EVO 2019
EVOLogo2013.png
Dates August 2nd-4th, 2019
Venue Mandalay Bay Events Center
Address/City 3950 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, Nevada USA
Attendance 3,534
Results
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate winners Mexico MkLeo
Staff
Organizer(s) Mr. Wizard, Bear, Ponder, inkblot, MarkMan

Evolution 2019, or simply EVO 2019, was the 18th edition of the Evolution Championship Series, a fighting game tournament held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada. EVO 2019 took place on August 2nd to 4th, 2019, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. It was announced on February 26th, by EVO's tournament director Joey "Mr. Wizard" Cuellar, that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would make its debut as an official game on the EVO 2019 game lineup. While it was confirmed to replace Super Smash Bros. for Wii U if it released in time in 2018, this was the first EVO for Ultimate post-release. Notably, for the first time since EVO 2012, Super Smash Bros. Melee was not revealed to be in the lineup—although Melee was still present as a side event on August 3rd—making EVO 2019 the first one since 2014 to feature only one Smash game at EVO instead of two. Ultimate ran on version 3.1.0, rather than running on 4.0.0 with Hero, due to the update being released after the cutoff date for patches and being a few days before the tournament.

It is currently the largest in person Smash tournament of all time, with 3,534 entrants signed up for Ultimate.

Official Game LineupEdit

Finals Game Entrants Pot Size
Sunday Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 3,534 $35,340
Sunday Tekken 7 1,899 $23,989
Sunday Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition 1,951 $69,510
Sunday BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle 646 $6,460
Saturday Mortal Kombat 11 1,576 $30,670
Saturday Samurai Shodown 1,729 $47,290
Saturday Dragon Ball FighterZ 1,200 $12,000
Saturday Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st] 1,157 $11,570
Friday Soulcalibur VI 746 $7,460

ResultsEdit

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate singlesEdit

(3,534 entrants)
Top 32 Bracket
Top 8 Bracket

Place Name Character(s) Earnings[1]
1st   MkLeo   $21,204.00
2nd   Tweek   $7,068.00
3rd   Glutonny   $3,534.00
4th   Samsora   $1,413.60
5th   Raito   $706.80
5th   ProtoBanham    $706.80
7th   Zackray   $353.40
7th   Light   $353.40
9th   Abadango  
9th   Kameme  
9th   Nietono  
9th   Dabuz  
13th   ScAtt   
13th   Mr.R   
13th   Shuton  
13th   Marss  
17th   Shogun  
17th   Pandarian  
17th   HIKARU  
17th   WaDi  
17th   Elegant  
17th   Nairo  
17th   Plup  
17th   Maister  
25th   Vintendo  
25th   ESAM  
25th   Rotsuku  
25th   Seven  
25th   Sinji  
25th   Stroder    
25th   Myran  
25th   kept   
33rd   CaptainZack  
33rd   ZAKI  
33rd   Skilly   
33rd   Masashi  
33rd   Salem   
33rd   Cyro  
33rd   Dragoomba  
33rd   Zenyou  
33rd   Mao  
33rd   Puppeh  
33rd   MastaMario  
33rd   Lea  
33rd   Eim  
33rd   Chag   
33rd   Kome  
33rd   Sparg0  
49th   Atelier  
49th   Flow  
49th   Etsuji  
49th   iStudying  
49th   AC  
49th   Prodigy  
49th   Wizzrobe  
49th   VoiD   
49th   Lui$   
49th   Larry Lurr   
49th   Gackt  
49th   Jw  
49th   Mew2King    
49th   Seth  
49th   Javi   
49th   Umeki  
65th   Seagull Joe   
65th   Ogey   
65th   8BitMan  
65th   CORONA17    
65th   Cosmos  
65th   Dark Wizzy  
65th   Mada  
65th   Frawg  
65th   YMCA  
65th   FOW  
65th   Biddy  
65th   MuteAce  
65th   YOC  
65th   Awestin  
65th   PEW  
65th   varun  
65th   SexyBeast420  
65th   RAIN  
65th   sm0ke  
65th   Nicko   
65th   Logix  
65th   SoulArts  
65th   ANTi  
65th   RFang  
65th   huto  
65th   NAKAT  
65th   falln  
65th   T  
65th   Stronghold  
65th   Phantom   
65th   ZD   
65th   MVD  
97th   BreaD  
97th   Lima  
97th   takera  
97th   Z  
97th   MrConCon  
97th   Heeew  
97th   SS Rose  
97th   Diamond D.  
97th   Cheeks  
97th   DD  
97th   crow  
97th   Wisdom  
97th   EKING  
97th   Duwang  
97th   Brosinex  
97th   Charliedaking  
97th   Ozone  
97th   Widget  
97th   Mr.Newport  
97th   Shoe  
97th   Thirsty   
97th   Death Arcana  
97th   Osiris  
97th   0mart  
97th   LightningCam  
97th   Denti  
97th   Razo  
97th   Zace  
97th   Rickles  
97th   Phoenix   
97th   BassMage  
97th   Konga  

Side EventsEdit

Super Smash Bros. Melee singlesEdit

(111 entrants)
Top 4 Bracket

Place Name Character(s) Earnings
1st   Hungrybox  
2nd   ChuDat  
3rd   Bungwipe  
4th   dansdaman  
5th   Zhea  
5th   Cleps  
7th   SK92  
7th   Nainsoo  
9th   Andymosity  
9th   RAFADIL
9th   Bacon  
9th   Woodchipdust  

TriviaEdit

  • MkLeo won the largest cash prize for an Ultimate tournament at $21,204 until it was surpassed by Tweek making $47,739.60 at Smash Ultimate Summit 3.
  • MkLeo was congratulated by series director Masahiro Sakurai for his victory.[2] Sakurai thanked the participants for a good show, and watched some parts of the tournament, but missed the Grand Finals due to a meeting.
  • Due to flight issues, LeoN was unable to attend the tournament, where he was seeded to eventually face MkLeo. In what was dubbed by some as the "Bowser curse", none of the Bowser players that had their matches shown on the official EVO Twitch stream won their sets.
  • Raito is the only returning player from EVO 2018 that placed Top 8 in the singles tournaments for both Smash 4 and Ultimate.
    • Coincidentally, this is also the second year in a row Dabuz placed just outside of Top 8 and got 9th for both games.
  • As there was only one official EVO stream for the Ultimate tournament, players like Hungrybox and ZeRo went out of their way to provide the results of numerous off-stream sets via Twitter and Twitch, respectively. This led to praise from the community for their efforts.
  • After Mr.R lost to ProtoBanham, he pointed out that Proto had been looking at his phone in the middle of the set and asked if there was a ruling on it (due to the possibility of mid-set coaching, though Proto was apparently looking up kill combos for Inkling). After asking Bear (who helped direct the tournament), Bear told him that there was no such ruling and that the set was legitimate. Although some accused him of being a sore loser, he later confirmed on Twitter that he had no intention of replaying the set and was surprised that no such measure was put in place beforehand.[3]
  • Despite having kidney stones, which required him to miss Super Smash Con 2019 later on, ProtoBanham was able to place 5th at the tournament.
  • With Mew2King and his Smash protégé Wizzrobe both placing 49th, Plup was the highest-placing player in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate singles that is otherwise known for being a professional Super Smash Bros. Melee player, placing 17th.
  • This tournament marks the worst placement for Cosmos, with a placement of 65th.
    • Furthermore, Lima's 97th-place finish overtook Ally's 49th at EVO 2017 for the worst placement for a previous EVO winner in both Smash 4 and Ultimate.
  • Viewership of the tournament peaked at over 279,000 concurrent viewers across all streams, making it not only the most viewed Super Smash Bros. tournament in history, but also the most viewed EVO game of all time.
  • The VOD for Ultimate's Grand Finals has over three million views on YouTube. It is the most viewed Ultimate video out of all of VGBootCamp's channels. It is the first Ultimate tournament set to reach two million views on YouTube.
  • On November 2018, Twitch streamer Ninja posted a now-infamous Tweet telling the Smash community that he had something planned for them.[4] During a poker game with Ludwig on May 1st, 2022, Ninja alleged that the Tweet was referencing his plans on donating $500,000 to the EVO 2019 prize pool, however he was unable to go through with it due to a lack of communication from Nintendo.[5]
  • This is the last EVO tournament in the US to feature any Super Smash Bros. game, as Sony acquired EVO in 2021 after the 2020 Super Smash Bros. sexual misconduct allegations and one of the co-founders, Mr. Wizard, was fired.[6] This action resulted in not featuring games developed by Nintendo.

External linksEdit

ReferencesEdit