If you were to ask a group of Quake enthusiasts a match they'd love to see, a big portion of the survey pie chart would be colored "Cypher vs. rapha".

The European champion may have been the favorite heading into the game after his triumph in January but his opponent, the man of 2009, was desperate to put critics at rest by hitting another final of a major tournament.

What followed will probably rank in anyone's top 10 games of the year, and we're only in March.

Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson 3-2 Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky (dm13: 2-3, ztn: 1-12, t7: 3-2, dm6: 5-1, t9: 14-1)

The match was bound to be filled with clever moments and insane shots, and both were demonstrated from the off. While dm13 was more of a game of chess, ztn was the game of Cypher, who was tearing through the American with the railgun and rocket launcher. Every time rapha looked like he had dodged a rail shot a second followed up, depleting his armor and hope of getting back in the game.

Match point for Cypher suddenly arrived, and the Belarusian brought along his rail once again. But, rapha had answers this time for the long-range weapon, and took control of the fight to push the map into his favor. An excellent frag when the scores were at 2-2 gave rapha the chance to defend his lead which he did perfectly.

dm6 saw rapha take a two frag lead which he held for a while before making his next move, resulting in a further two frags. He held his four frag advantage for a good period of the match before Cypher could reply with his own, and when he did it was far too late to mount a comeback. After being 2-0 down, rapha had found his way back into the running for a place in the grand final.

For the last map you'd expect something special, and rapha sent everyone a message by showing just how much he wanted to advance. Immediately taking the lead the American was flawless, controlling items to near perfection and completely restricting Cypher from playing his game. His aim plus brilliant item control was rewarded with a rematch against Cooller for the title of world champion and $10,000.