Everything You Need to Know For Smash Ultimate At Evo 2019

The world's largest Super Smash Bros tournament takes place the first weekend of August. Evo 2019 is not only just the most exciting Smash Ultimate event of the year, it's also the perfect starting point for someone to get into the competitive/eSports side of the game. We'll go over everything you need to know to appreciate Evo to the fullest, and understand just what it means for the community.

We'll cover a few things to get you started for Evo 2019.

I. What Evo is
II. Smash's history at Evo
III. How the tournament works
IV. The top ten ranked players at Evo
V. Other players that could make waves

I. What Evo is

The Evolution Championship Series, more commonly known as Evo, is the world's most prestigious fighting game tournament. Starting off as Battle of the Bay in 1996, it was a 40 man Street Fighter tournament, held in California. Since then, it has grown to be an international event with players flying in from all over the world to compete at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, where it's been held since 2017.

Evo is important to the fighting game community just like the Olympics is important to professional athletes. Competitors come from around the globe to compete in different games against the best of the best. Evo typically holds anywhere between seven to nine fighting games on their official line up, but offers a BYOC (Bring Your Own Console) area to host side events.

II. Smash's History at Evo

The first time a Smash game was included was Super Smash Bros. Melee at Evo 2007. At 270 entrants this set the record for largest Smash tournament at the time. Smash was again included the following year, albeit with some controversy. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was included at Evo 2008, but because of its atypical rule set that included random item spawns it received heavy backlash from the community. Because the tournament didn't adhere to standard competitive rules, Ken, the defending champion, lost grand finals.

A Smash Bros. game wouldn't be held at Evo again until 2013. When the Evo team was deciding what games to run, they let the community vote on the 8th and final spot. The two games with the most votes were Super Smash Bros. Melee and Skullgirls, another fighting game that was released the year before. To award one game the last spot, Evo held a fundraiser, and whichever community collected the most money for breast cancer would be awarded that slot. The Smash community rallied together and was able to raise over $94,000, and the Skullgirls community raised $78,000. Smash was a part of Evo once again! What could go wrong?

A week before the actual competition Nintendo sent a cease & desist letter to the Evo team, telling them that they wouldn't be allowed to stream the Nintendo game. With public backlash from both Smash fans and FGC fans alike Nintendo soon backed off and allowed the tournament to stream the event normally. It was later revealed that Nintendo tried to shut down the whole tournament, not just the stream. If you'd like to know more about the Evo 2013 story episode 9 of the Smash Brothers Documentary does a great job of explaining this in more detail.

Some iteration of Smash Bros has been hosted at Evo every year since 2013. Each new year broke the record of largest Smash tournament ever, but the entrant count decreased a little bit the last two years. That won't be an issue this year. Not only does this Ultimate tournament have more entrants than any other Ultimate tournament, it's the largest Smash tournament ever (across all of the games), and it's the largest tournament hosted at this year's Evo. The only tournament in Evo history to have a higher entrant count was the very first year of Street Fighter V, which had a mind boggling 5,000+ entrants.

III. How the tournament works

The reason the 2008 Brawl results were so contested was because the tournament didn't follow the standard rules that the community had in place. Almost all Smash tournaments follow the same set of rules. The competitive scene tries to take out all of the random occurrences in a match, to ensure that the outcome of the match is determined by skill. Imagine playing a game with your friend, and you've been doing better than them the whole game. But then right at the end, the Golden Hammer appears, your friend gets to it first, then they then proceed to kill you five times in the last 30 seconds. That's not entirely fair, is it? You're probably better than your friend, but they just got lucky with items. To avoid scenarios like this, Smash tournaments like to remove that problem altogether.

Evo learned from their past and are now following a rule set that aligns with the competitive integrity that the community has come to expect.

Smash events are always run in a Double Elimination format, which means everyone gets the chance to play at least two tournament sets. So if you lose your first set, don't worry, you still get another chance.

Each set starts out as best two out of three games. Later on in bracket, around Top 64 or Top 32 for larger tournaments, sets will typically change to a best three out of five. Evo, for logistical reasons, can only have Winner's Finals, Loser's Finals, and Grand Finals be best out of five.

To make the tournament fair for all competitors, Evo has taken over the 100+ stages in the game, and picked the nine most competitively viable. These stages are a combination of big and small stages, some with platforms, some just flat ones, but they’re all played with Hazards Off. That way none of them have dragons or spaceships that can interfere with the game.

There are five starter stages, which means during the first match, the two players decide between one to play their first match on. The five starter stages are Battlefield, Final Destination, Pokémon Stadium 2, Smashville, Town And City.

When they move onto the second and third matches of the set, there are four more stages added to the rotation, called counter picks. The four counter pick stages are Kalos Pokémon League, Lylat Cruise, Yoshi’s Island (Brawl), Yoshi’s Story.

IV. The top ten ranked players at Evo

With over 3,000 attendees there's going to be a lot of big names here. The team running Ultimate successfully took on the difficult task of organizing and seeding the top 400 players. You can read more about the seeding process here.

We clearly don't have time to go over all 400 players so we'll give you a short highlight of the top ten seeds.

10. Zackray

Zackray is 17 year old prodigy from Japan. This young Wolf main made big waves at the start of Ultimate by defeating multiple top 10 players, and by placing in the top 8 in multiple events.

Zackray came in first place at the 500-entrant Umebura SP2 tournament in Japan.

9. Cosmos

While this Inkling main has never won a tournament, he is a consistent top 8 threat. He's come in 4th place at Umebura Japan Major, and 2nd at both Full Bloom 5 and Saints Gaming Live 2019.

8. Glutonny

Glutonny is the best player that Europe has to offer. Not only does Glutonny have multiple 1st place wins under his belt, but he's also only lost 1 European event. He ended in 2nd place at Stunfest, where his Wario was defeated by Shuton.

Some of his first place finishes include Valhalla II, Pre-Genesix, Icarus V, and Albion 4.

7. Nairo

The 2nd best Smash Wii U player of all time, Nairo, continues to dominate in Ultimate. He switched from a Zero Suit Samus main to Palutena in Ultimate, and even though he's still a top threat, he has yet to get to the same level he was in Wii U.

Nairo's only first place finish in Ultimate was at Suplex City Smash in his home state of New Jersey

6. Samsora

Samsora is a Peach specialist. He's mained Peach in Super Smash Bros Brawl, Wii U, and in Ultimate. The Louisiana native has solid results, including his 3rd place finish at Genesis 6, the largest Ultimate tournament until Evo broke the record.

In addition to a first place win at Kawaii Kon, Hawaii's largest Smash Bros event, Samsora recently won Defend the North, New York's largest Smash event.

5. Shuton

Shuton is without a doubt the best player in Japan right now. The Olimar main has five tournament wins under his belt, from three different continents. Shuton has been on a bit of a hot streak recently, winning the last three events he attended.

Shuton has won 2GG: Prime Saga (America), StunFest 2019 (France), and Sumabato events (Japan).

4. Dabuz

Another Olimar player, Dabuz is an incredibly consistent smasher. Of The 20 Ultimate tournaments he's entered, Dabuz has placed lower than 9th only once.

Despite placing very highly at multiple events, the only tournament Dabuz has won is Thunder Smash.

3. Marss

Marss was the 16th best Smash Wii U player of all time using Zero Suit Samus. He continues to use the same character, but moved up to be the 3rd best Ultimate player right now. His ZSS is wild and impressive and always fun to watch.

He's come in 3rd place four times, 2nd place four times, and 1st place four times. His first place wins include Push the Limit II, Collision 2019, Full Bloom 5, and Overclocked Ultimate II.

2. Tweek

Arguably the number one Ultimate player when the game first came out, Tweek has had some major wins, but also some bad losses. Despite having seven 1st place finishes, he's also lost to the likes of Wishes, Wizzrobe, and The Great Gonzalez.

Tweek has won Let's Make Moves, Get On My Level 2019, and Frostbite 2019, where he double eliminated the best player in the world.

1. MKLeo

The 18 year old Joker main from Mexico is the best in the world. He ended his tenure with Smash Wii U as the best active player and continued to carry that energy to the new game. Playing multiple characters at a high level, MKLeo decided on Joker after trying out the DLC at a few tournaments.

MKLeo's tournament wins include Genesis 6, Smash Summit Ultimate, Momocon 2019, Smash N Splash 5, and CEO 2019.

V. Other players that could make waves

With over 3,000 players at Evo 2019, there are bound to be some upsets and breakout performances. We clearly can't go over every player in attendance, but instead we'll highlight some international talent and players from other games that have the potential to make big waves.

37. Sparg0 - The number one ranked player from Tijuana, Mexico, this 13 year old Cloud main is a prodigy in the making. He has multiple wins against top 20 players like VoiD, Myran, kameme, and came in 17th at CEO last month. This player definitely has what it takes to tear through bracket and make some upsets.

58. Gackt - Gackt is the best Ness player in Japan. His only other American appearance was at Smash N Splash 5, where he came in 49th out of 1,160. He'll be looking to knock out some top players and make a name for himself stateside.

133. TriM - Making his American debut, TriM is one of France's best players behind Glutonny. The Mega Man player's last event was Albion 4 in London, where he finished 13th out of 895.

In addition to those Ultimate players, some Super Smash Bros Melee players have entered. Mew2King (86) is the best overall smasher across all the five Smash games, and Wizzrobe (71) is a top ten player in Melee and Smash 64. Leffen (51), Plup (82), Mang0 (234), are all top ten ranked Melee players as well.

So there you have it, that’s everything you need to know to get up to speed. You're now ready to watch the biggest fighting game tournament of the year! Evo 2019 is taking place from August 2nd - 4th. The first few rounds of Ultimate will take place on Friday and Saturday, and you can watch that on twitch.tv/evo1 starting at 1:00PM PST. The finals will be Sunday night at 7:00PM PST on twitch.tv/evo.