Written by Mark “wombat” Larsen

Update: Vo0 has just beaten zyz 2-0, to win himself back to back CPL events. On Sacred the score was 14-9 and the second map was on Psycho with a score of 11-10. Winning the last 3 major LAN events is very impressive, and it will be interesting to see if he can continue his dominance during the World Tour. Vo0’s movement still remains his most important asset, and every player will undoubtedly be studying his demos to figure out how he can continue to move so fluently throughout 90% of the match. Zyz had a great tournament, coming out of nearly nowhere to make a great run for the win. More players worldwide will know more of his 25-0 win over Fatal1ty than his 2nd place finish at this event. The spectator area had a great showing again this year, with a large crowd cheering and gasping at almost every frag. Unfortunately the nice LCD screens were unable to work, so we had to settle for watching each player’s POV on the big projector screens. The TsN booth, which was located behind the spectator area, was great. It provided live commentary for all of the fans present here at the event as well as providing TVsN for the players watching from home. Hopefully by the first World Tour stop, there will be a patch released that will allow for a HLTV/GTV-like experience. Congratulations to Vo0 and zyz for giving this CPL a great finals match, as well as entertaining throughout the entire event.

#1 Sander “fnatic.Vo0” Kaasjager over #27 Benjamin “SK|zyz” Bohrmann

Vo0’s road to the final:

Matt “exe” Dorenzo (38-0;52-3)
Christian “deatz.de” Dotzki (22-7;26-18)
Alexey “LeXeR” Nesterov (31-11;35-4)
Tobias “neok” Grieser (28-8;31-6)
Alessandro “Stermy” Avallone (25-12;31-14)
Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel (27-12;2-24;17-16)

zyz’s road to the final:

Nicholas “DeusMortis” Vosburgh (57-1;58-4)
Brian “zen” Grapatin (14-11;22-9)
Noah “vayne” Ashby (5-27;3-25)
Stephan “SteLam” Lammert (2-1)
Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel (4-28;5-20)

Andy “gellehsak” Ryder (39-4, 10-17, 18-9)
Alessandro “Stermy” Avallone (8-22;32-5;18-9)
Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel (25-0;16-10)

Final Standings

1. Vo0
2. zyz
3. Fatal1ty
4. Stermy
5. gellehsak
6. zen
7. daler
8. LeXeR

After an exciting weekend full of games, the CPL Winter event is finally down to the grand final. This match will pit the #1 seeded Vo0, who is currently undefeated entering the final, against the #27 seeded zyz from SK. Many people expected to see Vo0 here, but zyz came out of left field to make it to the finals. Besides being known for his past skill in Quake, little was known of his Painkiller skills especially since he hadn’t been active prior to joining the SK squad. Although I believe zyz has the ability to beat Vo0, I don’t see him taking 4 maps against him. Either way, the excitement of this match should live up to the Vo0 vs. Fatal1ty match-up of the last CPL.

For many players participating, it wasn’t just about winning the tournament or placing top 6. Although achieving either of these would have been great, the practice and experience itself is rewarding. With a long year ahead of us playing Painkiller, this event should give everyone an idea of who the hottest players in the world are right now. The first World Tour stop is under three months away, and will hopefully be as eventful as this tournament was.

The tournament itself was full of upsets and surprises, along with the usual domination we have come to expect from Vo0. I think the biggest surprise of the tournament was gellehsak’s 5th place finish; coming into his first CPL ever against veteran players, some who have attended numerous CPL’s before, such an achievement is definitely something to be proud of. Along with his 5th place finish of course comes the free trip to Turkey in February. Gellehsak managed to fight his way through the lower bracket, winning five matches to secure his place in Turkey. There have also been some disappointments in the tournament. To name a few: Ztrider not making it out of single elimination; the whole 4K squad getting beat down, and; well known American players like cha0ticz, rix, brett and destrukt not making it very far into the tournament. I suppose these upsets could be a result of the six months that players had to practice and refine their game.

Another interesting thing about this event was the randomness of the seedings which players received. A great example of this is the #11-13 seeds, junior, nark and boxcar. While these players received great seeds, other well-known players who have been successful in other games were given terrible seeds. As a result of this, match-ups were sometimes very lopsided even late into the tournament. We saw geoff and visual-vayne advance to Round 2 of the upper bracket, while #9 seed Xhep and #16 seed 3D|brett were already knocked out of the whole tournament.

I would also like to give a shoutout to the PK admins, who ran the tournament flawlessly. Besides a few delays late in the day on Saturday, the whole tournament ran on time. There were never any problems or disputes, and the admins reminded the players every game to record their demos. Whenever a computer problem occurred, the players were allowed ample time to either fix the problem or relocate to a new computer.

Great job to all of those who competed, and good luck to the players who will be participating in the World Tour. I’m sure the CPL will be making some great announcements concerning the World Tour and the state of Painkiller tomorrow. Hopefully these changes will benefit the community, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough!