Evo 2026 Day 2: Every Result and Announcement from June 27

Day 2 of Evo 2026 ran through the Las Vegas Convention Center on Saturday, June 27, and by the time the arena cleared, three games had finished and three champions were confirmed. This was the day for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Guilty Gear Strive, and Rivals of Aether II. All three ran their Top 8 brackets in the main Arena in reverse registration order, starting at 10 AM PT and closing out late in the evening.

Beyond the brackets, Saturday also carried over the remaining showcase-stage finals for BlazBlue: Central Fiction and Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage, which ran alongside the arena action on separate streams. There were also game announcements scattered through the day, including a Guilty Gear Strive update date, a Robo-Ky trailer drop, and a new character reveal for BlazBlue that nobody saw coming. A lot happened. Here is all of it.

The Setup: What Day 2 Was Built Around

Evo 2026 brought 12 games to Las Vegas this year, and the six with the highest registration numbers earned their spot in the main Arena. Those six were split across Saturday and Sunday: three on each day. Saturday got Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Guilty Gear Strive, and Rivals of Aether II. Sunday gets 2XKO, Tekken 8, and Street Fighter 6.

The Arena schedule ran in reverse registration order, so GBVSR opened the day at 10 AM PT, Strive followed at 2 PM PT, and Rivals of Aether II capped it off at 6 PM PT. The other games on Day 2 ran on the Showcase Stage throughout the day on separate broadcast slots. Prize pools on Saturday were $40,000 for both GBVSR and Strive.

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising: Koujicoco Does It Again

The first Arena Finals of the day produced a repeat champion. Koujicoco won Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising at Evo 2026, making it back-to-back titles at the event. The result was confirmed by Evo's official Twitter account on the afternoon of June 27.

Koujicoco entered the bracket as one of the names to watch. GBVSR has a tight competitive circuit in 2026, tied into the Cygames Cup 2027 qualification structure, which means winning here earns a direct invite to that championship. It is not a small prize on the line. The winner took home a slice of the $40,000 pool and that Cygames Cup spot.

The GBVSR Top 8 bracket heading into Saturday was as follows:

• Winners Side: GS|Shio vs. WIP|ZanDori, PAR|Koujicoco vs. Kanme|Monarch (Metera)
• Losers Side: TF|Insurgent and others fighting through from below

Koujicoco's run through Top 8 was clean. The back-to-back result puts him in a strong position on the GBVSR circuit heading into the rest of 2026. Whether he can keep it up at the next major will be the question to ask.

Guilty Gear Strive: RedDitto Wins the Whole Thing

This one went exactly the way a lot of people expected, which does not make it less impressive. RedDitto won Guilty Gear Strive at Evo 2026, finishing first in the bracket that ran at 2 PM PT in the Arena. He came in as a known quantity: first place at both Slashback 2026 and CHAIN SHIFT 2026 heading into this weekend.

RedDitto played Ramlethal throughout the event. His grand finals opponent was BMS|Verix on Nagoriyuki, and RedDitto eliminated him 3-1 in the first set to take the title without needing a reset.

This win earns RedDitto 400 points on the Arc World Tour 2026-2027 standings, which also earns him a direct AWT Finals qualification spot. That is the biggest prize in Strive's competitive calendar outside of Evo itself. It was the eighth time Guilty Gear Strive has appeared at Evo Las Vegas, and Strive is still the longest-running current title in the event's main lineup. RedDitto closed it out well.

The full Guilty Gear Strive Top 8 results:

Key bracket results on the way to grand finals: Verix eliminated NitroNY in losers finals 3-0, and eliminated Cheryo in losers semis 3-0 before that. The losers bracket run for Verix was strong, but RedDitto did not drop the title.

Guilty Gear Strive Announcements: Robo-Ky Incoming

Arc System Works used the Strive bracket day to push out news on the game's next update. The Guilty Gear Strive July 2 update brings the second Blazing Pass, which includes a cosmetic sword skin for Ky and an outfit for Queen Dizzy. That is the confirmed content for the near-term update.

The bigger news is what comes after. Arc System Works confirmed that Robo-Ky is the next DLC character for Guilty Gear Strive, and per the official announcement, he is ready. The trailer for Robo-Ky was set to be shown at Evo. That character's arrival timing lines up with the post-Evo window. If you have been waiting on Robo-Ky specifically, the wait is almost done.

BlazBlue: Central Fiction Gets a New Playable Character

This was the announcement nobody predicted coming into the weekend. BlazBlue: Central Fiction is getting a new playable character. Arc System Works confirmed this during Evo 2026, and it qualifies as one of the bigger surprises of the event. BlazBlue: Central Fiction originally released in 2015 and has been running as a competitive title without new content for years. A new character being announced in 2026 is not something most people had on their radar.

Details on the character itself were not fully public at time of writing. The announcement confirmed a new addition is coming and that Evo 2026 was the platform for the reveal. BlazBlue: Central Fiction ran its own Top 8 on the Showcase Stage on Saturday, separate from the Arena, with a $25,000 prize pool on the line.

Rivals of Aether II: Plup Wins the Biggest Platform Fighter Tournament Since Smash

The last Arena Finals of the night was the one a lot of people stayed up for. Rivals of Aether II had 1,022 players registered at Evo 2026, the fourth largest turnout at the event overall and more than double the game's entry count from last year. That number was enough to push it past Guilty Gear Strive in registration and earn its spot in the main Arena, closing out Saturday night at 6 PM PT.

Eggdog|Plup won. He played Orcane and La Reina through the bracket, and in grand finals beat CakeAssault 3-2 in the first set to take the title without a reset needed. It was a close one. CakeAssault ran Forsburn and Fleet, and pushed Plup to five games before going down.

The path to grand finals included a strong winners-side run for Plup. He beat CakeAssault 3-2 in winners semis, beat Boiko|Stango 3-1 in winners finals, and then waited for the losers bracket to resolve. CakeAssault climbed back through from losers after losing to Plup on winners side, eliminating Bbatts 3-2 in losers semis and then Stango 3-2 in losers finals. The grand finals set went the full distance at 3-2 again, and Plup held on.

The full Rivals of Aether II Top 8:

To put the scale in context: this was the largest offline Rivals of Aether II event since the game launched in October 2024, and the biggest platform fighter event at Evo since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate appeared at Evo 2019. CakeAssault had been ranked the top player in NA R2CS standings going in and won Battle of BC 6 in the lead-up to the event. Plup beat him twice in one night. Also notable: Mango placed 9th, pulling in eyeballs from beyond the Rivals community.

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage: Showcase Finals

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage also ran its finals on Saturday on the Showcase Stage, kicking off at 10 AM PT as the first broadcast of the day outside the Arena. The game had over 100 registered competitors at Evo 2026 and offered a $20,000 prize pool, along with a direct qualification spot to the Virtua Fighter Open Championship 2026 Special Event for the winner.

Top 8 heading into the finals featured SF|GentlemanThief (Akira) and SF|Crazydrunk (Shun) on the winners side, with VFNumbers (Lei-Fei) and Tricky (Eileen) in contention as well. Players from across the lower bracket included KNR (Akira), GenesisFrenzy (Aoi), RONIN|Limy (Lei-Fei / Sarah), and GKJ|Gakusei Sarah (Jacky / Sarah).

Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8: Top 24 Brackets on Saturday

Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 did not run their full Top 8 on Saturday. Those are Sunday games. But both worked through their Top 24 phases on June 27, setting the field for the Arena Finals on Day 3.

For Street Fighter 6, notable names still in contention heading out of Saturday included Riddle|Shigematsu (Blanka), WBG|MenaRD (Blanka / M. Bison), Tantanmen (Jamie), AG|Kilzyou (Mai), Falcons|Craime (Ryu), and EVG|CrossoverRD (Sagat). MenaRD is the defending SF6 champion at Evo and came in as one of the most watched players of the weekend.

For Tekken 8, Saturday narrowed the field to a Top 8 heading into Sunday. Vicious|Qasim Meer (Zafina) and Varrel|Rangchu (Fahkumram) were in the winners bracket alongside TM|Arslan Ash (Kunimitsu / Nina) and DRX|LowHigh (Bryan). Losers bracket had NIP|Meo-IL (JACK-8), Yamasa|Nobi, SYN|Ninjakilla212 (Law), and VIT|JeonDDing (Eddy) all still alive. The Tekken 8 $70,000 prize pool, four EWC spots, and a TWT Finals qualification for the winner are all on the line Sunday.

Announcements: What Else Got Confirmed on Saturday

Game news came through on Saturday in addition to the bracket action. Here is the rundown of confirmed announcements from June 27:

• Guilty Gear Strive July 2 update is confirmed, bringing the second Blazing Pass with a Ky sword skin and Queen Dizzy outfit.
• Robo-Ky is the next DLC character for Guilty Gear Strive. Arc System Works confirmed he is ready, with a trailer shown at Evo 2026 during the Strive bracket day.
• BlazBlue: Central Fiction is getting a new playable character. Details on who were not fully revealed at the time of this article, but the announcement itself was confirmed at Evo 2026. For a game that has gone years without a roster addition, this is real news for that community.
• Tekken 8's Bob gameplay trailer was originally scheduled for Sunday June 28, ahead of the Tekken 8 Top 8. That is still Sunday's news, but it was confirmed as part of Evo's broadcast plan going into Day 3.

Context: What This Event Has Going On Around It

Evo 2026 came in with a registration drop from last year, 5,774 total competitors across 12 games compared to 8,541 at Evo 2025. Street Fighter 6 specifically was down 43% in entrant count. Evo's General Manager attributed the decline to the event's date moving from August to June, which compressed the registration window and conflicted with travel plans, plus rising Las Vegas costs. There has also been ongoing community discussion about Qiddiya City's full acquisition of Evo, which was finalized in February 2026 after Saudi Arabia's government-backed entertainment project bought out the RTS stake following Sony's earlier exit.

None of that affected the quality of what was on the screen Saturday. Three games ran, three champions were crowned, and the announcements kept coming. If you are watching from home, Sunday has the big ones: 2XKO at 10 AM PT, Tekken 8 at 2 PM PT, and Street Fighter 6 at 6:30 PM PT to close out the event.