Sixteen teams broken down into two regions, with two groups of four teams all vying for the $35,000 payout if they can win the final stage of Dreamhack. It’s sure to be a knock-out slugfest from beginning to end, and it all continues this weekend, running from August 8 until August 16.
The two regions are Europe (containing two groups) and North America (containing two groups).
Group A Europe has strong contention with BIG being a strong favorite in the current climate; they’ve reached the number one ranking after a few key stumbles from massive names, and they seem hell-bent on maintaining that slot.
The German team has held the #1 spot for the past five weeks, and has dropped only two matches in the past two months; against Vitality and OG; they currently have an 80.6% win-rate for the past three months.
Expect them to favor Overpass and Nuke as clutch maps; they are undefeated on Overpass.
Group B Europe is a bit spicier; European team OG has been streaky and they currently sit at #15 globally; they’ve dropped a series against BIG recently, only a week after beating them. Complexity looks to be a stronger team, statistically, as they’ve won recently against Vitality and FaZe, yet they lost a clean sweep against BIG. Expect Group B Europe to turn into a slugfest between these two teams that are both eager to prove themselves against BIG.
For the North America region, Group A is an exciting prospect for Chaos alone.
Chaos will finally have an opportunity to test their mettle against the kings of NA CS, Team Liquid, It’s their opportunity to show that they’re more than a Tier 2 team with a spotty background, but they’ll need to claw their way through Ze Pug Gods to win the group. ZPG is a closeted favorite based on recent showings, but they absolutely have an opportunity to go toe-to-toe against Team Liquid.
Group B NA has FURIA looking to be solid contenders for winning the group, although C9 and Yeah could upset if the stars align. FURIA is admittedly a very strong contender to battle it out against whoever will win Group A, but it’s likely that we see a FURIA/Liquid showdown in the latter parts of the tourney.
Evil Geniuses, Gen G. and 100Thieves dropped out of the competition, resulting in Yeah Gaming, Team One, and Chaos were ushered in as a result of this. It’s going to be entertaining to see if these teams have it in them to compete against some of the bigger NA teams, which promises spicy matches incoming relatively soon.
