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EVO 2016 – Day 1: Tekken 7 FR Top 8 finalists, upsets, rivalries, Akuma, and USA staking a claim
Day 1 of EVO is in the books as far as Tekken 7: Fated Retribution is concerned, and it was everything we had hoped it would be. What a day!
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The 549 player pools began bright and early at 8am PDT, and it was your usual laid back stream. There were highlights, such as appearances by Tekken developers Katsuhiro Harada and Michael Murray, Street Fighter’s developer Yoshinori Ono, and a few others.
Where things really began to pick up steam was during the top 48, where all of the “big dawgs” would face off against one another. There were several upsets, one being USA’s Circa|Anakin being eliminated very early on. He did not win any of his sets. The first set of matches was against his own close friend, JDCR of Korea. Anakin used his main character for these matches, which is Jack-7, while JDCR used his main, which is Heihachi. JDCR took it 2-0 and in very convincing fashion. Not very long after Anakin would then face Weapon X, who defeated Anakin with Katarina, one of the new characters in Tekken 7: Fated Retribution. Perhaps Anakin didn’t know that match up? Nevertheless, as well as he has been doing during the Tekken Tour events, we’re sure he is not pleased with his performance at EVO, especially not that he is sponsored. EVO is the biggest stage where the best come to compete.
Though Anakin didn’t fair well, he teammate Circa|Speedkicks did. His first match was against Nao of Japan, who was using Akuma. Speed began with his main, Hwoarang, but the matchup didn’t fair well. He ended up switching to Lars, and that proved to be the right decision. Using Lars’ u/f3 and arc blast as punishers were very effective. He ended up taking the set. He would later go on to defeat NG|Obscure, but then lose to Secret|Poongko, a pro Korean Street Fighter player who has an aggressive offense with Akuma in Tekken 7FR. Speeckicks would then go on to face and defeat Yuu, who is considered not only to be the best Feng player in the world, but also Japan’s #2 player after Nobi. This placed Speed as the only other USA player in the top 8, along with GeeseMaster (who ironically is a Feng player as well).
The biggest match of the night had to be JDCR vs. Knee, both of Korea. There is a long-standing rivalry between to the two, to the point that two hardly acknowledge one another. Neither greeted the other, nor shook hands. When you respect a player, you generally pick your main character, but Knee picked one of the newest characters to Tekken, Akuma. And Akuma has only been available a little more than two weeks. Knee won the first match, but then JDCR, who used Heihachi, took the second. Some thought maybe Knee would switch to Bryan (his main), but he stayed with Akuma and commenced to defeating JDCR. After the match, neither acknowledged one another still, nor shook hands. JDCR would then face Nobi in losers and become eliminated. Simply going off memory here, we believe this is the first time JDCR has never made the Top 8 at EVO, and possibly any major tournament. We’ll have to double check.
Lastly, unlike previous years, USA has made strong showing this EVO. Last year only Jimmy J. Tran aka Mr. Naps made it into the top 8, but this year two made it. Asians are usually always considered shoe-in for the top 8, but to have more than one this year is a very good look for USA. Who knows, maybe it would be three had Jimmy made it to EVO. We’ll never know.
Those are the main highlights. Here are your top 8 who will face-off tomorrow in the Finals.
WINNERS
GeeseMaster (USA) vs Knee (KOR)
Poongko (KOR) vs Saint (KOR)
The stream will take place Saturday at 9am PDT (12pm EDT) at twitch.tv/srkevo1.
Tekken 7 Semi-Finals
Tekken 7 FR Pools
