Tekken 8 launched at the start of this year to much fanfare, and it immediately broke the record for most entrants for the series at Evo by a wide margin.
With an unbelievable 4,651 players signed up for this one massive bracket, we’ve gone through and gathered the character usage stats for Tekken 8 at Evo 2024 this weekend.
Starting out with the top 32, we saw 17 out of 33 characters picked as main fighters with one in particular standing out more than the rest.
Dragunov was used by one fourth of the finalists, and 4 of them even managed to crack the top 8.
The other top 8 characters include Kazuya, Nina, and Jin with the latter character also being a repeat pick.
Some of the other top tier contenders like Feng and Shaheen didn’t have as impressive of performances as we’ve seen over the past months on the regular.
• Dragunov – 7
• JACK-8 – 4
• Hwoarang – 3
• Bryan – 2 (1)
• Nina – 2 (1)
• Jin – 2
• Raven – 2
• Shaheen – 1 (2)
• Reina – 1 (1)
• Azucena – 1
• Eddy – 1
• Feng – 1
• Kazuya – 1
• King – 1
• Kuma – 1
• Victor – 1
• Yoshimitsu – 1
• Paul – 0 (1)
• Steve – 0 (1)
• Alisa – 0
• Asuka – 0
• Claudio – 0
• Devil Jin – 0
• Jun – 0
• Lars – 0
• Law – 0
• Lee – 0
• Leo – 0
• Leroy – 0
• Lili – 0
• Panda – 0
• Xiaoyu – 0
• Zafina – 0
The biggest winner when zooming out to the top 96 is actually Reina, who went from 1 to 8 main competitors and was enough to match Dragunov (and was technically even more since a few more used her as a pocket option).
Feng, Kazuya, Victor, Claudio, Law and Xiaoyu all saw very notable boosts too compared to the top 32.
We ended up seeing 32 of the 33 playable characters in top 96 with the only exception still being left out was Paul, but he still had a side pick at least too.
It’s also interesting to see some early season characters who saw success have little representation here like Jun, Devil Jin and Azucena after the first rounds of balance updates.
• Reina – 8 (3)
• Dragunov – 8
• Victor – 6
• Feng – 5 (1)
• JACK-8 – 5
• Hwoarang – 5
• Law – 5
• Bryan – 4 (1)
• Kazuya – 4
• King – 4
• Kuma – 4
• Claudio – 4
• Xiaoyu – 4
• Lars – 3
• Shaheen – 2 (2)
• Nina – 2 (1)
• Jin – 2
• Raven – 2
• Eddy – 2
• Yoshimitsu – 2
• Lee – 2
• Leo – 2
• Lili – 2
• Steve – 1 (1)
• Alisa – 1 (1)
• Zafina – 1 (1)
• Azucena – 1
• Asuka – 1
• Devil Jin – 1
• Jun – 1
• Leroy – 1
• Panda – 1
• Paul – 0 (1)
If we pull out the results even further to the top 256, Dragunov easily reclaimed his crown at the top of the list with a whopping 19 players using him as their main.
Reina didn’t actually have many more, so the other notable characters rising through the stats here are Victor, Bryan, Hwoarang, Jin, King, Feng and Steve.
This also led to every single fighter seeing play, however, Zafina, Leroy and Panda still made up the bottom with only 2 users apiece.
With the ridiculous amount of competitors signed up this year, the top 256 here represents the best 5.5% of competitors, which is pretty crazy.
• Dragunov – 19
• Bryan – 13 (1)
• Victor – 13
• Hwoarang – 12
• Jin – 11
• Reina – 10 (3)
• Feng – 10 (1)
• Steve – 10 (1)
• King – 10
• JACK-8 – 9
• Law – 9
• Yoshimitsu – 9
• Kuma – 7
• Xiaoyu – 7
• Leo – 7
• Devil Jin – 7
• Shaheen – 6 (2)
• Lars – 6 (1)
• Lee – 6 (1)
• Claudio – 6
• Jun – 6
• Nina – 5 (1)
• Kazuya – 5
• Eddy – 5
• Lili – 5
• Azucena – 5
• Alisa – 4 (1)
• Paul – 4 (1)
• Raven – 4
• Asuka – 3
• Zafina – 2 (1)
• Leroy – 2
• Panda – 2
• Unknown – 17
Note: Numbers in parenthesis represent secondary / side character choices.