Alright, I’ve watched the Tekken 8 EWC tourney so far, and here is my prediction for the Top 8

The excitement never ends for the FGC at the Esports World Cup, with Tekken 8 currently in full swing. Even in just the first two group stages, the competition has already shown that it’s going to be fierce and that nobody is handing out free wins.

With that said, wouldn’t it be fun to predict the top 8 of a very volatile tournament? I sure think so. I even prepared a spreadsheet so I can look at the players’ total win rates and set counts against each other!

So what are we waiting for? Let’s dive into my predictions for this year’s Tekken 8 at the Esports World Cup!

I think it’s a no-brainer that the two-time EWC champion, Ulsan, is going to be in the top 8 of this competition. Sure, I know that the previous champions of both Street Fighter 6 and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves were eliminated in the group stages of their tournaments, but Ulsan survived his, despite suffering a huge loss against Khawaja “M. Zubair” Muhammad Zubair, the winner of the Tekken 8 Last Chance Qualifier.

While he barely qualified for the second phase of the event, he has a pretty good chance of getting to the top 8 on paper. See, his worst matchup in the group is Daichi “Nobi” Nakayama and Qasim Meer, with the two of them taking a set lead over him. The rest of the group, he has an even or a positive win rate.

Not to mention, Ulsan seems to have woken up after his group stage loss against M. Zubair, and has finished all his games with a 3-0 even against the Tekken legend Bae “Knee” Jae-Min. With that said, the curse of the three-peat still hangs around, but I believe Ulsan has what it takes to break it.

Next in line, it’s Jeondding. The Esports World Cup seems to be his tournament for some reason, as he always performs very well in the format. In the first Esports World Cup, despite finishing 9th, he eliminated arguably the best Tekken player in the world, Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique. In the Esports World Cup 2025, he finished 4th, only losing against Kim “CherryBerryMango” Jae-hyun’s Jin.

However, in his current group, he’s faced with a huge challenge to overcome. His first match is against Nobi, a player who has a one-set advantage over him. There’s also a chance that he might face Ulsan, quite probably his worst player matchup in the whole tournament, with a 2-8 set count in favor of Ulsan. In 2026, though, they both tied 1-1.

Jeongding has shown that he is consistent enough to always place in huge tournaments such as the Esports World Cup, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him again in the top 8.

This one’s a curveball, but I just cannot ignore M. Zubair’s breakout performance – not just in the Last Chance Qualifiers, but also in the main event. M. Zubair doesn’t travel much, which means that his data in the spreadsheet is kind of skewed. However, when it comes to his Pakistani brethren, he has a pretty good win rate against most of them. His worst matchup is going to be against Adeel “THE JON” Sheikh, who has a two-set advantage over him.

His performance in the main event, however, is just spectacular. Despite falling against Takaba
“Keisuke” Keisuke 3-0, he bounced back and 3-0’d Akihiro “Ao” Abe, eliminating the latter from the tournament. M. Zubair’s excellence was also noticed by Ulsan, saying that he’s going to be a problem in Tekken because of how strong he is.

M. Zubair is still an anomaly with not a lot of data regarding his international performances, but if this EWC is something to go by, he’s going to be another threat.

It’s true that some of Arslan Ash’s weakest performances have been from the Esports World Cup. He placed 25th at the Esports World Cup 2024 and 13th at the Esports World Cup 2025. However, this time, it might be different.

In his group alone, he has a positive win rate against everyone except The Jon, who has a one-set lead against him. I expect him to be dominant for the rest of the tournament, and you know he’s feeling confident when he’s memeing right after qualifying for phase 2.

Against all competitors in the event, he has a total win rate of 62%, making him one of two players with an over 60% win rate against other players in the tournament. The other one is Ulsan.

Farzeen has been a staple at Esports World Cup, qualifying for the 2024 and 2025 instances of the event, with a top-8 finish at the former. His 2025 expedition landed him at 17th, not even entering the second phase, but he has a great chance to win this time if he keeps his performance up.

In phase 1, he ran through the winner’s bracket, defeating Jarrad “NinjaKilla” Gooden 3-2 and Sayed “Tekken Master” Hashim Ahmed 3-1. He’s also coming in hot to the tournament with a couple of major wins at THE MIXUP 2026 and Combo Breaker 2026.

In the spreadsheet, he has a 58% win rate, showing his chances of getting to the top 8. In his side of the bracket, he also has a positive win rate against the players there, namely: Nobi, Jeondding, and Park “Mangja” Geon-ho.

Talking about the whole group, it’s the same thing. A very positive win rate against each person, so unless he’s having a very bad day, he should have a ticket to the top 8.

Our resident King player – and quite probably one of the most hype players in the world. The Jon has what it takes to get into the Top 8 without a doubt. He sports a win percentage of around 45% against all the opponents in the competition. However, in his group alone? He owns it. 

His first match is against M. Zubair, and he has a 3-1 set count against him. He also has a winning set count against Arslan Ash, which is a very good thing. The Jon also qualified from the winner’s side of the first phase of the event, showing just how solid he is in this tournament.

With that said, he still has a losing record in his group against Usama Abbasi, a player he has a 4-8 set count against. He’s going to be his biggest challenge if they ever meet in the bracket. But in my opinion? The Jon can take this from the winner’s side if he can keep up his consistency.

Now we get to the fun part. Keisuke has one of the worst win rates in the spreadsheet I made, but I’m willing to bet a whole $5 that he’s going to get Top 8 in this tournament. Why? Just take a look at his phase 1 performance: 3-2 over Knee and 3-0 over the star of the tournament, M.Zubair.

Over on Twitter, he admitted that there was a time when his confidence faltered, but after remembering Arslan Ash’s advice to trust in himself, he bounced back. He even made a tweet about that interaction.

So now, down to the data part, it’s looking great for Keisuke. The only reason his win percentage dropped to mid-30 % was due to his 0-5 set count against JeonDDing and 1-4 set count against Arslan Ash, and it’s only the latter who’s in his group.

One of the problems I see is his character, Kazuya. Just like other Mishima characters, Kazuya is only as effective if you have your reads and confidence to go for risky 50-50s. This is the reason why “believe in yourself” is such great advice from Arslan for Keisuke because if you don’t believe in yourself while using Kazuya, there’s a good chance you might get eliminated from the tournament. Kim “iKARi” Min-kyu was a victim of this with his exit in the first phase of the event.

Personally, Keisuke is one of my favorites in this tournament and seeing him perform like this puts a smile on my face.

To complete the Top 8 prediction, it’s going to be the Japanese GOAT, Nobi. It was hard to choose between Nobi and Qasim Meer, because the two of them both have a 50% win percentage, but I’m going with my gut here by saying I think Nobi takes the cake between the two of them.

He was much more dominant in phase one, only losing a total of two games against Alexandre “AK” Laverez and Nauman “Numan Ch” Chaudhry, while Qasim Meer lost 3. I know this is nitpicky, but that’s the reason why I made the spreadsheet. I want to be backed by data as much as possible.

Looking at his group, he’s with Qasim Meer. However, he only has a losing set count against Farzeen, while Qasim Meer has a losing set count against Farzeen and Jeondding. This makes it more likely for Nobi to qualify for the top 8. However, it really is still out there whether he can perform to the best of his abilities.

And that’s pretty much it! Here are my predictions for the Top 8, backed by a scuffed spreadsheet I made in the middle of the night!