Always interesting to see statistics like these. Well done. Sadly for me, I only started somewhat following Quake since QL so most of these results and names don't really tell me much. :/ Looking at my own results it looks quite disappointing that I only have a 16.67% Final Winrate, but I'd be curious to see how much the Leaderboard could change if you looked at Average Placement / Tournament Career. I think that would also be an interesting topic for you guys to discuss. Hopefully, it would look a bit better for me... maybe :P
Great video! As i see my name on the list (Link, Quakeworld), making it to the top 8 once (QHLAN 2019), its kind of cool :) Having said that this QHLAN had fewer players than normal and a lot of good players were not there, or else i would never made top 8, just to set the record straight. What i always have wondered about, which i will never get an answer too, is: How good are the best QW players really? They have been playing the same game for over 25 years and they didn't switch, simply because they didn't feel the other Quake's was that good or gave them the same feeling. They have tweaked the game for 25 years+ and are not gonna stop playing for another 25 years. In all those years there have been several times where we went: "For sure the bar has been set now? It cant be any better now can it?" We are wrong every time. The players are STILL improving after all this time and the level is insane. It never seems to stop. Soon it will go so far that the Lightning Gun will be too powerful because of better hardware (some says it already is). We have to remember that Quake was original designed for res 640x480 with 40 fps, IF you had a top PC. Most played on 320x200 with 30 fps and 15 inch monitor. Even though Quakeworld didnt get the attention other games did (because no one made money on it), the game should maybe be considered as the best/rawest fps game ever, simply because it has been developed since 1996 and it is still gong strong. The only thing you can compare it with is Counter-Strike, but game wise, it is incomparable. OF COURSE you guys must come to Radomsko and check this out! Peace :D Oh, and take a look at this ;) www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/1ffypg6/quake1_quakeworld_team_deathmatch_being_played_on/?
Good too see your still around Link, kind of wild seeing a familiar name from the late 90s still kicking it.. assuming it's the same Link (you used to play with paradoks?) that played on the teddybears servers back in the day. As much as i respect the QW scene i regretfully have to admit that the average skill as a whole is a lot lower in the QW scene, not saying they are bad but the level of consistency needed to compete at more recent titles (i.e QL,QC etc) is a lot higher as a whole.. the top of the current QW players all have decades worth of experience to lean on and quite frankly playing duel can be daunting for people trying to get into the game as it boils down to an extremely long "spawn die repeat" cycle before the game starts clicking, resulting in a fairly low amount "fresh blood" into the scene. The most recent player i can remember that actually tried to get anywhere in QC was LocKtar (i think milton attempted to play as well), and his results more or less boiled down to losing every single game to "randoms" in every official game he played, as well as struggling badly in ranked while still placing top3 or winning in QW for that duration.. (not a dig at him, i suffered the same fate despite winning some official matches and having a relatively good SR/rank at points). I also think that the gameplay of something like Q3/Ql and QC just doesn't fit a lot of players from the QW scene, which is why you are not seeing "modern" qw players in q3,q4,qc etc. Q2 was not much better, seeing the likes of PURRI struggle extremely badly in Q3 and QL (i mean i was consistently beating him in both q3 and ql .. .and i was quite frankly terrible.. at the same time i couldn't touch him in Q2) while having SOME small success in Q4... i think it just boils down to a lot of these players being relatively big fish in a very small and shallow pond. (which kind of holds true for the peak of QC as well, a lot of extremely mechanically skilled players from other games just gave up on duel as it just didn't suit them and struggled because of it.. leaving a lot of "bad" players to play the game against extremely seasoned Q3/QL players). Historically, the best players with longevity have a very good track record of being able to move from one game to another and still be successful (e.g rapha going from QL to OW to QC and still being very successful in every title). Much like the "golden" years of Q3 where the top players were a healthy mix of Q1/QW and Q2 players. LakermaN and thresh come to mind as they adapted QUICKLY to q2 and q3, Fatal1y was a decent QW player and went on to become the best q3 player at a point and later being a perennial top3 in PK and Q4, you could even look at someone like Blue who jumped from qw,q2,q3,q4,cs and CoD and did relatively well for the time he spent on said games (despite not having a lot of tournament wins he was still very highly regarded by more or less everyone). You can then reverse this somewhat and have q3,qc etc players go to QW, and i doubt they will have much success at first.. though i suspect players will relatively quickly catch up and surpass the current top. (DDK coming in as an experiment to play QW for fun and catching up as quickly as he did is evidence of this.. as much as i like DDK he just wasn't a top dueller in q3/ql). "For sure the bar has been set now? It cant be any better now can it?" This will always change, though what i think we have reached is pinnacle of what is possible in terms of aim and movement (i.e mechanics).. what is going to set players apart is the consistency of decision making in matches and i think there is a lot more room for this improve over time, it's all down to experience and weeding out the players who struggle with the "strategical" aspect. cooller and rapha were never known for their aim and would essentially brute force wins by pure decision making alone... in both their cases, despite them not being "aim fiends" their mechanics have evolved over the years to still keep their decision making being the largest factor to them being able to win consistently, and still being in the top as a result. At the same time you start seeing the likes of RAISY, vengeur, maxter and clawz etc come in and shake things up.. Hell, in the case of clawz and vengeur i was literally there to see them grow up from clan arena stompers to what they eventually became, and it was evidentially clear from the start that they had something the majority of players do not have (even in the case of some top players). Anywho, i am actually curious if QW still has a competitive scene going for 4v4.. wouldn't mind jumping in and trying to play again.
@@pitchatan Ye i played with a lot of ppl back in the day, including Paradoks. He still plays and so does many other of the old timers. Come visit? :) Even Izno (TGI admin) logged on to discord not long ago! Pitchatan was your nick back then? I guess not :) It is very interesting what you write about tactics and decisionmaking, because i guess the natural evolvement for QW was that QW was meant to play fast, aka +forward, good mechanics, good aim and yes: high risk play. A lot still says: "Well, thats how you play QW". And that goes not only for duels, but for 2on2 and 4on4 as well. "Camping" in QW is still, by many, viewed as "lame" and not very "skillful" way to play. In 4on4 its accepted of course, its a smart way to win. The reason i mention this is because when i see a high end QC duel for example (just watch some final with Rapha on youtube), i can understand why the "hardcore" QW player thinks its a bit boring; the way the game is played is way different in QW. Lot of the maps being played in duel in the other Quake's are also bigger than in QW. I guess the playstyle also got something to do with it. There have been ports from for example Quake3, where the map Lostworld was ported to QW. For a QW player this is a HUGE map. I guess the RAIL demands some more huge spaces for the other Quakes. A larger map ofc demands other tactics. In general a QW player would go: "This map sucks, too large for duel." Another important factor here is Money. QW at the top level was never about money, coz there were none. A valid question is: "Would the playstyle in QW duels be different if there were big money on the line?" I think; Yes. The fast pace and high risk playstyle of QW is developed by a community who never took money, they played "just for fun". If however there had been as much money in QW as in the other games, the playstyle of the high end players would change radicly and you would have much more low risk plays. And ofc: other decision making than you got now. Decision making in QW nowdays are generally: "How can i get more frags with high risk plays and cool tricks." Money changes things. Also playstyle. So to claim that QW players got less tactic skills and weaker decision making comes down to how you want to play the game. There are still very tactical players in QW when it comes to duel, but they are fewer. You throw in some million dollars in QW duels over a 10 years period youre gonna see some radical change in playstyle. When it comes to QW players who have "tried" other Quakes, i think they get bored fast, hence the reason they still like QW the most. Sure, tactics and decisionmaking is a skill, but so are other things :)
Also, if you go to that quakeworld tourny it would be great to do that old school style livestream, have a long desk set up and have players sit with you and help commentate and explain the game, walk around with a camera and do interviews etc.
This was great! Would love to see you maybe talk to some older quake players from quake 1/QW, and Quake 2, to talk about how things were like back then. I am sure that could be quite fun.
Great work with this summary, must have been quite a task! Would be great if u can make it available for download somewhere, if you do not plan to make money out of it :) I would love to play with those stats a bit myself to check some variations. And yeah, I think it will be very nice video if u can make a footage from QW lan party in Poland. Why not, right? Rapha leading pretty much any positive statistic u can imagine in Quake universe, that's crazy (but no surprise). Biggest surprise for me - Raisy winning a major in QC? Are you sure you have correct data on this one? :) Av3k, you should definitely do whatever u can to win 1 major in QC if possible, this would make you most versatile quaker in the history by winning major tournaments in 4 different Quake instances. Current versions of Keencon/Foundry count as major?
Rapha is overall the best duel player, the stats show the proof of the pudding as they say. :) I would put cypher slightly above cooller for the simple reason that he had a longer period of time where he was winning or placing top3 than cooller has had. And cooller is more or less third in that list just for longevity alone, it's pretty wild that he has been consistently top8 since 2001 when he was actively playing/practicing for events..
You should go to the Polish LAN. While it takes place in Poland, players are from all over Europe, and some even from overseas. The overall level there is amazingly high, as is QW nowadays. Honestly, some of the top overall Quake Players will attend.
Great topic and tons of work putting this project together. I think "Greatest" is not quite the same as "Most successful." Tournament competition and the ability to compete on LAN with a money award is its own skill for sure, especially after grueling double elims and people watching live, but "Greatest" does allow for a broad range of interpretation and subjectivity. I take some issue with Ins/Bruno calling the Quake 2 community "laziest." There was a worldwide (yes, WITH Russians/CIS players finally) 2v2 TDM league and finals in 2023 (Polosatiy spec'ed a few matches). And still the pub duels/tdm continue in 2024. Jehar could've pointed you to Isbjorn? Ly? Syanid? I can't imagine them not helping you. Then there's David, which brings me to my assertion and longshot vote: Imo, Polish player David epitomizes what "Greatest" looks like in one specific Quake game. Currently in Quake 2 of October 2024, NOBODY plays with his total package of skills: Complete "Neo level" of movement mastery, equally comfortable and insane duel/2v2/4v4, best damn hand grenades in all of Quake (oh yea that's right -- only in Q2 bitches!), rail AND rockets on same top tier, deadly appreciation and use of all SIX required weapons and the most underrated but hallmark skill associated with "Greatest" -- creativity of frags. The guy's just in a total flow state, and more players should check his YT content. (of course, I'm a big fan of Purri -- what q2 player wasn't?) Lastly, I know I sound like a simp for the above player, but remember Dahang was god-like in Q2 (pulled off a win vs. Purri at Qcon), incredible pro for BlackDragons in Q4, obvious legend in QL and QC elite. That's four Quakes! Tox has his own legendary lore obviously with a similar background (replace q2 with q3) and Dahang hung in there with him at Quad Damage Quakecon in q3. Anyway, my literal two cents, but that first "shiny penny" David -- he's just ridiculous. Darkhorse pick: Walter :)))
Out of all the quake communities, they were by far the laziest. I joined 4 different q2 discords, dm'd 20 people and asked for help in the main channels The only person who bothered to reply back and give me some information was david In contrast i joined one qw discord and asked for help and 10 ppl offered to help but there wasnt even much need, cause they have a perfectly maintained website with records of all history
Thanks for your insightful comment! I think the idea with this was to avoid the pitfalls of the "most talented" video where everyone defines "talented" differently. But it's great to learn more about Quake 2!
@ins7181 Ty Ins, that's sad to hear, except about David. And again thank you for putting this all together, Av3k for being Av3k and your decade of casting -- evilbollweevil
@EndpointQuake Awesome, quick reply -- I should've put up a big disclaimer "Hopelessly biased-for-Q2, completely subjective opinion incoming!" I think a data-driven, spreadsheet approach was the best strategy to weave around objections and subjectivity no doubt; As a frequently absent mod in Rapha's Twitch channel, I absolutely agree with your inescapable conclusive result. Shane crunched the game like a sports statistician, drove the champs like a Hamilton and approached his career, well, like a professional work career with all the necessary habits&practices for success. He didn't begin Quake with a neurochemical aim advantage like a K1llsen but instead overcompensated by absorbing the game's blueprint and reverse engineering it into his own .cfg file (the aim just got better and better with old fashioned practice!) Some of his career losses were deeply personal, irl ones; They would all be smiling and proud of his accomplishments and contributions without a doubt.
@@ins7181 The Q2 scene is not very helpful indeed and it is not easy to gather information, but in comparison the Q1 scene is probably the most active Quake scene and compared to our Q2 - people are much more helpful and care about keeping the game alive. I don't know if you would find more global tournaments than the ones you mentioned, probably only some local LAN tournaments. Despite everything we still play, once in a while there is an online tournament, and once a year I organize a LAN Party where I invite people from Poland and Europe, although even Jehar came to the 25th anniversary and about 60 players showed up. Finally, I'll just congratulate you on the very good material and the effort you put into it. Very good job! 👌
Rapha is goat simple as that. Not just because of his wins, he is most complete player ever who touched quake. Wish him good health and many more titles.
Haven't followed quake until QC. Seeing these stats now i know why cypher is so highly rated. Seeing his QC play i always thought he and cooler were overrated, especially cooler. I'm glad i have to swallow my words and pay respect to these 2 legendary players. But also, after seeing these now it's confirmed to me that strenx is insanely overrated. I didn't know much about him apart from his constant "braindead" moaning. Very dislikable guy. If quake would continue for 100 years and all these players played for 100 years I'd still place my bet on rapha because he has that jordan mentality (everything to win). If raisy had that mentality and ability to block any emotion he'd be above rapha imho. I think he's the most talented player un quake. Thank you av3k and ins for this.
@@michaelmaloskyjr I'm not saying it wasn't. I just said that the duel is the "default" mode for pros and I will stand by that claim. All the pro league matches revolved around duel; all (except for like ONE) QuakeCon tournaments in recent years featured the duel tournament as THE most important one etc. When was the last time any CTF tournament got so much attention and spotlight as duel tournaments? I checked l1nkin's results out of curiosity and from what I gathered the last major Quake CTF tournament he won money for was in 2015 back in Quake Live. That was almost 10 years ago. Meanwhile the duel players have had active, pro competition going all the time up until recently.
I think you might be talking about the quakecon Quad Damage tournament in 2007.. av3k didn't attend and the tournament was more or less dominated by toxjq, with fox/fojji coming in second.
agent is ranked at #234 with 1 point for his top8 on DHW18, he never played an international lan in quakelive and dhw18 for qc was his only international top8 lan finish
Always interesting to see statistics like these. Well done.
Sadly for me, I only started somewhat following Quake since QL so most of these results and names don't really tell me much. :/
Looking at my own results it looks quite disappointing that I only have a 16.67% Final Winrate, but I'd be curious to see how much the Leaderboard could change if you looked at Average Placement / Tournament Career.
I think that would also be an interesting topic for you guys to discuss.
Hopefully, it would look a bit better for me... maybe :P
Tox just being an absolute menace - destroyed the Q4 scene, barely plays and still shows up high in the ranks
Would love to see you guys cover the QW lan. Those guys are crazy good and don't get the recognition they deserve.
Working on it!
Guys, you should 100% go to the QW lan and you should play ofc )
Some honorable mentions that I think deserve it: SteLam, czm, d1ablo (RIP).
Your list is legit though, no doubt rapha is the goat.
🙏
Great video! As i see my name on the list (Link, Quakeworld), making it to the top 8 once (QHLAN 2019), its kind of cool :) Having said that this QHLAN had fewer players than normal and a lot of good players were not there, or else i would never made top 8, just to set the record straight.
What i always have wondered about, which i will never get an answer too, is: How good are the best QW players really? They have been playing the same game for over 25 years and they didn't switch, simply because they didn't feel the other Quake's was that good or gave them the same feeling. They have tweaked the game for 25 years+ and are not gonna stop playing for another 25 years. In all those years there have been several times where we went:
"For sure the bar has been set now? It cant be any better now can it?"
We are wrong every time.
The players are STILL improving after all this time and the level is insane. It never seems to stop. Soon it will go so far that the Lightning Gun will be too powerful because of better hardware (some says it already is). We have to remember that Quake was original designed for res 640x480 with 40 fps, IF you had a top PC. Most played on 320x200 with 30 fps and 15 inch monitor.
Even though Quakeworld didnt get the attention other games did (because no one made money on it), the game should maybe be considered as the best/rawest fps game ever, simply because it has been developed since 1996 and it is still gong strong. The only thing you can compare it with is Counter-Strike, but game wise, it is incomparable.
OF COURSE you guys must come to Radomsko and check this out!
Peace :D
Oh, and take a look at this ;)
www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/1ffypg6/quake1_quakeworld_team_deathmatch_being_played_on/?
Good too see your still around Link, kind of wild seeing a familiar name from the late 90s still kicking it.. assuming it's the same Link (you used to play with paradoks?) that played on the teddybears servers back in the day.
As much as i respect the QW scene i regretfully have to admit that the average skill as a whole is a lot lower in the QW scene, not saying they are bad but the level of consistency needed to compete at more recent titles (i.e QL,QC etc) is a lot higher as a whole.. the top of the current QW players all have decades worth of experience to lean on and quite frankly playing duel can be daunting for people trying to get into the game as it boils down to an extremely long "spawn die repeat" cycle before the game starts clicking, resulting in a fairly low amount "fresh blood" into the scene.
The most recent player i can remember that actually tried to get anywhere in QC was LocKtar (i think milton attempted to play as well), and his results more or less boiled down to losing every single game to "randoms" in every official game he played, as well as struggling badly in ranked while still placing top3 or winning in QW for that duration.. (not a dig at him, i suffered the same fate despite winning some official matches and having a relatively good SR/rank at points).
I also think that the gameplay of something like Q3/Ql and QC just doesn't fit a lot of players from the QW scene, which is why you are not seeing "modern" qw players in q3,q4,qc etc.
Q2 was not much better, seeing the likes of PURRI struggle extremely badly in Q3 and QL (i mean i was consistently beating him in both q3 and ql .. .and i was quite frankly terrible.. at the same time i couldn't touch him in Q2) while having SOME small success in Q4... i think it just boils down to a lot of these players being relatively big fish in a very small and shallow pond. (which kind of holds true for the peak of QC as well, a lot of extremely mechanically skilled players from other games just gave up on duel as it just didn't suit them and struggled because of it.. leaving a lot of "bad" players to play the game against extremely seasoned Q3/QL players).
Historically, the best players with longevity have a very good track record of being able to move from one game to another and still be successful (e.g rapha going from QL to OW to QC and still being very successful in every title).
Much like the "golden" years of Q3 where the top players were a healthy mix of Q1/QW and Q2 players.
LakermaN and thresh come to mind as they adapted QUICKLY to q2 and q3, Fatal1y was a decent QW player and went on to become the best q3 player at a point and later being a perennial top3 in PK and Q4, you could even look at someone like Blue who jumped from qw,q2,q3,q4,cs and CoD and did relatively well for the time he spent on said games (despite not having a lot of tournament wins he was still very highly regarded by more or less everyone).
You can then reverse this somewhat and have q3,qc etc players go to QW, and i doubt they will have much success at first.. though i suspect players will relatively quickly catch up and surpass the current top. (DDK coming in as an experiment to play QW for fun and catching up as quickly as he did is evidence of this.. as much as i like DDK he just wasn't a top dueller in q3/ql).
"For sure the bar has been set now? It cant be any better now can it?"
This will always change, though what i think we have reached is pinnacle of what is possible in terms of aim and movement (i.e mechanics).. what is going to set players apart is the consistency of decision making in matches and i think there is a lot more room for this improve over time, it's all down to experience and weeding out the players who struggle with the "strategical" aspect.
cooller and rapha were never known for their aim and would essentially brute force wins by pure decision making alone... in both their cases, despite them not being "aim fiends" their mechanics have evolved over the years to still keep their decision making being the largest factor to them being able to win consistently, and still being in the top as a result.
At the same time you start seeing the likes of RAISY, vengeur, maxter and clawz etc come in and shake things up..
Hell, in the case of clawz and vengeur i was literally there to see them grow up from clan arena stompers to what they eventually became, and it was evidentially clear from the start that they had something the majority of players do not have (even in the case of some top players).
Anywho, i am actually curious if QW still has a competitive scene going for 4v4.. wouldn't mind jumping in and trying to play again.
Great to hear from you
@@pitchatan Ye i played with a lot of ppl back in the day, including Paradoks. He still plays and so does many other of the old timers. Come visit? :) Even Izno (TGI admin) logged on to discord not long ago! Pitchatan was your nick back then? I guess not :)
It is very interesting what you write about tactics and decisionmaking, because i guess the natural evolvement for QW was that QW was meant to play fast, aka +forward, good mechanics, good aim and yes: high risk play. A lot still says: "Well, thats how you play QW". And that goes not only for duels, but for 2on2 and 4on4 as well. "Camping" in QW is still, by many, viewed as "lame" and not very "skillful" way to play. In 4on4 its accepted of course, its a smart way to win.
The reason i mention this is because when i see a high end QC duel for example (just watch some final with Rapha on youtube), i can understand why the "hardcore" QW player thinks its a bit boring; the way the game is played is way different in QW. Lot of the maps being played in duel in the other Quake's are also bigger than in QW. I guess the playstyle also got something to do with it. There have been ports from for example Quake3, where the map Lostworld was ported to QW. For a QW player this is a HUGE map. I guess the RAIL demands some more huge spaces for the other Quakes. A larger map ofc demands other tactics. In general a QW player would go: "This map sucks, too large for duel."
Another important factor here is Money. QW at the top level was never about money, coz there were none. A valid question is:
"Would the playstyle in QW duels be different if there were big money on the line?"
I think; Yes.
The fast pace and high risk playstyle of QW is developed by a community who never took money, they played "just for fun". If however there had been as much money in QW as in the other games, the playstyle of the high end players would change radicly and you would have much more low risk plays. And ofc: other decision making than you got now. Decision making in QW nowdays are generally: "How can i get more frags with high risk plays and cool tricks."
Money changes things. Also playstyle.
So to claim that QW players got less tactic skills and weaker decision making comes down to how you want to play the game. There are still very tactical players in QW when it comes to duel, but they are fewer.
You throw in some million dollars in QW duels over a 10 years period youre gonna see some radical change in playstyle.
When it comes to QW players who have "tried" other Quakes, i think they get bored fast, hence the reason they still like QW the most. Sure, tactics and decisionmaking is a skill, but so are other things :)
Also, if you go to that quakeworld tourny it would be great to do that old school style livestream, have a long desk set up and have players sit with you and help commentate and explain the game, walk around with a camera and do interviews etc.
Great idea!
Thanks for putting this together. As a Pole myself I feel super proud to see Av3k among top 5 players. Congrats!
I think we all already know the top 2 quake players of all time. All that said. I love videos like this.
😅
This was great! Would love to see you maybe talk to some older quake players from quake 1/QW, and Quake 2, to talk about how things were like back then. I am sure that could be quite fun.
Very good video!! We need a video of playstyle breakdown between the top 5 players.
Very good idea!
Great work with this summary, must have been quite a task! Would be great if u can make it available for download somewhere, if you do not plan to make money out of it :) I would love to play with those stats a bit myself to check some variations.
And yeah, I think it will be very nice video if u can make a footage from QW lan party in Poland. Why not, right?
Rapha leading pretty much any positive statistic u can imagine in Quake universe, that's crazy (but no surprise).
Biggest surprise for me - Raisy winning a major in QC? Are you sure you have correct data on this one? :)
Av3k, you should definitely do whatever u can to win 1 major in QC if possible, this would make you most versatile quaker in the history by winning major tournaments in 4 different Quake instances. Current versions of Keencon/Foundry count as major?
I'll see if Av3k and ins will put it up!
@@EndpointQuake thanks in advance!
@@EndpointQuake any chance sharing this google doc?
Rapha is overall the best duel player, the stats show the proof of the pudding as they say. :)
I would put cypher slightly above cooller for the simple reason that he had a longer period of time where he was winning or placing top3 than cooller has had.
And cooller is more or less third in that list just for longevity alone, it's pretty wild that he has been consistently top8 since 2001 when he was actively playing/practicing for events..
I was watching this QW lan last year on Twitch it's pretty cool, I think you should go
Chat do we send Av3k
You should go to the Polish LAN. While it takes place in Poland, players are from all over Europe, and some even from overseas. The overall level there is amazingly high, as is QW nowadays. Honestly, some of the top overall Quake Players will attend.
this is such a great video
SPOILER: it's rapha.
Great topic and tons of work putting this project together.
I think "Greatest" is not quite the same as "Most successful." Tournament competition and the ability to compete on LAN with a money award is its own skill for sure, especially after grueling double elims and people watching live, but "Greatest" does allow for a broad range of interpretation and subjectivity.
I take some issue with Ins/Bruno calling the Quake 2 community "laziest." There was a worldwide (yes, WITH Russians/CIS players finally) 2v2 TDM league and finals in 2023 (Polosatiy spec'ed a few matches). And still the pub duels/tdm continue in 2024. Jehar could've pointed you to Isbjorn? Ly? Syanid? I can't imagine them not helping you.
Then there's David, which brings me to my assertion and longshot vote:
Imo, Polish player David epitomizes what "Greatest" looks like in one specific Quake game.
Currently in Quake 2 of October 2024, NOBODY plays with his total package of skills: Complete "Neo level" of movement mastery, equally comfortable and insane duel/2v2/4v4, best damn hand grenades in all of Quake (oh yea that's right -- only in Q2 bitches!), rail AND rockets on same top tier, deadly appreciation and use of all SIX required weapons and the most underrated but hallmark skill associated with "Greatest" -- creativity of frags. The guy's just in a total flow state, and more players should check his YT content.
(of course, I'm a big fan of Purri -- what q2 player wasn't?)
Lastly, I know I sound like a simp for the above player, but remember Dahang was god-like in Q2 (pulled off a win vs. Purri at Qcon), incredible pro for BlackDragons in Q4, obvious legend in QL and QC elite. That's four Quakes! Tox has his own legendary lore obviously with a similar background (replace q2 with q3) and Dahang hung in there with him at Quad Damage Quakecon in q3.
Anyway, my literal two cents, but that first "shiny penny" David -- he's just ridiculous.
Darkhorse pick: Walter :)))
Out of all the quake communities, they were by far the laziest.
I joined 4 different q2 discords, dm'd 20 people and asked for help in the main channels
The only person who bothered to reply back and give me some information was david
In contrast i joined one qw discord and asked for help and 10 ppl offered to help but there wasnt even much need, cause they have a perfectly maintained website with records of all history
Thanks for your insightful comment! I think the idea with this was to avoid the pitfalls of the "most talented" video where everyone defines "talented" differently. But it's great to learn more about Quake 2!
@ins7181 Ty Ins, that's sad to hear, except about David. And again thank you for putting this all together, Av3k for being Av3k and your decade of casting -- evilbollweevil
@EndpointQuake Awesome, quick reply -- I should've put up a big disclaimer "Hopelessly biased-for-Q2, completely subjective opinion incoming!"
I think a data-driven, spreadsheet approach was the best strategy to weave around objections and subjectivity no doubt;
As a frequently absent mod in Rapha's Twitch channel, I absolutely agree with your inescapable conclusive result.
Shane crunched the game like a sports statistician, drove the champs like a Hamilton and approached his career, well, like a professional work career with all the necessary habits&practices for success.
He didn't begin Quake with a neurochemical aim advantage like a K1llsen but instead overcompensated by absorbing the game's blueprint and reverse engineering it into his own .cfg file (the aim just got better and better with old fashioned practice!)
Some of his career losses were deeply personal, irl ones; They would all be smiling and proud of his accomplishments and contributions without a doubt.
@@ins7181 The Q2 scene is not very helpful indeed and it is not easy to gather information, but in comparison the Q1 scene is probably the most active Quake scene and compared to our Q2 - people are much more helpful and care about keeping the game alive. I don't know if you would find more global tournaments than the ones you mentioned, probably only some local LAN tournaments. Despite everything we still play, once in a while there is an online tournament, and once a year I organize a LAN Party where I invite people from Poland and Europe, although even Jehar came to the 25th anniversary and about 60 players showed up. Finally, I'll just congratulate you on the very good material and the effort you put into it. Very good job! 👌
FFATony #1
💯
Do best quake commentators of all time
Rapha is goat simple as that. Not just because of his wins, he is most complete player ever who touched quake. Wish him good health and many more titles.
We may never see another player quite like him...
Totally agree, great video btw man 🙂 @@EndpointQuake
maybe and only in last game or two
Haven't followed quake until QC. Seeing these stats now i know why cypher is so highly rated. Seeing his QC play i always thought he and cooler were overrated, especially cooler. I'm glad i have to swallow my words and pay respect to these 2 legendary players. But also, after seeing these now it's confirmed to me that strenx is insanely overrated. I didn't know much about him apart from his constant "braindead" moaning. Very dislikable guy. If quake would continue for 100 years and all these players played for 100 years I'd still place my bet on rapha because he has that jordan mentality (everything to win). If raisy had that mentality and ability to block any emotion he'd be above rapha imho. I think he's the most talented player un quake. Thank you av3k and ins for this.
Good video. Team modes next!
Who do you think will top the 2s and Sacrifice lists?
I'd love to see you go at qworld tournament. I'd follow
change title to greatest duel player of all time.
No need to - competitive Quake is mostly duel anyway. It's the "default" mode for pros.
@@Patrol1985 Umm not necessarily -- there's a reason people know who Zyrinx and l1nkin are. CTF was a blast to watch in tournament play.
Maybe if we do a team followup?
@@michaelmaloskyjr I'm not saying it wasn't. I just said that the duel is the "default" mode for pros and I will stand by that claim. All the pro league matches revolved around duel; all (except for like ONE) QuakeCon tournaments in recent years featured the duel tournament as THE most important one etc. When was the last time any CTF tournament got so much attention and spotlight as duel tournaments? I checked l1nkin's results out of curiosity and from what I gathered the last major Quake CTF tournament he won money for was in 2015 back in Quake Live. That was almost 10 years ago. Meanwhile the duel players have had active, pro competition going all the time up until recently.
jeden z najlepszych graczy w polskiej historii to byl Avenger, kiedys myslelismy ze to Ty, wiec Cie kojarzymy
I hear strenx i upvote
Thank you for your service
Found another strenx fan!
I always considered Av3k as a top quaker, across multipple quakes, wasn't there like tripple quake champ tournament or something won by Av3k ?
He is a legend for sure!
I think you might be talking about the quakecon Quad Damage tournament in 2007.. av3k didn't attend and the tournament was more or less dominated by toxjq, with fox/fojji coming in second.
Dawaj do Radomska, poznamy Cie :D
Paradoks will be in Radomsko
qw lan party - best in eu!! year by year! yeach time bigger!
Gdzie jest Macler
Where is AGENT?
agent is ranked at #234 with 1 point for his top8 on DHW18, he never played an international lan in quakelive and dhw18 for qc was his only international top8 lan finish
😂😂😂😂
i think one turnament in qc was missed - IRONFIST_Invitational
its there
Dawajcie na party w Radomsku
Wbijaj do Radomska byku, będzie paru kocurów z CPMA.
I zacznij grac w QW, ta gra nie umiera, mamy sporo ludzi z Q4/CPMA teraz
Av3k wpadaj do Radomska !
AV3K poszukaj na twitchu covarage z qhlan 24
Fox
noctis
milton
purri
cypher
rapha
toxic
cooller
linkin
bestest
"l1nkin" clinched it for me.
lol xD
you know ball
Could you do a champions tist for some poluar maps?