Reveals, Rivalries, and Amazing Grand Finals Abound at EVO 2019

Angel Tuohy August 4th, 2019 - 10:16 PM

Today marks the end of this year’s Evolution Championship Series tournament events, and the winners have been determined for all the featured games. EVO is one of the most important events in fighting games every year, and this year the final game on Sunday was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which saw a record-breaking number of entrants at nearly 3,500.

Friday saw the official confirmation of a new fighting game in development from Riot Games, who are known for the massively popular MOBA League of Legends. Friday also showcased the Tournament Finals for the Soul Calibur VI event, which saw 742 entrants making it the biggest Soul Calibur tournament to date. Grand Finals was taken by Japanese player Yuta”Yuttoto” Sudo, using Voldo.

Cassandra will also return to Soul Calibur as a playable fighter as of tomorrow, along with Samurai Shodown guest character Haohmaru in Season 2 with two other characters to follow.

A new main game at EVO this year is Under Night In-Birth EXE: Late[st], which held its Grand Finals on Saturday. “ClearLamp_o” won EVO’s first main event UNIST tournament. An updated version of the game titled Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late [cl-r] was also announced after Grand Finals.

After a nail-biting final round, @ClearLamp_o defeats @ohittou to become your #EVO2019 Champion in #UNIST! #EVOPS4

Stay tuned! #DBFZ Top 8 is next! pic.twitter.com/UOctZTeI9H — EVO (@EVO) August 3, 2019

Another surprise announcement from Arc System Works came later, where it was revealed that a new Guilty Gear is in development. 2020 is going to be a pretty packed and busy year in fighting games.

Saturday’s lineup also included Dragonball FighterZ and new this year games Mortal Kombat 11 and Samurai Shodown. Dragonball FighterZ was all about the long-standing rivalry between players Dominique “Sonic Fox” McLean and Kishida “Go1” Goichi.

The Best Rivalry in Fighting Game @GO13151 x @SonicFox5000 pic.twitter.com/RfJEJwJeIR

— HiFight(ハイファイト) (@HiFightTH) August 4, 2019

SonicFox was unable to defeat Go1, who took first place in Grand Finals and made everyone feel his incredibly potent overflow of emotion at winning over his long-time rival. Bandai Namco revealed that DLC character Janemba will join the Dragonball FighterZ roster on August 8th.

SonicFox did however win the Mortal Kombat 11 Grand Finals with Casie Cage, coming back from Losers and taking it over Ryan “Dragon” Walker’s Cetrion. The next DLC character to join the roster, Nightwolf, was announced earlier in the week.

The new #MK11 EVO champion @SonicFox5000 with yet another medal and trophy to his vast collection! Congratulations once more, champ! #EVO2019 #EVOPS4 #ProKompetition pic.twitter.com/sx7xbCGzWu
— EVO (@EVO) August 4, 2019

Grand Finals of Samurai Shodown was won by Korean player Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo, who adds this medal to previous wins at EVO in Street Fighter games. This year, Infiltration has agreed to not participate in Capcom Pro Tour events. Infiltration’s Genjuro defeated Ryota “Kazunoko” Inoue’s Haohmaru to take the title.

SF4, SFXTK, SF5, and SamSho. What’s next? I’m your EVO 2019 Samurai Shodown champion! Thank you for all your supports 😄 I love FGC very much. And thanks for @ist_mall my new joystick is so great 👍@SNKPofficial_jp @SNKPofficial @SNKAofficial pic.twitter.com/PHiWsC7yRG
— INFILTRATION (@INFILTRATION85) August 4, 2019

SNK announced that they will add Shizumaru Hisame to the Season 1 free DLC lineup and revealed DLC characters for Season 2, including Mina Majikina with four others following. SNK also announced that The King of Fighters XV is in development. No gameplay footage or release schedules have been announced for The King of Fighters XV yet.

On to main event Sunday Finals, which showcased the Grand Finals for BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, Street Fighter V:Arcade Edition, Tekken 7, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. EVO 2019 is a Super Premier event on the Capcom Pro Tour and a Master+ event on the Tekken World Tour.

In BlazBlue, Oscar “Shinku_DZ” Jaimes took Grand Finals over Japanese player “Kyamei,” a rare feat for an American competitor. A “2.0” update with DLC was also announced for anime fighter BlazBlue which includes Yumi from Senran Kagura, Akasuki and Blitztank (this is literally a tank) from Akasuki Blitzkampf, and Neo from RWBY. The update will be available on November 21st.

Shinku from America has won Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle at @Evo 2019! #Evo2019 pic.twitter.com/uVHgFctQjP

— Joey Cuellar (@MrWiz) August 4, 2019

Street Fighter V: Arcade Editon‘s tournament saw many upsets, with players favored to perform well like past EVO champions Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi and Benjamin “ProblemX” Simon being eliminated before making Top 8. Ultimately, veteran player Masato “Bonchan” Takahashi and his Karin and Sagat defeated Adel “BigBird” Anouche’s Rashid to become Street Fighter V ‘s EVO 2019 Champion.

He is your Street Fighter V – EVO 2019 Champion!

Bonchan @katitagaribon 🇯🇵#EVO2019 #EVOPS4 #CPT2019 https://t.co/pRm0CRLp4y pic.twitter.com/OLEfmUblDj
— EVO (@EVO) August 4, 2019

The full Top 8 results for Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition are below.

Capcom was planning to announce new DLC characters after this year’s EVO Grand Finals, but the content was accidentally posted to Steam early, blowing the surprise. Valve has since apologized, and the characters Poison, E. Honda, and Lucia are available starting today. Capcom also revealed plans to announce more content for Street Fighter V in November and at the Capcom Cup in December.

Tekken 7 was filled with upsets too, with many excellent players unable to make it into Grand Finals at this year’s EVO. Pakistan’s Arslan Ash went undefeated throughout the Tekken 7 tournament, ultimately triumphing over veteran Korean player Jae Min Bae, or “Knee,” in Grand Finals. Arslan Ash wa a relatively unknown player who seemed to emerge from the ether to dominate and win at EVO Japan in February.

Evo’s first ever unified Evo Champion, Arslan Ash! #Evo2019 pic.twitter.com/Q6ImMyDrru

— Joey Cuellar (@MrWiz) August 5, 2019

Arslan almost didn’t make it to Las Vegas for the tournament, but thanks to a special visa program founded by FG veteran Sherry “SherryJenix” Nhan, Ash was able to secure travel to the United States in time for the event. Sorry, Knee.

You understand that Arslan is in Winner Finals because of @sherryjenix @eFightPass program right?!?!

Show her program love and bring out more talent from all over the world
SUCH A GREAT STORY!!!!!

— Justin Wong (@JWonggg) August 4, 2019

The full Top 8 results for Tekken 7 at EVO 2019 are listed below.

After Tekken 7‘s Grand Finals, Harada-san and Michael Murray came out to announce the dates for Tekken World Tour’s Finals, which will be December 7th and 8th in Bangkok, Thailand. After pretending that that was the only announcement, they returned to the stage to announce Season 3, which will add new moves for the whole roster, bring back Zafina, and debut a brand-new character named Leroy Smith. More characters will be revealed as the year continues.

Closing out Sunday were the Finals for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which went to a reset when American player Gavin “Tweek” Dempsey was finally defeated by Mexico’s Leonardo “MKLeo” Lopez in Grand Finals. After the reset, MKLeo was able to use his Joker to clobber Tweek’s Pokemon Trainer into submission, earning him the title of EVO 2019 World Champion in Smash.

Four sweeps, a reverse sweep, and a sweep, and @MKLeoSB is YOUR inaugural EVO #SSBU champion here at #EVO2019! pic.twitter.com/FeJ1IOeH0Q

— EVO (@EVO) August 5, 2019

The full Top 8 of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate results are listed below.

Complete EVO 2019 tournament results for all game events can be found on smash.gg. Restreams are available on EVO’s Twitch channel.