2026 has already been a weird year, but this is something we haven’t really seen before.
Arc System Works has requested one of their Guilty Gear Strive players to withdraw from the upcoming Arc World Tour Finals 2025-2026.
Atir ‘Paragon|Zando’ Yosef is one of the absolute best Strive players in the world, and the developers have been in communication with him regarding his attendance for their big finals event.
Zando currently resides in Israel and ultimately agreed with ArcSys’ proposal to pull out of the tournament “with sincere understanding.”
This decision was made for safety concerns due to the ongoing conflict unfolding in the Middle East involving Israel, Iran, the United States and other countries in the region.
The Israeli government has imposed heavy travel restrictions, leading to many flights to and from the country continuing to be canceled, so it likely would have been very difficult for Zando to make it to South Korea even if ArcSys hadn’t stepped in.
Interestingly, Zando’s spot in the AWT Finals will not be replaced, so it appears that one of the Guilty Gear groups is going to have one less player though ArcSys says they’ll share information on potential tournament format changes at a later date.
The Arc World Tour Finals is set to go down next week from March 20–22 featuring Guilty Gear Strive, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising and Under Night In-Birth 2 [Sys:Celes] plus a new demo for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls in South Korea.
As for other big fighting game finals, Capcom Cup 12 is already underway for Street Fighter 6 and will be ongoing for the rest of the week.
You can find the full statement from Arc System Works below.
In light of the current global situation and travel restrictions advised by the Israeli government, we have held extensive deliberations regarding the participation of Zando, who is currently residing in Israel, in the Arc World Tour (AWT) Finals.
As a result, we have made the difficult decision to propose that Zando withdraw from this year’s AWT Finals to ensure the player’s safety. Zando has accepted this proposal with sincere understanding.
Information regarding adjustments to the tournament format due to this absence will be announced at a later date. Please note that there will be no replacement player (runner-up move-up) for this spot.
We sincerely apologize to the fans who were looking forward to Zando’s performance. We ask for your kind understanding, as this conclusion was reached with the player’s safety and well-being as our absolute priority.
ARC WORLD TOUR 2025-2026 FINALS: GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- Important Notice Regarding Finalist Zando
In light of the current global situation and travel restrictions advised by the Israeli government, we have held extensive deliberations regarding the participation of Zando, who is…
— ASW_esports ┃ARC WORLD TOUR 2025-2026 (@ASWesports) March 11, 2026