Former CPL champion Dan Hammans (aka Rix) has signed up to participate in the $25,000 Painkiller tournament after four years of retirement. Dan Hammans had an impressive career at CPL coming in fourth place at CPL's first event in 1997 (The FRAG), then in 1998 he won two USA CPL events back-to-back (The CPL Event and FRAG 2) on two different games (Quake I and Quake II) and then in 1999 he came second place at Extreme Annihilation.

Dan helped found IHOS, the first Clan for players such as Tower, Terminator, Suicide, Thresh and Batch. During T2, IHOS nearly upset the eventual champion Ruthless Bastards. This Clan, and his involvement, were responsible for much of the Quake Clan developments during the formative years of the sport.