Ulsan defeats ATIF 5-0 to win EWC: TEKKEN 8 Grand Finals

Tekken 8 glory has been restored for South Korea this week in Saudia Arabia when KWANGDONG FREECS Lim "Ulsan" Soo-hoon won Esports World Cup: TEKKEN 8 in a 5-0 clean sweep of Atif “Atif” in the grand finals.

Ulsan’s road to victory

In a tournament that saw reigning EVO champion Arslan Ash eliminated without a win, it was his countryman, ATIF, who took Pakistan to the Grand Finals.

In the First Phase of Esports World Cup: TEKKEN 8, ATIF took 1st place in Group B. In the Second Phase’s Group A, he settled for 2nd place to a red-hot Benjamin "Yagami" Torngdee. ATIF gained momentum in the playoffs with wins over KDF’s Jae-hyun "CherryBerryMango" Kim 5-2 in the quarterfinals and ZETA DIVISION’s Shoji "Double" Takakubo 5-1 in the semifinals.

An unstoppable journey for Ulsan

Meanwhile, Ulsan took 1st place in his group in both First Phase and Second Phase and didn’t drop a match until his 5-3 win over Muhammad “Farzeen” in the quarterfinals. After stopping Yagami’s roll 5-1 in the Semifinals, Ulsan was all set to get revenge for his teammate CBM against ATIF in the grand finals, and he did so in spectacular fashion.

With the majority of the crowd in Riyadh on his side, ATIF rode semifinals momentum to a Perfect victory in the first round of match 1, but it was Ulsan who reverse swept with three straight rounds after being down 2-0 to take the lead. Ulsan took match 2 convincingly and then reverse swept ATIF again in match 3, which was more than enough momentum to slam the rest of the series home with a 5-0 sweep.

“I said after Top 4 that my nervousness was over… My dopamine is crazy… I’m still hungry!” Ulsan exclaimed emotionally in a post-game interview with Ryan Hart after his championship win.

Ulsan’s Spoils of Victory

Ulsan has crowned himself the inaugural EWC 2024 Tekken 8 champion, and his rewards are highlighted by his $300,000 chunk of the Esports World Cup: TEKKEN 8 $1,000,000 USD prize pool.

Ulsan also earned KWANGDONG FREECS’ 1,000 Club Championship Points, which puts the organization in a nine-way tie for 8th place in the Club Championship standings with Alliance, Alpha7 Esports, Crazy Raccoon, KPL Dream Team, Luna Galaxy, Omega Esports, Selangor Red Giants, and Team BDS.