A 23-year-old youngster from Lahore has been crowned the world’s best Tekken 7 player at 2019 Evolution Championship Series (EVO) in Las Vegas.
According to the details, Arslan Siddiqui aka Arslan Ash, who was relatively unknown in the competitive circuit a year ago, has edged out Jae-Min Bae aka Knee in the grand finals of one of, if not the biggest, fighting game tournament series in the world.
He was also awarded a cash prize of around $14,000.
According to VICE, it’s the third time Siddiqui has bested South Korea’s Jae-Min, who many from the gaming community considered a “god” of the game. It’s a monumental win, considering the former was virtually unheard of a year ago.
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The 23-year-old had previously also won the second Evo Japan in February, becoming the first-ever unified EVO champion.
EVO hosted nine official fighting games this year, including Tekken 7, whose competitive scene is centered around a few countries: Japan, the United States (US), and South Korea.
This year’s top eight consists of players from those very same countries: four players from Japan, two players from South Korea and one player from the US, however, Siddiqui is the exception.