Tournament:EVO 2018

Evolution 2018, or simply EVO 2018, was the 17th edition of the Evolution Championship Series, a fighting game tournament held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada. EVO 2018 took place from August 3rd to 5th, 2018, at the. It was announced on February 6th, by EVO's tournament director Joey "" Cuellar, that both Super Smash Bros. Melee and would be featured as official games on the EVO 2018 game lineup. The event saw the return of Melee on the Sunday finals, as Smash 4 was on the main stage in the previous year. EVO 2018 featured a playable demo of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, courtesy of Nintendo, and a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Nintendo Direct was announced for August 8th, 2018 prior to the Super Smash Bros. Melee finals.

Super Smash Bros. Melee singles
(1,353 entrants) Top 48 Bracket Top 8 Bracket

singles
(1,358 entrants) Top 48 Bracket Top 8 Bracket

Super Smash Bros. Melee doubles
(64 teams) Top 8 Bracket
 * Melee doubles was a side event organized by the community and not an "official" part of EVO.

Project M singles
(46 entrants) Bracket
 * Project M was a side event organized by the community and not an "official" part of EVO.

Controversy
The event came under controversy during the grand finals match of the event between  and. Neither player seemed to take the match seriously, as evidenced by their lack of staidness throughout the set and by Lima granting CaptainZack a "homie stock" during game 5 of the first set. Additionally, during game 1 of the second set, both players held Bullet Climax in place for nearly two minutes, which caused tournament organizer to come on stage and issue both players a yellow card. Many top players asserted that this set tarnished the competitive integrity of the event, and most of the audience members attending EVO had left the venue before or during grand finals. CaptainZack apologized after the match for his "disrespectful showing", but stated that he was "truly trying his best" throughout the set. Lima also apologized for giving a "homie stock" to CaptainZack, saying that he did it because he was playing one of his best friends and didn't want the match to end with a self-destruct. Moreover, he explained that it wasn't his intention to "make grand finals look like collusion or childish", but that he simply "play[s] better when [he] play[s] to have fun". Many view the Grand Finals incident, timed with the arrival of Ultimate shortly after, as the death of competitive Smash 4.

Trivia

 * This is the first year where the lineup announcement stream was not co-hosted by Mike Ross. Instead, Tekken Project and EVO staff member Mark "MarkMan" Julio was the co-host.
 * This is the first EVO since 2014 that doesn't feature a total of nine games in the main EVO lineup.
 * Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was confirmed to replace in the event if it was released in time for EVO 2018. However, this did not take effect as it was released four months after EVO 2018.
 * After being a demo at EVO 2018, on February 26th, 2019, Ultimate was revealed to debut in the main lineup at.
 * This is the first time has lost to a player outside the Summer 2018 MPGR top 6 or PPMD since  in 2010 (excluding sandbagging), as  defeated Armada in winners top 24.
 * Armada embarked on an impressive losers run after his loss to Swedish Delight, defeating, , , , , , and before losing to Leffen 0-3 in grand finals.
 * This is the first time where none of the Five Gods won Melee singles at EVO post-EVO 2013, with defeating Armada in grand finals.
 * This is also the first EVO to have no American players in Melee grand finals.
 * This is the first time since where  placed outside of the top 12, where he got 17th place.
 * There was a poll for which game president Minoru Kidooka should enter. Melee ended up taking 1st place in the poll and Kidooka entered said game. He placed 721st out of 1,353 entrants.