I would.
Let's look at how the tournament is probably going to unfold for him:
Group stage:
Placing 1st/2nd in group stage is almost guaranteed, given his relatively easy group. Probability: 99%
Round of 16:
He will play against 3rd/4th place of some group, possibly group C. This would mean the likes of sting, detrony or gienon. That's no challenge for him. Probability: 99%
Quarter finals:
This is the first big, really important match for him. He's already warmed up perfectly. Even now, he will be the 70:30 favorite in most of the matches (e.g. when matched up against demon, fraze, cooller, phantom, av3k, tox, fazz, ...).
However, we might already see some cointoss-y matches like rapha-evil, rapha-cypher or rapha-dahang at this point, I'll give you that.
Probability: ~65%
dunno what you based your predictions on, especially for ro16, but from what i've seen most of the top players upped their game compared to quakecon standard, and rapha is still behind his quakecon form.
What do you know about his shape? I'm honestly curious.
He's always been well prepared for any international LAN. And all I see on qlranks is him owning everyone except DaHanG. But I really don't think this indicates that rapha somehow forgot how to quake.
edit: Are we talking about the same rapha, i.e. the most successful QL player who even made av3k quit quake for a period of time? If you were saying this kind of stuff about someone like k1llsen or cooller -- alright. But rapha? He won't come ill-prepared.
Wiping the floor? That's not exactly true and might just be a testament to rapha's training methods. You can't possibly know. :)
The question is -- who would DaHanG wipe the floor with if he was playing against them? Gienon? Most definitely. matr0x? Of course. twister? Yep. Detrony? Him too.
The rest is highly relevant, you just don't want to see it. If you want to pretend rapha was some newschool player rising up and failing to beat DaHanG, that's fine with me, though. ;)
I'm so looking forward to this. Also to ph4ntom and fraze. I wouldn't be surprised if there were only 4 euros in top8. I can't remember the last time this was a realistic chance on European ground. ;)
I agree with scowl. Raphas shape isnt that great untill he bootcamps. Dahang even said in his pre dhack interview, that rapha doesnt get 'that'it strong untill a few days before the lan events.
Don't forget that before Quakecon rapha was losing almost all his matches against DaHanG that even made him look unstoppable, then Quakecon came and in LAN DaHanG couldn't win any round against him.
Haha. Well, what can i say? He worked way Harder Than me to win this tournament. His shape is the best ever right now. So me voting on the best player is not me not believing in myself.
This poll could still end up predicting the winner correctly...after all, it is coolller we're talking about. I think that Dreamhack attends cooller, not the other way around.
ah, i should have read more closely. yes, you're right that a rapha v. cypher final and a cypher champion is truly not surprising. but holy shit were those games good.
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