Evolution Championship Series 2015 is now complete, and as always it pegs out the hype-meter! It is by far the biggest single event of the year, with the turnout for Ultra Street Fighter 4 bringing in over 2,200 players from around the world to compete! In keeping with the magnitude of this event, Evolution is the only Capcom Pro Tour event to have its own level of Ranking Points to earn, with each top 16 placement granting the player 4 times the points as the same placement in a Premier Tournament! It also grants a coveted automatic qualifying spot to Capcom Cup 2015 held at the end of the year. Check out the EVO 2015 Results.
As you would suspect, this means that a lot of top players that would normally easily make top 16 at any other event in the year met each other much earlier in the tournament, and as a result a lot of big name players never made it into top 32! Top 8 was nail-biter after nail-biter, with top players playing with everything they have.
EG|Momochi wins Evolution 2015!
EG|Momochi was a bit quiet early in this Capcom Pro Tour season, but he has come back strong! Momochi got to Grand Finals through the Winners Bracket, and even though AVM|GamerBee gave him an epic battle, he won the biggest and arguably most difficult tournament in Street Fighter history.
AVM|GamerBee qualifies for Capcom Cup 2015
Congratulations to AVM|GamerBee, who earns the qualifying spot to Capcom Cup 2015 because EG|Momochi has already qualified (won Capcom Cup 2014)! GamerBee showed an absolutely unbelievable amount of mental fortitude to climb the mountain out of Losers Bracket, so it is absolutely well deserved!
EVO 2015 Results: Top 16
| Placing | Handle | Characters | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | EG|Momochi | Ken/Evil Ryu/Elena | 1024 |
| 2nd | AVM|GamerBee | Elena/Adon | 512 |
| 3rd | Infiltration | Evil Ryu/Chun-Li/Abel/Decapre/Elena/Juri | 256 |
| 4th | BE|Nemo | Rolento | 128 |
| 5th | /r/Kappa|AiAi | Juri | 64 |
| 5th | MCZ|Tokido | Akuma | 64 |
| 7th | EG|PR Balrog | Balrog | 32 |
| 7th | Liquid|NuckleDu | Decapre/Guile | 32 |
| 9th | ZV|Kazunoko | Yun | 16 |
| 9th | YBK|Santarouman | Sagat | 16 |
| 9th | MCZ|Daigo Umehara | Evil Ryu | 16 |
| 9th | Filipinoman | Rose/Poison | 16 |
| 13th | Qanba|Xiao Hai | Cammy/Evil Ryu/Yun | 8 |
| 13th | Kindevu | Elena | 8 |
| 13th | Snake Eyez | Zangief | 8 |
| 13th | Latif | C.Viper | 8 |
Highlights from Evolution Championship Series 2015
There is a reason that EVO is billed as “The Most Prestigious Fighting Game Tournament in the World”, and EVO 2015 has exceeded every expectation. Over 2,200 players from around the world competed at EVO this year, creating what was arguably the toughest bracket in fighting game tournament history. Some players referred to this year’s EVO as a “bloodbath”, where top players were beaten and eliminated early, sometimes to players that are relatively unknown. You never know what’s going to happen at EVO, and that’s what makes it such a fascinating spectacle to watch every year.
There are simply too many highlights to possibly show them all here, so if you’ve got some free time I highly recommend that you to the Videos page on this CPT site, to Twitch to watch the full broadcast replays, or to Capcom Fighters and evo2kvids on Youtube to watch as much as you can. However, we will give some of the highlight matches and players from EVO 2015 here.
BE|Nemo vs /r/Kappa|Ai Ai: So Much Stun!
Having come off a thrilling match against EG|PR Balrog, BE|Nemo then faced off against /r/Kappa|Ai Ai from Japan. Ai Ai hasn’t been in the public view much at tournaments, but he is well respected by top players in Japan, including MCZ|Daigo Umehara. He also plays Juri, which is a rare character to see in top level play. The first few rounds were heavily in Nemo’s favor, but it quickly turned into an offensive back and forth. The amount of stuns generated in this set indicates the ferocity of each player’s offense.
Infiltration vs AVM|GamerBee in Losers Finals: Eternal Elena
This has to be one of the strangest, longest, and yet most fascinating matches that has happened in recent Street Fighter memory. First off, the the match started with Infiltration requesting a “blind pick” for character selection, where both players have to secretly tell the judges which character they want to use. This benefits Infiltration, because is fluent in so many characters. GamerBee selects Elena and Infiltration, probably anticipating this, selects Chun-Li to counter that. What happens after this is fascinating. Infiltration tries to establish a fireball game, trying to stay away from Elena’s amazing normals, but it only kept fueling GamerBee’s Ultra Guage. GamerBee would then back off and use Elena’s healing Ultra to regain life. Infiltration struggled with this through most of the set, and GamerBee sometimes got off as many as 3 heals per round! When GamerBee used a last second heal to steal round 1 of match 2, wow!
Infiltration, seeing that this wasn’t working, seemed at a loss as to what character to use after a loss to bring the score to 1-2 with GamerBee in the lead. He took so long at the character select screen that the judges had to give him a countdown! He shocked the crowd by selecting Juri! At first this didn’t look to be working either, but Infiltion came on strong, made some incredible reads, got fantastic use of the Feng Shui engine tied it up! GamerBee went back to Adon in the final match of the set, and in one last exciting match of back and forth, took the win at the very last round. It’s only fitting that the final, winner-take-all round was decided with a time out!
This set lasted about 25 minutes, but it seemed longer. This was an unbelievable match and a moment to remember in EVO history! It was a test of mental endurance for both players, and I’m sure this match will be an EVO highlight for years to come. You must see this match.
AVM|GamerBee vs EG|Momochi in Grand Finals
In Grand FInals, AVM|GamerBee faced daunting circumstances. He had just come off one of the longest, most mentally draining matches imaginable against Infiltration in Losers Finals. With virtually no time in between, he now had to sit down against EG|Momochi, one of the best players in the world and Capcom Cup 2014 winner. As if that weren’t enough, since he came into Grand Finals from the Losers Bracket, he had to win 2 complete sets of matches in order to take 1st place!
It started out with GamerBee taking Adon versus Momochi’s Ken, and during the first set GamerBee looked to always be just one step ahead of Momochi. GamerBee won the set 3-1 and with that win pulled Momochi down into the Losers Bracket with him. Now, the next set would decide it all.
After losing the set, Momochi paused at the character select screen and thought long and hard about which character to use. He finally decided to go with Evil Ryu, and the final set of EVO 2015 was on! In this set the tempo changed from chess match to slugfest and back again, as you would expect from two amazing players. Both players fought like champions, with clutch plays on both sides, and it got to 2-2 with just 1 match left!
Momochi won round 1 and then it happened. Momochi’s controller disconnected due to some malfunction. According to the rules, it was GamerBee’s right to take the round and after doing so it came down to the final round. There was a pause to get Momochi a replacement stick and once that was done, the match got back underway. The final round was exciting, but Momochi caught GamerBee in a counter-hit and the follow-up combo made him the champion of EVO 2015!