Columns Purity

From QuakeWorld Wiki

[edit] Introduction

The columns that Purity wrote for Smackdown from 2002 and 2003 are in this file, the later columns can be found in Columns Purity 2004-now since wiki doesn't allow a file size large enough to contain all columns.

[edit] Columns

[edit] 2002

[edit] Predictions on the playoffs

Date: 02/05/2002

I’m fucked. I wanted to post a review of the group games and a prediction on the playoffs Monday. Now, I haven’t had much time to write it as I have only been going out, playing golf and having, well, I didn’t got my rest at night. Then, I had finally written a piece, what do you think, I delete it… OMG! AM I STUPID?! Yes, I am. That is why is has took this long and this is why I am not writing the review again now, it will come later. Don’t judge me on mistakes please as I got under the table last night…

Eights finals

As HangTime has already posted a column on those games, I won’t get really deep in this. Though, my opinion follows next. One interesting thing is that I have made some predictions before the season (posted on the clanbase site mentioned in my previous post) and it didn’t work out because clans were inactive, sad thing to see.

[+] - TeC

As HT mentioned, this war is probably going to be laggy, no more words on that, it’s just not very nice to see that the outcome of wars is affected by lag, especially in the playoffs. ThE Criminals surprised me by winning DM2 of |L|, and yes, |L| did lag and they did not had their first team playing, but still, they won. Firstaid has pracced played quite much and they’ve shown their skill for sure. I think they will both pick DM2 and Aid might win both if they don’t have a ping disadvantage of ~60ms like |L| had. I think that, if, other maps are picked, Firstaid will win them for sure, but I doubt that Aid will pick another map than DM2. So, that makes it 2-0 for + but if their pings suck and TEC get’s good starts it might be 2-1.

HF - LA

Hellfire against Lege Artis. E1M2 lovers against a pact of the best players of Europe. Like I said, Hellfire will take E1M2, they sure have got a good one but after I’ve seen LA, or better, Nabbe, playing E1M2… hmm, what makes me think that Hellfire won’t win this? On the other hand, I don’t expect Lege Artis losing the map they pick, no matter that one will be. Maybe a lot of people are looking forward to see this match, but I’m not (well, maybe quake just hasn’t excited me ever :>), I’ve seen Lege Artis playing SR, FS and L sometimes and I don’t see them losing too much frags in this game. Maybe I’m wrong and it will be attractive, but I don’t think so. Btw, I didn’t expect Redux to win over HF in their group. As I joined the server just before the match I thought: ‘Ai, Redux is gonna have a hard time against LA.’ And look now. Anyway, 2-0 for LA.

FS - ToT

Well, I would like to see Firings Squad playing E1M2 against ToT. Firing Squad should have DM3 in it’s pocket and E1M2 might be nice in case ToT plays on LAN and has some nice MM3 action. Still, we have all know that FS was the clan that won a map over FF in SD2 (yes, that was long ago), E1M2. The team has changed and FS’ Castle has become an Abandoned Base. Though, they will win over ToT with a large margin. But, yes, there is a but, in case ToT is wise and takes DM2, I don’t know and I don’t expect it. Even if they do, FS will probably win. 2-0 Firing Squad. <bs>
Para – DT!

This match might be one worth watching. Dodge This! Is probably going to take E1M2 and Para DM6. The last should be pretty sure for Para but I don’t know how close E1M2 is going to be. Though, in some way or another it’s very unpredictable what Paranoia is going to do and how they are going to play. Maybe they’ll lose e1m2 but on the other hand, they might win with a large margin. They showed us how to play dm3 against FS in past seasons playoffs, losing by very little frags. It will be or 2-0 or 2-1 for Para.

Fu - L

Both clans have lost good players. Since last season L lost Effie (@), Riker, Shiva (both ZR) and Nabbe (LA) (that were three finalists of SD3) and got Exile and DARKL0RD in return. I don’t know if Baby_Roo will be managing L alive very long because Exile has practiced a some with LA and I don’t know, maybe he’ll join them and DL doesn’t plays a lot QW anymore too. Now, the only map where FU might do some hurt is DM2 and even if they win it from |L| they will lose the other maps. That gives us a 2-0 win for Lithium.

Re – C6

Redux is a clan that contains good players from the biggest part DN, DIE and EA. Their dm2 is very good it’s likely that they pick, play and win that map. Clan C6 got strengthened with ex-head player Stickle, he sure has a lot of talent. E1M2 is their base and they might be able to win it, but it’ll be a hard fight against blitz-, gibbs and silver. Redux though has shown that they are very good at dm3 too and dn’s e2m2 was not bad and even if they lose e1m2, they will get trough, I place my bets on a 2-0 win with a close e1m2 for Redux, might be nice watching.

Koff - SR

What to say on this one. Koff knows how to play dm3, that’s one true thing, though, Slackers has become better there and you can’t really talk of a very week spot in their play op dm3. In case koff gets a good start they might be able to win dm3 but then, Slackers will outclass them on dm2, e1m2 and dm6 not mentioning e2m2. So, watch dm3 and the rest shouldn’t be too much trouble for SR, too bad for Koff because they ain’t bad at all. Slackers comes, plays, takes and wins.

CMF - TVS

What a match in the first round of the playoffs. Replay of the quarter finals of sd3, clan MalFunction has played quite a lot since and the Viper Squad quite little. CMF showed that they can actually play dm3 by beating fs in NQR in some close games. TVS will very likely still be the best on dm2. The question is, which map will cMF take, I think they will just play dm3 because they have played that very, very often in wars and practice the past months. As HT wants to send them back to e1m2 where they are very good too, I don’t know what is best to do, and I’m happy I don’t have to know. They know it themselves way better then I do and it shouldn’t be different. Both e1m2 and dm3 have uncertain outcomes if you ask me. I can’t really tell what will happen on both maps. The start will once again be very important, and the fact if which of the clans will be on lan and which not. Unless they haven’t played as much as their opponents I give the victory to tVS, it might be a two mapper but whatever the outcome will be, it’s worth watching.

Well folks, that was it for today. Predictions on the matches that will follow further on in the playoffs will follow and so will the review of the season. Maybe the review will come really after everything but I think I’ll write one on the groupgames first and then on the playoffs/whole tourney.

[edit] Review on first round playoffs and preview on the second

Date: 18/05/2002

I’ve been quite busy with things more and things less useful lately but I didn’t took the time to write a review of the groupgames. Never mind, it will follow, maybe even after the tournament, but it will be there.
It’s time for the quarterfinals. Tonight the first games are going to be played and it’s always nice to make a prediction before matches are played. We start with a review on the first round of the playoffs to see how everyone got here. -> Firstaid <-

Firstaid played The Criminals in the first round of the playoffs. First of all, the game was very laggy. Fristaid played dm3 as their homemap and they won by ~60 frags. Next up was the dm2 of TeC which they won with about the same margin. Now the decider was on it’s way and The Criminals (if my sources are right) wanted to play dm3 again, even though they had lost the first time. Firstaid won the last map convincingly. No surprises in the first game. -> The Criminals <-

Hellfire against Lege Artis. I don’t know what to say of this. I haven’t seen the game live, only the demo’s, there have been many discussions on this game so I don’t think it’s up to me to write a whole story down here. The fact is that Hellfire won 2 out of 3 maps of LA. It was a weird game, Pietro instead of pushing the team and making them score good, lagging bad, and yes, he has been quite inactive. He had 28 frags on ‘his’ dm3, says enough if you ask me. Hellfire showed that they know how to play this game. Still, I wonder if this means that the old ff guys ain’t the best of Europe anymore. If this really was as good as la should be, well, then there would be a dozen clans able to beat la, as a dozen have beaten hf. I won’t get on with this topic, Hellfire goes trough and we’ll see if Lege Artis has the touch in SD5 or NQR3 maybe. -> Hellfire <-

In the third game Firing Squad played ToT. I expected little trouble for fs but it on the first dm3 it turned out to be pretty hard to beat our Swedish friends. As I haven’t seen the game live, neither the demo’s I can’t say much of it. First dm3 was 176-107 for fs and the second was easier with 230-75. ->Firing Squad<-

The Viper Squad had to win over Paranoia to reach the next round and it wasn’t quite easy. tVS chose (as always) dm2, which turned out to be a pretty good game. The score was 175-126 for tVS. Second was dm6, para’s homemap this season. It was quite close until about 5 minutes were left, after that tVS took off. Xamp had a nice game here topping the scoreboard. -> The Viper Squad <-

LiTHiUM met FU in the first round. I was surprised by seeing an inactive Darklord playing, and playing well. L chose dm3 and won it quite easy with something like 230-60. FU came up with something totaly new: e1m2. They scored twice as much frags on this map but it wasn’t enough (they only came 160 frags short). -> LiTHiUM <-

This was one of the games of which I expected some excitement. Redux was to play Clan C6. Re took dm2 and imo, this was a pretty boring round. Silver played well and C6 couldn’t do what they had to with Q. E1M2 was very close. Redux managed to come out victorious by only 10 frags thanks to (again, who’s gonna stop this guy?!) Silver. Blitz and Gore have agreed that it was the worst match of both clans ever, well, they shouldn’t be such an achievement from Re (this was the worst out of 5 officials? :P). -> Redux <-

Okay, Koff surprised me, and I think the rest of the qw scene with me, by winning Slackers map dm2. As I had written in my preview, it wasn’t expected that Koff would win dm2 at all. Koff took the lead at the begin, lost it twice, and took their victory in the last five minutes. After the won dm2 Koff had a chance of making it to the next round if they would win their own map, dm3. As allways, Koff had a good start, they had the lead in the first 10 minutes, took it back 2 later, and lost it with about four to go, I was sitting on the front of my chair watching for Koff to stunt and take the map, but it couldn’t be, nerves came up and Slackers locked total in the last minutes. They scored 75 frags in the last 8 minutes and Koff about 15… Decider (picked by backoffice?) e1m2. Just Slackers, it was over after 2 or 3 minutes. Koff said goodbye to the crowd in style this season. -> Slackers <-

Last game, Dodge This! Against cMF. DT! couldn’t get four players online so it was played 3v3 as cMF still knows what the word sportive means. cMF took dm3 and Hixen showed that he is a very fine player still. Though, that wasn’t enough to take out cMF here. Second map was dm6 and that was just total ownage by cMF. The final scores were about 400-100. -> Clan MalFunction <-

Coming up next: predictions on the quarter finals of Smackdown’s season four.
First game: Hellfire meats Firstaid. Hellfire will choose e1m2 and they seem to be one of the best of Europe there atm. I don’t know which map + is going to take but I think they’ll go for the weakness of HF: dm3. Don’t think that + can win it, but yes, they have a chance. It will probably a 2-0 win for HF here, but who knows what kinda show Aid is going to deliver us. Hellfire/

Firing Squad against The Viper Squad, a match of which I expect quite much. tVS will pick dm2 and they’ll win, never the less, FS has improved a lot on dm2 lately and it might even be enough to beat the masters of dm2. After that e1m2 will be picked by [fs] because it is, as they call it, the weakness of tVS. Firing Squad has to win this map to stay in the tournament and I think they can but tVS ain’t bad at e1m2 at all. Dm3 will bring the decision if needed. FS has played a lot of pracs and officials there and therefor I place FS on top of this game. Very exciting and a must see. Firing Squad/

Lithium and redux face eachother in this game where L will pick, if they are smart, e1m2 and win. Redux will go for dm2 and I don’t know who is going to win that. In case dm3 has to bring the decision, it will probably be a close match again. I can’t say much of this game as I just don’t know what the outcome will be. As the names in L are bigger, I do expect them to win. LiTHiUM/

The last game in the quarter finals. Slackers and cmf clash here. Slackers will choose dm2. They will own it because dm2 ain’t cmf’s strongest point (well, it wasn’t koff’s best too). It’s just very likely that Slackers will win the first map. Then Clan MalFunction will probably pick dm3, they have played it a really lot times now, in and outside pracs. Still I don’t know if it will be enough to take out SR. Sr will probably win 2-0 but if they lose dm3 they will win the decider, so, then it is 2-1. Slackers/

I'm gonna watch tVS-FS now, cya

[edit] I'm back

Date: 27/05/2002

After some time of being busy in real life things, here I am to do some update again. A lot of things happend lately and I was one of the lucky few to see most of the nice matches played lately (I don't believe I've done much more online than speccing 4 games past weeks). I'll only post some general quakenews now, predictions, reviews will follow later as L-cMF has been delayed anyway.

First of all, Zetor became NQR winner after putting fireworks on in the final. Hellfire got totaly outclassed by ZR that had, even though I haven't seen them praccing for a long time, good teamplay. Securing YA's at E1M2, Hib taking them, runs away, get Q and showing leet skills.
Dm3 was played first. Zetor won their own pick (not very strange as dm3 ain't HF's best map) with quite a big margin. Then E1M2 was up and as far as I knew Hib had some ownage skills there but I doubted if they could stand a chance against a team like HF as they have shown e1m2 more often. Nevertheless Zetor ran away with 100 frags differ in the end.

There is even more general quake news as my attention was drawn by some message in irc: 'Any clan war for QWTP now!?!?' or something like that. So, you might have guessed, QWTP is the name. Don't know for sure if registration is still open (don't think so) but I believe that those guys are happy with every newb contender that enters. The leage is ment for clans that didn't made NQR or SD4 playoffs, to have the not so good clans in Europe still making fun in the game (one of the teams is even called Play For Fun) what imo is a very good thing (as you might know that I always say: "Remember why we started this game people, FOR FUN FFS."). They might even get better in there. Channel #qw-cup in quakenet (wicked) and the site is here.

[edit] Review on quarter finals and preview on half

Date: 27/05/2002

I’ll start with a quick review on the quarter finals.
Hellfire Aid didn’t show us many surprises. Nothing more than that j0n was playing and that Mutilator seemed to have some problems with activity, even his ping couldn’t set it right this time. But Aid was beaten and little special happend.
Second game was FS – tVS, don’t start on it please. I haven’t seen a better game in years… like I said somewhere in a comment (wtf, elec comment at 05:00, time ain’t really right there), I said something like: “The adrenaline still rushed through my veins when I took my first beer at the disco at 00:00 and toasted on FS ; ).” First, FS wins DM2 (!), I was astonished by that, okay, they pracced RE that afternoon and played quite nice, but prac ain’t like war and RE ain’t like tVS… After that tVS won FS’s homemap (for the moment again) with which HT lost his job at SD, we’re happy that we’ve only got few matches left hangtime, rofl :>
And then… the decider… fuck it, first time dm3, Firing Squad gets fullstart (wtf, not tVS?) no, not tVS, so, the (qizmo?) server tVS was on crashed as it couldn’t be. Restart, tVS gets the better start now but neither of the teams could get control. Don’t need to put a match report here as I think that everybody has read HT’s report or has seen demo’s. Anyway, one frag for FS in the end… As ploppie said later (in translation): “There would have been a problem if it would have ended a tie. Overtime was off.” Nice thinking guys. Anyway, after this classic game, FS came out victorious.
Lithium faced Redux and I promised to keep the review short so this one wont be too long. L played with their (supposed) four best players and Darklord showed that his inactivity causes some trouble, but the margin was still 60 frags in favour of L. Next was dm2, this didn’t cause huge trouble for L either.
The last quarter final game is SR-cMF. Hmm, it was fun to watch, that’s for sure. Though, I didn’t expect this kind of match. Same as in tVS-FS, I assume that everybody has seen it so let’s not go on with it. Dm3 was won by cMF with some nice play from both sides. E1M2 went to Slackers, but not with the greatest ease. Dm2 had to bring the decision. Zhin came in and cMF put up some show to take away the chances of victory from last years winners. Well done cMF.
Striker immediately took consequences and left SR when they lost another map the next day. He joined LA and Slackers found a new member in form of Gamer (ex-KOFF). I wonder what Koff is going to do about the loss of one their core members. Well, I wish all good luck with and without their new/old members.

I've took some time to think over the half final matches. They are imo very hard to predict but I'll give it a shot.
Let's start with the 1/2 final in the upper half of the tree. FS (took out tVS) meets HF (took out LA) in a match which could turn out to be very attractive.
The game is probably played on EA, Tiscali or a server like that will give pings around 50 for the teams. Not optimal but playable. As DM3 doesn't seems to be Hellfire stongest point and it is FS's homemap these days, it's gonna be picked by FS. I don't see HF winning it soon but I won't say anything like HT did on the e1m2 in fs-tvs... way to go HT! :> -[DM3 [fs]]-
And then, e1m2 is coming up, I've got the feeling that HF is gonna fight hard for their win of this match. It's gonna be hard for FS to take it and if they're as nervous as they played against tvs on e1m2... It's hard to predict who's gonna win the whole match. The losing of e1m2 in the NQR final can't have been good for HF confidence. If FS get's a fullstart and is able to secure ya/quad, they'd have a good shot at winning, don't know how hard a comeback is gonna be. And yes, we don't know how nervous HF is gonna be. Btw, same accounts for dm3, but I think that FS has a better chance at taking over DM3 then e1m2, still everything can happen as Muttan didn't seem to be in his best shape against Aid. -]e1m2 HF[-
The decider would be DM2, FS showed that they can beat the best there as tVS was beaten 100 frags. Hellfire though has beaten cMF and LA on dm2. This map is going to be won by the bad or good play of an individual player, the start, luck, the moments when the pc of a player loads and even if the players have pets or not ; ). Rofl, all I want make clear is it’s hard to say who’s going to win this. Both teams have good chances but luck might be a fatal factor.
Maybe Mutilator is in form again tonight, let’s hope so, that would give an extra factor to game. Now, as some players are kind of inactive and Hellfire hasn’t showed their best play last time, I give FS the benefit of the doubt on all maps. Dm3 is probably in for FS (you’ll see, HF wins with some fullstart and total ownage) and e1m2 is going to be closed, though, it’s gonna be hard to take fs down; if the decider has to be played, Firing Squad will sneak away with victory. –[Firing Squad]-

Second game. This might even be harder to predict as it are teams that play weird sometimes. Lithium fights it out with clan MalFunction, the other final place is at stake. Clan MalFunction seems to be one of the strongest clans in Eu on dm3. They’ve played it a hack of a lot and practice is the magic word in this Smackdown season (can’t say that in general as Zetor throws in m4d sk1llz without practice) as some of the (supposed) best teams of Europe are already (LA, SR, tVS). So, dm3, as some L players are not playing too much cMF is definitely top seed for this map. One about the team cMF… it’s a clan that is good at three maps, they have a nice e1m2 and dm2 and an even better dm2. When I look back at the games they played last, a thing that comes out is that they just win every map except when playing a good clans specialty, doesn’t matters which clan it is. I mean that they are good on the three maps, above the average of good clans but worse when it’s the good clans best map, if you see what I mean :>. Lithium was very, very good at dm3 in sd3 and they were able to beat everybody. I don’t know how good they are now at all. They have played little and they are like cMF, good on dm3, dm2 and e1m2, but imo little worse. Lithium will probably pick e1m2, it’s just the question if L will win it, maybe if they take the time to put up proper tp and let the inactive guys practice some to get in shape, otherwise, I wouldn’t bet on them to win the whole match at all. As cMF is in great shape they are favorites to win this match. Especially now they’ve beaten SR in the last round. Maybe L can make a fist at all maps, or maybe L won’t be at all. It depends on start, activity, nerves (with these guys that have played all the great games?) and luck (once again) if L can win but don’t count on it. –[Clan MalFunction]-

[edit] Bla

Date: 06/06/2002

f you guys want a preview on the final, put it in a comment. If you don't want it, put it in a comment, cause I ain't gonna write it if nobody reads it. So, cya tomorrow, I'll see if what I do is liked or not.


btw, thanks for all the feedback on the shit I wrote before


Both teams had a long and hard way coming here into the finals, though, it’s even the question if it’s gonna be played at all. Maybe it’ll be postponed or maybe the admins will give clan malfunction a walkover as it seems that hellfire can’t field their first team now.
Anyway, besides those problems. Hellfire had some trouble in their group as all the clans wanted to play them as last. This didn’t turned out positive for them as they lost their game against redux (who played very good). This meant that they had to face lege artis in the first round of the playoffs. For many people LA was a finalist for sure (just as SR). But things turned out different. As LA played with an injured player and HF formed a good collective, they managed to win the two maps that had to be won. After that they met Aid which didn’t cause big threat. Half finals were there. Firing Squad was there. FS had just played tVS in the round before in a game that was a classic before it was over. As FS managed to beat tVS up on dm2, they surprised everybody, Hellfire was warned. And HF played well. Dm3 was won by FS, but close. E1m2 was won by Hellfire, with a big margin. Then, the decider, of course, dm2, was up. I gave both teams about equal chances, especially after the match of FS… But Hellfire did what they had to do and they won.
Now, cMF. They didn’t had much trouble in their group. They won every game and (how strange) went as first of their group to the playoffs. They met Dodge This and they didn’t had enough players, cmf was the sportive one and played a 3v3 and owned (dm6 was total haxoring from cmf’s side). Second round… This was a very exciting match: SR v cMF. Both teams got good chances from me but I think that most people expected SR to win. But the lack of playing with four base players and prac as much as cMF did broke SR. cMF lost e1m2 but won both dm3 and the deciding map dm2. It was really tense… well not like fs-tvs, but it was a good game though.
cMF’s half final enemy was LiTHiUM. I believe that they are, except from Zetor, the clan that pracs least. They are good on all the maps but they didn’t had that final touch of routine. Though, they made a worthy opponent for cMF that had to fight for their win in both e1m2 and dm3.
This brings us to the actual final game.
They have agreed to play the three ‘oldskool’ maps, dm3, e1m2 and dm2 first. As dm3 ain’t HF’s strongest map and it is cMF’s strongest, it’s to be expected that cMF will walk away with that one. As cMF has won dm3 over a lot of good clans in both wars and pracs, it’s very unlikely that they are going to lose it because Hellfire has lost it of a lot of good clans :>
Then, e1m2, The Caste of Hellfire. They have beaten almost every clan there, though Zetor showed them their sexy asses in the NQR final. In case there has to be a weak map selected from the ‘big three’ from cMF’s side, it would be e1m2 for sure. The only ‘weak’ link on e1m2 should be mt, but that doesn’t matters at all because they even won it of FS with a big margin.
For the next map, this could be a close one. But yet again, Hellfire is good, but I expect cMF to be better. After all, Clan Malfunction has challenged big clans in the competition and Hellfire… well, they beated LA, but that wasn’t 4v4 and they beated FS. That game was kind of lucky for them, as their worst level is FS’ best and their second best level is FS worst… anyway, the dm2 should be won by cMF as they have excellent teamplay.


Scores: 2 cMF – 1 HF

The deciding maps will probably come from the big three. If they don’t and Dm6 and E2m2 will be played cMF has, imo, the best chances of winning. If you look at the dm6 cMF played in the first round of the playoffs they should have to win. Then, when you take a look at the style of both clans cMF should win e2m2 also as HF is just running on TP and a lot of XP, on e1m2 especially. CMF on the other hand has very, very good individual players who should be able to outfrag HF there.
Concerning further play on dm2, dm3 and/or e1m2, the Clan Malfunction will turn out as first winner of 3 maps.

                              Winner SD4: Clan Malfunction!

[edit] Just some other spinning of the mind

Date: 24/09/2002

It seemed, after three month of idling, time to update my column once more. In this time, since the SD4 should-be-final that was, not too much has happened those days.
Tough, there did happen things which have to mentioned:
First QHLAN took place from which LA got away with most of the prices, only Space and Striker messed up and lost the 2v2 final :-). They won an impressive final of team g0ld (Riker, Paradoks, Razor and Xalibur), the first map was e1m2 which was won by gold (riker showed quite some mad fragging) with only 188-170. Then dm3 was owned by la 219-63 and the decider dm2 was with 320-154 a prey for la also. The 2v2 had a lot of great teams in it like razor&riker, para&xali, striker&space, griffin&mrlame, pietro&exile and _|anne with dag. The final played between LA (striker, space) and HF (griffin and mrlame) after LA knocked out riker&razor and pietro&exile and HF after owning xali¶ on two dm6’s and beating dag&janne in a very close match. Finally it turned out that the LAN-skills of Griffin and Mrlame were better than those of Striker and Space’s, or maybe they were just lucky ;-)
The duel tournament turned out to give some surprises too like kamse beating xalibur and keeping him out of the playoffs that way. Locktar kicked Rikers butt and Paradoks got outclassed but jupe. In the further stages pietro lost of dag, sod of _|anne, jupe of griffin and locktar of mrlame. In the halves griffin played against Janne and won it in three maps, mrlame got outclassed by dag in only two and scoring just as much frags. Now, the final. Griffin vs. Dag, replay of last Qhlans final. Griffin played a really good dm4 and won it with 25-2, the next map was dm6 which dag won quite comfortable with 17-2. The last map was dm2. The game was close all the way and it was with pretty few frags (as happens more often on dm2? ;-)). In the end it took a long while to get the game decided and it was 3-1 for dag in the end.
Now only has to be mentioned that Riker won the RMR ffa tournament.


It’s good to see that the activity is so big again. After the successful second season of nqr a third will be kicking off this week I guess. Smackdown has opened registrations and clans are flowing in nicely.
One thing I wanted to do before the season starts: a view on some member shifts.
I’ll start with the inactivity or disband of ZR and L. Of those clans Riker (who was FS for some time too) went to HF, Shiva plays with p0s, exile went inactive and Darklord plays q3 if he does what he said he would. I don’t know what became of all the Zetor guys but Hib went back to tVS and I the rest is not playing much anymore. Another thing is that Mirage has got a good (uberleet) connection now (but went to army) and Xamp joined them after the 1/8 final game that paranoia played vs tVS.
Then, KoFF has some trouble fielding players, Miser left them because he thought they were not active enough and joined FS where inactivity has been big since SD4. Another core player of KoFF has left them, as most of us might know now, Gamer. He joined SR to try his luck there, SR had a player short because Striker left after they lost another map the day after the SD4 loss to cMF. Now Striker followed space to LA and they are together again (after DIE and SR).
It seems that Jarrex or Janne has quit qw finally. First he promised to throw away his computer after SD3, but he couldn’t because he got kicked out of the tourney in the first playoff round (with aq, lost of sr). So he stayed one more season and said: “When I’ve won this smackdown with cmf, I’ll throw away my pc.” And so it has happened.
Last things that have to be mentioned are the new clan The Forsakens, which contains people of former clans Firstaid and dodge this. In Bloom is revived, they hadn’t played anymore since sd3 where they put up quite good games but not enough to make it to the playoffs. There is an interview on the nqr site with cara. Other new clans of which we can expect quite some performance are p0s (white, shiva, haj and phil) and fatcat.
These were the mayor changes that have taken part since the beginning of the summer.

Now, both NQR and SD5 have started last weekend so it seems time for some predictions, they won’t be too large because several other people have made them before me.


Group A

I doubt if there will be trouble for The Viper Squad to become the winner of this group. I’ve seen other people thinking that HF will win, but I don’t. tVS got Hib back and he can be a valiant worth for the team. To predict the hf-tvs match right away: e1m2 is probably for hf, dm2 for tVS and even with Riker I don’t think HF is capable of winning dm3 of tVS. Hellfire, we saw them lose of Redux in their group last year too, but I don’t expect them to lose more then the tVS match this year; a player of whom I won’t post his nick here of 4K said that they could beat HF on dm2 and dm3 but … I will be very surprised if they do that. I doubt that the second spot will be for Koff as they have lost both Gamer and Miser and don’t seem to be very active, on the other hand HGC is very and 4K seems to prac on regular base too. My bet: 1: tVS 2: HF 3: HGC 4: Koff

Group B

This group is easy for Slackers, the only ones that might have the potency to do some damage to them are the Forsakens. Thought, they will have to prac a lot and I don’t think they have done. Vis Mortis is a new clan here which is German with the Dutch leader Spoque, they have Venture but I haven’t seen him play more than once or twice in the past months. The group is not very easy to predict because it seems like there are some clans of equal level in it. 1: SR 2: -tf- 3: Trsh 4: VM (if they practice they could take the third spot, but I’ve only seen spoq, spoink and flow praccing a lot in the past weeks. If Venture and jogi come back in full strength their dm2 will be very, very good)

Group C

The only clans fighting for the first spot in this group are actually Lege artis and Firing Squad. Nevertheless I don’t think Firing Squad will stand a chance against the reigning champions of Qhlan. Lege artis has added Striker too their forces, that is about all that changed. I don’t believe they have practiced a lot lately, I at least know that Space was inactive for about three weeks and I didn’t see any of them playing a lot under their own nicks (but that might mean nothing).
Still it is the clan of which, I believe, is most expected for this season. They have got both a lot of experience and talent. Everybody reminds the match they lost last season of HF and many hope they won’t do such things again this season. What even more hope for is a classic (? Teams are not like FF and E anymore :-/) final: SR-LA. And here I agree with blitz and have got to quote: “I was disappointed that SR didn't have a team to try and hold their title at QHlan4, I think everyone would have loved to see an LA vs SR LAN final.. maybe this seasons finals could be held at the next QHlan in January? :)”

Concerning Firing Squad on the other hand Crit went inactive, he was a strong link in their teamplay. On the other hand Blixem has showed some activity again after the starting of his study and Miser has took a place on the fs couches. Another remarkable thing is that it seems that Gemini (core player in SD2) seems to have made a comeback but he doesn’t seem to have reached his old level, yet his teamplay seems to be good. Miser surprised me several times this weekend when he played some games in the Netherlands (ping 80-90) and played very good. I didn’t thought he was someone that would bring a lot of skill to fs when I first heard he was at trial, but it seems that he might just be what fs needed. Though, they are not in very great shape yet as I’ve seen cMF, tVS and SR beating them on dm3 with scores like 240-60. But who knows what teamplay they manage to build up in the coming months with both nqr and sd running.

Now to the prediction. In case FS gets a lot of practice with the same team and get to build up some nice teamplay _and_ get their e1m2 like it was during sd2 again, they might beat LA. It should at least be a thriller if it’s played late and both clans have had enough wars. Then, the other teams in the group won’t be able to be a threat to both of the teams as I saw FS raping both AQ and CB lately. Those are the ones that should take the remaining playoff spots, or Daltons have to come back in the best shape they have been.
1: LA 2: FS 3: CB 4: AQ

Group D

Called the Group of Death(tm) by both my college predictors, let’s stick with it. If I have to tell you the truth, I was happy with the comebacks of both uQe (a dutch (newb) clan) and In Bloom (which I best remembered from the fs-ib game in which cara played a massiv e1m2). But after seeing the group drawings, I feared the worst. The first spot should go to the hurt cMF (janne, we still love you, gives us your sexy moving ass!=) ) and p0s looks strong enough to grab second, we only miss Riker in p0s to complete the party. Then we’ve got left for the other two places:
Redux, ended first in their group after beating Hellfire (which became LegeArtis` Bane) and have shown to have skill on all maps.
In Bloom, coming back with some old and some members of C6. Don’t look bad but might just be too light to survive in this group.
Paranoia, making the playoffs the past two seasons but being kicked out in the first round twice by FS and tVS. Have got some new members (Ale, Cougar and Puzler), faith/anac got a connection again and jupe has shown great form (beating para at qhlan) and they are praccing quite a lot, but I don't know how good they are compared to the other clans in this division at the moment, we will find out soon enough.
And off course Tribe of Tjernobyl, they are also some season found playing the playoffs, remember them playing FF back in sd2... They have got TCO as a new member and that might give them the extra thing they need to get to the playoffs, a few more pracs might help too.

It’s a shame to see that at least two clans that are on playoff level are going to be left out in this group. On the other hand, the idea of larger groups was to make sure that the groupgames wouldn’t turnout deadboring, and it seems that at least in group death that won’t be the matter. The outcome will be largely influenced by factors as luck and nerves. As it all got longer then I meant once more: predictions
1: cMF 2: p0s 3: redux 4: tot 5: ib


With this last group, I end this update (it’s been some time) again. I don’t think I’ve added up something really new but if I did, I was glad to do it. Just one thing that’s got to be mentioned, I spoke to sphere last week and he has moved in with his nephew the interceptor, he said that their cable would get fixed soon, if that will (or already has) happen(ed) it will mean that two very good players have the opportunity to come back, that would be a great thing for qw.



P.S. Let’s just hope that Hagge won’t post even more demo’s of his pov and add more comments on them if CB makes the playoffs! : )

[edit] The Next Level

Date: 12/11/2002

The activity that we saw at the beginning of the seasons of both NQR and SD seems to become less. It’s not nice to see it, but it always shows up, glad that it’s not really bad yet.

After the start of the season several clans and wars have caused a different look at it. The first surprise in SD was that IB lost e1m2 with only 6 frags from cmf. Another outcome that stirred up some was that FS won straight 2-0 over cmf who didn’t seem to be close to the level they had been in last season, missing Janne? But cmf came back. They pracced quite some and were to be the clan that came closest to LA , losing dm3 with 11 and e1m2 with only 7 frags differ; Fix was topfragger on both maps, we couldn’t expect anything else from an ex-p0s’er. So cMF is like, back in shape. About LA, what can I say, they look better then ever winning all their matches in both nqr and sd with 2-0. Under those were cmf, sr, hf and fs; not the worst clans, we’ll come to that soon. This gives them 5 wins in sd and 8 in nqr, maybe they are going to make a double?

Another clan who took advantage of cmf’s slow start was a renewed ToT who took tco and slime with them by the time and won dm3 of them. Though, after p0s died the legendary white joined their forces and the new ones fill in three of first four spots in their team, and they are not doing bad at all. First thing they did was win over FS (who looked so strong after beating cmf) with 2-0. Yes, fs played with Kry, not a first teamer, but he did well and the day after FS lost again in prac, now with a first lineup. So ToT is on a roll, good to see them with the top teams of Europe again, as I had the idea that after SD2 ToT never reached the superelite again.

P0S, I mentioned them a few times before. Only a few days after the start of NQR they died because of a member problem. The rumours that LA would die were going around at the time too, and Dag and Nabbe joined cMF for a very short while, just as long as Fix was in p0s… This caused some trouble after which p0s disbanded, LA stayed alive and dag and nabbe went back (but everybody knows this already). Regarding p0s: Fix went back to cMF, White went to ToT (and he is playing really well there, being their topfragger in a lot of games), Phil to CB, Haj joined HF and some weeks after Shiva was allowed calling himself FS.

ToT wasn’t the only clan which has surprised me in the past weeks, another one was (as I mentioned before) In Bloom. I know about their play in the last season but I didn’t expect them to play this good right away. As they just had their revival (they died somewhere after SD2) they showed great tp e1m2 especially. They lost with only 6 of cMF and put up some more good results… They won over ToT (without Slime) in three maps, losing dm3 and winning both e1m2 and dm2 with respectively 50 and 30 frags. This makes me see them as a serious contender for playoff spots in both sd and nqr, but they didn’t really believe in that, we’ll see. This was underlined by the SD game they played vs Paranoia last night, they won 2-1. E1m2 was with 50 for IB, dm3 was closer and went with 24 to para and the decider dm2, which was one of para’s best maps went thanks to Cara to IB, 157-150. Their best player atm seems to be Cara who played very good verses both ToT, TF (of whom they lost 2-1, winning e1m2 again and losing a quite exciting decider dm2), and of course Para. Now I already mentioned TF, they lost the first game in nqr of FS with a quite big margin and another of KoFF (primus played, but he has quit active qw again…) who ain’t in the best shape they have been in after losing Gamer (sr) and Miser (fs). They are not as strong as I (and maybe many other) had expected but they are doing quite well. They lost 2-0 of HF last Sunday in two pretty close games but I have to say, HF was playing with ping 106 Griffin. Not losing a game yet in SD, the problem might be that they play with too many people so they haven’t got (didn’t have a team, in the beginning) a team that knows itself very well. Maybe they will figure that out later on and have a routine team in the playoffs. They won of both VM and Trash here who are imho the clans that should take the third and fourth spot in group B. Trash is looking pretty good. Winning dm3 comfortable of tf and they even won dm2 from sr in nqr with 80 frags. Though, VM on the other hand does not look very strong yet. They got two new members: mur and dopeskills but I wonder if they will help them out to take the third of fourth spot in their group. They didn’t only lose badly of TF and SR in SD but also of PFF (no, they are not in SD or NQR), but I’ll write about that later. As they already lost with a big margin of both sr and tf… Let’s hope they will finally start picking their map, dm2, as they told me it really is their home and not dm6 which they have picked in every game yet. With four of spnk/vent/jogi/flow/floc they should be able to win a lot.

Speaking of SR, they were looking very strong at the start of the season, owning IB and HGC and they won from tVS with 2-1 in a pretty close match which tVS could have decided to their favour on e1m2, but not everything went right. Then came the what should on of the hardest quake nights for SR. They first played HF, they had control on dm3 but HF took over and won it. Hellfire played with their new member Haj (from p0s) and they won e1m2 with ~40 frags. Next was imho the nr1 favourite for both titles LA. First map was dm2, SR had a small lead in the first minutes but LA locked down after three minutes. In the next 7 minutes LA scored about 135 frags and SR 5. Then with little less then 10 minutes left SR came back in the game but they didn’t have enough time to close the gap of 120 frags in the second half of the it, ending 52 frags behind. Second map e1m2, what can I say, LA had the start but they couldn’t lock down, on the other hand, they didn’t lose the lead a moment. In the first ten minutes the margin was never larger then 25 frags, only with about 2,5 minute to go it was 50 and when SR then made some sprint (in the last ~2 minutes SR scored 40-5) it was too late again. Anyway, SR still hasn’t lost in their group in SR and don’t expect that to happen either. The only question is, how strong will they be when the playoff starts, but that’s a thing we’d like to know of more clans.

The Viper Squad, they seemed to have trouble in starting the season properly, didn’t play games in the first 2 (?) weeks. They have only played one game in SD, it was vs Polish owners NN. First map was dm3, pings: NN 27 – tVS 48 gg? NN won with about 100 frags, but tVS won both other maps quite easy. They played NN with fair pings on dm3 in NQR later and that was easy… quite sad to see laggy wars against HGC and NN of other clans too. In NQR they are going quite well, having a 6-2 record, only losing of SR and in 2 close maps of CMF who seemed to be back on track by that time. They got a new member, Puzler. It seemed like he couldn’t decide where to go because he first joined Paranoia, but didn’t like that, left, played some pracs with SR (vs FS) and ended up with tVS in the end of only 2 weeks. Riker, got a wannabee? Well, I don’t think they will win of HF in SD, they aren’t as strong as I expected them too be, they lost with 300-25 of a mix (3 or 4 p0s members, not really a mix) team and didn’t do quite well in pracs. But hey, what are pracs, officials count. Let’s just hope they will do good in PO’s.

We’re still missing some clans here and one of them is FS. They had (as always) an inactivity problem in summer. As Crit said he’s quit and Blixem went to college and was even less on QW then he was before there were some empty spots to fill. First Crit made up his mind and started to play again (with some problems, but he started), the Miser joining and last but not least Shiva joining them they seemed to be loaded of activity. There was even a internal prac! (with Gemini and Krazy, the founder of FS, a Q3’er now. Both seemed to get active) That’s weird with FS, as they traditionally have got inactivity trouble. Well, it went quite nice for some time, but then ToT had to be played and some weeks later HGC… We saw Razor owning some games with heavy lag, but when it’s unstable he can’t play. They are leading poule C but have to meet LA, they have played them in NQR and put up a good fight on dm3 losing with 12 frags, but got ran over on e1m2 with 130. They pracced quite good vs. SR several times, but as SR seems not capable to beat the best… Though, the dm2 has improved very much. We saw that in the legendary fs-tvs but in those pracs also and in the NRQ game verses cMF where they won dm2 too. Well, looking forward to the games against SR, HF and IB, can’t say what we can expect from them. Maybe they will win of everybody, maybe they will lose all. Time will tell.

Other contenders for the playoffs in group C are AQ, BC and D. AQ looks very strong, winning in three maps of CB. CB got Phil of p0s, but Phil (said he) quit QW on the third this month, that should be a great loss for them as they really need him. CB won e1m2 (Hagge owned *cough* :-)) and lost dm2? GG, another game with strange outcome. Dm3 was like a walk in the park for AQ (another clan which went down for PFF). Daltons is another clan that could make the playoffs in this group. Though, they only won of trash yet in a regular game in NQR and lost eight games. Though, CB, AQ and D are able to win of the others, games that are all unpredictable.

Think I missed HF but they are mentioned in almost every part. They are leading Group A with a 4-0 record. They haven’t lost a single map in SD yet, winning of the contenders for third and fourth spots koff, HGC and BWL. Their new member, Haj (p0s, all mentioned earlier) is doing very well, earning himself a first team place right away. They won in NQR of IB (close e1m2), SR (report before) and TF (same) being good clans. Though, they lost badly of LA, especially on dm3. Just over a week ago they lost of cMF too. The difference wasn’t very close. On dm3 it were 70 frags and on e1m2 50. Though, I think HF will be able to put up some good quake to win of some other big clans, the showed they are able to do that in the last season.

Now, the last group in SD… D. Clan Malfunction is leading it. They have a 7-0 (!) record already in this killing group and they have only lost one map, a dm3 from ToT. Some surprised came from them in the past time but I have mentioned a lot before. They didn’t looked very strong at the start of the season, they only won e1m2 of IB with 6 frags and lost 2-0 of FS. Then, they grew stronger and won of ToT and IB in their group and in NQR from playoff candidates in sd/nqr koff, again 2-1 vs ToT, tVS, D and HF. The HF match, there happened something I didn’t expect _at all_. _Ianne played, I really thought he had quit QW and put his pc outside with the garbage. Though, a loss besides the one to FS was added. The closest to defeat LA has been was caused by cMF. One of the games I started this time with was this match. To very close games with Fix, who is in superb form the past weeks, owning both maps. So they have their playoff in SD secured, we shouldn’t expect from the reigning champion, and it seems there can go little wrong in NQR as they are currently ranked second with 9-2 and 26 points, but 13 (!) points behind LA with their flawless record. Though, they have one topclan left, SR, and three who are just behind the title favourites, sd groupmates RE and para and the oldschool clan TF. Though, they should win quite easy from para and tf as it is as it looks now. Redux and Slackers should both be able to make trouble with them.

As I expect that the renewed ToT will take the second place in this group redux will take the third. They showed that they are in quite good shape when they played vs paranoia. They’ve got a new member, Retic (Pumbaa) the Master of Pickups, always hanging around on tn. They were pretty inactive when the season took off but they recovered very nice. They lost of ToT in SD but didn’t play the other playoff candidates para, cmf or ib and have won three other games vs dream, tfp and dt. The last played they added was gibbs? Kinda surprising to me as he was playing every game last season.

Paranoia was desperately seeking active and lpb members at the start of the season. They got them, in the figure of Puzler, Ale and Cougar. Puzler didn’t like the fins and decided to take the trip to para’s rivals tVS. Cougar was laming in a prac vs cMF in which para looked very good, even winning dm2 and then the guys were still active, para didn’t like that so he went to AQ. Faith got a connection again but didn’t got really active yet. Faith and Jupe seem to be playing like twice a month and making it officials right away. I expected them to go and own like they never did before when I saw them winning that map of cMF and have close ones after, but, what is one map, and cmf turned out to be really out of shape. Paranoia got like inactive again and the only one who is playing regularly seems to be Vore (correct me if I’m wrong). I thought that they would take one of the playoff spots in NQR but I doubt about that right now. I actually thought that la, sr, cmf, tvs, fs, hf, para and tot would go through but both redux and maybe In Bloom are on their way to a place right now.

Now I’ve told about everything I wanted what leaves me only one topic left, PFF. I saw the pff-vm which was ~220-60 playing with space/striker/lou/phil, so I wondered what they really are. I found out they played in QWTP getting WO’d in 1/8’t finals, then louis/kippo/mooseman/pumbaa and I think not in QWTP playing (?) space/circle/sphere/cara were with them. Then they subscribed for NQR2 with sphere/phaze/circle/louis/black, but phaze let them remove because they were inactive, if la would have disbanded I think they would have played with striker/space/lou/phil/sphere or something, would have been nice to see them play. Well, it doesn’t seems to be very serious, got to see if something really comes out of this. Members besides the ones mentioned before are razor/cara/xamp; maybe they will compete in qwtp2, who knows. I’ve got no idea if anyone was interested in the last piece of information but I thought it might be for the few someone’s who wonder wtf pff is, now you know.

I guess this was it for now and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

[edit] And ít's going on

Date: 06/12/2002

Playoffs are here again. It’s good to see that the activity hasn’t been drained as bad as I expected, it is less then in the beginning but it’s not horrible. Maybe it’s nice to have a little look back on the group stages of the past weeks.

Let’s take on NQR first. Sunday will be the last day to play any group games as everybody probably knows. It’s good to see that for the first time in the whole season the eight best clans are on the eight first spots. HGC stood a long time in the top8 where they don’t belong imo. Yes, they are quite good and have won of cMF, HF, ToT and IB in fair games and of FS in a weird one, but they are still not better then a RE or ToT overall.
The best matches I’ve seen since my last update where LA-tVS and HF-ToT. Sure, LA-tVS was a thriller on dm2 and too many words have been said about it. I was astonished by the way tVS managed to takeover, lockdown and spawnfrag, didn’t expect that to happen, everybody knows tVS can do that but I didn’t saw it happen versus LA. Now I did. After that, their match with FS was interesting too. Hib again with his beloved PL and maga played… I mean, imo both FS and tVS have six people that are good enough to play in their best lineup, for fs: reppie, razor, shiva, blixem, crit, miser and for tvs: ihminen, blaze, xamp, hib, elec, mirage. As FS started with four of those and tVS with three and one of them with PL 10~20 they seemed to have a disadvantage. Though, Hib turned out to be one of the finest lagplayers there are as he both owned dm3 and e1m2. Now, tVS still lost 2-1, winning dm3 and then losing dm2 and e1m2. With FS winning another dm2 of a top clan, they sure seem to be on a roll on their former weakest map.
The other match I mentioned as nice before was HF-ToT. It sure was good to watch but most good clans take the early stages of NQR just as prac so this outcome might not be really reliable. First was dm3 with an excellent performance of both ToT and mrlame. ToT showed they can win of big clans and mrlame showed that he’s still very good at water area and discharging, now seriously, drejfus saved HF’s honour by scoring most frags, quite nice. Then e1m2 was for HF (as always) but this time it was Slime showing his skills and he even scored 10 more then HF’s top scorer here and 30 then his best teamy. Seems like ToT is going strong. Deciding dm2 was an easy victory for HF.
These were the best games to see, the only thing I have to add: thumbs up for Redux and their good show in the cMF game. The dm3 was already nice, close round for all players except Fix who got to 77 frags as the other seven players were between 21 and 48. Then it came to Re’s CS map e3m6 on which they made scores like 85-60 when playing good clans (when both losing or winning) but this time they won with 267-8, nice going; dm2 was rape in cMF’s favour.


Coming back to SD, which most clans see as the mayor tourney, some strange things happened. As the deadline of the groups was approaching clans could claim WO’s. Now, about 100 have been claimed and I must say, I’m kind of surprised by what Apo is saying in his prediction (btw, seems kind of weird, putting a personal view on the front page) that BWL were successful by making the playoffs. Yea Right. Whatever?!?! They had five wins of which were… FOUR WO! GG… maybe they would’ve won by playing too but it seems really strange as I’d rather seen koff in their place playing LA.
Beside that surprising thing not many strange things happened. Only group b had a strange outcome with FU playing trash and tf on the last day, and winning of both! Though, still VM should’ve been in the playoffs as they won more games then FU did but VM couldn’t come up with two screens of their match with GoH so they didn’t make it because apo didn’t except them after the deadline, completely according the rules.
Now, when comparing the results with my predictions (leaving p0s out) I had 14/16 right, and if VM would’ve got those screens in time even 15 out of 16. Now, they weren’t too hard to predict so let’s not act too nice about it.
Same with the first round playoffs, the outcomes were so easy that I didn’t even took the time (which I can use better) to write something about it. Though, predicting what maps there would be picked was harder as I didn’t expect HGC to take DM6 as they have playing so good on dm2 in the past time. Nor did I expect BWL to pick dm6, e2m2 seemed to be logical because they played it before as their map and LA is good on all common maps and they didn’t rape 2ND when they played them on e2m2 (the only time whole season). Campbusters surprised friend and enemy (do they have them?) by losing with only two frags on dm2 from HF. They could’ve won if Phil wouldn’t have quit qw for about a month! Well, nothing to do about that, would’ve been fun to see CB win that map :>
About the other games, the to WO’s, well done. Then the Finnish games didn’t bring anything surprising. Nor did FS-HGC besides the map choice of HGC, dm6 instead of dm2. I guess HGC would have stood a better chance on dm2 without fullstart then at dm6 at all. As everybody knows, dm6 was the first homemap of FS and it’s still the map that is standard on half the public servers in NL. So the score was like 500-280.


Now, the later stage of SD5 is here. It’s good to see that we have the eight best qw clans of the moment taking the eight last spots in this tournament and it looks like it will (at least it should) be those eight making the last eight in NQR3.
The four matches that are coming up are going to be exciting, at least three of them will.
And again Apollyon surprised me, just this time with his predictions. Now, it seems to me that the best clan of the moment is LA, numbers 2-6 are FS, cMF, tVS, SR and HF (not in this order) and 7 and 8 are ToT and RE. The numbers 2-6 can beat all the others when having a good day, or when the enemy has a bad day of course.
Now, about HF-ToT. I spoke of this game before but then the NQR match. Don’t know if both took it serious (guess so) and it should show how the powers lie. ToT is able to beat HF on dm3/dm2 but they will need a very good day to manage that (or HF a bad one). Though, without getting a good start and when muti is playing dm3 for mrlame, or mrlame plays serious like in fs-hf last season, the odds will be leaning over heavily. HF wins 2-1
Firing Squad – Slackers is a great showdown. Both can win, no doubt, and anybody who says that FS hasn’t got as much skills as SR has is talking shit. They have pracced together quite some times and SR has won more maps, ok, but the maps they won were 9/10 inside 25 frags. This means, if FS will play as good as they have done on dm2/dm3 over the past weeks, they will win. Considering we saw SR losing of LA, HF, cMF and only winning with a small margin of tVS who weren’t in good shape at the time we should think of the shape SR is in atm. FS wins 2-1
This game shouldn’t be too hard for LA. As they haven’t lost a single map yet (Striker: “only pure luck”) and they have played every good clan in Europe in the past two month, so why should RE be the one to win a map. It could be a walk in the park for LA and Apollyon said about RE’s dm3 that it was so good… dm2 and e1m2 have always been their better maps, has always been their weakest, look at IB-RE for a recent example of it, dm3 isn’t IB’s best map. Even Retic can’t make Redux good on dm3 (ok drej, I guess you were right after all, as always :-/). Now, especially Silver, then Blitz and as third Serox are keeping Redux with the best clans of europe but it seems they aren’t able to win of them on the oldskool maps (just the tVS game was a close one, but tVS wasn’t playing their best quake at the start of the season). And as FS raped RE last weekend too in some prac on dm3 with ~300-35 I don’t think dm3 should be too hard for LA. Maybe LA will even pick dm3 themselves because it’s RE’s weakest, and RE taking dm2; who knows, it’s probably going to be e1m2 anyway (LA’s pick then). LA wins 2-0
Damn, you can’t make me predict this one. It’s just… impossible? Both teams are playing in the top since SD1, both making half finals every time (cMF missed it in SD3, losing from… tVS and tVS didn’t made it last season in the game vs FS, losing on 1 frag). Now, cMF didn’t lost a single map in SD5 yet, just like in SD3, now meeting tVS in the quarters. Fix carried cMF through a lot of tough games in the whole season and he he’s going with owning it, in the RE game again on dm3. tVS didn’t play very good whole season. They weren’t title candidates imo, of course they were good, but not good enough. Now, the fact that xamp has sound now and is actually playing seems to help and the fact that they prac sometimes. The game against LA showed that they can win of any clan on dm2, even without getting their fullstart. Let cMF be warned. They met about three weeks ago on LAN and then it was a 2-0 victory for cMF, but then tVS didn’t got their best lineup. Now cMF doesn’t have it as fifi lost his connection, too bad to see that happen :-/
Doesn’t matter what map will be played, all could be close. The outcome of this game will rely a lot on nerves, teamplay, luck and Hibs lag. cMF wins 2-1

That was it again, I didn’t have the time to write everything I wanted in the past three weeks so I’ve another update waiting, don’t know how long it will take before that one is going to be online for sure. I’m already happy that I could find the time to write this one!
Thanks for reading

[edit] 2003

[edit] Another year in the Quake World

Date: 12/04/2003

Quake has changed… again.

And it never is going to be like it was before.

Where are we now? It’s December ’01.

The legendary Flaming Fist disbanded after the second season of Smackdown, the members are divided in two clans, Enslaved (with Pietro, Exile and Forsberg) and in Orkney Clan (having Dag, aKKe and Primus). Orkney Clan looks the stronger of the two, with Brutal as fourth player (he was shortly in SR).
E disbanded too, their most important players formed SR, Vana, Paradoks, DARKL0RD and Goljat. They added Xalibur and Brutal (ex OC and CAPS) but Brut went to OC as written two lines before. The other members (Hixen, Gemma, Pingvin, Riker) were inactive and/or didn’t manage to set up a decent team. Riker played in Lithium and Hixen tried to give E another try with the other old guys Gemma and Pingvin added with jOn, Stiker and BaRRe. But as they didn’t went active Stiker played this season with DIE (Da Imperial Executers). There isn’t one clan we can pick and say off: they are going to win season three.

Half finals of SD3. Slackers is facing tVS. It promises to be a great battle. Slackers took out AntiQuad, with Nice, Diki, Harvester and JX (who came from NS), in the first round with a straight 2-0 with a quite close e1m2. I expected a closer match as AQ showed they were really good with JarreX in their ranks but they couldn’t get more out of it. Then they faced Divines in the second, they played them before AQ because Diva was on LAN that weekend and SR was sure they would win of AQ, it was quite a weird situation as you can understand. Diva (with Circle (from CAPS), Razor (now FS), Phaze and Sphere) took home e2m2 but lost dm2 and a close dm3 after that. TVS faced The Twats in the first round, a spot where Denial should’ve been but due to a mistake (no overtime on in their game, and a failure in the points system, wasn’t it?) Twats went through. It was rape of the kind we seldom see in SD Playoffs. I didn’t expect this to happen either. The Twats were in group D with FS, DIE and IB and they hadn’t lost a single game without making a good score. With them it was fun to see some old players of L with them, Dakoth, Swenzon and Multi were and even Lice, Plura and Catalism who are friends of Baby Roo (leader of L). Well, the rape did happen as they couldn’t field their best team when facing tVS, too bad, it might have been a better fight with them.

Then we had a classic on. In the first two seasons of Smackdown the four semifinalist were FF, E, cMF and tVS. Now, cMF and tVS had to play a game head to head to reach the half finals. As tVS was sheer unbeatable on dm2 in those days (only FF managed so?) it would be a hard nut for cMF to crack. Too hard, it turned out. The pressure was really on now as cMF had to win both maps coming up to go on. They chose dm3, e1m2 is tVS’s weak map but it wasn’t cMF’s best either. And wow, I haven’t seen much this tense games after, it really was a thriller which tVS managed to take with a ‘comfortable’ five frags, this was one of the last (the last?) important game(s) where Carna was playing.

Now the half final, tVS-SR. Finding a server was one thing, but after that, the game starts, dm2 is tVS` map and they are favorites on it. They make it true and win it with 100 frags. Second is e1m2 and it goes in a tense game with 40 frags to SR.
Then, something everybody remembers… Apollyon was cheering for tVS all game. tVS wanted dm3 as decider and SR didn’t. Apo uses Backoffice to decide the map and it’s… dm3. The whole season long the bot in #smackdown was used to pick the maps but the rules said Backoffice can be used to get a decider map. A whole row is what follows, SR and with them a lot of other people went crazy. An hour later the game resumes… SR played the map (which was really dm3) and won it with a mere 20 frags.

The other half was between Orkney Clan and Lithium. Lithium took out OMG without too much troubles in the first round and faced FS in second (they won of Para). The chances seemed quite equal as both had won in pracs, first map was dm2, chosen by L. This had been FS` weakest map for ages and it turned out that way too, ending 340-100 with 108 frags by Nabbe. Second, e1m2, still a hard one to take FS down. Too hard, it turned out, FS did what they had to do and won with 35 frags. Deciding happened on dm3. Both teams had the chance of winning here but while Reppie is timing pent it gets stolen by an L guy. L has the start, FS puts up a good fight but L wins with more then 100 frags.
Orkney Clan had their troubles making half finals, as they faced the Germans from iBh in the first PO round, winning dm3 but losing dm6. Just taking away the decider e2m2 quite easy. Second was Enslaved, the other clan with ex-FF guys, it didn’t seem hard to predict that OC was going to win but ED has (in many ppl’s eyes) EU #1 Pietro (he turned the quarter final game around by taking over e1m2 on his own when facing DIE. It was more 1v4 then 4v4 in the first 10 minutes there) added up with Exile and one of the few ‘unbreakable’ couples: Reverend and Znappe. It starts with e1m2 which OC wins quite easy after having a superb start. Then, dm3, ED’s choice. The game was close, really close. ED gets the start and keeps the lead the first half of the game. Dag then takes Pent/Quad and ties, from that moment it stays close, ED gets away with only four frags in the end, hiding. Dm2 was the last map, ED got the start again but OC takes over pretty soon. In the end the scores look fine for OC (100 more) but they only got the whole map just before the end.

The second half final, OC-L was coming up. Primus isn’t available to play for OC, a shame, he’s replaced by Piglet and Thug. Dm3 is OC’s choice and Dag shows how it’s to be played. OC wins it quite easy with more then 100 frags in front of L. The second was dm2, a long time it was locked by L and they take it with 200. E1m2, another thriller (there was some fine quake in those days). Nabbe goes crazy once in a while, busier fragging than reporting on mm3. White times out just before the end but L takes it away with 25.

The battle Slackers won it of Lithium who were able to field an impressive team of Nabbe, Riker, White and Effie. Slackers had about the same team they have these days: Paradoks, Xalibur, Goljat and Vana. The castle of Vana was SR’s choice. Vana gave the specs an e1m2 show again. The first four minutes the game was close but then SR controlled Quad, took the lead and never gave it away. Second map was dm3, they won it of SR in the group too so they already showed their skills versus SR on it. The start was equal (in frags), after some minutes SR got the lead and didn’t gave it away very easy, second pent was taken by L (together with some rl’s) but SR still had the lead. It wasn’t until the fourth pent came up and L took the lead and didn’t gave it away. Third of the big three was dm2. L got the lead and fragged to 90-45 when there was 10 minutes left. At that moment SR took over and showed how to takeover, lockdown and spawnfrag here. They made 150 and L 4 frags after that moment, great play by Paradoks, has to be mentioned. It was L’s pick now and I think everybody expected they would take dm3, though, they thought back on last round, had a chance of winning there and decided to take it again. Now SR got the start and the lead, Goljat played very good. L took over after five minutes and it looked like they would stunt, they leaded when the game was haflway but SR got packed up again, took the lead back about 30 seconds later and didn’t lose it. It ended up 3-1 for Slackers.



Now, the first weekend of 2002. Qhlan3 is here. Lithium, Okney Clan, The Viper Squad, Slackers and Divines were attending. They didn’t have their best lineup (none of them I guess) but the expectations on tVS were very high (Ihmn, Blaze, Rock and Mirage). HF (Mrlame, Drejfus, Madmax and Mutilator) put up a great fight in the group when facing SR (with Paradoks, Space, Striker and Xalibur). HF winning e1m2 with four and SR dm3 with five, dm2 was easy for SR. Diva (with Nikke, SoD!, Razor and Case) were in the group with those two and couldn’t make a fist against those two. In the playoffs HF won of tVS, L and faced SR, who won of ED (without their best players) and OC (with only Dag of their first team) very easy (Striker 100% on dm3), dm2 was rape with all SR guys (except Para, 97) making 100, OC wasn’t that serious; in the finals. When looking at the match in the group you’d expect a close game. E1m2 was a good match, SR took the lead after four minutes and didn’t let it go, HF got more frags towards the end but they couldn’t catch SR (on 14). Dm2, SR’s map, HF got the start and SR didn’t manage to make more then five frags in the first minutes. Then they took off, made more frags then HF all the time, got their score at ~13 and won it with 70 frags.

About the 1on1 and 2on2, there is not going to be a long report on it, Space&Striker won the final of Mrlame&Griffin after three maps. On the one on one, Paradoks lost of Griffin in the semi final after which he (Grf) won the final with 2-1 of Dag, who took out Mutilator in the half final.



On 15 march 2002 SD4 and NQR2 started. After a year the NQR crew decided to get the league rolling again. After a successful first season with clans like Koff, NS, HF, cMF, L and FF in the playoffs it turned out to be very good. The only thing that was little less nice is that the final never got played (no, the on the nqr site is not the final but a groupgame, final would’ve been best of five too, so even if it was played at the time when the final should be played it wouldn’t be the right one). Now, there are a lot of new clans formed. We find aKKe, Dag and Pietro from the old FF, together with Nabbe (L) and Space (SR) in Lege Artis, they are in many eyes the best team around. Another one is Libidus Animalis with the oldskool guys Sectopod, Webser and Legi (Game Over) and TCO (AW) and effie (L). Other old clans which were revived, something I really liked, were Z, ZR and EA. Though, it was too bad not all the old members of them were active playing again. Zetor had them, with Hib, Rock, Acid, Mazer. EA and Z didn’t manage to get their old core players back. Left are FirstAid, fielding Ruffnux/Ani/Grisling/KrazyMac in the group and jOn in the playoffs; Headcharge (Stickle, Cara, Case, sandy, phaze, xorcist) and C6 (Janozh, Final, Nightman, ljug, ringo, gore).

Apollyon decided to quit QW after last season. He got a lot of critic after the Backoffice action in SR-tVS. It really was a shame he left. New headadmin became Crit, the Fs’er. The crew decided to make eight small groups, with five or six clans each. This made the groupstage even less interesting then normally. Though, this wasn’t the think that got most criticized but the fact that MQWCL wasn’t allowed did. We saw a flamewar going on about this without any result concerning div_eu, something that the decision of not allowing it did have was that there was no SD in the USA this season, not willing to play without their beloved MQWCL.

About the group stage. Not all clans of who everybody thought they would go through really did. As there was some trouble in group A concerning the activity of Zetor and EA. Zetor didn’t even play a single match, the few games that they did play during their revival were all in NQR. EA couldn’t field a decent team in SD, neither could they prac enough with it to get some good results. As Venture and Vega weren’t playing here (SD) they had to field Kippo, Koopa and Ewdafa in the two games that they did play; the ones versus FirstAid and FU, both losing them 2-0.
Another clan that didn’t play a single game was HeadCharge, I thought they would take second place in their group (behing Lithium) and proceed to the playoffs but they died and (one of) their best players, Stickle, went to help C6 out.

One of the new clans surprised us though. Redux, formed with ex-DN members won the last game there had to be played in their group of HF with 2-1 and making the playoffs with one other game won and three WO’s (the rest was kinda inactive). The only quite interesting group was the one with fs, koff, @ and Z. One of the best games sure was @-Z. Taking three maps to decide that @ was the better team, winning the deciding dm3 with only three frags (Z won dm2 and @ won e1m2). It was nice to see Cable and Spetnaz playing there again. The koff-z game was a good one too. Though, a quite new Z team was brought up as we saw Dii, Focu, Luny and Dedi playing, we only saw Cable and Spetnaz back in one game (not this one vs koff); haven’t spotted Blitzer, Crunchy and Perkele at all . Koff won dm3 easy and Z won dm2 with 10 frags. The deciding e1m2 was a close one. Z got the start and the lead but soon enough Koff came back and took the whole map over. Z didn’t feel like losing this round too at all and made another comeback. The problem was that the quadruns didn’t turn out very well and they couldn’t catch koffs score soon enough to win the round, losing with 20. I think Z could’ve made the playoffs if they had some of the old guys playing active again, but well, what’s in ‘what if’.

The first thing that happened in the playoffs was Lege Artis losing of Hellfire while fielding a heavy lagging Pietro. Imo it wasn’t a good game. LA won dm3 and lost e1m2 and dm2 after. As they only had one other member, aKKe, and he lives at the same place as Pietro does it wouldn’t have cared if he had played then. Still, a weird outcome. Then Koff won dm2 of SR. Andy said on it: “It seemed as if Slackers´ thoughts already were focussed on the next map, which they knew wouldn´t turn out to be an easy task either. KOFF, who usually would have serious problems beating the -13 frags against _Kelvin in a 1on4, have managed to take down the current champion on dm2 by 161-116.” The dm3 after sure was a hard task for SR but they won it after all, so they did on e1m2 with miser owning it and making about half of Koffs frags. Koff was disappointed as they could’ve won dm3 for sure.

Then, match of the season for me, FS-tVS. First map was dm2, still tVS` map and still FS weakest one. Though, Blixem did the impossible, owned tele and put Reppie and Razor in position to run quads, and they won. Second map was e1m2, Hangtime said before the map that he would give up his job at smackdown if FS would lose that (he took over the headadmin job of Crit as he was on a vacation when the groups ended) one as it was tVS` worst map for a long time. Now, it sure was a show, though, the things of which most people would’ve thought they would didn’t. Mirage ran quad for tVS and I don’t know, but what he did there was just crazy. When he died, he managed to get quad after all, time after time, sure exciting to see. When FS was closing in at tVS and they got control of ya/gl/quad Elec did a ninja move at ya, killed the FS guy there, owned gl/ya for some minutes and took the next two quads making very much frags in a short time. So, FS couldn’t stop tVS as they were fighting hard to stay in the tournament as they won e1m2 with forty frags. Decider was dm3, a map which FS could’ve chosen as theirs as they took is as homemap very, very often before in both SD as NQR. First time, FS gets fullstart… wtf tVS fullstartinen clan… something isn’t right… server goes down after two minutes. How could it have been different. So, restart, and damn, what a game. In the beginning the difference between the teams is 19 but it hasn’t been more then ten for the ~sixteen minutes that came after. Think that was for the first time since long I could really enjoy watching quake and felt the adrenaline all over the place, just like I was playing myself. It ended… 166-165 for FS… Mirage taking the frags (54) and reppie having the efficiency by 5% (and second in frags with 49). Must say, Mirage and Elec had skills that I didn’t expect to see in this game. They played very good on both e1m2 and dm3 while I expected that Ihmn and Blaze would have to pull them through. Though, Mirage wouldn’t have got those quads without the teams help. Just, such impressive play by two top teams.

cMF made the second round after they won of Dodge This! Another team with oldskool players who tried it once more. Too bad that DT! Only had three members available, so nice that cMF agreed on playing 3-3. DT wasn’t so active after all as they made the playoffs by winning of Damagers (who didn’t manage to play a SD game with four people either) 3-3 and a WO vs ARD. So, DT! played with Hixen (E), Primus (FF) and Stalin (GO), seems like a very good lineup but I think they didn’t have enough practice to put up a real good fight. On dm3 cMF got the start, controlled the first ten minutes and then DT! took over. cMF got very little frags from that point but DT! simply didn’t frag as much as cMF did before. 112-71 for cMF and Hixen making 35 of DT!`s frags. Second map was dm6 and cMF simply raped them on it… 383-101.

Next clan that cMF faced was SR (who almost got kicked out by koff) and it promised to be a great game as cMF specialized on dm3 this season. First map, dm3, cMF gets a Finnish fullstart but the rl got discharged. cMF had the lead about all the time while Zhin and Fifi think they are playing FFA.. shooting everybody ;-) Though, cMF played well and outclassed SR overall, even though they could never get away very far, they won it with 40 frags. Then e1m2, the castle of Vana. Xalibur (who did a good job on dm3 for SR) went out and Goljat replaced him to play SR’s map, e1m2. CMF is taking the start again but aren’t able to take full control (thanks to Goljat who did MH). They are leading and running quad the first ten minutes with SR attacking from mega. When two third of the match had passed S(triker)R got the control again after a nice attack at YA (from water). And they sure did frag faster then cMF, cMF fought hard and stole some quads of SR but they had the map closed and fragged on until they had twenty frags more then cMF after twenty minutes.
The last of the ‘big three’ gave us a winner. Fix went out and Zhin came in for cMF and this time Striker could leave to let Xalibur play again. To keep things clear, Para and Vana played all three maps, dm3 with Xali and Striker, e1m2 with Goljat and Striker and dm2 with Xali and Goljat. SR got quad and cMF low-rl. Though, cMF takes the control of tele/quad early and seem the have vital positions. While Goljat is camping ra-mega Paradoks and Vana are trying to take quads doing enough damage. Weird enough the Slackers have the lead while cMF has tele, Janne even takes over low-rl a few times. At a point Vana takes over Golle’s job and Paradoks and Goljat start attacking quad. Now SR takes over but they can’t get rid of cMF totally as they keep fragging. SR tries to defend the lead they had at ra-mega but get overrun with four minutes to go (they had the lead all the time), losing with 16 frags.
When losing another map the day after, StrikeR decides to leave SR.

The other quarter final on this side of the brackets was Lithium versus Redux. RE met C6 in the first round where they won dm2 easily but about the e1m2 both teams said it was the worst they ever played. Can’t say anything different on it then that it was unbelievable messy. Though, RE came out victorious thanks to the individual skill of Silver and were facing L, who won of FU in two maps (e1m2, dm3). A memorable moment from L’s side in this version of Smackdown was that they played vs the Polish The Criminals with Exile, White and the oldskoolers antne and Baby Roo! The last two, both almost (or complete?) inactive, were a surprise to see playing again. Baby roo could play quite well with the other two but Antne suffered clearly from his inactivity and bad ping.

Redux chose (as always) dm2 as their map but they didn’t stand a chance against Riker, White, DarkLord and Exile. L locked down the map quite early but they didn’t manage to get it whole, maybe because of several quadbores (still love those) of the L players. Redux couldn’t do much about it until the game was in the second half. They couldn’t get total control but they managed to frag more towards the end. E1m2, it was quite even, though, as L had the control most of the time they were able to get more frags and RE wondered around MH quite often. It seemed like DL didn’t feel like fragging a lot this time, weird, as he had most in the FU game.

The half finals were coming up, though, cMF-L wasn’t sure to happen as Lithium was inactive and didn’t seem to be able to get a squad playing before the last day games could be played, and Hangtime was very strict to those. Happily enough four players were available after all, namely Riker, White, DarkLord and Shiva. On the other side _|anne, Fix, Dare and Fifi were playing. It was quite certain that the two maps played would be dm3 and e1m2.
Dm3 off course picked by cMF as they seem to be able to beat every clan on it this season. L got a Finnish fullstart (White pent, DARKL Quad/Ring) and Shiva (had RL) started to frag like a madman in the first minutes. While Shiva was running quads L kept are one by one but cMF came in every time again. The pressure of cMF was big. At the time of the second pent neither of the clans had control and it was not clear that one had gained the upper hand in his game. Then, when Jus got pent the control of RA was settled by Fix, looking back Shiva should have jumped out of the window to take pent with his 180/150 RL but he went for quad and even left that for Jus to take. The resistance of L was good and cMF had pressure on them all the time while they attacked from YA. It was Fix who went crazy now and he did a very good job for cMF. Then at the third pent, L really needed it to be able to win this game, they weren’t that much behind in frags but despite L’s efforts to take it Jus took it again! A very nice shafting on Shiva who jumped out of window with 150/100 RL was what we saw. When cMF got the last pent too they got total control and L couldn’t do anything against their loss.

The second map was e1m2. L got the start again with Shiva quad+ya but L wasn’t able to secure YA for long again as it was guarded by DL with 7 health and no weapon. cMF took over and it looked like the game was over in the early minutes. YA was guarded professionally by them and they held it during the whole game despite L making a lot of frags while attacking from Mega which cMF wasn’t able to secure. DARKL0RD played a very good game for L and made a lot of frags. L had the chance to take YA over at the moment Janne had quad and only 23 health left but one L guy missed four sg shots in a row. In the last five minutes cMF managed to get full control, just as the dm3, and L wasn’t a problem anymore. This was like it was expected. The L team, as it played today, hadn’t played in a single official yet. Both L and cMF are good on all maps (cMF less on e1m2 and more on dm3) but cMF was just better overall. Even if L won e1m2 cMF would’ve took dm2 home. Still very nice to see an old player as DARKL0RD back in action again on a high level. It seemed that he was out of form in their game vs Redux, but it maybe he just had an off-day. This game gave us the first finalist of this tournament, and a good one for sure after taking out both SR and L.

The other half final went between HF and FS. After the game vs. tVS FS were my favorites. E1m2 is HF’s map and dm3 is FS’s. Dm3 kicks off. FS gets the lead early on but they are not able to take total control and spawnfrag around. This was quite awkward as HF never played very well on dm3 and FS was in great shape on it halfway the season. Like I said, FS can’t pull off but stay in the lead all the time, though HF is able to take some quads here and there. At the time Mutilator timed (~two minutes left) HF takes the lead… play more often 3v4? Though, making up thirty frags in two minutes, on dm3, playing a good clan, 3-4, if they would’ve done that :-)

After the game Reppie said he played with rate 5000 (handy) and Mrlame claims that it was his effort for HF playing so good because this time he really played and didn’t only stay in the water and discharge teammates, must admit, they put up a great fight and only lost with thirteen frags.
Then, e1m2, HF seemed to be unbeatable on it the whole season and FS’ e1m2 only went down after SD2, HF just showed their weakness two days before when facing Zetor in NQR2, but they didn’t play with Muttan but with Madmax.
The start was equal. In the first few minutes we neither of the teams could take the overhand. Then, HF got the control of ya and it was done. Their incredible mm3 comes up once again and in no time all the HF guys get their armor and weapons, FS players running around desperately to find out where that damn quad is! So, HellFire, with MrLame as best player here, taught FS a lesson on e1m2, and that while FS didn’t even suck 100% (they got 140 frags, hf 215).
Hellfire was warned. The decider, dm2, was up. It gave both teams equal chances, especially after the match of FS…
HF got a Finnish start and fragged to an easy thirty frag lead. They kept control until we saw a nice quadbore by HF. FS could tie the score and HF got the control again making another forty frags (30-70 now). But, FS is taking it on again with Crit taking out some HF rl’s (three at water?) and they manage to lock ya/water/quad for some time and frag to 55-70 when Razor moves to low-rl and fs loses the control of the whole map for the rest of the game. HF couldn’t lock it completely but they never lost quad and were able to spawnfrag quite easy. 120 frags they led when the time stopped, bringing them to the final of SD4.

So, two clans in the final that we haven’t seen there before, just like the season before, the difference is that we saw three Slackers, Goljat, Vana and Paradoks, that played in previous` ones with Euthanasia. Though… the sad story about this time (spring editions just own) is that the date was set… though HellFire couldn’t field a decent team. Having three players online (not even three from their first team), they played one dm3 3v3. But it was clear that HF didn’t want to succeed playing like this. So, another season without a final. Mutilators pc CPU broke and someone else had a wedding, but the date they agreed on was about the last day before summer and as it had been postponed for weeks cMF didn’t feel like playing on another day at all. It has happened enough times that teams couldn’t play with their best players or with their best lineup (omg, FF-tVS sd2 just pops up from some dark place in my head) and teams were forced to play. Or with people disconnecting and the game won’t be replayed; the reason that I want that game admins can pause the game or that the players can just vote ‘pause’ in the same way as break, it will help a lot (just not if the team with four is lame enough not to vote :>) to make things end fairer. So, HT decided to let SD itself in it’s worth and give cMF the WO. Of course, it’s not nice but he didn’t want to postpone it again just to please the masses (nor could he because cMF didn’t want it).
So, that’s how SD4 ended leaving us with the summer.




Happily enough I’ve still got NQR2 left to tell something about before the summer comes in.
At the first sight it looked like it was going to be a league with the best teams competing (except for LA). As Slackers, Lithium, Clan MalFunction, Firing Squad, Zetor and Tribe of Tjernobil signed in. Besides those there were Orkney Clan (now without aKKe and Dag but still with players like Brutal, Primus, Piglet, Thug and Bizz), Paranoia and Euthanasia (with HiXen, jOn, Stan, Dexter, Shiva and Wader). The unlucky thing was that most of those clans never got to play a single game at all. Slackers, Lithium, ToT, Euthanasia and OC didn’t play a single game. Paranoia did, but they didn’t play enough to make the playoffs, inactivity struck here too, only playing five matches and beating some clans that did make the playoffs.

During the season we saw HeadCharge, The Axe Men and Hard Guns Crew taking the top spots but when FS got active they won 20 games in row only taking three weeks. Riker seemed to be a good help in their team, he played a lot maps. Though, he didn’t play in Smackdown with them as he was in Lithium (yes, the team that took out FS in SD3 quarters).

Anyway, hgc, axe and head seemed to avoid the big names a little and played the (~50) less good clans more. But when Head faced Zetor, damn they pulled out a good fight. The dm3 was close enough with Stickle of head showing his dm3 skills for sure, only leaving hib with one single frag more in front of him, ZR won it with forty frags. Then the e1m2. True art if you’d ask me. ZR lined hib/acid/rock/hazard, almost their best lineup, just MazeróHazard though, they were quite played in well with hzrd as he even played more maps then Mazer did. So, e1m2… Stickle owned this map too… leading his team to a great score, he made seventy frags followed by Xorcist who stayed on a respectful distance with fifty. Hib and Acid tried hard enough to do something but they couldn’t win it anymore. As Case left (he and Cara were the other two of Head playing) sANDYMAn came in to play the deciding dm2. Well, Zetor didn’t feel good about the loss of the map before (they were still unbeaten in games) so they learned them what dm2 is about. Head got run over badly, losing it 325-75.

Another game on which HGC remembered others of quite often was FS-HGC. What can I say, not much people knew HGC by those days as they hadn’t appeared in that form in European tournaments before.
At the end of FS’ three week activity they faced HGC for the second time. In the first game they didn’t have too much trouble with HGC even though Crit and Eriq had ping over 100 and the teams` average was about 20 higher. It was twice dm3 and fs won both with ~100 frags more. Have to mention that it was hgc’s second match of the season so they might have been in bad shape. Now, they played again. We have seen in it the last season too, the fs guys all have good individual skills but at the moment they change something in their lineup for just one game they the teamplay is ruined, and we haven’t only seen that with fs. Now, they played the first dm3 with Blixem, Crit from the active squad and Kry, Eriq from the less active/skilled. Pings fs-hgc 65-45, blixem owns it but hgc takes the win away with nine frags. The dm2 (their map) went quite easily to fs with eighty frags as Eriq was replaced by razor he brought some tp back. On the second dm3 then HGC showed some nice play again and only lost it with four little frags. Weird, concerning they won of cMF in an all dm3 game, and they weren’t the least and in two maps of HF, e1m2/dm3 were we saw Maso back in action (he played a nice e1m2). Best moment for fs in group stage imo was when they played one of the other two dutch clans Damagers on e2m5. Winning it with the old 100% nl SD3 team of Crit (owning it), Reppie, Plop (Rogue) and Blixem. Btw, blixem was fragging sickly fast in those days. Then, FS` activity went down a lot (they only played two more matches in the five weeks untill the playoffs) and other clans took over the head position. We saw GamBlers as one of the most active teams of the season together with Gods of Hellfire who suffered a 21 game losing streak only winning their first MAP in their fourteenth war. That is what I call love for the game, no whining and just having fun while playing (ok, winning isn’t a bad thing, but they were even happier after the first one now J).

I really looked forward to the games the old, and now revived clans, would play: Zetor and Empire of Azeroth. It was cool to see that ZR was able to field almost the exact same team as they did back in 1999, only missing out Jaguar (who was inactive and kina fed up with quake). EA on the other hand wasn’t able to field all their core players (especially missing Ser) so their first team here was Venture, DarkWarrior, Raptor and Vega; with a backup of Kippo and Ewdafa. One of the best moments of EA was that they played dm2 vs AMD winning it 106-0. Too bad they couldn’t fulfill the expectations on them which were pretty high. They started quite well with five wins (of which C6 and AMD) but then lost three times in a row and couldn’t play enough games to get into the playoffs. Same as Denial of who I expected more then what they did now too. And QuadAver, they got Znappe, Reverend and Clawfinger playing with them for the season and managed to win of DN, AMD and 4K (twice even) but didn’t play more then eight games too…
Another clan of which I thought they would show us some nice results was the german Quadaver. With help of the not so German Znappe and Reverend they won quite some interesting matches, and yet again… a clan that wasn’t active enough to be a serious candidate for the playoffs. Very sad to see that this many good clans didn’t make, pure due to lack of activity.

As most of the better clans HF saw the qualifying stage more like prac then as serious officials. Still, they only lost three games of which they played one with their best lineup (vs cMF). Zetor did their best to play as little as possible and they succeeded in that for sure. They only played nine games, about no pracs and won all officials. Just, about the clans they played… the only good one was HellFire (and HeadCharge as mentioned before) but they fielded a team of Mrlame, Wigorf, Javve and Maso. Still winning e1m2 on which from the ZR side only Hib played well. Dm3 was won by ZR with ease (300-35) and the decider e2m2 gave another 140~150 frags advantage to ZR.
When coming into the playoff stage we see to our surprise that GamBlers has qualified, on the other side, it wasn’t such a surprise as they played so many games (thirty) they got out victorious out of thirteen, isn’t a very impressive result. Still, it is very nice to see that new players, new clans are coming up and take away playoff spots. Their had specialized on e1m6 and e2m2. A smart choice as most known clans think they are quite familiar with e2m2 as it had been allowed in SD for some seasons. This resulted that beside their wins of clans like The Suspected, Warhammer and GOH they won of Trash, AMD and CB, winning e1m6, losing their map (most times raped) and then won e2m2. What do say of AMD in this season. Is just seemed that they weren’t able to find their turn on the episode maps. They had trouble against the worst clans sometimes while raping them on e1m2. Though, they still got enough wins to take a top-16 spot and go through.

Just before the playoffs started we saw one interesting game. This was cMF-FS, FS had played one official in the month before, which was trash winning it 2-0 with a hard time on dm2 (179-158); but, nice thing that ploppie played another match.
About cMF-FS. First map, cmf fields JX, Fifi, Fix and Zhin and fs.se have Riker, Razor, Sphere and the foreigner Reppie, think he’s from Germany or something :P. So, the game starts and FS makes a fullstart and locks the map down. cMF couldn’t do too much about it; they wanted to cancel the game first because Dare couldn’t play (schoolwork); but Fifi came in and was brave enough to try and play under the worst conditions. Fifi played with an old cpu (his other one broke when playing Kalevala earlier that day), a bad mouse and a bad ping. Taking over 3v4 against a good clan on dm3 is very hard. Dare had finished his homework and was ready to play. They moved to another server where the pings for the fins were a little better (and overall equaled; note, Sphere and Reppie lagged bad ping ~85 and Riker/Razor had ~35). cMF takes the lead early and they seem going to have an easy win. Though, FS fights hard and when time is running out especially Riker is having nice actions all over the place for the FS guys. The cMF lead is shrinking every minute we are getting close towards the end. cMF can do nothing else then hide, CS and do sneaky actions, and they are good at it. As Zhin manages to kill the fs quad in the last two minutes they can’t take over the lead. CMF wins 148-135.

So, another three times dm3 match between fs and cmf. FS get’s the start and it seemed like they were going to take control and wouldn’t give it out of hands anymore. They fragged on until the second pent came and Janne took it away. From that moment on it was a true thriller. Neither team could lock the map down and the score stayed even for a long time. Fix got the third pent without weapon so janne gave him an rl what ended up in some frenzy in which about all fs/rl guys were killed. Still cmf couldn’t lock the map down and finish the game in their favor, it stayed that way until there was about four minutes to go, after that Riker discharged himself and two teammates. FS got two RL-guys at SNG but then at they seemed to be scared of the power of Janne as he both took them out. Think that was the last moment FS could give any resist. 162-145 for cMF.

Now, the playoffs took off, at the same time SD4 started. We saw ZR getting a WO over the Norwegian clan Axe. Can’t say the first round playoff games were exciting or surprising enough to report them all. We saw koff-cmf which was nice, with cmf winning dm3 with Fix taking first RL and having 100% effi for sixteen minutes long when he got killed by Zygot. CMF had the control for almost the entire game just forgetting second pent but Koff didn’t do much with it. Koff was going nice with pent as they got the last too and after that cMF wasn’t able to keep their lock. This meant that only the last five minutes were quite even but cMF had already secured their victory. Then, koff taking e1m6 once more. This should be an interesting game as the two had player their before ending 135-133 in favor of cMF with Gamer making 60 frags (second had 44) and they didn’t even have their best team as Nicam was playing instead of Scenic.

The game started, cMF got a good start and controlled the rl/ya. KOFF came back soon enough and from that moment the area switched from time to time. Only near the end of the game KOFF got a some control of it. They had a comfortable lead with only three minutes to go so I thought it was over for cMF after their quadrunner died. But no! With two minutes to go they got RL under control. The only thing against them was time, losing it 150-158. The decider. Omg, it really was good to watch. Things were looking bad for cMF. The game wasn’t even a minute old when Janne timed out and KOFF got a good control over RA. CMF couldn’t do anything against it. As soon as Janne came back (after about for minutes) cMF started to frag again, the only problem was that they didn’t have a single rl and KOFF had four. Though, they did it very good gaining control of RA and hunting down KOFF everywhere. When they would’ve needed 1~2 minutes to take over the lead again KOFF took over and expanded their lead to ~40 frags. But as you might have guessed, cMF took the control over again and didn’t have any trouble anymore winning it with 45 frags. One more note, Janne even got most frags (50) but was followed close by Zhin (49) and Gamer (49, very nice for losing team).

In the second round we did see some nice games, Zetor-4K for instance. The dm3 was true impressive play by ZR. They got the start with pent and rl. Pent secured RA and at the time of second quad Rock owns YA too, with Hib running quad. Then at the four minute mark Slash gets his hands on a quad and takes out Rock there. It didn’t took long though because ZR killed Slash and took YA back very soon after that. The second pent was a huge fight. Zetor gets outnumbered by the 4K guys (who couldn’t be anywhere else anyway) but ZR has a nice action with taking it away in front of about the whole 4K team, still love those actions, especially when the clan your playing does it :E
From that moment ZR locks the map down tight, they have all positions (ya, ra, quad, bridge) and just spawnfrag 4K away taking all pents. The first time that 4K could do one thing was taking quad with six minutes to go and they even took over RA! And the 4K quad got gibbed at ring again. Last minutes were locked again and Hib did a great job on quad, 86 of ZR’s 234 frags were his, 4K left with 29.

It almost seemed like the old times revived in which 4K was one of the ‘clans to beat’. It felt really good on 4K’s map dm2. ZR takes low-rl and quad but 4K takes next quad, killed almost immediately. ZR has all vital positions and 4K is putting up an attack platform on ra/mega. They attack when the clock says 15 minutes remaining and as they all have ra/rl they are fighting hard, and winning. Even though the quad dies quick they have hopes and go back to ra/mega and get next quad as well, and it dies quick again! Zetor is still having tele/water/quad and once again 4K retreats to ra/mega. They are waiting for the ZR quadrunner to come there… he shoots some rocks around the corner… no response… he jumps around… and got ripped into 1000 pieces by 4K. ZR now knew that they had to bag up their guy with armor/rl quick before 4K would launch their attack on quad/water. And it comes. 4K strikes back hard with the ZR guys desperately trying to defend their positions but what is left of them is killed by Slash who got quad. He moves to low-rl trying to frag fast as they were down 104-40 before the Q. They control ya/water and frag some spawning ZR guys. It just can’t be quick enough, 4K really wanted to win it (who wouldn’t). Every resistance that ZR puts up is killed by 4K. The Four Kings are just running over them, ZR even has the biggest trouble to keep their last stronghold… ra/mega. But 4K didn’t frag fast enough! ZR is still having the lead with ~19 frags as there is only one minute remaining. 4K’s grip on the map has loosened a little in the last minute as they tried to take over ra/mega and they must get this last quad to be able to win the game. Then… Zetor attacks quad, 4K tries to defend. A great battle is going on and both teams are fighting like their lives depend on it to take the last Q… and ZR runs away with it. After all the mess they win the map with 172-158. I really didn’t expect such fireworks from the 4K side, it’s good to see them play so good again after such time.

ZR had to fight hard for their skins and their 2-0 victory, but, they managed to do it after all, taking it away in a very close match.
A game of which I expected quite much was Head-cMF. Though, Head didn’t field their best team with Stickle, Cara, Case and Xorcist but lesser gods were playing and they didn’t succeed in building up resistance against cMF. I thought it would’ve been more after their games in the groups (and their win on e1m2 vs ZR).
Two clans which I didn’t expect to see here with the last eight were HGC and Kalevala. They took out respectively Daltons and Trash who imho both could’ve won of those two if they were able to play under normal conditions with their best lineup. Though, Trash missed their star player Hangtime, who won the dm3 vs C6 almost on his own, making more then half of Trashes frags. This resulted in a 2-0 loss of trash and the hgc-d game was just such a drama with D having trouble with pings and they couldn’t even finish the second dm2 because Vert timed out and another player had ping 600 or something.

I didn’t know what to expect of the game. It was clear that HGC would take dm2 as their map and they did. It wasn’t hard for them to take control/lead/quads everything. Not a very interesting game but sure nice to see how Kosa made over 100 frags and Balt did his quadruns (ended 300-50). Second map was e3m3, we knew that before too. I thought this would be an easy one for K as they chose it every time. But no, HGC had some practice on it or they just have a natural teamplay. It took about half the game before K could lock it down and just frag on (175-100). Both teams agreed to play dm3 as decider. Neither of them could take control in the first quarter of the game but after that HGC took the important areas as theirs. K was never able to get enough rl/amor to take over. HGC won it with ~90 frags.

Now, the last quarter final game, maybe the only one in which two clans played that were at the top of Europe at that time. We saw FS winning of HF before, but that wasn’t a game worth mentioning as a ‘real’ because HF played with only two of their first team members.
This time they did. And FS didn’t. Or okay, it were first team members, but now ones that were played in together quite well. We saw Riker, Sphere, Crit and Reppie trying to take HF down… Maybe if Blixem would still have been active by that time he could have turned things around but it’s the –if– factor again. It started with FS’ map, dm3. Together with cMF they were raking up most frags on it during the season, very often in prac too but as ever… it seems that the teamplay from fs` side is very reliable on the same people playing, one change can screw it up quite often.

HellFire got the early lead in it and they kept it for a very long time controlling quad/ring/ra. FS kept YA but they couldn’t get quads and takeover the map. Who would’ve thought that. Then the HF quadrunner gets teamkilled and they are able to take over the map a little, taking quad here and there trying to win it badly but Reppie is lagging and it seems like he can’t handle it. But how often have we seen it, time is running out and HF wins it 160-100.
So, HF even won this one. Then they took e1m2, HF might have been the best clan on it by that time, they almost never lost it when playing there with their best team, such smooth mm3 teamplay, very impressive to watch.
And it looked like it would be such a game again. They got the start with muti and drej running some quads, controlling ya/gl/quad. Even though Sphere is lagging like hell FS doesn’t want to give up at all. Razor takes quad and makes it a one man show as he took over YA. With about five minutes to go FS has all the important areas under control and it seem that if they are able to spawnfrag super fast they can still win it. A great fight at quad which goes to HF makes their dream fall apart. HF get control again and even increase their lead to 236-161 when time is up.


This leaves us with four clans, Zetor, Hard Guns Crew (Poland!), HellFire and Clan MalFunction.
The match between ZR and HGC should be an easy one for ZR because they all had loads of experience in big tournaments and playing good clans and HGC didn’t have those people. Still, I was quite surprised about the level of playing HGC could take on. Just one argument that we hear over and over again ‘the hpw clans are familiar with playing with bad pings’, and then they always come up with the argument that they ping 19 on their home server so that it is bullshit. Alright, maybe they do ping 19 on their home server BUT the fact is that as soon as they have an official game they ALWAYS have to play with a bad ping (55-80) and the other clans might play such games, maybe twice a season. This means that the non-Scandinavian and especially the polish clans/players play most of their games with a good ping, nevertheless they play every single official with a high one.
Back to the game, Zetor and HGC. It was quite clear that fi-pol doesn’t give nice connections, a server was found on which it was ~80-60 in favor of HGC. Though, they couldn’t take advantage of it as ZR won both dm3 and dm2 quite easy, the maps weren’t very exiting and well… I hate lagging wars (who doesn’t). Mazer had very clear trouble with his inactivity and lag so he couldn’t score very much. It seemed that Hib had the same problem as Mazer even though he didn’t lag as bad as his teammate, he wasn’t as good as he was throughout the rest of the season. ZR won dm3 ~170-90 and dm2 ~245-75.

Concerning the other side of the playoff brackets. Imho there were here way more good clans represented then on the other one. Okay, they are good on the other one too, but not in the way they were here. Look at the clans, this side had Koff, HeAd, FS, cMF and HF and the other had not a single clan that made the second round of the playoffs in SD4. Now about the cMF-HF, it promised to be good game but I didn’t thought it would be as good as it was. First map was dm3, cMF’s. What to say about it, I thought it would be an easy win for cMF but well what was certain after fs-hf. HF got pent and rl while cMF had to do it with quad. As the HF rl bored cMF got the better one. HF got second quad and controlled RA but they couldn’t keep it for long. CMF controlled it most and it turned out to be one of the most important positions again. HF attacked it several times and took it over but they couldn’t control it long. The game stayed even all the way and the moment on which was decided who would win was at last pent. And cMF got away with it increasing their lead from 20 to 40 in the last five minutes (yep, is was close). 164-125 for cMF with Drejfus and Wigorf scoring 90 of HFs frags.

This e1m2 might be one of the closest and most intense (played by good clans) which I’ve ever seen. CMF got the better start with Quad and RL and with those taking control of YA. HF was pushed back to MH but cMF couldn’t frag much as HF did strong attacks on every single quad and taking some of them. HF attacked YA with it but couldn’t take it over, a minute after they tried to take quad with three man and still didn’t succeed. CMF is just leading with less then ten frags all the time! HF is still attacking quad over and over again and with it killing enough of the cMF boys, and having MH to stay close with them. With ten minutes to go cMF leads with seven frags (it was four after four minutes) and it stays like this until the moment that HF attacks YA and takes it over! OMFG What a mess it is! Both teams making suicidal attacks at Quad to take it away and win it, there is three minutes to go, nobody has lock and the score is equal! Damn. Neither team can pull off a lead nor get control of more areas, HF wins it with last quad 178-172! Wigorf making most, 63, frags while Dare was second with 49 and the next HF guy was only fifth in frags. Sure a nice one : )
The deciding dm2 was just as nice, HF taking the early lead with both Rl’s and killing the cMF quad before he could do something with it. Then, when it seems like HF is going to take the control and will get the start for real cMF takes second quad and secure ya/water. HF goes back to low-rl, ra/mega and can’t do anything. Then Drejfus comes in and makes a super quadrun taking out cMF at quad/water and giving them the time to build up control there. But cMF isn’t to give up. cMF fights it’s way back in the game and in no time the control was in cMFs hands again. Trying to decide the map right away cMF moves to low rl but isn’t taking enough care at the other side of the map while doing that so HF is able to destroy cMF’s lead! The chaos breaks out now and the game is as close as it can be, with a minute to go cMF leads with a mere two (!) frags! HF takes the last quad and the victory with even fourteen frags (162-148). What a game…


cMF and HGC were to play for the third and fourth place. It seemed to me that it shouldn’t be too hard for cMF to take this one in case playing with their first team. Though, it even was an interesting game. cMF fielded a nice team of Janne, Fifi, Fix and Mooniz. Not really a first lineup, especially when realizing that JX had ping 115. Though, cMF was very strong on dm3 and dm2 in the whole season. It was nothing special on dm3. CMF got an early lead, controlled from the start and never got threatened too bad during the whole game. The battles at pent were most interesting to watch of the whole map, both teams trying very hard to take them. HGC could never get something that looked like control, steeling a quad here and there but not able to back it up and really take the control. Solid play by cMF, note, Janne got 58 frags even though his lag (Fifi second with 40, and yes, frags say nothing but it sure was good hpw play), map ends 172-80.
As always HGC chose their beloved dm2. I thought this would be more exciting as I told before, cMF didn’t play under the best conditions. Still, cMF got the first quad, controlled the map for a long time. HGC trying to get back every time but they were not able to take the control. Though, they did manage to frag quite some because cMF couldn’t lock the entire map. Then, HGC got some rl’s and armor, entering quad/tele/water from all sides and taking over the whole map! Though, there was only a minute or six remaining so they had to frag fast and not let cMF CS the game out, they led with sixty frags. And so they did. We saw furious quadruns, cMF being hunted on every single spot of the map, HGC fragging all around. Though, this isn’t good for your status, the low-rl HGC guy weakened and got killed. cMF got a few rl’s, placed an attack on quad/water/tele and again, the beloved chaos broke out! Dead and living people flying all over the place, everybody dying and cMF taking quad, moving down to water/tele and had a nice bore J. In the last minute cMF was still leading but with less then five frags. HGC tried hard and in the last second Knight equaled the game! For once overtime was on and HGC had the best situation to win it, and so they did with onl