Mortal Kombat may have successfully rebuffed doubters with the announcement of a third straight year at the Las Vegas Evo Championship [full story], but the 2013 Road to Evo hasn't come without its share of questions.

Of particular note: a surprisingly brief seeding series of only four tournaments - down from 2012's mammoth series line-up of eighteen!

Among the majors missing from this year's feed events; Winter Brawl, Final Round and East Coast Throwdown! Also missing this year: the points system that made the 2012 series a compelling tour of seeded heavyhitters and marathon travellers!

In an interview with Gamespot; tournament organizer and Evo Co-Founder, Tom Cannon, reiterates that it's this travel factor that is one of the mitigating circumstances of the Evo Series reduction.

A lot of players who wanted to do well at EVO felt that the needed to travel to as many Road to EVO events as they could to boost their ranking as high as possible before July. We don’t think that’s a healthy for the players or the community as a whole.

We will have Road to EVO events in Florida and Toronto. Lots of top players have traditionally attended both of these events, so we’re confident that the northeast will earn their share of seeds. There are a lot of great tournaments in the northeast, and we know the organizers will do fantastic job again this year. It was just a matter of us really wanting to concentrate on four events this year.

Cannon discusses the 2013 Evo Series at length in the interview, including the near-miss of NetherRealm Studios' newest fighting game -- the DC Comics inspired: Injustice: Gods Among Us.

The April release date of Injustice is just two months away from EVO, which is a very short amount of time to draw out a game’s full potential. Injustice is one of the games which made the cut for the donation drive, so if fighting games fans want to see it in official tournament lineup they can work toward raising money for the Breast Cancer Research Fund on its behalf.

Injustice and Playstation All-Stars were both very close to making it.

Love it or hate it, the reasoning is there to be found. Mortal Kombat and Injustice: Gods Among Us are expected to maintain a presence at major tournaments throughout the year, irrespective of the Evo line-up. One such event is May's Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament 9 -- an authorized Evo Series tournament promising Injustice competition [one month after the game's mid-April release].

EGP Tyrant struck first blood in the Road to Evo Series, victorious on his home turf at SoCal Regionals 2013!

Playing Jax throughout the event, the SoCal local enjoyed a confident performance, victorious without a single dropped match. Wound Cowboy surprised to take runner-up honors, benefitting from the double-elimination of pools and finals, to take his Shang Tsung (and Sonya) to the final bout. DJT earned third.

Mortal Kombat Online remains dedicated to following the twists and turns of the Road to Evo! The countdown has already begun to NorCal Regionals 11! Discuss all the Evo Series action and tournament news on the Gameplay & Matchmaking forum! Read the full Tom Cannon interview on Gamespot.