by Mark "wombat" Larsen


With the CPL's Painkiller tournament commencing tomorrow afternoon, we've decided to put together a list of the top players to keep an eye on. With the top 6 players receiving free travel to the first World Tour stop in Turkey, expect some great matches to be played throughout the weekend.

Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel

Fatal1ty is probably the most recognized player worldwide, and for good reason. His list of accomplishments is by far the greatest, and he has easily been the most successful player in FPS history. Being a 3-time CPL champion, in 3 different games, this upcoming year could mark his 4th championship in his 4th game. Competing in his Fatal1ty shootouts across Europe since QuakeCON, he's been given the opportunity to constantly challenge some of the top Europeans. He's recently been practicing with other top-notch American players at his house, and the general consensus from his practice partners is that he's going to win this CPL with ease. Placing behind Vo0 at both ESWC 2004 and Summer CPL, he'll definitely be looking for some revenge.

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Sander “Vo0” Kaasjager

Vo0 is the undisputed champion of Painkiller; there’s yet to be a tournament that he attended and didn’t win it all. Winning both ESWC 2004 and Summer CPL, he is the obvious choice to pick for winning this one too. The question he faces now is; how much has he improved since the summer? With the battlefield becoming crowded and the average contender skill level increasing 5 fold, does this Dutchman have a response? Has he reached his skill cap yet? Many questions are unanswered, yet he remains the true crown holder, but for how long… we’ll see.

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Andy “gellehsak” Ryder

Just last week, gellehsak won the Gotfrag Invitational Tournament that we hosted without losing a single map. Recently joining up with fnatic and becoming a teammate of the Vo0, team fnatic is looking to make an impressive showing this week. Like Vo0, coming from the Q3 CPMA background, gellehsak prides himself in his swift and fluent movement - often confusing and running circles around his opponent. However a lack of LAN experience may or may not hurt him here, as every player in our predicted top 10 has shown, they perform well under pressure.

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Johan “Sakh” Hessedahl

Sakh is another name that has been on top of the European PainKiller scene for a long time. Coming from a Quake3 background, his most recent accomplishment is winning a short match against Fatal1ty at one of his shootouts. This will be Sakh’s for large tournament, so nervousness and the ability to maintain composure may play a large role in his final placing. From what we’ve heard, he’s been practicing non-stop for the last 2 weeks, trying to perfect his game. His tentative #24 seed might hurt him early in the tournament, but if he makes the Quarterfinals in the upper bracket, he will most likely finish very well in this tournament.

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Alexander “Ztrider” Ingarv

Ztrider is possibly the hottest player in the Euro scene right now. He’s just won the 1st European Painkiller Tournament that was held, by beating sakh in the semifinals and the Italian stallion Stermy in the finals. The thing that’s outstanding about Ztrider is his insane stake hit percentage. His stake is already insane online with the half decent netcode, but he’s one of the people that I’m really looking forward to stand behind while he plays his matches and see firsthand his amazing skill. Ztrider does have a very good shot at finishing top 3 if he can play like he has been for the past couple of weeks.

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Jared “cha0ticz” Cugno

If you've been following the Quake 3 scene over the years, then the name cha0ticz should ring a bell. Being known as one of the nicest guys and best duelers in the USA for both Quake 3 and Doom 3, his natural talent showed in the recent Gotfrag tournament where he finished 2nd without heavy practice. Demonstrating very impressive aim and map control, the only aspect of the game, which needs improving on, is his movement. Even though he’s currently bootcamping with none other than Sean “Daler” Price, he may not have enough time before this CPL to perfect his game, but cha0ticz should be a top contender on the World Tour without a doubt.

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Alexey “LeXeR” Nesterov

Considered as one of the best Russian players in Quake 3, LeXeR's style of play is truly unique. In 2002, he and his insane aim with the Railgun dominated QuakeCON. With the PainKiller spawn weapon stakegun being a very similar weapon, this is by far his greatest strength coming into this event. Playing from New York over the past few months, LeXeR was able to participate in the GotFrag invitational tournament, where he placed a very respectable 3rd place. This gave everyone the chance to see the Russian star in action against some of the top American players.

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Brian “zen” Grapatin

Fatal1ty has overshadowed zen for the past couple of months as he has been traveling with him in the Fatal1ty shootouts across Europe. There isn’t much info about zen out there other than him beating Xhep and Carnage during summer CPL, while being pushed out of the tournament eventually by Fatal1ty and daler. But as you would imagine, being practice buddies with a world class player would improve your game a lot, and he’ll possibly out preform his Summer CPL placing. With a good seed coming into the event, the first few matches should be blow-outs. His first real challenge may be against his training partner Fatal1ty, which should be an interesting match to witness.

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Stephan “Stelam” Lammert

Stelam will be carrying the infamous Schroet banner at this event, and will possibly end up with the best placing SK is going to have in both Counter-Strike and PainKiller. He has undoubtedly been one of the top 4 players for PainKiller since day 1 and has only lost games to Vo0, Fatal1ty or Stermy thus far. With the recent additions to SK PainKiller squad from Unreal Tournament 2004 such as frag^m and GitzZz, he should be getting all the variety of opponents to play against during clan bootcamps. With the current seedings, he won’t have any trouble whatsoever cruising to quarters, where he will face Sean “daler” Price in what should be a high profile but easy match.

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Alessandro “Stermy” Avallone

Stermy is the only person that has had the privilege of beating Vo0 and Fatal1ty. If anyone else other then the 2 big bosses are going to win this tournament, it will be Stermy. He has been nothing but consistent in his PainKiller career so far, and has been improving his game one small step at a time since the Summer CPL. He has beaten Stelam, who knocked him out of last CPL (with the whole TsN incident), in the PKEuro Invite tournament, while winning one map against Vo0 in the finals. The skill gap between the top players is very small and often times games will rely on who can remain calm and in control, something that Stermy has proven possible.

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Dark Horses

Winter CPL 2004 PainKiller tournament will be one of the most challenging tournaments ever without a doubt. We spent a good 3 days to come up with the top people list above, and had almost another 10 people that we felt sorry because we couldn’t fit them in there. Therefore, we have this short list of players who, with some luck, finish in the top 6.

Sean “daler” Price and Dan “rix” Hammans: From what we saw, they looked rusty in the GotFrag Invite Tournament. But if there’s anyone who can improve his game in the smallest amount of time possible, that’d be the former Quake champions themselves. They both had the chance to get some solid LAN practice in beforehand, so that may improve their chances of placing well. If they’ve managed to get the dust of their shoulders since the GotFrag tournament, look forward to them storming through the upper bracket.

Jeff “Thump4” McShane: Relatively an unknown name in the scene, this old school QuakeWorld player has been practicing non-stop with LeXeR online. From what we saw during a couple of private exhibition matches, he’s improved significantly over the past few days due to this hardcore practice regiment. With quite a few years of DeathMatch experience under his belt, look out for this guy as he can knock out some big names unaware of his talent.

Brett “3D brett” Hill: Other than being known as a 3D.CoD member, Brett picked up PainKiller almost two month ago. Showing some great skill and dedication, he has earned his place at the top of the North American scene silently but firmly. Considering this is his first duel game and his first large DM LAN event he is lacking experience. After placing 4th in the GotFrag tournament, watch for this lone 3D member to make a good showing at this event and possible the World Tour.

Michael “Moerser” Froese and Christian “deatz.de” Dotzki: These 2 guys respectively had 3rd and 5th place finishes at ESWC 2004, but they haven’t done anything since. They neither participated in any of the PKEuro tournaments, nor attended Summer CPL. So right now there isn’t much to say about them, but if they had top finishes at ESWC one would assume they could do it at Winter CPL too.