10 great Quake duel finals that could have been

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The long history of Quake has seen numerous great finals played out. Matches which put certain players at legendary status, games which sparked intense and fondly remembered rivalries and upsets which thrilled and shocked spectators. In spite of all these great matches though, everyone can identify with the feeling of the time the two players they really wanted to see in the final didn't make it, either entirely or with one falling before that stage. Other times the eventual final perhaps doesn't live up to the billing, leaving one to wonder what might have happened had the bracket played out a little differently.

In the spirit of revisiting the deep stages of some of the tournaments of the past, this feature looks back on ten great Quake duel finals that could have been, but ultimately never were.

10. Strenx's real chance for a major title (IEM V European Championship)

Game: QuakeLive

Event: IEM V European Championship

Date: 2011-01-23

The final that was: Cooller vs. av3k

The final that could have been: Strenx vs. av3k

This event was famously the first and only moment that the legendary dominant Quake 3 star Cooller reclaimed the glory of victory, winning a major tournament. Beyond Cooller it's easy, as with most finals, to look at the player who finished second, av3k in this case, and imagine his case for winning the tournament, but there's another player who is sadly overlooked in this particular instance: Strenx.

Strenx is famous for only making it to the final of one major offline tournament in his QuakeLive dueling career (QuakeCon 2011), despite being one of the most talented and exciting players on the circuit. In fact, this tournament was a better chance for Strenx to win a title than that QuakeCon would prove to be later in the year. In the semi-final Strenx came back from two maps down in a Bo5 (Best-of-five) series against Cooller. In the deciding map the gap was painfully close on tourney4, a map well known for its streaks and favouring aim-based players.

Lag problems caused the last 27 seconds to have to be replayed, with Cooller up in score and seemingly in an easy position to run out the clock without dying. Strenx, possessed by the incredible form that had propelled him to that deciding map in the first place, managed to surprise everyone, not least Cooller, and kill the Russian Quake maestro. Cooller responded with his own moment of brilliance to take the map and reach the final, where he then exquistiely handled Polish phenom av3k. To say Strenx was close to winning this semi-final and reaching a date with the Pole is entirely accurate.

Worse still, had Strenx played av3k then his chances of winning and producing a great final were high. Strenx had won the Bo3 the two had played in the group stage, and indeed he had won the two previous offline Bo3 encounters before that. av3k would not have rolled over in the final though, as his in-your-face style of hyper-aggression would have set the stage for a wonderful final of skills pit against skills, without much of the overly tactical and calculating play that players like Cooller and rapha thrived on.

When Strenx took out Cypher in the third place decider, a player he had never beaten before offline, the world was left to wonder, or should have, what could have been in this final.

9. One last send-off for the last great Quake 3 rivalry (CPL Winter 2006)

Game: Quake 3

Event: CPL Winter 2006

Date: 2006-12-19

The final that was: czm vs. Jibo

The final that could have been: czm vs. Cooller

The CPL Winter Event for 2006 was one of the first major events in Quake 3's brief revival that year, duelers having endured Painkiller as the premiere duel title for the previous year. When the participants list was released the two names which immediately sprang off the page were czm and Cooller. czm was one of the best American duelers of all time and had won QuakeCon 2004. Cooller was the greatest player in Quake 3 history, at that point in time, but had never won a title on North American soil.

The two had famously clashed in the QuakeCon 2004 lower bracket final and the ESWC final, czm winning the former and Cooller the latter. With the QuakeCon match being a single map, and the random map selection process seeing aerowalk selected, Cooller had always held a gripe that things would have gone differently on another map or in a Bo3. aerowalk was a fast-paced map that Cooller had not practiced and czm was a specialist on. Meanwhile, czm could always claim that he had only lost the three map ESWC final to Cooller due to his foolish rocketjump that had opened up Cooller's path back into the game and along the route to the title.

The rivalry between the two players was never truly decided, but now they could meet one last time, and in another final. In the upper bracket semi-final they met and czm edged the series, winning a deciding pro-q3dm6, Cooller's best map, by only two frags. His win in the second map, the very same aforementioned aerowalk, had seen Cooller with a much different understanding of the map, resulting in a much closer affair than at that past QuakeCon. Had the two met again then it seemed certain to be a potential classic in the making.

Indeed, once Cooller lost that upper bracket game it was imagined that he would eventually work his way through the lower bracket to meet his American rival in the final. Instead, it was Cooller's friend Jibo who moved on to the final from the lower bracket. There were two problems with that actuality: firstly, Cooller, perhaps facetiously, joked that Jibo was in the better form of the two and thus had the better chance to beat czm, implying they had agreed he would let Jibo win the lower bracket match.

Secondly, Jibo did not match-up well against czm. In both of their series, the upper bracket final and the final itself, he won only ztn, a specialist map for all players from the Russian region, and lost out on the other maps. Cooller would not just have been a better match-up for the narrative, but more crucially for the games themselves. Alas, Cooller and czm never met again deep in a QuakeLive tournament and they would never both be considered elite players at the same time again, so the rivalry effectively ended at this event.

8. The revenge final (IEM V European Championship)

Game: QuakeLive

Event: IEM V European Championship

Date: 2011-01-23

The final that was: Cooller vs. av3k

The final that could have been: Cooller vs. Cypher

Your eyes do not deceive you, this is the very same event featured in the first entry of this article. The catch here is that the storyline for this permutation would have been even sexier than the first entry or the real final. Cooller had never beaten Cypher in an offline series in QuakeLive, the Belarusian was his kryptonite, whether he admitted it or not.

They had most famously met in the grand final of QuakeCon the previous year, in what many still consider the finest series of Quake ever played. Cooller had been up two maps to one, in a Bo5, and leading the third map, the notoriously streaky aerowalk. Cypher's incredible comeback on that map still lives on in infamy in the minds and hearts of Cooller fans, sparking a comeback that saw the rocket launcher master overcome Cooller and take the title from him.

Beyond that point Cooller had returned from a small slump to fully regain his form and motivation. At this tournament he never looked more fierce and determined to take home a title, as he eventually did. In the end he appeared to get some help along the way, escaping a highly dangerous situation against Strenx in the semi-final, and having av3k do him the favour of beating out Cypher in the other semi-final. In the final he put on a masterclass of control, beating the Pole who had also haunted him in the past at times.

Had Cypher reached the final, this might have been the time Cooller could have legitimately beaten him, both due to his own peaking form and Cypher's shaky start to the year. At the next event, the IEM World Championship in March, he did in fact score his first series victory over Cypher, winning in a Bo3 in the group stage.

That Cypher then lost the third place decider at this event to Strenx, a player he had never lost to, does seem to suggest that this would have been the best chance to catch Cypher in less than stellar form. Of course that does not meant it would have been easy, Cypher had such dominance over Cooller that it would likely have been a very exciting and hard fought match, even if the Russian prevailed. In the end Cooller did win the event and his first major title in QL, but it would have meant more if he'd done it against Cypher.

7. The real cold war (WCG 2002)

Game: Quake 3

Event: WCG 2002

Date: 2002-11-03

The final that was: uNkind vs. Akiles

The final that could have been: uNkind vs. socrates

This event was known for the unexpected rise of uNkind to take the gold medal. The Russian famed for his incredible rocket aim powered past everyone in the event and took home the title, but it was others who had scored the headlines before that point. Going into the event most had been looking at the play of the American ZeRo4, the reigning champion who had fallen in the Summer's QuakeCon event.

In the group stage he had lost to the other young Russian rising star, Cooller. That same Russian had then purposely thrown a game against one of the group's other players to ensure ZeRo4 was eliminated, causing all kinds of controversy and outrage from Western fans. With the reigning champion eliminated many looked to this potential new Russian star to lead the rest of the tournament. In fact he was upset in the first round by Akiles, who had never done anything of note at a major tournament.

In the lower bracket Cooller ended up meeting socrates, the other top American hope for the title. In a match dubbed "The Cold War", by commentator djWHEAT, socrates eliminated Cooller from the tournament. The American's run then continued with wins over Pha4nt0m, Python and Rocketboy. When he reached the lower final, against Akiles, it seemed he would go all the way and earn a finals spot. Instead, he was also taken out in surprising fashion by the one-hit wonder from Spain.

Had socrates reached the final then it would not only have been a legitimate chance for him to potentially win the major title his career always lacked, but also allowed a further chapter to be written in the Russian-American rivalry the event had sparked. uNkind had beaten socrates in the upper bracket, so it's likely the gold would still have gone home to Russia, but socrates was a player who could match up well against anyone, so it would certainly have been a match.

6. A first true meeting for the eventual greatest (ESWC Masters Athens 2008)

Game: Quake 3

Event: ESWC Masters Athens

Date: 2008-10-18

The final that was: rapha vs. Spart1e

The final that could have been: rapha vs. Cypher

Heading into ESWC Masters Athens Cypher was a rampaging monster the likes of which we had never seen in Quake 3 duel history. Of course fatal1ty had dominated tournaments, ZeRo4 had schooled opponents en route to championships and Cooller had displayed the ability to move his opponents around like pawns on his chess board, but nobody had ever seemed to dominate as easily as Cypher in this moment. The man from Belarus was not just winning tournaments, the last three in a row to be precise, but he was doing it with an ease and air of invincibility that left everyone in the Quake world in reverent awe.

The past great champions before him had been on top due to some strategical innovation or approach to the game, putting them ahead of the rest of the pack, but Cypher dominated seemingly just by virtue of connecting to the server. The young rocket god moved around the map rapidly, seemingly timing items only off his intuitive feeling along, and could out-shoot anyone at any time. A lead against Cypher was unlikely and meant little in the long run, 15 minutes was too long a span of time to withstand the sheer force of the young man.

Cypher had not lost a single series in the past two tournaments, winning two of those events without dropping a map. When he reached the semi-finals of this event it seemed a done deal that he would be playing in the final, instead he was shocked by an upset two map sweep at the hands of Spart1e, Sweden's streaky aim monster. In the final rapha met Spart1e and neutralised him, in the fashion the American would become famous for, to win his first ever big event.

In QuakeLive rapha and Cypher would become the two players battling for immortalitly, seemingly splitting runs of six month dominance between them, as if taking turns, and meeting in numerous finals. QuakeLive was very much rapha's game though, more defensive and with a shorter timelimit for duels. Quake 3 was Cypher's game, fitting to all his skills and instincts. Cypher was the dominant player of the era, so it's tough to say this would have been some nail-biting affair, but rapha was one of the few players to have taken a map from Cypher during his run of three previous tournament victories.

More importantly, since this is the moment that the rapha story really began, it would have been interesting to see how facing Cypher would have changed his play. Had his two previous series meetings with the Belarusian allowed rapha to analyse how to play him yet? would he have been able to match-up with him in the uncanny fashion he would later in QuakeLive? So many tantalising questions lie out there, but of course it never was to be.

5. Dethroning the tyrant (WSVG ISC Summer 2006)

Game: Quake 4

Event: WSVG ISC Summer 2006

Date: 2006-07-09

The final that was: toxjq vs. Stermy

The final that could have been: toxjq vs. Ztrider

toxjq won practically everything in Quake 4 dueling history, that's the simple summation of the game's competitive scene. Sure, the odd tournament slipped by him or he chose not to attend, but all in all, if toxjq turned up and plugged in his mouse than it was very likely he'd leave with the trophy and the biggest number written on his over-sized novelty cheque at the end. Fans of the game may remember that av3k was the player who really rose to the challenge and slayed toxjq, but there was another very real moment in which the Swede could have lost.

At the WSVG ISC toxjq had been knocked to the lower bracket far earlier than he was accustomed to, and by fellow Swede Ztrider. Ztrider was one of the true enigmas of Swedish esports history, an incredibly talented and yet unpredictable player, clearly lacking real dedication. As with players of cut from that cloth, the young Swede was notoriously streaky. In Painkiller the game had essentially only between a contest between VoO and a fatal1ty who had been gaining ground, yet in the middle of their battle Ztrider waltzed in and took a title out from under both. Come the end of year final though and he was seemingly nowhere to be seen, dropping out much earlier than previous form would have predicted.

Likewise, in Quake 4 the Swede had transitioned over and showed some flashes of excellence, including the upper bracket win over toxjq here. After beating that Quake 4 tyrant, Ztrider had beaten fatal1ty and then lost to Stermy in three maps. In the lower bracket final toxjq took his revenge in a three map series and went on to the final and victory in the tournament. What's key to note is that Stermy vs. toxjq was not that interesting a final, as toxjq simply always beat Stermy when it won, the latter didn't have the right style to beat the Swede, since he was also an aim-whore.

4. The ESWC rematch (QuakeCon 2004)

Game: Quake 3

Event: QuakeCon 2004

Date: 2004-08-15

The final that was: czm vs. ZeRo4

The final that could have been: Cooller vs. ZeRo4

This was the event where czm finally made good on the promise his talent had inferred for so many years. A brilliant TDM player, his skills in duel had always been present, but never quite enough in the deep stages of tournaments. In the final he got past the three time QuakeCon champion ZeRo4, the last great American dueler before him, and was crowned for the first time. This event also marked the first ever American event for Cooller, the legendary Russian player who was the dominant 1v1 player of that era.

The reason Cooller did not reach the final is simple enough to identify: the random map selection system meant he ended up being unlucky enough to play both czm and ZeRo4 on aerowalk, a map he had little experience on. czm was a master of the map and ZeRo4 had learned it following his ESWC finals loss, in the nation vs. nation format, to fox in a nail-biter. Had Cooller played some of the other maps in the pool (q3dm6 and ztn in particular) then he would have been a favourite over both players.

The match-up in particular which intrigues me is if Cooller had won the lower bracket final over czm. That would have granted a final in which he'd have to have won twice to take the title, meaning we could have seen two maps between the players. ZeRo4 had been the great player of the previous era, dethroned by Cooller in the ESWC 2003 final. Cooller had also beaten him in the WCG 2002 group stage, leading many to think, in line with how Quake history had gone, that the new dominant force was a direct counter to the previous one.

There never really was another big meeting between the two to decide, on proper maps, who was the better player. So Cooller got to take that title by default. This could have been a chance, with ZeRo4 still close enough to top form, to see what it would have been like on American soil. The prospect of another game on pro-q3dm6 would certainly have been a delicious one, both masters of it and it being a key map in their ESWC final.

3. The rematch of the IEM final (ESWC 2010)

Game: QuakeLive

Event: ESWC 2010

Date: 2010-07-04

The final that was: rapha vs. av3k

The final that could have been: rapha vs. Cooller

rapha was the dominant force in QuakeLive, having won four straight international tournaments in the game. One of the first to truly threaten his reign had been the resurgent Cooller, who had rediscovered the drive to want to be the best dueler in the world. Their IEM IV Global Finals series in the final still stands today as one of the finest series ever seen in FPS dueling history. Despite being a 3:1 win to rapha, the series is closer than most five map series I have ever seen, filled with single frag map wins and incredible back-and-forth cerebral play.

When ESWC came around, around four months later, the two had reached the semi-finals. rapha reached the final, continuing his dominant record over fellow American DaHanG, while Cooller met av3k in his semi-final. Here is where Cooller fell, as av3k was a player who had gotten the better of him a number of times already. The problem is that the final was terrible, since rapha always managed to directly counter and shut down av3k's style, frustrating and demoralising the Polish player. Cooller was capable of beating av3k, not only would he do it later but he had crucially done it in the semi-final of the aforementioned IEM Global Finals, putting on a masterclass in defensive play which confused and stifled av3k.

Cooller against rapha was always the most exciting match-up in the game and could seemingly go either way, except in finals, where rapha held some kind of psychological edge. Could Cooller have turned that around this time? They would rematch in the next IEM World Championship final, with rapha winning again.

2. The last chapter (CXG)

Game: Quake 3

Event: Cyber X Games

Date: 2004-01-12

The final that was: N/A

The final that could have been: ZeRo4 vs. Cooller

Where the other entries in this list see me citing finals where I imagine a specific result had been different, thus allowing those two players to pair up in the final, this instance is unique in that there never was a final played for the event and both players could indeed have featured in it. The CXG event promised a lot of money, but ended up being one of the biggest disasters in esports history, not even finishing the tournament and even seeing alleged mass looting of equipment on the final day.

The Quake 3 tournament came at a time when Cooller was the best player in the world, his 2003 having asserted him as the star amongst stars in the dueling scene. He had faced ZeRo4 in the ESWC final to take that crown, now fans eagerly waited to see if the two would meet in Las Vegas. They did, with Cooller winning in the first round of the upper bracket 2:1. The first two maps had been incredible, with Cooller edging a 5:4 win on ztn and ZeRo4 pulling out a 15:14 game on his home map of pro-q3tourney4, where he had never lose in official offline competition.

The decider had been a boring affair, played on the new map pro-q3tourney7. It was hard to feel that Cooller had proven himself the better of the two, on a map few knew or cared about. With both players masters of pro-q3dm6, that would have been an exciting prospect. Cooller continued through the upper bracket, making it all the way to the final. ZeRo4 battled through the lower bracket and had only a match against the Cinderella story elpajuo in the way of a final. The tournament did not play out beyond that point, due to organisational problems, and nobody ever knew who would have won. The players in the event rallied to try and make the final matches take place, by any means possible. In the end nothing worked and the battle went unresolved.

1. The American-Russian pairing we never saw (QuakeCon 2002)

Game: Quake 3

Event: QuakeCon 2002

Date: 2002-08-18

The final that was: LeXeR vs. Daler

The final that could have been: fatal1ty vs. LeXeR

At the previous year's QuakeCon ZeRo4 had helped cement his position as the best Quake 3 dueler in the world, including two wins over former top player fatal1ty. When the two had met this year it had been fatal1ty who came out on top, emphatically beating his American rival early on in the upper bracket. ZeRo4 would drop out well before the final, leaving the way seemingly open for fatal1ty to contend for the title, returning to the form of a Quake champion.

With no ZeRo4 left in the upper bracket the next biggest name, excluding fatal1ty, was Russia's LeXeR. The M19 player had been the only player to come close to ZeRo4 at the previous year's WCG, finishing runner-up and taking the silver medal. When fatal1ty had been in his prime LeXeR had still be a Russian player on the rise, now the ztn master was in his own peak form. The two were not to meet, as fatal1ty lose twice to the relatively unknown, at least in duel, Daler.

LeXeR went on to dominate the final and fatal1ty's losses to Daler had been surprising enough that many will still to this day wonder what would have happened if the American former Quake champion had met the Russian who went on to take the title. Certainly the maps would have made for an interesting match-up and fatal1ty had considerably more finals experience. Instead LeXeR cruised to the only major title of his career.

Photo credits: QuakeCon, tr1to, ESReality, SK Gaming, fragster, cyberfight