Pelle 'Fazz' Söderman has never obtained a good Quake Live placement. Sure, the Swede placed 4th at an ESWC event many moons ago, but over the past two years he hasn't gotten out of the groups of any major tournament, let alone achieved anything.

So, why does he still compete? Fazz doesn't even consider himself a professional gamer. He needs to secure a job soon, which will probably cut down his practice time, and he's practically been fodder for everyone else who competes on Quake Live.

It doesn't help that he rolls into tournaments with the best players in the world in his groups. At ESWC 2010, he had av3k. At DreamHack Summer he had Cypher. He got Cypher again in his IEM group. When you discover the group drawings for a tournament, the last thing you want to see is one of the two Serious Gaming duelers that instill fear around the globe in your table.

Looking over his IEM group, it's easy to predict what the outcomes of Fazz's games were going to be. He was always going to beat GoHLinK and tox1c, and always going to lose to Cypher. His game with noctis was the deal-maker this tournament, and that got off to a dreadful start.

Losing the opening map is the worst thing that can happen in a best-of-three series. Not only does it mean you have to win the next map, but you have to win it in style to counter the confidence that your opponent created - and is basking in - for himself. So feel for Fazz, who lost 18-1 to a noctis who desperately needs to get back in form.

Looking at the monitor waiting for the next game to start after a thrashing is familiar to Fazz, though. He's been dealing with it non-stop in his Quake Live career, so his expectations for the next game are simple: get the most that he can out of it.

Despite the massive first map loss to noctis, Fazz won the following two maps - Dismemberment 4-3 and Lost World 6-5 (even making noctis quit, 20 seconds into overtime) - to give himself the boost that could possibly propel him into the playoffs for the first time.

"It's always close between [noctis and I]. I usually have a really hard time against him," Fazz told SK Gaming in a video interview after his game with noctis. "I had to slow my game down and play like a sissy. I don't like to play like that," he conceded, "but I'm tired of not getting out of the group stages."

Now that he's broken through a barrier that's blocked him for years, he has an even bigger one in his way in the form of av3k. Will Fazz beat him? Probably not. Take a walk down memory lane to the last time they met, at ESWC: 13-2, 13-0 for av3k.

The one person who makes it past the group stages of a tournament into the playoffs who shouldn't - and there always is one - is usually hit with a unwelcoming blow. It is like being invited to the Champions League after finishing in the bottom quarter of the Premier League for two years. The competition is completely different, and every single second of a game matters.

But it doesn't matter what happens for Fazz. Like what many aim to achieve when competing at IEM continental events, he'll be present at the IEM World Championships in March. That's probably more than he expected to leave Kiev with.

Considering he made it to the European Finals, there's no reason why he shouldn't head to CeBIT with an aim of placing in the top half of a tournament for once. Last year he didn't even get to compete with Europe's best, yet this year he'll be competing with the world's best.

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Photograph copyright of ESL / Julia Christophers