Razer’s Infiltration Becomes First Ever Evo Street Fighter V Champion

This year’s Evo was one to remember. Held once again in Las Vegas, this year’s event took place during the series’ 20th anniversary, and it also became the first to host a Street Fighter V competition. As Evo has SF wound tight in its roots, it was a secret to no one that the Street Fighter V competition would be the flagship at the event.

After sifting through some 5,100 combatants, the Street Fighter V competition retained 8 players for the final set of rounds, including crowd favorite LI Joe, who happened to be the only American in that particular match-up. While Joe played incredibly well, and with much determination (no doubt fueled by the fact that his father was right behind him, rooting him on), he failed to take out Yukadon in a Nash vs. Nash match-up. In his post-loss interview, Joe exuded only positive vibes. He’ll be back, no question.

The championship match boiled down to teammates RZR|Infiltration (Nash) and RZR|Fuudo (R. Mika). While Fuudo played aggressively, Infilitration’s on-point defense and spotless timing ended up being too much for Fuudo, enabling Infilitration to manage not one, but three perfect matches. Fuudo unleashed some hope on the crowd near the end with some convincing finishes, but ultimately, Infilitration succeeded in becoming EVO’s first Street Fighter V champion.

There’s just no stopping the mighty @INFILTRATION85! He is the #EVO2016 #SFV champion! pic.twitter.com/vA2dcvq7ln

— Yahoo Esports (@YahooEsports) July 18, 2016

In all, eight different competitions took place at the event, with Super Smash Bros. Melee proving to be both an exciting one, and an American-dominated one. Florida’s Liquid|Hungrybox, playing as Jigglypuff, managed to take out Sweden’s [A]|Armada, who played as both Peach and Fox.

A personal favorite competition to watch at Evo is Guilty Gear, which this year utilized the series’ latest release, Xrd -REVELATOR-. Yet again, competition was beyond intense here, with the final matchup becoming an East vs. West Japan battle, with Machaboo, playing as Sin, edging out Omito, playing as Johnny, to win the championship. After the championship, the game’s director Daisuke Ishiwatari announced that Dizzy was making a return to the series, and that she’d become available for download for free (for a limited time) today. Sure enough, the DLC is free right now, so if you own -Revelator-, go and snatch it!

Other winners include NYChrisG (USA), in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, cR|SonicFox (USA), in Mortal Kombat XL, F3|Sleep (USA), in Killer Instinct, Tonosama (Japan), in Pokkén Tournament, Ally (Canada), in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and finally, Saint (Korea), in Tekken 7: Fated Retribution.

If this year’s EVO event went by too fast, don’t fret: when the Tokyo Game Show takes place this September, the long-awaited Japan-based tournament will be announced. Awesome!