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DRX's Knee is your EVO 2022 Tekken 7 champion
An incredible run at EVO 2022 saw DRX ace Jae-Min 'Knee' Bae pick up his third EVO title. Read on to discover how it all went down.
EVO 2022 has concluded and after a truly impressive run, it was DRX's Jae-Min 'Knee' Bae who emerged as the top player in the Tekken 7 tournament. Having tasted success at EVO in the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 back in 2013 and picked up the win at EVO Japan 2018 in Tekken 7, this was a trophy he had been chasing for some time. And he did it in impressive fashion, dropping just two games in his entire run.
Knee sailed through the pools with ease, going 4-0 in the Round 1 bracket and 2-0 in Round 2. The Feng player continued on through the Winner's Bracket, taking out Joseph 'Joey Fury' Bennett and Japan’s Pinya as he went. He didn't even drop a game in the Winner's Semifinal against fellow South Korean player Meo-IL.
Unstoppable force meets immovable object
Then came Imran 'Khan' Khan who was experiencing a similarly impressive EVO run, having finished his pools 4-0 and 2-0 respectively, and stayed on top throughout the Winner's Bracket – though he did drop a game to Vincent 'Super Akouma' Homan in his Winner's Semifinal.
Knee got off to a strong start, but Khan kept pulling it back, eventually picking up the second game of the match. However, that would be the only one he won, with Knee taking the rest of the games to win 3-1. It wasn't an easy battle by any means, with each game going all the way to the fifth round, but Knee's superior reads allowed him to get strikes in when he needed them the most.
All that stood between Knee and the EVO 2022 Tekken 7 trophy was the Grand Final and a familiar opponent in Khan. Khan had proved victorious against friend and mentor Arslan 'Arslan Ash' Siddique, who had been knocked into the Loser's Bracket early on but refused to go down without a fight, not dropping a single game in the Finals Bracket until he came up against his fellow countryman, Khan. It was a truly remarkable run from Arslan Ash who would take third place at EVO and leave with his head held high.
The final match
Going into the Grand Final, Khan was ready to prove that through the mastery of his chosen character Geese, he had the ability to take out Knee. Khan would take the first game after only dropping one round – a dominant comeback from his Winner's Final performance, and one that put Knee on the backfoot mentally.
But if Knee was starting to falter, his results didn't show it. He dropped the first round of the second game but would prove untouchable from there on in, ending the game in the fourth round with a brutal final punch at the very last second. Knee was back and things were starting to heat up.
Game three also went to Knee with the same result - only one round lost. With one game left to secure his trophy, Knee came flying into the first round of game four, easily taking the win. Khan answered with an impressive flurry of attacks, and despite Knee making an incredible comeback at low health, Khan came away the winner.
It seemed like Khan would do the same in round three, but this time Knee's low health comeback was unstoppable and he bounced back to take the win. Only one more round win separated Knee from the trophy, but a resurgence from Khan delayed victory once more.
The crowd was hyped for a thrilling finale
© Natt Lim/Red Bull Content Pool
As it had done so many times in their Winner's Final bout, the game came down to the final round. Khan came out swinging and Knee punished accordingly, carefully counterattacking and whittling down Khan's health without taking too much damage himself. All he needed to do was run down the clock, but Khan kept on coming, knocking Knee's health down and making victory less assured.
A counterattack from Knee gave Khan access to his Rage attacks, which he decided to use at the very last second with Knee's victory all but assured – and to make this finale even more explosive, Knee dodged the Rage Art and finished the game with a beautiful one-two punch.
With that, Knee finally picked up his first main EVO win on Tekken 7. It was an incredible performance, with some truly nail-biting matches in the Top 8, and one that Knee should be exceptionally proud of. We can't wait to see what he does next – maybe a second mainline EVO title is on the cards?
