<img src="/images/wcg2006/wcg_esr_q4_preview4B_av3k.png">

Q4 GGL World Rank : 17
Q4 Prize Money : $3970

Results

2006 Quakecon : 4th
2006 The Gathering (Norway) : 1st
2006 Netgamez (Netherlands) : 1st

Don’t let Maciek’s lowly 17th rank in the World Rankings fool you, this is no ordinary Quake 4 player. At just 15 years of age, he has had to battle more than just great players this year, regularly frustrated by tournament rules that exclude his attendance. Several times, there is hope that someone can make an exception, for this is, an exceptional young man.

He attended both The Gathering and Netgamez to prove to the world he could play on lan (after some stunning Quake 3 displays online last year) winning both tournaments. He played some good players in those tournament too, beating forever and rufus to win the Netgamez tournament and finishing ahead of Plazma and sadface at The Gathering, so these results should not be dismissed despite their obvious small scale.

A 5th in CB EuroCup XII for Quake 4 should also not be underestimated with his awful Polish connection making it pretty hard to play online tournaments with any serious application.

“Almost the whole day I have bad internet, I mean ping is something like 100-150 only sometimes in evening or in night I have a little bit better ping on polish servers”.

Finally, we got to see this prodigious talent at Quakecon and whilst the “best of one” scenario wasnt great, it did allow us to begin to measure his talent against those at the top. Before this tournament, av3k was well known to most inside the Quake community, but almost a “nobody” outside of it. That all changed with his defeat of Fatal1ty, with hundreds of American’s watching on with the same question on their lips: “who is this kid?”.

With his 4th place (after losing by one frag against Ztrider) he confirmed in part, his skill and determination to compete and despite his age and the restriction placed on him, he is most definitely a star in the making.

His play for one of such tender years, is very clever and thoughtful. He doesn’t go rushing around if he doesn’t need to and he never seems to panic (witness the comeback that Fatal1ty made and his reaction to it). He is simply not fazed by playing the worlds best.

“Sometimes I don’t have enough respect for my opponents even if I am playing with the best players”, he says. “Maybe I am not experienced enough like other players, old school players, probably this is my weakness but I don’t care”.


The 1.3 patch doesn’t seem to worry him with regards to his play style but he isn’t happy, that with such a busy school life, he has to practice yet another patch.

“I think this is bad to make every week other patches and stuff they should make one patch open q4max and every one should play only this one. Sometimes I am really angry because after every month is new patch, new things, if you want to be good you have to practice again. Look for CS they have only one mode, no patches and almost always the same maps for every tournament and they just play not whining, not blame or something just play and stfu”

He does have some issues away from gaming, namely school of course, but whilst his studies are important, it is also important that we see av3k play in as many tournaments as possible in the next few months, because until he is a year or two older, he will have to face the same age restrictions that have frustrated him and his fans this year.

He certainly qualifies for the tag “The Boy Wonder” right now.