EVO 2018: The full results
If you missed any of the biggest fighting game tournament in the world, Shacknews is here with the weekend's full results for each tournament.
EVO 2018 has wrapped up, with the biggest fighting game tournament in the world closing its doors for another year. All the champions have been crowned over the course of this weekend. Shacknews has already covered some of the winners, but for those who missed all of the tournaments this weekend, here's a handy recap, along with a few of our own thoughts.
Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition
Check out our recap of the incredible Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition Grand Finals between Problem-X and Tokido. And for anyone who missed the pre-tournament announcement, G and Sagat will come to Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition this Monday.
1st - Problem-X (Benjamin Simon)
2nd - Tokido (Hajime Taniguchi)
3rd - Fuudo (Kenta Ai)
4th - Gachikun (Kanamori Tsunehiro)
5th (tie) - Fujimura (Fujimura Atsushi)
5th (tie) - Luffy (Olivier Hay)
7th (tie) - THE COOL KID93 (Marcus Redmond)
7th (tie) - Caba (Cristhopher Rodriguez Nade)
Dragon Ball FighterZ
Here's our recap of a wild Dragon Ball FighterZ Grand Finals that saw SonicFox and GO1 meet again. For those who missed the post-tournament announcement, Dragon Ball FighterZ is about to get Cooler.
1st - SonicFox (Dominique McLean)
2nd - GO1 (Goichi Kishida)
3rd - Fenritti
4th - moke (Naoki Nakayama)
5th (tie) - Kazunoko (Ryota Inoue)
5th (tie) - KnowKami
7th (tie) - kubo (Tsutomu Kubota)
7th (tie) - Supernoon (Steve Carbajal)
Tekken 7
Here's our recap of the Tekken 7 Grand Finals. And if you missed it, here's today's bombshell announcement regarding a new Season Pass featuring Negan from The Walking Dead.
1st - LowHigh (Sun-woong Yoon)
2nd - Qudans (Byung-moon Son)
3rd - Lil Majin (Terrelle Jackson)
4th - JDCR (HyunJin Kim)
5th (tie) - Book (Nopparut Hempamom)
5th (tie) - Rangchu (Hyunho Jung)
7th (tie) - Noroma (Takumi Hamasaki)
7th (tie) - Chirichiri (Takumi Hamasaki)
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Here's our recap of the Super Smash Bros. Melee Grand Finals. And get ready, because there's going to be a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Nintendo Direct coming this Wednesday.
1st - Leffen (William Hjelte)
2nd - Armada (Adam Lindgren)
3rd - Plup (Justin McGrath)
4th - Hungrybox (Juan DeBiedma)
5th (tie) - Wizzrobe (Justin Hallett)
5th (tie) - Mang0 (Joseph Marquez)
7th (tie) - Swedish Delight (James Liu)
7th (tie) - S2J (Johnny Kim)
Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2
Here's our recap of the Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 Grand Finals.
1st - Omito (Omito Hashimoto)
2nd - Machabo (Masahiro Tominaga)
3rd - LostSoul (Eli Rabadad)
4th - NAGE
5th (tie) - Rion (Hisatoshi Usui)
5th (tie) - Zadi
7th (tie) - Teresa (Fukuda Norihiro)
7th (tie) - Fumo (Harukuni Suga)
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Now we come to arguably the most controversial tournament of the weekend. The hardcore Smash 4 community has harbored a lot of hatred towards Bayonetta over the past couple of years and it all seemed to come to a head during this year's Top 8. The boos and the crowd antipathy eventually got to Grand Finalists Bharat "Lima" Chintapall and Zack "CaptainZack" Lauth, as they approached the Finals like a friendly, with CaptainZack even tossing himself off a cliff after Lima accidentally fell off. While the Grand Finals were closely contested throughout, the result was almost secondary to the crowd reaction and the apparent war between the Smash 4 pros and their own community.
There's far too much to unpack here, so I'll move on, at the risk of an extended rant. But one thing's for sure, Smash 4 is going out in unforgettable fashion.
1st - Lima (Bharat Chintapall)
2nd - CaptainZack (Zack Lauth)
3rd - Nietono (Yuta Uejima)
4th - Mistake (Tamim Omary)
5th (tie) - MVD (Jestise Negron)
5th (tie) - Mr E (Eric Weber)
7th (tie) - Raito (Tetsuya Ishiguro)
7th (tie) - Choco (Toshimasa Hayakawa)
Injustice 2
By comparison, Injustice 2's final (?) EVO ended on a much quieter note. However, there was quite a bit to get excited about here. With Dominique "SonicFox" McLean focusing mainly on Dragon Ball FighterZ, he isn't the NetherRealm force he used to be, as the double threat from Noble Esports sent him out with a third place finish. Meanwhile, Noble's Curtis "Rewind" McCall defeated teammate Tommy Tweedy to cap off an incredible run.
1st - Rewind (Curtis McCall)
2nd - Tweedy (Tommy Tweedy)
3rd - SonicFox (Dominique McLean)
4th - Big D (Ryan DeDomenico)
5th (tie) - Semiij (Andrew Fontanez)
5th (tie) - Hayatei (Alexandre Dube-Bilodeau)
7th (tie) - Biohazard (Matthews Commandeur)
7th (tie) - SylverRye (Mo Amaechi)
BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle
1st - Heiho
2nd - Fame96 (Jerome Latham)
3rd - DORA_BANG (Ryuji Utsumi)
4th - kojiKOG (Kazuyuki Koji)
5th (tie) - Kazunoko (Ryota Inoue)
5th (tie) - Fenritti
7th (tie) - GOUDA
7th (tie) - Dettywhiterock (Kohki Hayashi)
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Shacknews
replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, EVO 2018: The full results
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It was about 12 or 12:30 EST (or EDT? Toronto time) before SF5 top 8 even started. Sorry but no way am I staying up that late with kids and/or work. They need to fix that if they want more live viewers for the final game.
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Dragon Ball tends to run a bit slow. But really, once Melee started over 30 minutes behind schedule, the writing was on the wall. It was going to be a LONG day.
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Schedule was already an hour behind before DBFZ started.
DBFZ can definitely take time, which is why gave it some extra time on the schedule going in (3 1/2hr block compared to to 2-2 1/2 for all the other games) and they still ended 40 minutes behind the SFV scheduled start. But along with the delays and going long, the announcements for Tekken 7 previously, and DBFZ after its top 8, and then the announcements and stuff before SFV's top 8 along with break time for setup made SFV start nearly 2 hours behind. Crazy.
Getting rid of all that jazz would definitely cut down on time, but people really dig the hype those reveals bring. Looking at the schedule before this started I thought they may actually be near to on time this year, but it wasn't even close!
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Last night was incredible for Street Fighter V.
Ono, the game's producer came on stage, showed off some sweet trailers for the DLC characters G and Sagat, then dropped the mic with an announcement that BOTH were being released "TOMMORROW!" That's incredible. Sagat is essentially being released 3 months early today!
The top 8 was incredible as well. Problem-X, a UK player and dark horse in the winners bracket, won with Dictator/Bison, a character who has never won a significant major in any iteration of the game. He took down last year's champion and arguably the best player in the world in a dominant Grand Final. He made Tokido's Akuma look like a scrub at times with head stomps that Tokido had no answers for and very effective dash teleports that had Tokido guessing constantly. It was a masterclass in Bison play. That said Tokido was incredible in resetting the bracket but you could see the toll in the following matches. He basically collapsed in the final set and started going for some very impatient gambles; a huge contrast to his dominant victory over Punk last year. It's a Grand Final worthy of dissection as both players adjusted and readjusted their game plan almost every game.
Also in the top 8 was TheCoolKid93, a non-sponsored guy from Chicago who had a no-fear style with Abigail beating some of the biggest names in the game. He was America's last hope for an Evo Street Fighter win and the crowd got behind him big time. Watching his run through pools and semis is what the FGC is all about; commentators wondering who the fuck this guy is and pros seemingly dumbfounded as he roflstomped them. It's Rocky-like moments like that which make fighting games the best spectator esport in my opinion.
There are many legitimate complaints about SF:V out there but one thing can't be denied is the high end play of our favorite competitors is still incredible to watch. Evo, as usual, rejuvenated my love for the game and the FGC. It's great to be a part of it even in a small way.
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Including one who beat Punk.
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I completely agree regarding DBFZ. The crowd was so amped, screaming along w/Cell every time his intro animation played. helvetica watched almost the entire Top 8 with me, we were having a blast!
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DBFZ was the most fun I had all weekend at EVO. Great fans, awesome competitors. The game is a joy to watch.
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I'm considering buying it even though I haven't been good at VS style fighting games since XM vs SF!
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It is gonna come to Switch. I may get it then.
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My thoughts exactly. :)
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Smash 4 was an absolute cluster. Tekken 7 and DBFZ were INCREDIBLY entertaining. SF5 is ugly and boring (from a spectator's point of view, not knocking the gameplay or skill ceiling.)
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It appeared to be some kind of mutual protest over Bayonetta being completely OP? I'm still not completely sure.
A guy had to bring his laptop out on stage to show them that they are required to actually play the match. I assume they could have been sued had they refused, so obviously they finished the Finals after that.-
Yeah I believe that was the issue. Of course Smash Ultimate is nearly out so it's not like they'll be doing more Smash 4 balancing.
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Yeah, it really seemed petty when you take that into consideration.
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Capcom needs to take a step back, look at the enthusiasm for DBZF, and consider what they need to do with SF6 to make a game that is both fun to play and entertaining to watch. Right now, SFV is neither.
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Damn, sounds like it's worse than I thought!
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I find DBFZ to be a lot more fun to play than it is to watch, and I like to watch SFV pros compete more than I like to play that one, and would rather watch a SFV tourney over DBFZ any day. Although I do enjoy playing SFV too, just wish the netcode was better. DBFZ showed strong viewer numbers at launch and at Evo, but in every major tournament in the time between then and now, SFV streams were pulling in way more viewers than DBFZ, in the range of tens of thousands. So I'm not sure exactly what they need to do, aside from not having their big finals pushed to midnight or later? Aside from this Evo anomaly, it's still the most popular fighting game with spectators regularly. Curious to see what the stream numbers in the next big tourney are like.
Anyway, DBFZ at the highest levels is still full up on blowouts, rarely do you get matches or even sets that are close. When a close one happens it's great of course, but SFV is full of back and forth games and sets and pixel comebacks and big upsets. May not be as flashy, but way more entertaining of a fighting game competition for me as a spectator.
Pro DBFZ right now is still a lot of the same teams of characters with the same long combos into the same long super animations after the same long blockstrings eventually finds an opening. It's a lot of waiting around to see the actual impressive moments and mixups, though l love to play the game because all that repetitive and drawn out stuff is way more fun to do than it is to watch.
SFV has that potential of being a much more knock-down drag-out hard fought close won battle each and every game. Not that they're aren't any blowouts in SFV, but it's like the polar opposite of DBFZ with that stuff most of the time. It's also been showing some decent character variety in the Top 16 of tourneys, thanks to seasonal balance patches and all that.-
Oh, last bit cut off: DBFZ is getting a big balance patch this month, with almost every character getting touched. And the devs claim it's mostly buffs to bring the weaker and under-represented characters up to the level of the few that don't need any adjustments.
I hope it mixes things up in the pro scene and casual online scene. I'm really sick of seeing (and fighting) the same handful of characters over and over and over.
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I find SFV pretty entertaining to watch, but I agree, that it isn't as fun as it could be. I like the back and fourth close matches, but the game feels kinda stale to watch. Like it's fun to watch if you play a lot of SF and know what's going on, but that's not for everyone. Some people don't know shit about SF and compared to DBZ it seems really boring to them. Tekken feels much more straightforward to less fighting game familiar people even though it isn't as flashy as DBZ.
I think MvC2 was always a great example, that game was fun as fuck to watch even if you didn't know shit about what was going on.-
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I legit enjoyed watching SF4 up until Ibuki Vortex and Elena Healing. I couldn't USE Focus and Red Focus worth a damn, but they were frigging awesome concepts and I was shocked they didn't include in SF5.
Some individual characters have charge up armor crushes but it's no longer universal.
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All-time stream peaks:
2018 DBFZ Finals SonicFox vs GO1 - 268,000
2015 USF4 Finals Momochi vs Gamerbee - 254,000
2016 Smash Melee Finals Hungryvox vs Armada - 232,000
2017 SFV Finals Tokido vs Punk - 220,000
https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1026308550350569473
More stats: https://www.reddit.com/r/salty/comments/94zpu3/evo_2018_finals_twitchtv_peak_viewer_counts_stats/
This year SF5 bumped from 180k to 224k only after Ninja hosted it on his channel. The peak during grand finals was about 180k. Overall its on par with last year.
In an ideal world Melee would have gotten a much better slot than it did. Despite its early afternoon slot it still got about 200k viewers, more than Tekken 7. Whatever the order for next year ends up being I hope they figure out scheduling, this was by far the latest that the Street Fighter grand finals took place. -
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