Go Hell!

Even if you're from Cardiff <3.

why u say he go hell
post not thet bad, you unpolite

The bracket is out!

The immediate things that I see are the potential round 2 matches : K1llsen vs Cooller, and Vengeur vs Base. Those should create some sparks.

Also I see that Cypher has once again his nemesis Raisy on his road, probably isn't too happy about that ^^

While nobody is weak, I feel Av3k has a pretty good draw, at least until the winner bracket semifinals where there is a high chance that Rapha will be there. Though let's not forget that Nosfa beat Av3k in Stage 1 finals, and Nosfa also had a very impressive showing in Stage 2 so far, so nothing is to be taken for granted.

And of course, all the challenger matches should be quite exciting as the stakes in them are very high. Hell/Garpy will of course be hard to watch for the brits :p

Yep, av3k got a really good seed. Even if he didn't I'd still think he has a chance to make it to the finals, regardless. I'm thinking top 3 will be Raisy, K1llsen, av3k (probably in that order), with Rapha and Vengeur behind. I have a feeling that Rapha is not in peak form recently. Unless his preparation is really good, he will fall to k1llsen in Round 3.

My darkhorses list is Spart1e, Cypher, DaHang, and Base. I think they could make it deep into the bracket if they're playing in top form. Spart1e, in particular, definitely has the ability to make it to the finals if he's playing well.

I feel that Raisy is better than Rapha in terms of pure talent, but Rapha is more dedicated and still more hungry and that's why he mostly gets the better of him apart from somce instances.

In this tournament: a series of 2-1 games decided by coin toss (coin toss winner gets 2 server picks).

You asked for this, complaining how running separate American/European brackets is "stacking it for rapha". So they made all the fucking games intercontinental, what a great idea!

Wait for the replies telling me how Cypher won despite losing cointoss... by silly mad rush at 9:59 of the third map. Hey, I agree! Surprising opponent with absolute chaos is a skill! I don't know what I was thinking, that Quake is chess compared to those other kiddy games?

I mean, if we look at all the EU vs NA games (so not counting games with Nosfa/Maxter/Zenaku, as these are probably all played on the same servers to have about equal ping), there were :

- Nine that ended up being 2 to 0
- Just three that were 2 to 1, and two of those three were nailbiters, it was close on several maps.

So I would say it's not as bad as it could have been. But yeah having to cointoss servers suck, but what can you do... It's either that or there is no international tournament. And it doesn't really make more sense to me to have "only the most important matches of the tournament" having those server switches. It's even weirder I would argue...

what pings did the players have in NA and EU?

I guess it depends on where they are in EU and NA (not the same thing if you're in the UK vs in Russia, and the same if you're on the east or west coast of USA). But apparently, it's actually quite playable, well that's what Rapha says anyway, personally I never go transatlantic in my games.

When does it start today?

#QuakeProLeague Stage 2 Finals
8am ET | 2pm CEST

By the way, if anyone is trying to post a comment and is having an "ip too long" error.
If you're in firefox, you can disable IPv6 (about:config in the adress bar, then type network.dns and you'll find the value "network.dns.disableIPv6" that you can switch to true), then post your comment, and then you can turn the IPv6 back on if you want.

Its actually fun to watch!

Great games so far, two more to go! Cypher is quite in form compared to previous performance, but rapha is a beast as always + vengeurr is strong too.

Rapha vs Cypher finals is on!

LETS GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Great games as always, thanks to players, casters, Bethesda for keeping the league running, spectators, and everybody im forgetting about.

Oh btw they should change the name of the game to Rapha Champions.

hope next final is on lan...

Great games, casters, production and tournament! Thanks to id/bethesda/players and all involved! GGs all and congratz rapha!

Game 2 of the final was fucking insane

rapha just levels above everyone else.

He can call himself "the Milton of QC" now:)

congrats to grand master Rapha!

the set between Cypher and Vengeur was insane.

Really great quake-action last weekend. Nosfa und maxter impressed me really much, hands down! So many clutch games und outstanding performances. But my personal highlight of the whole tournament was molten falls between rapha and vengeurr - what the fuck?! :D

Thanks to all for still making quake a part of all our lives and providing us with great entertainment!

Had a lot of fun watching many of the matches, so many little things can tip the balance in the favor of one player or the other, and it's great fun seeing them come into play and pay off.

Congratulations to all players and people who made this happen, had a blast.

everytime i watch big qc stream it kinda looks like fast quake i like (q3 / ql) but then every time i try it the next day or so i uninstall it the very same day cause it feels dull and slow. did enjoy some of the games tho but mostly cause of competition aspect i guess

Yeah duel is great but everything else is meh, which is a shame, because QL had it all. I don't think it's ever going to change either, they just seem to have accepted its fate.

40lions + zsx casting = 100/10

awesome seeing cypher in a final again. and awesome games. ggwp to all.
zis is rapha (c) cooller

ZSX is really good minus when cypher is playing, his bias is too stronk.

I remember when tournament threads had hundreds of replies, this one has 26 currently :/
What's the main hub for Quake discussions nowadays? Is it the official discord? I see a bit on Reddit, maybe somwhere else?
Several thousands watched the finals, but where are they? Do they only exist in Twitch chat during QPL?

OMG IM SPRAYIN' EVERYWHERE!!!

Who cares were they have gone, zis is quakes n1 place on the internets, period.

Well, till recently not even a major tournament or event got any thread in this site, it's normal that people stopped visiting it. We (most) accepted the situation and moved on from the semi-dead QL to QC even if we like QL overall more. When there is no discussions about it (and respectively as QL is dead no discussion about that game either) for years - it's natural that some will slowly stop visiting ESR.

Before people start with "you create the news", well if I was the site owner I was going to do it so it will not die, yes + it's safe to say that if they did it the visitors was going to be atleast x2 higher or more. Didn't write a single news article before and had 5-6-7-8-10 every day in the past years till QC dropped and overshadowed QL + tons of other forum threads. I totally do like QL overall more, but I also like QC and given it's player base is literally x2 vs QL + the pro players are there + there are frequent and weekly tournaments with great productions/casting/etc and as you all saw the matches are still insanely fun to watch - I am there and playing QC as most are (but they are also not on ESR for the vast part nowdays).

I'm not asking why ESR is dead. I'm wondering where people talk about Quake or more specifically QC nowadays.

Good question - I guess discord, steam community and reddit? But when I think of it, has esr ever been that popular? Of all old players I see/saw in game maybe 1% ever had an esr account at best. More as a quake news site.

I always forget Steam Community.

I think most of the chatter is on Discord. The QC subreddit (r/QuakeChampions) didn't really draw any more posts than ESR for this result but I think it is generally more active. You can also try r/ArenaFPS.

But that means you'd have to browse Reddit.

Reddit is great. I ignored it for many years, started using it two years ago, good decision.

Hey fair enough if you enjoy it that's all that really matters.

My opinion howevr is quite a bit different. Massive safe space where any discerning or differing opinion is almost always immediately downvoted into oblivion where it effectively gets "hidden" so basically removed. That isn't discussing things which is the main purpose of the website.

Also it's an extremely heavily biased website, left-leaning.

Found the snowflake.

Pretty sure wanting freedom of speech where I'm not offended by other's speech is the opposite to being a snowflake.

Hi,

1) the problems with Mozilla Firefox
2) maybe, many are not willing to comment about another Rapha grandfinal win (*sigh*) --> boring
3) maybe, cause it's spring and the most guys have other things to do...

I'm not asking why ESR is dead.

2) Rapha also dominated QL, yet not as much as QC now.

about Raisy

He wasnt in his usual absolute poker face, n1 cold blooded quake pro in history. He was making gestures and things ive never seen him done, and his results were underwhelming.

Really looking forward to the next lan-final!

you can't really take this seriously...

This was one of the best spectating exp of any game imo. The cypher/venguerr match with ZSX/40 was outstanding on youtube 4k stream.. just chillin on the couch, doesn't get much better. However trying to play the game? Its another story

After all these years, Quake is still by far the most entertaining esport to watch. Yeah, the grand final was anti-climatic. But that happens sometimes and you can't help but marvel at Rapha's consistency.

Day 2 and 3 had some of the best and most competitive Quake ever though and I'm just happy there is still a pro AFPS scene to enjoy.

also online with crosscontinental pings mind you.. I'm amazed how it was not a shit show at all.

Yes, people hate on QC netcode, but I find it FAR better vs QL. GL playing cross-continental QL, while QC actually works and works decently with high ping.

Rapha greatest AFPS player ever. Easily.

I think with him being able to practice/play against Euros more in QC, it's a done deal.

At this point its undeniable, hes the GOAT.

One of for sure and the best in the last 10+ years.

BUT

People forget there was a rabbid scene from 2000-20007 across quake 3 and Quake 4 and rapha wasn't good enough to make a dent then, mostly due to age.

Rapha came along when many big name players had been retired for years, got older and had kids, did university etc and some come back rusty and unevolved while rapha kept improving.

you think rapha wasn't trying to be good at quake 3 and quake 4 :)

He's defo the best modern quaker over the last 10+ or so years, but people like toxic, cooller were dominant at an earlier time when the scene was AAA and cooller is only 3 years older.

Its much harder to be hardcore FPS player as you gets older, vs how it is when you're a teen - early to mid 20's.

If you twisted my arm I would agree he's probably got the best brain and its a shame he wasn't a few years older so we could have seen a fairer benchmark to your response against in shape players in their prime but there wasn't a huge surge in new talent when those players went inactive and I'm not sure quake champs is a pure enough game to warrant that much respect as III, IV, LIVE.

Cooller and av3k... when they were 16, they were already monsters making dents even with their geographical and economic disadvantages.

Rapha is one of the all time greats for sure and would always be a problem for any player at any time to beat but its a bit unfair for those players who were playing hard in the early days, putting plays that rapha fed off and used to evolve.

I would agree that cooller in his prime was better in q3 than rapha in his prime was in ql.
But for me, cypher is the neo of quake. I feel that the pure intuitiveness with which he navigated quake is off the charts.

Well, till recently not even a major tournament or event got any thread in this site, it's normal that people stopped visiting it.

We (most) accepted the situation and moved on from the semi-dead QL to QC even if we like QL overall more.

When there is no discussions about it (and respectively as QL is dead no discussion about that game either) for years - it's natural that some will slowly stop visiting ESR.

Before people start with "you create the news", well if I was the site owner I was going to do it so it will not die, yes + it's safe to say that if they did it the visitors was going to be atleast x2 higher or more.

Didn't write a single news article before and had 5-6-7-8-10 every day in the past years till QC dropped and overshadowed QL + tons of other forum threads.

I totally do like QL overall more, but I also like QC and given it's player base is literally x2 vs QL + the pro players are there + there are frequent and weekly tournaments with great productions/casting/etc and as you all saw the matches are still insanely fun to watch - I am there and playing QC as most are (but they are also not on ESR for the vast part nowdays).
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