The BEAT IT and DreamHack Winter Quake Live tournaments combined to produce an action packed weekend. With both competitions concluded, what did we learn from them?

Strenx came to play, and play he did

Kevin 'Strenx' Baeza has long been the man who dominates online competitions but fails to replicate that form on LAN. It's not like he completely deteriorates, but the Frenchman should do a lot better than he does.

So come one of the most competitive weeks to date in Quake, not many people would have bet on Strenx coming in the top four of both the BEAT IT and DreamHack tournaments.

Despite being knocked into the lower bracket of BEAT IT early on by Cypher, Fnatic's dueler put on a brilliant run, going undefeated right up until the consolation final where he lost to eventual winner Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson. He moved past Alessandro 'stermy' Avallone, crushed Maciej 'av3k' Krzykowski, and finally got the better of long-time rival Anton 'Cooller' Singov for the first time on LAN en-route to an unexpected third place finish.

In the DreamHack tournament, Strenx shocked everyone by 3-0'ing Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson in the first round. Though he fell to Cypher again in his next match, Strenx became the story of the event after his victory over the world champion.

Where this leaves Strenx remains to be seen. Was it just a good outing, or has he truly adapted the controlled and smart attitude that was desperately missing from his arsenal? He will more than likely be at the IEM European Finals in January where he will have a fantastic chance of asserting himself as a top four player. In the meantime, you will be able to catch him winning online cups, as per.



Vo0's invitation to BEAT IT wasn't justified

15 people had to qualify for BEAT IT, while Sander 'Vo0' Kaasjager was mysteriously invited. He came 13-16th and didnt even win a single map. Is it time for the Dutchman to call it quits like his follow fellow coL man Brian 'dkt' Flander?

He did take a map off stermy, but also slumped to a 13-16th finish at DreamHack. Was he invited so he could take over Level Up TV with 2GD?



BEAT IT's bracket was awesome...

Disregarding the alleged game throwing scandal at DreamHack, which gave us essentially the same thing, BEAT IT's bracket was nicely put together for spectators.

The big four all looked likely to meet each other in the quarter finals (which they did), but the game before that posed a threat for each of them. The 'other four guys', DaHanG, k1llsen, stermy and Strenx all had a great chance to upset their superiors after beating their first round opponents. None of them did, but the games provided great entertainment value.

A big lower bracket was a nice addition, too. Without it we wouldn't have witnessed Strenx's awesome run, and we wouldn't have seen Cypher vs. rapha twice.

...but not for some players.

Poor Dem0n, Guard, tox1c, and zsx. Traveling all the way to Sweden to get paired up with the highest seeds must suck, and it's even worse that Vo0 got an 'easier' chance to progress against Strenx when he didn't even have to qualify, unlike the aforementioned quartet.



Level Up TV showed everyone how it's done

Level Up TV has been floating around for a while now, streaming weekend cups and events that ESL don't host, but this past week saw them step up their game to an entirely new level.

The quality of their stream was impeccable. The guests they got to cast were brilliant (ranging from rapha, to av3k, to zsx, to stermy, to vo0, to 2GD) and each provided their own take on commentating. When any combination of the two appeared, things got even better. I'll go into that later, but for now, let's stick to Level Up.

One thing that Level Up excel at is giving what the viewers want. One of the things in demand were VODs, and Level Up uploaded them just hours after a day of play ended. Take into consideration the fact they stream all day, in high quality, and then upload full VODs almost on the same day, and it screams out a dedicated, passionate team.

Over the weekend they opened up a donation scheme, and while one could easily perceive that as selfish, viewers jumped at the chance to hand over their cash. I hope they made a killing in donations and continue to show up at events and provide top notch coverage.



When they're not playing, Quakers are human



The three people above provided the perfect balance of professionalism and outrageous comments on Level Up's stream. Stories surrounding av3k's notorious reputation with stealing phones and shoes kicked things off, before 2GD started mouthing off at an av3k in full troll mode. stermy gave a preview to the upcoming Quake match.

"I beat you in... WoW European internet cup," av3k repeatedly said to the one-time Fnatic WoW player 2GD. It took a while for 2GD to realize that av3k was pulling his leg.

Scenes with av3k picking up girls to secure club tickets were also present, but it's how the three casually spoke to each other that made it so hilarious. Check out the entire thing, starting at around 20 minutes, here.

On the professional side of things, Dan 'zsx' Sanders provided great commentary throughout. When he and rapha partnered up it was the perfect mix of an interview as well as insight into the on-going game, resulting in things never getting boring.

The Vo0GD show was another example of normality in Quake.

I advise you to just roll through all of Level Up's VODs as every one contains something you cannot miss.



Paranoia is present

The game-throwing controversy marred the DreamHack tournament. The story goes that av3k and Cooller decided to lose their games on purpose so they would not meet Cypher and rapha in the first round of the knockout stages.

As you may well know, av3k and Cooller went out in the first round anyway, but the fact that it was mentioned off the back of the revelation of the brackets gives the claim some substance. Many say that brackets should be drawn randomly after all group games are complete to avoid just this, and that there is no advantage to the group A finisher versus group B runner up system.

While it's unknown what organizers for other tournaments will do, what happened at DreamHack should be enough to convince everyone to implement a random drawing for knockout stages.

Additional reading on this subject: av3k, Cooller and stermy comment on DH drama, shenanigans solved at DreamHack.



Cooller had a very poor outing

The Russian legend Anton 'Cooller' Singov really had to perform in Sweden. Despite his impressive second place finish at QuakeCon 2010, he came fourth at gamescom and was outclassed at ASUS Summer by friend and rival Cypher.

Cooller really shouldn't have lost to Strenx. He beat the Frenchman four times on Quake Live prior to BEAT IT, and the pair's rivalry is pretty heated and fueled by Cooller's continual victories.

That wasn't the worst part of his week, though. Cooller was at the center of controversy at DreamHack with the whole game throwing scenario, add to that his 5/8th finish after losing to a guy he shouldn't have even played (DaHanG) and it all amounts to a torrid time.

He left a simple message on his Facebook page: "Weird tournament."



Cypher and rapha switched places twice over three days

On November 24-25, Cypher was the world's best Quake Live player. On November 26, that title went to rapha after he defeated Cypher in the grand final of BEAT IT. On November 27, Cypher earned it back by winning DreamHack.

To justify this, Cypher had a one map lead over rapha heading into the BEAT IT grand final. SK Gaming's dueler still managed to win though, 3-2, and in impressive fashion. After this all attention switched to DreamHack, where rapha was immediately 3-0'd by Strenx while Cypher tore through whoever he faced, and eventually dismantled DaHanG in the grand final.

While it's not often that one win constitutes a switcheroo in rankings, a lot was on the line in BEAT IT, especially considering rapha was already a map down. It is the norm for one loss to destroy rankings though, and rapha's unexpected loss to Strenx while Cypher did as he pleased turned the tides again.



All in all, a crazy few days of Quake. What was your highlight of the week?