing the EWC ticket. If you’re interested in seeing who else will qualify for EWC, Combo Breaker 2026, Evo 2026, and the Last Chance Qualifier are the three final tournaments that send invites to the top four placers.

If one of the top four placers already has an invitation, the invite goes to the next highest placing player who doesn’t have one.

This is quite possibly the highlight of this weekend.

Red Bull Knockout 2026 happened on May 16, 2026, where eight dous duke it out for the title of the best team in 2XKO! And would you believe it, the actual twins, Haru and Toshi from Japan, won the whole tournament! This is the twins’ first big win, as they have always fallen short of expectations in the tournaments that they’ve entered.

In Evo Japan 2026, they lost to Ikura and got 17th place, and at Frosty Faustings XVIII, they lost to Dominique “SonicFox” McLean and Lenwood “INZEM” Arnold and got 25th. However, they seem to have beaten their demons in this tournament as they finally took the title of the best 2XKO duo in the world after beating SonicFox and INZEM in the grand finals.

SonicFox talked about the loss on Twitter, saying they’ve played against the twins so much that they’ve adapted to their playstyle. He then congratulated the two and told them he’s looking forward to running it back against them at Evo Vegas.

The twins, on the other hand, are very ecstatic about their first big international win. They’ve also acknowledged SonicFox’s tweet and told them that it’s an honor for them to be recognized as the fighting game legend’s rival.

Haru was amazing in this tournament. His fearless Yasuo gameplay has sparked conversations about a specific moment in the grand final where he ran up to SonicFox’s Ahri and did a raw ultimate to call out the grab in the final moments of the match. It was the only way the twins could have won the round, and Haru’s callout exposed the duo from the United States. The FGC legend Justin Wong saw the clip and said it should be considered for the Evo Awards’ Moment of the Year.

With this win, expectations for the twins are sure to rise as they’ve just ended the titleless slump they were in. Is it finally time to see a dominant duo in 2XKO? Only time will tell!

Over on Twitter, Street Fighter 6 top player Adel “Big Bird” Anouche published a tweet complaining about the schedule of Street Fighter 6’s World Warrior online tournament in his region, the Middle East.

He tagged Capcom and Qiddiya and asked them why the pools are going to be played in one day, then the top eight 11 days after. He adds that there’s no reason for the tournament to be two weeks long. Then, in a reply, he further criticized the tournament, saying that there’s “nothing right” in this season’s World Warrior. He notes that pools start at 8pm on a random weekday instead of a weekend, making him even more frustrated.

World Warrior is a series of regional online tournaments hosted by Capcom, which awards points to the top 50 players. By the end of the season, a number of players will receive an invite to Capcom Cup if they’re within a certain rank in the leaderboard. This is a great way to showcase talents from different parts of the world, however, it seems like Capcom might be slipping up with how they’re doing the tournament in other regions.

Capcom needs to make this tournament work, as it’s a huge theme in the Street Fighter franchise to travel and fight strong opponents. You can’t really declare yourself as the strongest fighter in the world without fighting people from other places, right?