SK Gaming's Quake duel star Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson is the champion of Quakecon 2011, defeating fnatic's Kevin 'Strenx' Baeza in the final. After going down one map rapha came back with three straight to take his second Quakecon title. rapha takes home $8,000 along with another QuakeLive title.

For Strenx the map pool looked to give him a good chance at his first crown as aerowalk, Toxicity and Furious Heights were amongst the first four maps. As it happened the French player found himself outplayed at key times on the latter two to seal his fate.

Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson 3:1 Kevin 'Strenx' Baeza
-13:15 aerowalk
-8:0 Lost World
-12:11 Toxicity
-14:5 Furious Heights

The first map had rapha in control early on but after some trades Strenx got his aim going with the rail and lg to push the game out into a win for him. His chance to frontrun ended after the first encounter on Lost World, a map favouring rapha's careful style, as the American played a flawless game for the majority of the map, only giving up kills when it no longer mattered.

The third map, Toxicity, seemed to be Strenx's real chance to stake his claim to the series, especially with Furious Heights coming next in the pool. Despite some great rails Strenx found himself outmaneouvered by rapha in key situations and also saw the spawns go against him at times. The game looked to be heading into overtime but rapha managed to pull out the clutch kill and take the series lead.

The final map should have been a very close affair, thanks to both players being highly proficient on the map. In fact rapha seemed to lock it down relatively easily early on, thanks in part to some very nice railing from the American. When the game seemed out of reach, in light of the time and rapha's tendancy to play defensively to great effect, Strenx turned it on for one last push and was making some headway until rapha finally stopped him in a battle at RA.

Quakecon 2011 duel final standings:
1st Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson - $8,000
2nd Kevin 'Strenx' Baeza - $4,000
3rd Anton 'Cooller' Singov - $2,000
4th Paul 'czm' Nelson

For rapha this marks yet another major QuakeLive title to add to his very impressive haul. The American has now captured two Quakecon titles, two IEM World Championships, ESWC 2010, IEM IV Dubai, the ESL Invitational and Beat IT 2010. Following losses to Cypher at UGC and Dreamhack this win, along with the Belarusian's first round playoff exit, would seem, by most accounts, to put rapha firmly back on top of the QuakeLive dueling world. He is certainly the most successful QL player by far.

Strenx was playing his first QuakeLive LAN final and came in with a lot of momentum thanks to wins over Cypher and Cooller but was unable to capitalise on the opportunity.

(Photograph copyright of Cyberfight)