Only 16 players remain after the EWC Tekken 8 Group Stage Day 2! The matches in the Amazon Esports Arena today were just as exciting and compelling as Day 1 of the Esports World Cup Tekken 8 tournament.
The South Koreans had a field day today, the second day of the GSL-style group stage, advancing ahead of the European and American competition. These are the highlights across Day 2 of the Group Stage:
EWC Tekken 8 Group Stage Day 2
Group E
Winners: Lim “Ulsan” Soo-hoon, Jeong “Rangchu” Hyeon-ho
The exact two players expected to get out of this group did just tha. The reigning Esports World Cup Tekken 8 champion Ulsan showed the kind of form to make it a repeat win.
On the other side, Kuma and Panda specialist Rangchu displayed the poise and determination of a Tekken World Tour champion, keeping his cool despite falling to the decider match incidentally at the hands of Ulsan.
Ulsan looked completely unfazed in both matches today, the first against Kim “JDCR” Hyun-jin. Proving that he is the better Dragunov player. Ulsan narrowly closed the mirror match out in the third game, which went to the final final round.
He stuck with Dragunov in the winner’s match against Rangchu. It paid off. Ulsan is looking fantastic right now, and if he can keep this going, he might actually win back-to-back titles.
As for Rangchu, he was obviously unafraid of Benjamin “Yagami” Torngdee today. Particularly, his Lee which he beat cleanly in two matches. He crushed Yagami in the first round, but had to work to keep himself alive in this tournament in the decider match. The Panda pick (as opposed to Kuma; they are different characters in this game) helped him throw Yagami for an extra loop, as Rangchu brought it back after going down 0-1 in the series.
Group F – EWC Tekken 8 Group Stage Day 2
Winners: Son “qudans” Byeong-mun, PINYA
Busting out the solid, fundamental play that he’s been known for over 20 years now, qudans actually made it out of Group F in first place! He didn’t play Devil Jin, but that just isn’t cutting it in Tekken 8. He looked amazing against Kang “Chanel” Seong-ho, taking full advantage of Chanel’s seemingly tentative decision-making in order to sweep the series.
QUDANSSSS THROUGH TO PHASE 2!!!! 🤩💪🏼
What a fight that was!!! GGWP! @pinya219 🤝🏼#EWC #EWC2025 #EWCNews #Z10EWC #QUDANS pic.twitter.com/yOrVov1lGI
— Z10 Esports (@Z10esports) August 14, 2025
He nearly lost in the winner’s match against PINYA’s Raven, going down in the very close first game and putting his own back against the wall. Drawing on his decades of experience, qudans made the necessary adjustments and sharpened his counter hit timing. Saving himself the trouble of having to play in the lower bracket. Making it to the second phase in EWC Tekken 8 Group Stage Day 2.
PINYA would rally in the decider match against Keisuke “Keisuke” Takaba. After Keisuke put Chanel away in the elimination match (Chanel didn’t manage to win a single set, by the way), I was hoping that he would triumph over PINYA so that two Mishima players would qualify for the next phase.
Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be, as PINYA proved to be the much better player once more. He beat Keisuke in the first round, and he beat him even harder in the decider match. Even when Keisuke tried to tie the series in the second game.
Group G
Winners: Yoon “LowHigh” Sun-woong, Kim “CBM” Jae-hyun
Group G produced more success for the South Korean delegation in the EWC Tekken 8 Group Stage Day 2 rounds.
First with LowHigh who has consistently been one of the best Tekken players for several years now. He started off by demolishing Jonathan “Tibetano” Medina in the first round, using nothing but good Tekken fundamentals to take the set 2-0.
On the other side, his compatriot CBM picked Clive over his main character Jin for the matchup against Rey Matthew “KingReyJr” Escanio’s Asuka, which worked to absolute perfection. KingReyJr was visibly caught off guard by the switch, as he proceeded to lose the match in just two games while CBM enjoyed playing a character somewhat similar to his Tekken 7 main Noctis.
This meant that LowHigh and CBM met in the winner’s match, which was actually very closely contested between the two. CBM went back to Jin for this one, and put up a really good fight, but LowHigh navigated his parry attempts with Bryan to advance to the next phase ahead of CBM. KingReyJr and Tibetano then faced off in an Asuka mirror match to determine the first player eliminated from the group, which turned out to be the former as Tibetano was clearly the better Asuka player.
Unfortunately for Tibetano, he couldn’t funnel the victory over KingReyJr in the runback with CBM. He played much better against the Clive pick in the decider match, but ultimately lost to the same thing that allowed CBM to win in their first match: that being crisp movement and whiff punishment.
Group H
Winners: Han “Mulgold” Jae-gyun, Yuta “Chikurin” Take
What a guy Mulgold is. I expected him to get out of this group first, but the way he did it had my heart in my throat the whole time. Starting off on a high note by manhandling both of Chikurin’s characters (Clive then Lili) in the first round, Mulgold put himself in prime position to advance to the next phase right away. He ran into a fiercely determined Nauman “Numan Ch” Chaury in the winner’s match, and almost lost the series to him — with the third and final game being the most cardiac affair I’ve seen at the tournament yet.
Numan Ch actually had him on the ropes as Steve in the fourth round of the final game, but threw the life lead away with a reckless launch punishable low that Mulgold was quick to punish. This sent the game to a deciding final round, where once again Numan Ch had every chance to put Mulgold away — but a last second scramble situation went awry for him which let Mulgold launch him for the win.
Clearly distraught about how he let victory slip away not once, but twice, Numan Ch would proceed to flounder against Chikurin’s Lili in the decider match. Chikurin, on the other hand, used the momentum from his defeat of Hafiz Tanveer in the elimination match to dash Numan Ch’s hopes, primarily relying on Lili’s top tier lateral movement to get around his opponent’s offense.
Now that the remaining 16 players have been determined, it’s time for the Tekken 8 tournament at the Esports World Cup to move on to the second phase. The next phase will feature the exact same format as the first one, but with only four groups this time instead of eight. The first match will feature Chikurin going up against Lee “EDGE” Ju-hyung, starting at 10am ET/7am PT.
