Evo 2019 Explained

2019 Evolution Championship Series
Location:	Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Start Date:	August 2
End Date:	4, 2019
Venues:	Mandalay Bay
Attendance:	~9,000
Previous:	2018
Next:	2020 (cancelled)

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 , Tekken 7, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and . 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 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 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

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|} 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 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 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|} 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 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|} 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 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|} 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|} 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 References

Notes and References

1. Web site: Valve Leaks Street Fighter 5 DLC Ahead Of EVO, Issues Apology. GameSpot. Jordan Ramée. August 3, 2019.
2. Web site: Under Night In-Birth EXE: Late[cl-r] with new character Londrekia coming early 2020]. Eventhubs. Justin Gordon. August 3, 2019.
3. Web site: BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle adding nine more characters; enter Senran Kagura, Akatsuki Blitzkampf, and more RWBY. Nintendo Wire. Ricky Berg. August 15, 2019.
4. Web site: An Evo 2019 Joke Had Fans Thinking Snake Would Be In Tekken 7. Kotaku. Heather Alexandra. August 15, 2019.
5. Web site: Solid Snake actor calls out EVO for using his voice without permission. Digital Trends. Gabe Gurwin. August 15, 2019.