Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky won his first DreamHack event just moments ago, demolishing Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty 3-0 in the grand final. Though the map scores were relatively close Cypher was on a different level to DaHanG throughout the series.

Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky 3-0 Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty (ztn - 5:1, t7 - 6:2, dm13 - 6:4 (after overtime))

Cypher was present in the last DreamHack final back in June but was denied a win by his team-mate and DreamHack specialist Maciej 'av3k' Krzykowski. This time around though av3k was eliminated early on by Marcel 'k1llsen' Paul and Cypher looked the favorite for the DreamHack title after dispatching of both Alessandro 'stermy' Avallone and Kevin 'Strenx' Baeza three games to one.

DaHanG on the other hand had never featured in a major international Quake tournament final until now, only gaining notoriety through IEM America events where last year he got the better of rival rapha but fell short a couple of months ago.

The American put together an impressive string of wins to reach the final, brushing past Anton 'Cooller' Singov and gamescom champ k1llsen with ease, to set up an intriguing encounter with the most feared dueler around right now.

ztn was the first map and the score remained at 0-0 for nigh on four minutes before things started rolling. The two fought for control constantly, but Cypher took it from DaHanG without even engaging in a battle which was bizarre in its own right.

DaHanG hit a decent railgun shot that could have threw Cypher off his game but it wasn't enough to deter the BEAT IT runner-up who was beginning to find his stride. Limiting DaHanG to just one yellow armor, Cypher was in total control until DaHanG hit two clean rockets at mega, only for him to get sloppy and concede a frag straight after.

A tense 30 seconds or so followed that but an incredible rail shot from Cypher from underneath red armor, to DaHanG who flung himself towards it, gave momentum right back to the Belarusian. He closed the game out from there, again restricting DaHanG from gathering items to mount an attack.

Cypher showed no signs of slowing down on t7 either, establishing a rapid 2-0 lead. He played the defense for a while after that, presumably to see how DaHanG would react to falling behind so quickly, then chose the perfect time to mount an offense which resulted in a further two kills. DaHanG pulled two back but it was too late; Cypher had played the map out perfectly, slowing the pace down as and when necessary but also turning up the heat at the right opportunities.

DaHanG knew that dm13 was do or die and he responded by picking up the first frag and holding a lead up until the lava helped Cypher's quest for a 3-0 sweep. The score sat at 3-2 for a short while until the lava again assisted Cypher, taking the score to 3-3 and then to 4-3 in favor of the QuakeCon 2010 champion.

With 30 seconds left DaHanG made a risky push and it paid off, killing Cypher with just 32 health remaining. The EG man managed to push the game into overtime and had two minutes to rescue his bid for an international title.

But it wasn't to be, and after a 100 second stand off, Cypher scored a frag that essentially killed off the game. DaHanG went all out with a few seconds remaining and came so close to killing Cypher, but his depleted stack was the downfall in the final battle of the game.

DreamHack Winter final standings:

1st - Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky - 45,000 SEK (~€4,900)
2nd - Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty - 15,000 SEK (~€1,600)
3rd - Marcel 'k1llsen' Paul - 10,000 SEK (~€1,000)

Placing second in BEAT IT and first at DreamHack, Cypher comes away from Sweden as the undisputed number one in Quake Live. A handful of players who perhaps shouldn't have had anything to smile about while travelling home from Sweden can do just that, namely strenx and DaHanG, who both had their own moments over the weekend.

Check out all of our BEAT IT and DreamHack Winter coverage here and here.