Evo 2021 MK11 schedule, brackets and results

We waited for well over a year for it, but the FGC's premiere event is back! Evo 2021 kicked off today and while there have been questions about the handling of the tournament as regards streaming and the online nature of proceedings, you can't help but get excited that Evo is back. 

There are no offline events for Evo with the tournament being split into regions, so instead of the normal overall winner of the tournament, we'll have four regions (Asia, North America, Latin America, and Europe) with a winner from each of these regions. 

Due to Mortal Kombat's unpopularity in Asia, there are only 3 regions for this tournament. 

North America

Perhaps due to the online nature of the tournament or the fact that it hasn't engendered the amount of hype the offline events do, disqualifications have been numerous, and several top players were DQed for one reason or the other. The likes of SonicFox and Rewind were among those who either didn't partake at all or only took part partially. With all of that said, it's North America, so there are several great players regardless. 

With 406 entrants, this was easily the largest congregation of players for MK11. We now have a top 8 filled with these players who did everything and survived the odds. 

• Hijinks
• Jueks-
• Hayatei
• NinjaKilla_212
• Sooneo
• Splash
• BigDaddyG
• OD_Fullauto

There was a minor controversy when Omni-Turk, who made it through the brackets on winners side, was disqualified due to his age, and his place was given to Jueks-. He took to Twitter to vent his frustrations 

Europe

The European leg of the Evo 2021 journey began with 99 hopefuls entered into the competition from Europe. However, there were a few controversies before the tournament began with top players like Tekken Master and MK_Azerbaijan unable to take place. In the case of the latter, it was because his region was not eligible. This was, of course, upsetting as it shows that even with the biggest tournament in the world for fighting games, not every area is covered yet. 

Notwithstanding, there was still an abundance of talent, including the irrepressible Murko and Disarted. Fan-favorite Arnkratos also took part, and all three made it to Top 8 after winning their matches. There were scares for players like Asodimazze and Arnkratos who both ended up in losers, but they were able to fight their way through that bracket to make it to Top 8 and keep their hopes of an Evo win alive.

At the end of hours of vigorous play and insane pressure, these are the top 8 for Mortal Kombat 11 for Europe.

Predictions for Top 8

With Top 8 decided, who could take the whole thing? The favorite seems to be RIZE|Murko, who has been a dominant force in the EU scene over the last several months and his appearance in the Top 8, which came pretty comfortably with some incredible wins, means that he is the clear favorite. Fellow Italian player Asodimazze, who is also in the Top 8, seems to think so. When asked about who he thinks could win the whole thing, Asodimazze said:  

Check out our video interview with Asodimazze

Interestingly, Murko seems to think differently and when I asked about his thoughts on who could take the whole thing, he didn't even mention his own name and instead put Disarted and Arnkratos as his favorites. Incidentally, Murko almost didn't compete today but changed his mind at the last minute to take part. On how he felt about making it to Top 8, he said: 

Check out our interview with Murko here

Another member of the 'Top 8' gang, Arnkratos was a bit less enthused with his win stating that he didn't consider his run into the Top 8 as satisfying considering he only had to play a few games to get there (he played 5 games {4 wins, 1 defeat}).

Latin America

The most popular player by far from Latin America is Konqueror and he did not disappoint as he made his way into the Top 8 of Evo online 2021. Konqueror defeated GBRibeiro4 to make it to Top 8 and he will now have some serious aspirations of taking the whole thing tomorrow. Along with Konqueror, notable players like KillerXinok and Broseph also made it to the final 8 of the competition. 

It all looks set to be an incredible Top 8 tomorrow. To keep up with all the action, check out DashFight on Twitter, and Facebook. I can't wait to see who emerges as the winner in each region. Also, here is a cool graph for stats on Evo's recent past events! How do you think Evo 2021 Online will compare?