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The Underdogs

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#11
Team Unf!
Phil and Claw
"The dudes that show up"

We'll all be cheering for this team. Many of us can relate to them - they love QuakeWorld and they show up to this 20 year anniversary without expectations.
Phil, mainly a caster in later years, has always been loyal to the QuakeWorld scene. He flew to numerous QHLans in Sweden as the only american just to show his respect for the scene. I am sure he has no particular expectations for this tournament either result-wise but he's there to not miss out on this amazing opportunity to celebrate 20 years of QuakeWorld with the QuakeCon staff and the Quake players.

Claw is a similar story. A long time contributor to the scene but not a particularly competitive player. While a perfect match to Phil for this tournament, this team Unf! will be looking to beat out teams that sign up on site.

Trivia: Clan Unf! is the longest lasting team in North American QuakeWorld history.

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#10
Team DRKN
Rio and FeFFe!
"Swedish Roulette"

The tenth spot in this power rank is awfully hard to decide. Rio and Feffe could very well be a top 6 contender while they could also end up losing to teams signing up on site. Rio, the more tactical player of the two, has quite recently earned a spot in the top Suddendeath team for four-on-four team play, and is likely to be the one running armors and timing quads on this team. Debuting in 2008, Rio is one of the more modern players in the tournament and will contribute heavily with his intelligence and, if he's on fire, a dazzling aim as well.

Feffe will take the role of the aimer of this team. His lightning gun aim can beat any top player on any given day and should be feared on maps like DM4. While not very experienced in team play, he has played enough random two-on-two mixes to be a considerable threat to anyone in this tournament.

If this team is to perform well, they will need consistency which I think will be their biggest problem. Will Rio be on fire? Will Feffe's aim be on point?
Anything can happen in a LAN setting.

Trivia: Rio was a skilled player in Quake 3 before switching to QuakeWorld. Also, both Feffe and Rio have the Quake symbol tatooed on their arm.

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#9
Team MAGA
Thump4 and serp
"The Patriots"

Thump4 is considered one of the best north american players and he's coming to this tournament to defend the american honor and prove that americans are a force to be reckoned with even amongst europeans. While his list of achievements is long, I think he would need a stronger team mate to perform well in this tournament.

Serp is quite an unknown player to the scene, his most notable achievement being a 7th place in the 2009 Aerowalkage tournament. However, digging deeper I found that he is a quite solid two-on-two player as well, especially on DM2. He will be a beast on Aerowalk together with Thump4 and if they're both on fire, they could definitely beat some of the higher ranked teams.

This team's biggest strength is Thump4's LAN experience. He's been to QuakeCon before and the environment is not alien to him - If he can perform in a calm manner, being used to the LAN setting, this team could upset other not-so-LAN-experienced teams.

Trivia: Thump4 has LAN achievements from many different games, ranging from Quake to Doom and Painkiller.

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#8
Team Whisky Tango
ok98 and Trygve
"Frustration"

These fellas show up to Quake tournaments. Always. Anywhere. They are as loyal to the QuakeWorld LANs as one can possibly get. This will be the first time to my knowledge that they play together in a tournament setting and the question is: will they get along when things get hot?

These two players both want and expect to win, always, even against teams or players they are not supposed to beat. This is a very good trait, but could also cause problems when things aren't going their way. Trygve being the calmer of the two, when it comes to Quake, will have to keep them organized if they are to perform well at QuakeCon.

Both Trygve and ok98 are experienced two-on-two players and Trygve's great aim should correspond well with ok98's great knowledge of maps like DM2. This team might fall flat due to lack of practice, but players as experienced as ok98 and Trygve only need a few hours to get back in shape.

Trivia: Due to his many insightful comments, ok98 is also known as "the Prophet".

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#7
ZeRo4 and cha0ticz
"The Champions"

This is a very hard one. These two players have been successful in almost every game they've touched, but QuakeWorld is extremely different from other games.
One has to keep in mind that many of the players attending have been playing QuakeWorld for 20 years and are superstars who simply didn't switch games to more modern ones. It will be very interesting to see how they play and if they practice for QuakeWorld as well or only for Quake Live.

Out of respect for their past achievements in other games, I give them the seventh spot here. They may very well end up in last place depending on whether they practice or not.

Trivia: Has earned $172,678.66 prize money combined, mainly from Quake 3 tournaments.

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#6
BLooD_DoG(D_P) and Bogojoker
"The Power of Will"

This is a team that really wants to win. I'm not saying the other teams don't want to win, but especially Blood Dog would probably walk over corpses to win this tournament. Blood Dog is well known in the scene and has been playing with europeans for years, performing very well on that 100+ ping. The weakness of north americans playing it out in Europe is that they hardly ever play DM4. DM4 is slightly too fast-paced to work properly on a high ping, hence a very bad
choice for north americans playing in Europe. However, QuakeCon uses a drop system allowing Blood Dog and Bogojoker to drop DM4 and never playing on it, eliminating their biggest weakness.

While Bogojoker doesn't play as often on the european servers as Blood Dog, he's a very skilled player and has been quite dominant in the american scene.
Many would say that this team is the north american hope. The team to let the world know that the north american scene is not as inferior as people think. I agree.

As mentioned, they won't have to play DM4, and will probably get Aerowalk or ZTNDM3 dropped against them. If they get good practice and preparation on the remaining maps - DM2, DM6 and Aerowalk/ZTNDM3, they can definitely be a very big threat to the top 5 teams.

Trivia: Blood Dog is coming to QuakeCon straight from his honeymoon. Congratulations!

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The absolute top

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#5
Team PANW
Dirtbox and Venom
"Australian Pride"

Dirtbox is a familiar player to all europeans as he spent a lot of time in Europe and practiced countless hours to gain a very respectable skill.
The question is: how is his practice now? He has been back in Australia for a while now and one needs to practice to stay in shape.

He'll be teaming up with Venom, another Australian who is very hard to rank. He's placed high in pretty much every Australian tournament, but that's not saying too much unfortunately due to the small amount of players that Australia houses. According to Dirtbox himself, Venom plays on a higher level than him.

I am very interested to see how well they do against the other teams, and if they somehow find a way to stay in shape until QuakeCon, they may very well finish top 5. However, if they haven't been getting good practice, it's very possible that they end up in the bottom half. Time will tell!

Trivia: Dirtbox is an amazing contributor to the scene, setting up servers all over the world for people to play QuakeWorld as well as organizing numerous Besmella tournaments.

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#4
Team BTT
GT and Dev
"The Innovators"

My goodness will this be interesting. This team has had some issues, as Mur was originally going to play with GT but had his visa denied. Dev stepped in, leaving the Thump4 team to play with GT.

GT is the obvious star player of this team. He has won tournaments on a very high ping playing out of Brazil, and legend has it that he is actually used to playing on a low ping. Just imagine what he might do in a LAN setting. If GT is on point, he could carry this team to a very high finish at QuakeCon. He does however suffer from not getting to play with his team mate, Mur. The question is how much that will affect him.

He'll be playing with Dev, a contributor to the scene but also another solid brazilian player. The brazilians have been practicing for years without ever really competing with europeans so this QuakeCon will be a clash of titans.

I don't see this team beating any of the top 3, but all other teams of this tournament will have to look out. GT is an absolute beast, and he's there to win.

Trivia: This might be the only opportunity the brazilians have to show their real skill to the rest of the world.

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#3
Team Aeronauts
bps and Locust
"The Rivals"

It's time for a story. Bps and Locust have been rivals for ages. They are some of the best Aerowalk players to ever have walked this earth and for that, they have played eachother countless of times. I dare say their score, out of thousands of games, is close to equal. None of them has ever shone as the better player over the other on Aerowalk, but boy have they tried. Their games usually end up in smack talks, but they almost always ready up for another. All through the never-ending
rivalry they have somehow found a way to remain friends and have now decided to team up together to take on the world at QuakeCon.

This team will suffer from only one thing: not getting to play Aerowalk. QuakeCon rules state that before a game begins, maps will be dropped. This means that every team that gets faced up against the Aeronauts will drop Aerowalk first. This is a major issue for bps and Locust, as it is their best map by far.

While bps is an absolute beast on two-on-two DM2, Locust wholeheartedly hates the map. This means that, if they decide to, they can also avoid DM2 and only play the remaining three maps - DM4, DM6 and ZTNDM3. These are not bad maps for them by any means, but I'm sure they wish they could play Aerowalk.

We are unfortunately probably going to miss seeing bps carry the hell out of DM2. Needless to say, this team can beat ANY of the other participants.

Trivia: Locust is also known as "the bot" because of his godly lightning gun aim.

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#2
Team Rune
Carapace and LocKtar
"The Perfect Storm"

Carapace, the swedish version of Milton. Will he be able to keep LocKtar in line?

This team has limitless skill. I dare say these are the two most talented players at QuakeCon. While others have obtained a very high skill level through hard work, not saying that Carapace and LocKtar doesn't work hard, they probably have the best of that sweet 'quake instinct'.

While Carapace has been around for a very long time with a few breaks here and there, he recently rose to become one of the most dominant players in QuakeWorld.
Game mode doesn't matter much to him, although he will probably say four-on-four is his best, he'll dominate in all of them. A stunning aim with both rockets and lightning gun, paired up with an ever increasing knowledge of QuakeWorld tactics has formed the best swedish player of today. His biggest challenge this tournament will not be his opponents. It will not be whether Milton is on fire or not. It will not be the lightning gun of Locust.
It will be keeping LocKtar in the game, giving him instructions of what to do.

LocKtar is by no means an inexperienced two-on-two player, but he has always been more of a dueller. While LocKtar is the best swedish dueller, he lacks a bit of team play against better teams. You can sometimes find him trying to figure out what he's supposed to do next, which is something you'll never see him doing in one-on-one. Having that said, if LocKtar is on fire, I don't think there's anything that can stop him. When he's on fire, he doesn't really have to care about team play or tactics. He'll play his own game, and he'll completely dominate the opposing team on his own. Should his team mate spawn red armor, he'll be disappointed that he didn't 'accidentally' kill his team mate to pick up the red for himself and continue his dominance.

This team will need clear structure and clear roles in order to challenge the top teams. They have every potential to win this tournament if their teamwork works out. They will need to figure out - if X happens, we need to do Y, if I am at A, you need to be at B, and so on. With clear roles of who should do what, and then some LocKtar freestyling, this team might come out victorious at QuakeCon 2016.

Trivia: LocKtar and Carapace are both very active within the Swedish Military.

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The expected winners

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#1
Team Ragnarök
Milton and Rikoll
"The Titans"

What can I possibly write about this team that the world doesn't already know? What a team.

Rikoll has been the most dominant player in QuakeWorld duels the last couple of years. The only one who could possibly challenge him would have been Milton, had he only signed up for duel tournaments. How crazy is that of a team?

Milton on the other hand has been the most dominant player in both two-on-two and four-on-four the last decade. He has also won pretty much every duel tournament he participated in in the last decade. How crazy is THAT?

If this team plays up to their potential, they will win this tournament, period. No doubt. No contest.

Their single weakness may be the LAN setting. They will not be able to play with their normal home settings and will have to change a few things in their configs.
Let's also remember that Milton and Ihminen lost to bps and Goblin in the QHLan finals, so Milton is not completely unbeatable in two-on-two.

There is however no way this team will not be seeded first, be ranked first, or not be predicted to win the whole thing. Milton and Rikoll has simply been the two most dominant players in QuakeWorld the last couple of years. We will see at QuakeCon if there's any team that can manage to dethrone them!

Trivia: At the only LAN these two players met, Milton beat Rikoll to claim the first prize in one-on-one at QHLan.

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Do you agree with this Power Rank? Let us know your expectations in the comments!

Disclaimer: This is not official seedings.

Author: andeh
Graphics: bps