Much like the grasshoppers that invaded Las Vegas, gamers are descending on the city for the 2019 Evolution Championship Series (or, Evo) in the coming weekend. Held in Las Vegas since 2005, Evo is one of the largest esports events, hosting large tournaments for various (mainly current) fighting games.

The Evo line-up has faced some shake-ups. Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st], Mortal Kombat 11, Soulcalibur VI and Samurai Shodown have been added to the main tournament line-up, placing themselves among the likes of Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, Dragon Ball FighterZ and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 and Injustice 2 take their leave while Super Smash Bros. Ultimate replaces its predecessor, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. However, on the subject of Smash, there’s been some blowback in that along with the Wii U game, Super Smash Bros. Melee was also removed from the line-up. It was easily the oldest game in Evo’s line-up in the past few years, but it’s finally been put aside for some fresh blood.

This is the broadcast schedule for #Evo2019! You can watch all the action on @Twitch and the main stage stream on @Twitter! pic.twitter.com/4zZzhDBTz9

— EVO (@EVO) July 29, 2019

With that said, Melee still has presence in Evo’s side tournaments. The side tournaments are dedicated to some smaller fighting games, some of the stuff that was unable to get on stage. The side tournaments also host the small yet enthusiastic competitive scenes for a few non-fighting games, like Catherine (with this year introducing the new Full Body version) and Windjammers.

Evo has also previously acted as a venue for some game announcements, but in the case of Street Fighter V, those announcements came a bit early. In the run up to the tournament, Capcom characters E. Honda, Poison and Lucia were announced as DLC, shortly after a leak spoiled things a bit early.

Evo 2019 will properly start today, Friday, August 2nd, mainly focused on the pools where players compete to see who goes on to later rounds. The event will end on Sunday, August 4th, which will focus on the finals for Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle, Street Fighter V, Tekken 7 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

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