Italian Esports Open QC Preview

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Italian Esports Open sees five out of the current top six players in plusforward.net’s World Rankings participate. This is a highly stacked LAN tournament that signals the return of Clawz to the competitive scene and Cypher’s first international LAN in Quake Champions. Regardless of the outcome of this tournament, it will be fascinating to spectate.

Favourites:
Cooller
Cypher

Cooller has already won the two CIS LAN tournaments this year; the first over Cypher, and the second over Base. These alongside a solid 3rd place during Quake World Championship, grant him #2 spot in the World Rankings and make him one of the favourites for any tournament he attends in the near future.

Currently ranked at #4 in the World, this LAN will be Cypher’s first international LAN tournament in Quake Champions and so surely all eyes will be on him. Even though he stopped competing in the online tournaments, he has been practicing a lot, often streaming, and he seems to be in impressive shape. He’s had a long and accomplished career, but with his inactivity in the international LAN realm, it’s difficult to be certain how well he’ll play. Nevertheless, faith in his abilities is strong and he is still a favourite. With many diminishing QWC or Denver’s importance due to Cypher not being there, we’ll finally be able to see just how good he is in Quake Champions.

Contenders:
K1llsen
Av3k

Ranked #3 and #5 in the World Rankings respectively, K1llsen and Av3k have a very similar storyline in Quake Champions so far. They both were able to qualify through the winner bracket in Regionals for QWC, where they topped their groups and then later lost to Vo0 in the playoffs. They were also the first two players to qualify for DHW, having done so in the first qualifier for EU. They’re looking to finally reach Top 4 in a LAN tournament and they might just both do so.

Wild Cards:
Vo0
Clawz

Vo0 pulled a monster performance during QWC reaching the Grand Final and looking to start his QC career on a dominant note. However, after a disappointing display in Denver which resulted in him not making it through the group stage and dropping to #26 in the World Ranks, nobody’s quite sure how Vo0 will be able to perform. A powerful comeback at this LAN would be his redemption from Denver, and would boost his confidence going into DHW.

The current QWC champion is ranked at #6, due to only having participated in a single online tournament and QWC. There’s a lot of pressure and eyes on Clawz to perform at the highest level in this tournament. Despite having one of the best combat skills in Quake, will the recent patches and his competitive inactivity affect his performance? Will he manage to come out on top like he did in QWC or will he fall in the group stage? This uncertainty makes Clawz one of the most interesting players to follow this tournament.

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