Despite scoring highly during the Capcom Pro Tour, Infiltration and Tokido were eliminated during the preliminary rounds without a single win.

"[1] Street Fighter V gained some negative attention among the fighting game community due to a poor launch and an inherent input delay discovered during the 2016 season.

[2] Xian, whose main character Gen was not yet included in the game, stated in an interview with International Business Times that he had to "relearn everything again" and that "in Street Fighter V, I am worried I can't live up to the expectations.

"[3] The return of the Capcom Pro Tour in 2016 was highly expected after Matt Dahlgren, Capcom's director of Brand Marketing and eSports, repeatedly mentioned the importance of esports to the success of (the then upcoming) Street Fighter V. The Tour features a "baseline" prize pool of $500,000 USD, to be spread out over its events.

The first major tournament of the Tour, Final Round 19, took place approximately one month after the release of Street Fighter V.[4] In total, 523 players scored points in the ranking.

[6][7] Infiltration was the first player to qualify for the 2016 Capcom Cup after winning Final Round 19 in February, despite running into issues with his arcade controller during the competition.

[9][10] Stunfest 2016 was won by Capcom Cup 2014 and Evo 2015 champion Yusuke Momochi, despite his struggling with Street Fighter V at the first major tournaments of the season.

[11] The Swedish festival DreamHack Summer saw a large number of Japanese players competing, including Daigo Umehara, Fuudo, and Tokido.

In an interview with Yahoo Esports, XsK Samurai stated he wasn't even aware of what he was competing for, believing he had only won 10-12 points.

Some of the dates of the online events overlap with official Pro Tour tournaments, forcing some competitors to choose which to attend.

[22] In late May 2016, Capcom announced a ban on pornographic sponsors, which primarily centers around Team YP's Valentin "Valmaster" Petit and Anton "Filipinoman" Herrera.

Olivier "Luffy" Hay wrote on social media after the conclusion of the tournament that he was disappointed with the program of the Cup and that he found it "impossible to be 100% focused."

"[27] Infiltration similarly criticized the organization, calling Capcom Cup 2016 "a total mess" in an interview with Core-A Gaming.

During this panel, Capcom also reiterated that the company would not make any major changes to the gameplay of Street Fighter V during the rest of the Pro Tour, including the eight-frame input delay.

Kanzuki Beach was banned on release as the water on half of the stage obscures ground projectiles such as Birdie's can/bananas and Juri's Fuharenkyaku fireball.

[37][38][39] The first day of the Capcom Cup, held at the Esports Arena, was described as a "bloodbath" by ABC News, as 24 out of 32 players were eliminated from the tournament.

Lastly, North American Finals champion NuckleDu made it through the first day playing with Rainbow Mika, Guile, and Nash, and Chun-Li-player Ricki Ortiz was described as "one of the bigger surprises" of the tournament.