As the crowd in the Mandalay Bay Events Center continued to grow for the final day of the Evolution Championship Series, Fursan Esports player Yoon "LowHigh" Sun-woon stood tall and was crowned Tekken 7 champion. His route to the championship was filled with some of the biggest names in the game, but each fell in succession as LowHigh wreaked havoc with his slippery Shaheen.
While LowHigh is no doubt one of the best players in all of Tekken, his name is one that hasn't been at the forefront of that conversation in quite some time. He might have picked up a win at Beast Arena Hong Kong 2018, but his best placing at a major tournament this year was a third-place showing at Combo Breaker 2018 back in May. LowHigh was clearly saving the best for last as he put on a performance for the ages on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas.
LowHigh's top-eight run kicked off against UYU's Son "qudans" Byeong-Mun in an incredibly close 2-1 set that had the crowd hanging off every single jab as the players took almost every round down to the wire. LowHigh remained calm and collected, which allowed him to pick up the win against the reigning Tekken World Tour champion. The victory set him up in the winners' final against the crowd favorite and lone American representative, Terrelle "Lil Majin" Jackson.
With the crowd fully behind Lil Majin after he upset the defending Evo champion, Echo Fox's Kim "JDCR" Hyun-Jin, LowHigh not only had to do battle against the wild card in Lil Majin but had to shake off the crowd at their loudest point of the day. Despite the odds, LowHigh seemed completely unfazed as he continued his dominant performance all throughout the set. Even as Lil Majin was bringing everything he could, LowHigh just bided his time every step of the way and landed perfectly timed Rage Arts with relentless precision that led LowHigh into the grand finals.
While LowHigh awaited his grand finals opponent, plenty of action went down in the losers' bracket as the remaining three players fought for their right to face LowHigh. First up was the defending Evo champion, JDCR, and reigning Tekken World Tour champion, qudans, in yet another nail-biter. Despite the individual rounds being close, though, it was clear that qudans had all the momentum on his side as he edged out JDCR and moved on to face Lil Majin in the losers' final. Even with the crowd still wholly in his corner, Lil Majin couldn't muster enough to win a single game against the red-hot qudans, who swept his way to the grand finals for another shot at LowHigh.
Qudans clearly had momentum on his side thanks to his lower-bracket run as he tore through LowHigh in a 3-1 set to reset the bracket. Anything that LowHigh tried just didn't seem to be working against UYU's finest. Even the clutch Rage Arts that got LowHigh through the winners' bracket were failing to connect.
That is, until the reset.
It seemed that those four games were all that LowHigh needed to get his bearings as everything finally fell back into place for him. Much like their previous matchup, qudans was the one on his back foot the entire time, and LowHigh was hitting every move as he raced to match point. In that final round, qudans managed to get LowHigh down to about half health before finally falling as LowHigh landed the final blow and earned his first Evo championship.