Posted by Slasher @ 02:23 BST, 26 July 2009 - iMsg
The EVO 2009 Championships are now over, and Daigo has claimed victory over Justin Wong in one of the greatest matches in fighting game history. Justin Wong switched to Balrog which wasn't part of his three character practice-regime at all, came from the loser's bracket, too out Daigo in the first set, and forced a final game in the second set. We had wondered among all the big names at EVO if we would see any surprises, and we actually had quite a few to come through the bracket, including the top 8. Eduardo Perez stormed through the bracket with his Balrog play, while Long "ShadyK" Tran and Sanford "Santhrax" Kelly made a bigger splash than most people expected. Southern California's EdMa stayed the most consistent, earning a third place finish after his third place at Devastation. The East Coast dominated the competition in the 5v5 event, going 15-1 and only losing one match the entire tournament.
In Spain, Mousesports has won the GameGune title over Wicked in the final, going undefeated throughout the event, while ledpc had a strong National showing for Spain and took third. The eStars event is still going on with Europe taking on Asia, Europe losing the the Continental Cup, but dominating the King of the Game tournament with SK Gaming, fnatic and mTw all in the brackets. In Dallas, Texas, the best teams in America are battling it out at the ESEA Season 3 finals, where Evil Geniuses and compLexity are currently ahead of the pack.
- Sanford Kelly - Took fourth at EVO for Street Fighter 4 and wasn't even going to go originally, and finally earned a championship in Marvel vs Capcom 2, defeating Justin in the final.
- EdMa, Placed third at EVO and took his SoCal team on his shoulders in the 5v5.
- Issei - The dominant Japanese Third Strike player who won the 2v2 3S tournament at EVO with Justin Wong, now lives in New York City, and will now train Street Fighter 4. Will give lots of insight into Japan.
- Mousesports, star player cash or manager django - Winners of the GameGune tournament, a representative from Mousesports will be on the show to talk about their recent win.
- A report from someone at the KODE5 US finals
- We will give our reactions of the EVO livestream, from both a production and talent/commentator point of view, and how we felt about the experience overall from being from home. Videos start to go up on IGN for the EVO 2009 VOD's, how good is the quality, footage used, production, and speed. Some YouTube accounts have been taken down or outright deleted for having EVO 2009 videos, even if they're just rips from the uStream VOD's, which are still available on uStream's site.
- MLG announces a huge deal with EA Sports and Sony, will include a $180,000 tournament series featuring several of EA's games, including the large existing Madden community. MLG has also officially announced it's Anaheim date, which was unconfirmed to this point. How do sports games fit into the competitive gaming equation?
- The eStars Seoul Heritage Starcraft League is currently going on, celebrating 10 years of eSports within the Korean Starcraft community, featuring $40,000 and some of the most legendary players, including BoxeR, NaDa, sAviOr, YellOw, and more.
- Reports from China say that Starcraft 2 has been banned from the ChinaJoy event, we give our reactions. Moon and NaDa play a Starcraft 2 showmatch.
- id Software releases a new Quake Live patch, includes more features for commentators and spec options, which we will use for QuakeCon. The ESL QL invite is still going on, and includes Stermy spanking av3k in the showmatch. Fatal1ty updates his facebook status looking for QL players to sponsor for QuakeCon.
- pureSports sent their American CoD4 team to the Oupost On Fire 3 LAN, the first American showing since Doctors/EG and Pandemic went to Europe. They have been knocked out in the second round of the lower bracket.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/evochampionship
A bit disorganised, but it's all there. The jwong v daigo match (it starts off as jwong playing abel) is the grand final at the end of the STREET FIGHTER IV FINALS video in the "videos" section.
Marty Stratton is Executive Producer at id Software since December 2006. Previously, he was Director of Business Development at the same company since 2000.