After a long string of second-place finishes, a Filipino Tekken prodigy has finally won a major international tournament. Alexandre "AK" Lavarez, playing for PlayBook Esports, won the Tekken 8 tournament at Combo Breaker 2024 in Chicago, IL.
Considered a local Tekken prodigy, AK has been playing the game since around the age of 6. He made his competitive tournament debut in 2009, in ְa Tekken 6 event. But it was in 2013, at age 13, that he caught the attention of the larger fighting game community when he took 3rd place at the 2013 King of Iron Fist Global Championships playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2, defeating many notable Tekken players along the way. (Read: How to optimize Tekken 8's online multiplayer with one setting)
Since then, AK has entered a number of major international tournaments, placing highly in many of them. However, a first win evaded him, that is, until now.
AK won the Tekken 8 tournament at Combo Breaker 2024 by defeating Pakistani fighting game player Arslan "Arslan Ash" Siddique, playing for Twisted Minds and Red Bull eSports, in a close grand finals set. Arslan Ash was playing out of the losers' bracket, having been sent down earlier in pools. This meant that the Pakistani, an Evo and Tekken World Tour champion, would need to beat AK twice and reset the bracket to win Combo Breaker 2024.
A reset seemed almost inevitable, with Arslan Ash able to take the first set to the final round of the final game. However, some amazing plays from AK, using his now familiar character of Shaheen, allowed him to close out the set, avoiding the bracket reset and finally giving him that elusive international tournament win as Combo Breaker 2024's Tekken 8 champion.
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