With almost seventy seeds between the players, Richard ‘Louie’ Hansson upsets comeback player, Kurt ‘Immortal’ Shimada in convincing fashion. A loss that even Shimada’s camera crew didn’t see coming, with their late arrival to see the legend go down in only two maps.

Shimada was off to a rough start on Galang, who was at a two kill deficit within the first two minutes. Immortal kept a smart, slower style in the beginning, looking for angles with his railgun from the lower deck of the map while Hansson was gaining ground. Shimada found that when he was able to register a rail shot, it was usually responded to by Hansson with his own railgun, followed up by a shotgun blast. Hansson’s lightning fast weapon switching gave all of us spectating a throw back to the older Quake days, where when you went head to head with a skilled played, you were receiving an onslaught of ammunition from multiple weapons. Hansson worked up a hearty stack, and ran away with the score, leaving Shimada at the end of an ego crippling first map.

Final Score: Louie 18 – Immortal 3

The move to Phrantic seemed like Shimada’s saving grace, taking the Railgun out of Hansson’s capable hands, it did however, cause him to take arms with a far more devastating combo, lightning gun with the shotgun. Hansson allowed Shimada to control the red armor more than he really should have, but he navigated the teleporter and yellow armors like a top twenty seed player. Shimada would allow Hansson to pick up the gold health bubbles far to often in the middle of battles over the lava pit, giving Hansson the room to escape to the teleporter, replenishing both armor and rocket ammo. Even when Hansson would give Shimada the space for the red armor, Shimada’s retreat from the red armor chamber would leave him crippled, with Hansson hot on his trail.

With the last five minutes of the battle, Shimada found himself at a ten kill deficit, and became vocal. His camera crew was now watching, looking equally disappointed with what was unfolding. The legend was falling to a sleeper in the upper bracket. Hansson began toying with the grenade launcher, while Shimada still fought to see what he could pull out in the final few minutes. The scores were climbing closer together under the ten minute mark, but the final five, Hansson kept the score distanced, ending it off as Shimada typed out the bold, green ‘GG’.

Final Score: Louie 17 – Immortal 13

Immortal didn’t disappoint me as much as I’m sure he disappointed himself. The camera crew arrived halfway through Galang, and by that time, Shimada was checking his ear headphones for, what I could gather, left and right channels. Around the time Shimada was checking his ear-buds, Hansson had come around a blind corner making Shimada ride his rocket, which I could imagine Shimada wasn’t able to hear him coming.

As the second map was coming to its end, Immortal was letting out ‘Come on’ and other various comments when he would die. Again, it seemed as if he was just disappointed with his own performance. With a camera crew and a narrator hovering behind you, a loss means much more. Immortal will now be riding out the Lower bracket, a step closer to muffling his much advertised comeback. Immortal faces off against #104 seeded infinite. Louie, being considered a sleeper in the upper bracket with a relatively high seed for the amount of competitors, will be facing the popular American player, cl0ck. With cl0ck seeded seventh, this could be Louie’s direct trip to the lower bracket, or a huge upset to concrete Louie’s name as the tournament dark horse heading into Saturday.