Locust Dominance:
Need I say much more? 2020 was the year of Locust as he won every single duel tournament that he participated in. While I'd love to go deeper on every single one of them, let's point out the two main ones in my opinion.

Since no LANs could be organized due to Covid-19, we saw something this year that we've hardly ever seen before - world wide tournaments online. Playing with up to 155 ping suddenly became the norm, and perhaps that benefited Locust and his feared lightning gun.

QuakeCon@Home
This tournament was a blast. With well over 50 players from all parts of the globe fighting for a prize pool of more than $4000 USD, it was bound for success and what a tournament it was. Many games had to be played on high ping but there were no complaints from anywhere or anyone - people came together and accepted the situation we were in and played their hearts out no matter if it were on 12 ping or 155 ping.

What I liked the most was the outcome of the tournament. The top 3 consisted of three players from three different continents - Locust, gt and Bogojoker, proving that it truly was an international tournament. I'd love to dig deeper on every game of the tournament, but that would make this news entry way too long for anyone to read. Bogojoker, with his intelligent playstyle combined with stellar movement and decision making claimed 3rd place just behind gt with his irrational style and dare I say - insane - movement. However, as the title suggests, Locust reigned supreme with his tactical playstyle and extremely dangerous lightning gun.

For more information about the tournament, you can check out scores on the Wiki: https://www.quakeworld.nu/wiki/QuakeCon_2020.

Duelmania Reloaded pt4
This tournament was a little bit more EU centered but we all love the Duelmanias regardless. Notable shoutout for me in this tournament was Macisum finishing 4th ahead of a big bunch of really good players. However, once again we saw Locust come out victorious, this time ahead of bps and BuLaT. Highlight of the tournament for me was the "semi finals", or rather lower bracket finals between bps and BuLaT. It was so back and forth that it's simply a game you can watch over and over again. It also contained one of the best dm4 games I have ever seen.

For more information about the tournament, check out the Wiki: https://www.quakeworld.nu/wiki/Duelmania_Reloaded_4
Also, for your own sake, make sure to check out the lower bracket finals on this VOD: https://youtu.be/_1FdYw3n79E.

LocKtar vs Reload dm2
Now of course this was not a tournament, but an event that is worth mentioning. For over 20 years people had been waiting to see these two dm2 titans face off against one another but due to real life situations it had just never happened - and nobody had thought of the idea of setting up a server in India until now so that Australians could play Europeans, albeit on 155 ping. I remember checking ChallengeTV back in the days, and their "most searched players" list always contained both LocKtar and Reload even though neither of them were considered the best players at the time. They were just both so entertaining that their demos were worth watching anyway.
The event was simple - best of 5, dm2 only. And what a show they brought us! I won't spoil the winner but I will of course provide you with a VOD!

Reload pregame interview: https://youtu.be/fCkOnlzgmiU
LocKtar vs Reload, bo5, dm2 only: https://youtu.be/3iNyYLJueJ4

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Let's change subjects. Let's talk about 4on4 where I think we saw the most growth in QuakeWorld this year. I don't think I've seen this kind of activity around the globe for a decade.
I am of course talking about the...

GetQuad Nations Cup!

It's amazing what a world wide 4on4 tournament can do for a game. I think this tournament would have been just as much of a success even without Covid-19, honestly.

In North America, we saw m3ssia help bring back daily QuakeWorld sessions which sparked a lot of activity, allowing for more practice for the really strong USEH team as well as new, upcoming players. I personally don't remember when the North American scene was this active last but it's been great to see. Led by Bogojoker, BLooD_DoG, Rusty and Dusty, it was clear early on that they would be a competitive team in this Nations cup.

In Australia, the lockdown allowed for many old players to come back and start playing again, led by Dirtbox and the GetCooked community. This was one of the most interesting stories this year to me. It was like watching a baby learn how to walk, how to run and eventually how to compete in 100m sprint. The Australian team consisting of Dracs, Blindcant, Yeti, HarlsoM and Swoop started practicing against the USEH team on a consistent basis. I commentated and recorded many of their first showdowns and watched as they became better and better, learned more and more about team play, analyzed their games and really tried - and succeeded - in becoming a formidable team in the Nations cup. It was a privilege to be a part of that journey and watch them develop faster than any other team I've ever seen before. Huge shoutout to the Australian team for their efforts this year, you deserve all the respect in the world.

In Europe, the regular countries started practicing and getting in shape and a notable UK&Irish combination was formed that we'll talk about more later...

Then came the tournament. We started off with 11 nations, or rather 14 as some had to combine nations to make a competitive team. Early on it was clear that Spain&Portugal could not reliably field a team, so they had to forfeit from the tournament together with France. Eventually Norway had to do the same due to inactivity of their players. But those were the only setbacks and the rest is history.

As we got closer and closer to the end of the round robin, it was clear that Finland would win the round robin, Sweden would finish 2nd and Russia would finish third, but the last playoff spot was still up for grabs. Banter started being thrown between UK&Ireland and USEH as they were the two main teams competing for the very last playoff spot. It was an upset when UK&Ireland managed to win their internal game against USEH, as USEH had the upper hand in practices which made for a very dramatic finish. USEH were put in a position where they had to win their very last round robin game against Sweden in order to advance. Alas, Sweden came out on top and team USEH had to settle for 5th place in the tournament, still a very good finish, ahead of teams like Australia, Poland and Brazil. Worth mentioning is also the amazing performance by the Australian team, ending their round robin with a 5-5 score, earning them a 6th place finish.

The playoffs were here and we saw team Finland quickly blast through team UK&Ireland, winning 3-0 (along with a dm2 game that ended 545-15...), remaining unbeaten on a single map with a perfect 23-0 map record.

Sweden took on Russia which was a little bit closer. Russia managed to win a dm3, but were ultimately beaten 3-1, setting up a grand finals between Sweden and Finland, and a 3rd place game between Russia and UK&Ireland and this is where it got real interesting.

The Bronze Game
Russia vs UK&Ireland was played first and my goodness what a series! Once again I will not spoil the winner, I can tell you this much: over the entire series, the total frag difference was 43 frags in a best of 5. Think about that for a moment and you'll realize how extremely close this series was. Do yourself a favor and go watch it if you haven't already!

Russia vs UK&Ireland VOD: https://youtu.be/XvNovjb8fvQ

The Grand Finals
As mentioned earlier, Finland had gone flawless throughout the entire tournament with a perfect map score of 23-0. Most people, as well as the 280 viewers, expected Finland to win 3-0 and finish the tournament without losing a single map. But something was looming in the shadows... This requires some back story.

The tournament began with Sweden having XantoM on their team, well known for his time in the Viper Squad, and generally for being one of the best 4on4 players in the world for two decades. However, quite early on he fell ill (perfectly timed for the AllStars that I'll mention briefly later) and missed a lot of work in real life. In an effort to catch back up and not let his coworkers down, he was forced to take a break from QuakeWorld and thus also the Nations cup, so Sweden were forced to play without him. But the stars would align and XantoM became available again just before the Grand Finals against Finland. But it would prove not to be the only ace up the sleeves of the Swedes. In the shadows, a fakenicker had been practicing and performing ridiculously well. People were assuming many things about who it could be - some got it right - some got it wrong, but this mysterious fakenicker would continue practicing and on game day, everything was revealed. Team Sweden had managed to get Carapace, also nicknamed "The Swedish Milton", out of retirement. Suddenly team Finland was up against an extremely strong team and the Grand Finals was set to be an epic finish to an epic tournament.

Finland vs Sweden GRAND FINALS VOD: https://youtu.be/z7VbRkOHfew
Wiki and standings: https://www.quakeworld.nu/wiki/GetQuad!_Nations_Cup

Thank you SO MUCH to all participants, all administrators, all the viewers and everybody else that made this tournament possible. It certainly was something to remember and I can't wait for a 2021 edition to come sooner rather than later!

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I should give a quick mention to the AllStars game that is sort of a highlight every year it's happened - but this was not the year. The two teams looked extremely good and we were set for another amazing AllStars but alas, XantoM fell ill and couldn't participate more than a map and with bps losing his first pick, it would prove to be too difficult to beat Milton's team on a single map. But, don't despair, sometimes luck is not on our side and I'm sure the next AllStars will be way better!

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Coming up...
While the GetQuad Draft League, the North American Draft League as well as a few other tournaments are already running, they will continue to run into 2021. We also have a Duelmania Pacific that's recently started, and more 2on2 and 1on1 tournaments coming up in RideMyRocket 2on2 tour and Hammertime 1on1.

There's also some other projects in the making... and more world wide stuff to expect from 2021, so keep playing and stay in shape!

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All in all I'd like to thank you all for an amazing Quake year. Through the goods and the bads, I will still look back at 2020 with a smile on my face knowing that this was a great year of QuakeWorld!

I wish you a Happy New Year and I'll see you on the servers!

Author: Andeh
Twitch: suddendeathTV
YouTube (all VODs): TVsuddendeath