Evo 2019

Tournament statisticsAttendance~9,000

The 2019 Evolution Championship Series (commonly referred to as Evo 2019 or EVO 2019) was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas from August 2 to 4, 2019 as part of the long-running Evolution Championship Series. The event offered tournaments for various video games, including Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Dragon Ball FighterZ, as well as the newly released Soulcalibur VI, Mortal Kombat 11, Samurai Shodown, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; the latter received the most entrants with over 3,500 players participating, making it the largest in person Super Smash Bros. tournament of all time.

Venue

EVO 2019 was, once again, hosted at the Mandalay Bay resort. The Mandalay Bay Convention Center hosted the first two days of the event, while the Mandalay Bay Events Center hosted the final day for the fourth consecutive year.

Games

The lineup was announced in February 2019 to have 9 games. Returning from last year are Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, Tekken 7, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. New additions are Soulcalibur VI, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st], Samurai Shodown, Mortal Kombat 11, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which effectively replaced Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Notably, this is the first year since EVO 2013 where Super Smash Bros. Melee was not included in the lineup, and was relegated to a side-event.

Participants

Over 9,000 participants were at Evo 2019.

Broadcast

As usual, the tournament was streamed on the streaming site Twitch, broadcast across multiple different streams.

Reveals

A few days before the tournament, a trailer for Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition revealing three upcoming characters, E. Honda, Poison, and Lucia from Final Fight was accidentally uploaded to Steam a few days ahead of its reveal at EVO by Valve, who apologized for the upload, stating that it was a "Regrettable and unintentional situation".^[1]

After the finals for Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late [st] concluded on Saturday, the game director of French Bread, Kamone Serizawa took to the stage to announce the newest version of the game, titled Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late [cl-r] alongside new character, Londrekia Light, with the game slated for an early 2020 release.^[2]

After the BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle finals ended, Arc System Works revealed a major update to the game and revealed four out of nine new characters including Yumi from the Senran Kagura series, Akatsuki and Blitztank from Akatsuki Blitzkampf, and Neopolitan from RWBY, with a release date of November 21.^[3]

Controversy

During the Tekken 7 Grand Finals, a clip played in the form of a Metal Gear Solid-like codec call. It featured Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid franchise talking to Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada saying "That was some good ass Tekken". The audience believed Solid Snake was being teased as the game's next DLC character. However, the official EVO Twitter account confirmed that the clip was not an official tease, but a joke that was done without the consent of Bandai Namco. Harada was surprised by the video and fans expressed dismay that it was not a real announcement. More than 12 hours since EVO made the statement, David Hayter, the voice of the character that was used in the clip, stated in a tweet that they have "failed to consult me, or Konami", reiterating to not use his voice to promote other games.^[4][5]

Results

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Leonardo Lopez	MkLeo	Joker
2nd	Gavin Dempsey	Tweek	Pokémon Trainer
3rd	William Belaid	Glutonny	Wario
4th	Ezra Morris	Samsora	Peach
5th	Tetsuya Ishiguro	Raito	Duck Hunt
5th	Naoto Tsuji	ProtoBanham	Lucina, Inkling
7th	Sota Okada	Zackray	Wolf
7th	Paris Ramirez	Light	Fox

Tekken 7
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Arslan Siddique	Arslan Ash	Kazumi, Geese
2nd	Jae-Min Bae	Knee	Steve, Geese, Paul, Kazuya, Devil Jin
3rd	Hoa Luu	Anakin	Jack-7
4th	Abe Takehiko	Take	Kazumi
5th	Takumi Hamasaki	Noroma	Steve, Dragunov
5th	Nakayama Daichi	Nobi	Dragunov, Steve, Jack-7
7th	Yuta Take	Chikurin	Geese
7th	Sun-Woong Youn	LowHigh	Law, Shaheen

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Masato Takahashi	Bonchan	Karin, Sagat
2nd	Adel Anouche	BigBird	Rashid
3rd	DC Coleman	Infexious	Zeku
4th	Atsushi Fujimura	Fujimura	Ibuki
5th	Derek Ruffin	iDom	Laura
5th	Masahiro Tominaga	Machabo	Necalli
7th	Hiroki Asano	Kichipa-mu	Zangief
7th	Yangmian Huang	YANGMIAN	Zeku

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Oscar Jaimes	Shinku	Ruby/Yang
2nd	Kamei Hiroyuki	Kyamei	Akihiko/Mitsuru
3rd	Seitaro Ono	Domi	Akihiko/Yuzuriha
4th	Kazuya Kamisue	Mekasue	Jubei/Orie
5th	Christina Kabacinski	Bace	Mitsuru/Yuzuriha
5th	Shoji Sho	Fenritti	Mitsuru/Yuzuriha
7th	Kazuyuki Koji	kojiKOG	Waldstein/Tager
7th	Jona Kim	Jona	Akihiko/Ruby

Mortal Kombat 11
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Dominique McLean	SonicFox	Cassie Cage
2nd	Ryan Walker	Dragon	Cetrion
3rd	Sayed Ahmed	Tekken Master	Geras, Erron Black, Kung Lao, Sonya Blade
4th	Julien Gorena	Deoxys	Geras
5th	Tommy Tweedy	Tweedy	Jacqui Briggs, Baraka, Geras
5th	Denom Jones	A F0xy Grampa	Shang Tsung, Kung Lao, Cassie Cage
7th	Andrew Fontanez	Semiij	Cassie Cage, Jacqui Briggs
7th	Alexandre Dubé-Bilodeau	Hayatei	Erron Black

Samurai Shodown
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Seon-Woo Lee	Infiltration	Genjuro
2nd	Ryota Inoue	Kazunoko	Haohmaru
3rd	Justin Wong	JWong	Tam Tam
4th	Reynald Tacsuan	Reynald	Genjuro, Haohmaru
5th	Fu-Pin Kao	RB	Genjuro
5th	Alex Valle	CaliPower	Galford
7th	Renato Martins	Didimokof	Genjuro
7th	Chia-Chen Tseng	ZJZ	Charlotte

Dragon Ball FighterZ
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Goichi Kishida	Go1	Bardock/Goku/Kid Goku
2nd	Dominique McLean	SonicFox	Bardock/Kid Buu/Kid Goku
3rd	Shoji Sho	Fenritti	Cell/Bardock/Vegeta
4th	Joan Namay	Shanks	Android 18/Adult Gohan/Goku
5th	unknown	Hirohiro	Android 17/Kid Goku/Teen Gohan
5th	unknown	B	Kid Buu/Adult Gohan/Yamcha
7th	Christopher Gonzalez	NyChrisG	Teen Gohan/Tien/Yamcha
7th	Ryota Inoue	Kazunoko	Kid Buu/Adult Gohan/Yamcha

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st]
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Masaru Higuchi	ClearLamp	Byakuya
2nd	unknown	Oushuu-Hittou	Seth
3rd	unknown	Hishigata	Nanase
4th	unknown	Kure	Yuzuriha
5th	Shinji Taharu	Neji	Mika
5th	Andy La	Rikir	Enkidu
7th	unknown	Senaru	Eltnum
7th	unknown	Libekichi	Mika

Soulcalibur VI
Place	Player	Alias	Character(s)
1st	Yuta Sudo	Yuttoto	Voldo
2nd	Zain Tibeishat	Bluegod	Azwel
3rd	Jérémy Bernard	Oplon|Skyll	Mitsurugi
4th	Jonathan Vo	Woahhzz	Raphael
5th	Jovian Chan	Shen Chan	Cervantes
5th	unknown	Tamonegi	Maxi
7th	Marie-Laure Norindr	Kayane	Xianghua, 2B
7th	Joshua Vernon	Saiyne	Ivy

External links

• Official website

References