Our collection of the best highlights from the showdowns of the week.
EVO and DreamHack Valencia dominated our weekend, with the Fighting Game scene celebrating it’s biggest tournament of the year and the Spanish city hosting its own celebration of competitive brilliance. Elsewhere, New Zealand battled their way past Canada in the Hearthstone Global Games and the OPL rolled on through Week 4.
We’re constantly keeping our esports calendar updated and we still love getting your tips about new events! Remember you can email them to me [email protected] or you can just click to send me an email. If you want, you can tweet suggestions at me as well, my twitter is down the bottom of this article. Make sure you check out the rest of the esports hub as well!
Street Fighter V – EVO 2017
There was so much to love about Street Fighter V at EVO this year. So many of the best players found themselves out before the Top 8 even began, showing just how much the game has matured after its very (very (very)) rocky start.
Tokido played like the demon himself in the EVO 2017 Street Fighter V Finals, battling his way out of the Loser’s Bracket and into the hearts and minds of almost all those watching. Well, those of us with souls, anyway. There was so much to love about the way he played, with his beautiful comeback against FilipinoChamp;
Through to a lightning quick perfect against Punk,
Before he finally won it all in the end! Punk played with the heart of a champion as well, creating a true competitive spectacle at the Las Vegas event.
UMVC3 – EVO 2017
With a new Marvel vs Capcom around the corner and interest in the tag team fighting game down a bit, it was nice to see UMVC3 still get some love at EVO 2017. The Finals between RyanLV and NYChrisG were a knockdown dragout as NYChrisG hung on by his fingertips throughout, but RyanLV eventually proved too strong and became probably the last UMVC3 champion of EVO.
Injustice 2 – EVO 2017
Injustice 2 was a bit of a mixed bag at EVO 2017, but the battle between HoneyBee and SonicFox was worth watching. HoneyBee brought Flash, SonicFox took in Black Adam and both players took it down to the wire in the Winner’s Bracket Semis. The strategy and forethought involved gives a great look at the depth on hand for Injustice 2. HoneyBee would later lose to Dragon in the Grand Finals, but the matchup linked below is almost as sweet as victory.
Paladins – DreamHack Valencia
Kanga Esports were on the ground in Spain taking their brand of OCE-style Paladins to the best in the world in the Summer Premier tournament over the weekend. There were a few tech issues, but the game was mostly highly competitive. They won their first round against Nocturns from South America before falling to Chinese Team QG Craze in the Semis. The Chinese team were on a tear, having already beat European juggernauts District69 before going all the way to game 7 against the Aussie hopefuls.
Team Cryptik from the US would inevitably beat QG, which will no doubt launch more drama in the scene about where certain teams and regions should be seeded relative to others. Watch below as Kanga pull out a wholly unlikely victory right from the hands of QG Craze — Kronicx on Cassie uses Disengage to bump QG off the cap point to secure the win.
Hearthstone – Global Games
New Zealand is OCE’s final hope in the Global Games, and last week they collided with the United States’ version of New Zealand, Canada. They managed to secure the victory thanks to slow, methodical play and they earned their way into the next round, where they’ll have to play against Canada’s version of Australia, the United States. Watch Flamelord Evolve his way into some lucky RNG to secure what was a pretty likely victory already below.
League of Legends – OPL Week 4
In the OPL this week, Legacy swept Team Regicide, the Chiefs swept TM and Sin Gaming snagged a victory against Abyss Esports. The clash of the week was Avant vs Dire Wolves. Avant got off to a great start, putting together an early lead in the first game that the Dire Wolves were never able to recover from. Game 2 looked to be trending the same way until a bizarre mistake saw the Dire Wolves steal the Baron kill and sending four Avant players back to their bases as they did. Back in control, DW went on to win the week 2 – 1. Watch that Baron steal below.
Dragon Ball FighterZ
If you thought I wasn’t going to talk about Dragon Ball Fighterz you haven’t been following along close enough to my highlights package. This is the first fighting game I’ve felt compelled to compete in in years, and it’s not even out yet. Before we wrap up this highlights package, let’s all watch more Dragon Ball FighterZ.
If there are any kick-ass highlights we missed above, drop me a line on twitter (below) or tell us in the comments below and I’ll keep up on it next week for sure! I know you love Injustice which is why I was all over it, even if an Aquaman mirror match is a bit of a sour apple. I didn’t include more Evo stuff because at some point I had to call it a day. A very special thank you to Aussie Fighting Game Aficionado Frisco who shared his photos of Tokido’s victory. I’ll keep an eye on the good stuff though, so make sure you come back next week to see more!
Joab Gilroy is an Australian-based freelancer that specialises in competitive online games and esports. He has more Chicken Dinners in PUBattlegrounds than you do. Deal With It. You can tweet at him here.
