Doing what his teammate Marn did, Justin Wong won his first tournament as a member of Evil Geniuses. Wong won the eSports World Cup championship with an undefeated record.

He defeated Marn, 3-1 in the finals. For winning, he'll take home $8,000.

Wong went 6-0 in the tournament and didn't surrender a game until the semifinals, against Dreamhack champ Luffy.

Marn dropped to 13-1 as a member of Evil Geniuses. Taking out his loss to Wong, and Marn hasn't lost to a non-EG member since joining the team two weeks ago.

The fourth match in the Godsgarden Online Tournament series went to Makoto, 10-6 over Uryo earlier today.

The four-game win might seem like it heavily favored Makoto but it wasn't. Thirteen of the 16 games went to a third round. Uryo forced a round 3 seven times, Makoto did it six times.

Makoto won all three games that didn't go a third round, including the last one which got him the win. The previous two ended a losing streak.

Team Spooky did the English commentary and will post the video later today. I'll have stats from the match as soon as I rewatch it.

The next set of matches in the tournament have not been announced.

G4 TV will be at Evolution next week, helping providing more than 40 hours of tournament coverage. In addition to that, their X-Play show on July 20 will be solely dedicated to the happenings of Evolution.

The network plans to provide coverage of all six main games in the tournament series.

UPDATE: I, as well as a few others, believed this meant two streams, because Level|Up was first  announced as providing a broadcast for Evolution. Level|Up and G4 will be teaming up to provide the live broadcast of the tournament.

There's more on the Evolution site:

Beginning at 9:00am PT July 9th, G4TV.com, powered by Stickam, the first live streaming video network, will offer unprecedented access to the EVO 2010 world championships with 45 hours of non-stop live streaming coverage. The exclusive stream will feature tournament matches between top players, with live crowd audio accompanied by expert commentary to explain all the onscreen action.  This streaming event will run from the start of the tournament on July 9th through the finals on July 11th.

“Live streaming really ups the ante for viewer engagement,” said Steven Fruchter, CEO of Stickam. “Since 2006, Stickam has truly paved the way for real-time interactive Web television, and we’re excited to see how G4 fans react when they can truly take part in the EVO world championships.”

New Evil Geniuses member Marn has finished 4-0 to win his group and advance to the bracket round of the eSports World Cup on Friday. Justin Wong also won his group, going 3-0.

The Day 2 results, according to the ESWC:

Justin is now 3-0 since joining the Evil Geniuses one week ago. Marn is 11-0 since joining the team, this his second tournament with the squad.

Lord DVD took his first loss in ESWC play this year. He won the French qualifier undefeated. Two of the three French players in this tournament, taking place in Paris, are still in it.

It's unknown who will face whom in the final eight, which is reportedly single elimination. Three players remain undefeated, five have one loss. The final eight are as follows:

More updates can be found on the ESWC site.

New Evil Geniuses members Justin Wong and Marn recieved top seeds in the eSports World Cup draw for Super Street Fighter IV.

It's unknown who they'll be facing in the tournament, to take place next weekend in Paris. But the pairings will assure that they won't meet until later in the tournament should they get that far. The pools will be four players each, with the top two getting out.

The 16 players were split into four seeding draws: Top, High, Medium, and Challengers. Luffy, who won Dreamhack Summer one week ago in Sweden, was awarded a High seed as well as England's Ryan Hart.

UPDATE: During the Live On Three broadcast, Slasher mentioned the ESWC invited two Japanese players, one being Daigo Umehara, to the 16-player tournament. However, the move was pulled at the last moment, according to Slasher. Prior to the application process to be nominated, Japan was to have one representative by way of Tougeki. But after the nomination process began, that country's spot was taken out.

The full breakdown according to the ESWC:

Top seeds

• Jwonggg
• Marn
• Laugh
• Infiltration

High seeds

• Zak
• Prodigal Son
• Lord DVD
• Luffy
  

Medium

• Yamazaki
• Chasin
• Brun0
• Fox
  

Challeners

• Geom PKK
• Handy
• Blackieex
• Yagami
  

The nation's best Super Street Fighter IV player has joined the Evil Geniuses.

The eSports team announced the signing of Justin Wong on Thursday night, bringing in the multi-time champion in many fighting games.

The Evil Geniuses now have two of the nation's best fighting game players: Martin "Marn" Phan signed onto the team a week ago, and then promptly won three Devastation 2010 events.

On Facebook, Marn showed his appreciation for the signing:

Glad the dynamic duo is back together again!

Several eSports teams and organizations had sought after Wong's talents. In the end, he joins an organization that is home to players that have won several national and world championships, as well as personal honors.

Wong has won countless number of tournaments, one of the latest being Super NorCal Regionals, where he rallied from the losers bracket to defeat Andy OCR in the title match, 6-0. It was the first recorded 6-0 comeback in NorCal and only the fourth on record this year.

Justin's stats are countless and unprecedented; since he moved to the West Coast, he's lost less than 10 matches in West Coast tournament play. Following every loss, he's come back and rolled against the person that defeated him.

Here's more from the Evil Geniuses:

"Justin Wong is one of the most storied names in the history of professional console gaming, and we're so excited to welcome him to our organization," explained Alex Garfield, Executive Director of Evil Geniuses. "Today we welcome a truly exceptional person to EG; someone who immediately becomes one of our franchise players. We expect him to only continue the greatness he's displayed over the last decade of competition."

With over 40 major titles split amongst Street Fighter IV, Street Fighter III, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and Tatsunoko vs Capcom in this decade alone, few have neared the success and fame of Justin Wong. Justin's fame has even spread beyond the fighting community, with appearances in mainstream media from MTV News to the 2009 Spike TV Video Game Awards show.

"I am glad to be a part of Team EG and feel like I have found a new home. I am excited about my future with Team EG and will do my best to be the best fighting pro-gamer in the world!" shared Justin "JWong" Wong.

Picture by Kara Leung.

The folks at EA Sports posted a message that Aug. 10 is still the release date for Madden 11, despite some speculation that the game might be available early in some chain stores.

Earlier in the day, a picture showed Madden 11 possibly being available July 27 at Wal-Mart stores. That's two weeks ahead of the originally scheduled date. As word got out about that picture, more people shared a rumor Blockbuster stores were going to sell the game early.

Dewiel, an EA Sports representative, posted this message Wednesday afternoon:

Just to be clear guys, the NCAA Football 11 release date is still July 13, 2010, and the Madden NFL 11 release date is still August 10, 2010.

Some stores will have it early but not make it known; every game has been through it (I got Brawl 2 weeks ahead of the release date thanks to a store near two toll booths selling it). So if you get it early, more power to you. You're going to have to do some work to get it, though. Otherwise, see you on Aug. 10.

Evolution 2010 should have the biggest names, will have a lot of money on the line, and is scheduled to have hundreds of players competing in the various tournaments. Here's some more juicy goodness to add onto the pie:

The team of Level|Up will be broadcasting the whole weekend. So if you're going to unfortunately miss out on the tournament in-person, they're going to hook you up with the crisp broadcast. You can see what they've done on their YouTube portal.

There's more incentive to make the final eight in the Super Street Fighter IV tournament. All eight finalists will receive MadCatz Tournament Edition golden sticks (pictured). There's only one way to get one of theses, and that's to survive perhaps more than 1,500 competitors and reach Championship Sunday.

Here's more from Shoryuken:

In addition, EVO proudly announces the Mad Catz® Street Fighter IV Arcade FightStick™ Tournament Edition as the official controller for the EVO 2010 World Finals. "Tournament players world-wide have turned to Mad Catz® Tournament Edition controllers for their premium components and impeccable build quality," said Tom Cannon, founder of the EVO Championship Series. In support of EVO’s spirit of top-level competitive play, Mad Catz® will contribute to the Super Street Fighter IV cash prize and produce a super-limited run of exclusive Tournament Edition "golden sticks" to be awarded as prizes to the top eight competitors in the Super Street Fighter IV tournament. The only way to get one of these sticks is to place in the top eight, so practice up! For more information on Mad Catz® products please visit madcatz.com.

Finally, if you didn't get to play Marvel vs Capcom 3 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or if you want to play some more, the game will be available for play at Evolution 2010 during the weekend. The game's producer, Ryota Niituma, will be at the event as well; make sure to share your opinions with him.

Gama no Abura, who runs the Godsgarden tournament broadcasts, has come up with a unique concept to get viewers interested in the matches (as if they're not already interesting, they have Daigo Umehara in their latest tournament!).

Gama will allow commentators in other nations to provide the broadcast of their tournament series in another language. Think World Cup; the same video, but different languages providing the verbal accounts on different channels.

This concept starts tomorrow, as Team Spooky will provide the English commentary for the opening-round contest, Sako vs Tokido. The broadcasts starts sometime after 5 a.m. PT on their Ustream portal.

The matchup is a 19-game series (first to 10). Those that still want to see the original broadcast can view it on the Godsgarden Ustream portal.

If you live in another country and want to get involved, head to Gama's Facebook page and send him a message.

The Super Battle Opera qualifiers for Tekken 6 and Street Fighter IV will take place in San Mateo this year.

The tournaments will take place Aug. 8 at the Play N Trade, 206 South B Street. It will be the arcade version of both games, which is why this is regular Street Fighter IV, not Super.

Registration is $20 per person. It will be a 3-on-3 double-elimination tournament. Players can form handicapped teams if the situation arises.

The winning teams for both games earn the right to represent the United States at Super Battle Opera later this year. The runner-up teams will be the alternates.

One of the tournament organizers is asking spectators to donate toward the cost of travel expenses for the winning teams.

The goal is to furnish each team with around $1500 ($500 per person) to help them pay for the ~$1000 ticket they will need to fly to Japan. ALL registration proceeds will go toward this. In the event the registration proceeds cannot cover this, it will fall on me to cover the difference. Needless to say, every dollar I put toward this effort will be one dollar less I have to open my arcade with. To that end, I implore everyone to come, and help by contributing. If you come to spectate, please consider donating at least $5. The full afternoon of entertainment you will get from watching the best West Coast players duke it out will be more than worth it. We will be selling concessions and drinks as well. If time permits, we might also have an exhibition of sorts. Perhaps "celeb" money matches where the proceeds go toward the ticket fund. Every little bit we can get will help the teams go to Japan and rep the US. If we collect more than our target, that will go to the teams as well. I personally only stand to lose from this endeavor. :)