Clawz Claims Second Consecutive QuakeCon Duels Championship

The highlight of individual skill at QuakeCon 2018 saw the Duels Grand Finals take place between Nikita "clawz" Marchinsky from Blind Trust and Tim "DaHanG" Fogarty from Team Liquid coming head-to-head in an individual rematch from yesterday's 2v2 finals. Though both players had demonstrated tremendous skill to get to this point, clawz showcased the drive for revenge as he looked to take down DaHanG and defend his QuakeCon 2017 Duels title.

It was a somewhat slow start to the match as both players tried to get a read on how their opponents would be playing this match. Both players were able to trade individual shots for the first few minutes, before clawz finally landed the kill he was looking for. With just a minute on the clock, DaHanG looked for some way back into the battle, but clawz once again claimed a kill to secure the first round. Blind Trust was shook the night before, and clawz felt it, but it was the drive to overcome for his team that brought him into this Duel ready to slay.

"To be honest, I didn’t sleep well," clawz claimed. "Almost four hours, and I wasn’t really caring that much about Duels since I didn’t prepare or have the best sleep. Even so, I was pretty calm like last year, confident in myself, and I just did my best and took revenge for my teammate.

The second round saw action much faster than the first, with clawz picking up first blood in just a minute, before following that up with another kill in less than 30 seconds. The final kill would again come less than a minute later, with clawz continuing his dominant streak, yet to lose a single life.

The third match continued the intensity, with the first kill coming less than a minute into the match as clawz expertly used the ghost walk ability of Nyx to dodge incoming damage and claim first blood. A confrontation catching clawz off-guard resulted in DaHanG claiming his first kill of the match, before more critical shots allow DaHanG to take down clawz again and claim the lead. However, after misjudging the distance to his opponent, DaHanG found himself in an awkward position, quickly falling to clawz as he leveled out the kills and set up match point. After some long-distance trades went in favor of clawz, he was quick to close the gap and finish off DaHanG, claiming the victory and his second QuakeCon Duels championship.

Getting tilted can be troublesome for a lot of players in esports, especially in heads-up play. To that end, clawz had some words on overcoming his loss from the night before to utterly dominate the same rival opponent today in the Finals.

"You just need to forget the past," believes clawz. "Just focus on the real things going on now. You shouldn’t get stuck on what happened in the past. Just calm down and do what you do best."

It might sound easier said than done, but the results for clawz were indisputable. He lays claim to being the first back-to-back champion in Duels Competition at QuakeCon. For clawz, the future of Quake Champions looks bright and he's ready to continue to succeed in this arena.

"If the previous year was great," clawz enthusiastically offered. "This year is ten times better because winning QuakeCon is great. Winning back-to-back QuakeCon’s is even better since you know no-one did it before you in history. It’s just something special. I can’t wait for 2019 since there is probably going to be CTF at QuakeCon, I hope, then I can play with my whole team, the four of us, and we can win every year."

Indeed, the future looks bright for Quake Champions. Check out what Community Manager Joshua "tokyopunchout" Boyle had to say about the evolution of Quake and the future of Quake Champions.