The Evolution Championship Series has evolved over the years, fitting given their name. Now considered to be the tournament to attend, EVO has quickly become the place where names and players are made, and in some cases, broken. While covering the matches, we caught up with PR Balrog from CyGames Beast to get his thoughts on how the event has changed over the years, and how it compares to other fighting game tournaments.

Where do you think EVO is going in its future as a major event?

“EVO is a lot different than it was before. It’s kind of like a convention now. It’s weird to me. I wasn’t of the original attenders, but I come from an era where EVO was just a tournament. There were no booths or anything. It’s funny to see it growing like that.

I think it’s okay that you can have a convention inside of a tournament, but it also takes away the hype. A lot of people just want to hang out in the booths and not watch the tournament.“

You’ve been to ELeague and how does that compare to EVO?

“I love invitationals, I wish there were more invitationals. It’s fun to play against all the players that are here, and I feel like this is a big part of the community, but I also feel like this event does not promote the top players either.“

What do you think EVO could do to be more like those invitationals? 

“I think EVO is done changing. It has established itself already as THE open tournament. I think EVO is fine right now.”

For more on what PR Balrog had to say at EVO 2018, check out our discussion with him about the future of Street Fighter 5, here.