Super Smash Bros. Ultimate had the most entrants at Evo 2019 with 3,492 players signing up to compete in Nintendo’s newest fighting game. And so far, it seems like Evo 2020 is following a similar trend based on how the early entrant rates look.
Evo president Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar never unveils the exact numbers for each tournament during the initial registration leaderboard reveal, but the order is basically the exact same compared to last year with only a few changes.
Newer games usually do well in the opening months since people want to get in on the newest titles coming to the event. But with only one addition to the roster and the ninth game being an exclusive tournament, it appears most games have stabilized. Here’s a comparison between the last two years of Evo’s February leaderboard reveals.
| Evo 2019 + End Total | Evo 2020 |
| Super Smash Bros Ultimate (3,492) | Super Smash Bros Ultimate |
| Tekken 7 (1,885) | Tekken 7 |
| Street Fighter V (1,929) | Street Fighter V: Champion Edition |
| Soul Calibur VI (742) | Granblue Fantasy: Versus |
| Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r] (1,156) | Soul Calibur VI |
| Mortal Kombat 11 (1,519) | DragonBall Fighter Z |
| Samurai Shodown (1,719) | Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r] |
| DragonBall Fighter Z (1,191) | Samurai Shodown |
| BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle (640) | N/A |
While Smash Ultimate is still the No. 1 game (likely by a longshot), Tekken and Street Fighter are also still taking up the second and third spots, respectively. So far, it appears that the new version of SFV isn’t driving the entry number up. But that could change after it finally releases on Feb. 14.
It’s no surprise that Granblue is that high up on the list either considering that it’s the only completely new title that was added to the roster this year. Having just released in Asia and with a month before it actually comes out in the West, that number will probably stay pretty close to the middle throughout the entry period.
SCVI is performing well again, but it’ll likely tail off as we draw closer to the actual event just like last year because all of the established players and people who knew they were going to compete in the game have already signed up.
DBFZ actually jumped up a few spots from last year, which is probably due to the recent World Tour Finals that just wrapped up and all of the crazy announcements for season three. This could be a big year for the established franchise, with it potentially holding down the main event spot on day two of the tournament.
Both UNIST and SamSho dropped in the overall rankings, but that was to be expected since this is the second year those titles will be at the event, which means the initial spike in entrants is going to level off.
Evo 2020 will take place from July 31 to Aug. 2 in Las Vegas. Full numbers and side tournament information are set to start releasing in the coming months.
