Esports

Smash Bros Player Is Still Beating World Records In Melee‘s Home Run Contest

The Home Run Contest mode in Super Smash Brothers looks straightforward. You choose one of the game’s fighters and face off against an inanimate sandbag. As a 10-second timer counts down, you try to inflict as much damage as possible on the bag. Depending on how much damage you dole out, the bag could end…

The Best Moments From Evo’s Dragon Ball FighterZ Tournament

This past weekend, competitors at Evo 2017 got to put the upcoming Dragon Ball FighterZ through its paces in a side tournament. From tons of excellent, flashy super moves to impressive tag techniques, players showcased the surprising depth in this six-fighter demo. A few pros were kind enough to give us their detailed opinions on…

Tokido Battles Back Through Losers Bracket To Win Evo Street Fighter V Championship

Two titans of Street Fighter V clashed in Mandalay Bay, one on an undefeated streak and the other pressing on through the gauntlet of the loser’s bracket. After a bracket reset, longtime Street Fighter pro Tokido beat Punk 3-0 to take home the Evo 2017 championship trophy. Victor “Punk” Woodley came into the top eight…

Bayonetta Pro Upsets Smash‘s Best To Win Evo Championship

Super Smash Bros. For The Wii U made two big debuts today: One, its first Evo Sunday showing, and the second on national TV, as it aired live on Disney XD and ESPNU. It’s fitting that in this year of new horizons for Smash 4, one player would take the opportunity to make his presence…

Evo Tekken 7 Tournament Ends In Seven Game Slugfest

There are a lot of great Tekken 7 players, but the masters of the game still hail mostly from South Korea. In a grand finals that pitted countrymen and fellow Echo Fox players Jin Woo “Saint” Choi and Hyun Jin “JDCR” Kim against one another, it was the latter who managed their first Evo championship…

Soccer Team Signs FIFA Player, Cuts Him Two Days Later Over “Online Behaviour”

Two days ago, Dutch soccer club PSV proudly announced the signing of 22 year-old FIFA player Tony Kok to their esports team. Before the weekend was over, that contract had been torn up over sexist comments Kok has made on Twitter over the years. PSV—who were so proud of the initial announcement that they made…

Two Of BlazBlue‘s Best Go The Distance In Evo Championship Match

In a grand finals match that almost went the full distance, Ryusei Ito has emerged as the victor of Evo 2017’s BlazBlue Central Fiction tournament. After a litany of technical woes plagued the game’s pools yesterday, the top eight that took the stage at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas were some of Japan’s finest. Ryusei…

What High-Level Players Think Of Dragon Ball FighterZ So Far

Dragon Ball FighterZ made a huge impression when it was first revealed at E3 in June, but it’s currently undergoing the greatest test of all: Rigorous competition from some of the fighting game community’s best players. Bandai Namco Entertainment brought the early preview shown at E3 to Evo 2017, the world’s largest fighting game tournament,…

Dramatic Finish Cements Pro’s Legacy As Final Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 Evo Champion

Marvel vs. Capcom has always been known for its flashy style and brutal comboing, two things that were on full display at the game’s final Evo tournament. Prior to the grand finals, many suspected that the contest might ultimately come down to Ryan “RyanLV” Romero and Christopher “NYChrisG” Gonzalez, and sure enough, the game’s two…

Man Solves Rubik’s Cube In 5.4 Seconds At World Championship

Amidst a weekend of fighting game championships and other major tournaments, the world’s finest Rubik’s cubers have descended upon Paris for a record-breaking world championship. The world championships fall under the WCA, or World Cube Association, regulations. All puzzles have to have colored parts and must be scrambled before competition using computer-generated random scramble sequences.…

The final day of Evo 2017 kicks off this morning with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3‘s swan song tournament. BlazBlue, Tekken 7 and Super Smash Bros. For Wii U follow, culminating in Street Fighter V at 10 p.m. ET.

Player Offers Opponent Cash To Stop Infinite Combo

Step three of getting infinite combo’d: Bargaining. At AnimEvo, a side tournament was held for one of the most hype games ever made, Hokuto no Ken. Based on the Fist Of The North Star anime, this game has everything from one-hit instant kill moves to dribbling, and of course, infinite combos. In the grand finals,…

Armada Wins Second Evo Melee Championship, Makes It Look Easy

Going late into the night, the Smash Bros. Melee championship at Evo 2017 saw Sweden’s Adam “Armada” Lindgren silence any remaining critics as he battled his way to a second ever victory at the event. Stacking up one commanding performance after another in the winners bracket, if anyone could beat the Peach player it would…

Yellow Card Ruling On Melee Coaching Stirs Controversy

Super Smash Bros. Melee players Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma and Zachary “SFAT” Cordoni both accrued yellow cards for receiving mid-set coaching TKduring their match in the top 16 at Evo 2017. The first instance occured when Debiedma called up his coach, Luis “Crunch” Rosias, after a game one win. After Cordoni bounced back to tie the…

BlazBlue Players Get Second Chance After Console Issues Plague Evo Pools

Every fighting game competitor wants to play under optimal conditions, or at least as close to their home training experience as possible. But what are they to do when an event’s setups begin to fail? And how do the organizers rectify such a situation? These questions became incredibly important during the BlazBlue: Central Fiction tournament…

Street Fighter V Pro’s New Best Friend Is An Aluminum Can

That guy on the right is Lee “Infiltration” Seon Woo. You might remember him from last year’s Evo Street Fighter V tournament,which he won. A veteran of the scene who’s been competing since 2010 with Super Street Fighter IV, he’s now housing energy drinks in-between matches to help pay the bills. It was during a…

Day two finals are underway at Evo 2017, starting with Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2. Top 8 play will continue throughout the night, with Injustice 2 and Super Smash Bros. Melee to follow on the Evo Twitch channel

Surprise Character Pick Wins Evo 2017’s King Of Fighters XIV Tournament

This year’s Evolution Championship Series started with a bang last night as King of Fighters XIV wrapped up its one-day competition with an intense finals bracket. Spectators crowded the exhibition hall to see the weekend’s first champion crowned among the impressive mix of players from across Taiwan, China, Mexico, Pakistan, Japan, and the United States.…

Evo’s Catherine Tournament Is Off To A Dramatic Start

While the main event continues today, AnimEvo is going strong with its many side tournaments, including the puzzle game Catherine A 2011 game made by Atlus, the story-driven game’s competitive mode has a cult following that culminates each year at Evo. This year’s event is already off to a strong start, with Geordi (called the…

Mike “OlafRedland” Spragg displays his Evo wristbands after making it out of his Street Fighter V pool. Competitors this year receive a special wristband designating them as “official pool survivors” if they make it through their double-elimination bracket.