Street Fighter legend and three-time EVO champion, Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi, is famous for his god-tier Akuma play, but recently, he has been playing a lot of Urien in online matches.

“In this season, I’ll be playing both Urien and Akuma. If it’s a normal tournament, I’d usually play only Akuma. But, I’m assuming there will be tournaments with character bans. That’s when I’m going to rely on Urien,” said Tokido in a recent stream.

Street Fighter tournaments like the Topanga Championship and Street Fighter League allows teams to ban certain characters from the competition. But for the Capcom Pro Tour, players are allowed to play any character they want.

Later on in the video, Tokido was also surprised by how much damage Urien is able to dish out without using any of his ex-meter, “Urien can do anything.”

It is surprising to see Tokido choose a non-Shoto character as his backup character as, before Akuma was released in Street Fighter V Season 2, he mained Ryu.

Tokido along with other Street Fighter V pros have considered Urien as an S-Tier character in Street Fighter V: Champions Edition. Back in early February, Tokido along with Tsunehiro “Gachikun” Kanamori and Kenryo “Mago” Hayashi all agreed Urien is one of the strongest characters in the game.

Tokido explains why he’s been playing Urien so much