DreamHack Open Winter 2018 tournament.
Yesterday, Team Liquid, HellRaisers, Virtus.pro, and others started competing in the middle of the Mediterranean. About two thousands kilometers north of Malta, in the Swedish city Jönköping, today began another Major – DreamHack Open Winter 2018. LDLC, Heroic, G2, ENCE, and others, apparently, more like cold weather. Considering that the next Premier is going to be played in Denmark, things are going to be easier for G2 Esports when it comes to traveling.
It is interesting that G2 is the only team from DreamHack Open Winter 2018 that also compete in following ESL Pro League S8 Finals. Most of the teams that qualified for Pro League Finals are playing in SuperNova right now. There is nothing unusual, given that the prize pool is $50.000 bigger in Malta. However, it will be equally interesting to watch this event, and the reasons are many. Fans are eager to see new members of G2 in action, as well as young, domestic team x6tence.
Format and rules
DreamHack Open Winter is one of the several events which DreamHack organize during the year. It is also the last one in the year. This tournament gathers some of the best rosters in the world, together in one place. It is going to be played for three days, from 30th November to 2nd December. It is a good opportunity to see a form of some teams, especially of shaken G2 prior to the upcoming big tournament. Six out of eight teams came to this tournament due to an invitation, and x6tence Galaxy and Bravado Gaming arrived here through qualifications.
The prize pool for this tournament is set at $100.000 USD. The winning squad will receive an amazing $50.000. The tournament contains two Groups with four teams. Teams are going to play Bo1(Best-of 1) in initial and winning matches, and are going to play Bo3(Best-of 3) in elimination and decider matches. The best two teams from each group advance in Play-off.
Streaming
For all CS: GO lovers it is good to know that Sweeden local time zone is Central European Time. So, if you live in American continent, you have to wake up earlier, and if you watch DreamHack Open Winter 2018 from Asia prepare yourself for nights without sleep. Jacob “Pimp” Winneche and Sudhen “Bleh” Wahengbam will analyze the matches and tactics. Also, you can enjoy in comments of Conner “Scrawny” Girvan, Mohan “Launders” Govindasamy, Hugo Byron and Niels “rizc” Topp. Here you can follow live streams of DreamHack Open Winter 2018 matches: https://www.twitch.tv/DreamHackCS
Interesting teams and players
As I said, eight teams will take part in this event. G2 Esports is definitely the most interesting squad to follow. Alongside G2, there are Team LDLC, OpTic Gaming, x6tence Galaxy, Bravador Gaming, Heroic, compLexity Gaming, and ENCE eSports.
G2 Esports raised a lot of dust when they decided to bench SmithZz and Ex6TenZ. It was a reasonable decision to end cooperation with SmithZz considering his poor form, but it was a bit confusing to do the same thing with Ex6TenZ. G2 is generally on a bad run. French team managed to find their place among best teams in ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals, but they are struggling to do something more in other tournaments. It will be interesting to see how JaCkz and Lucky will fit into the company. They are young and inexperienced guys and this is going to be their first tournament in G2 Esports.
Fans are eagerly waiting to see what another French team will achieve in this event. Old giant LDLC has a satisfactory season and they have an opportunity to win another Major this year. However, it is not going to be easy for them to reach Play-off alongside x6tence Galaxy, Heroic and compLexity Gaming in the group. In my opinion, x6tence Galaxy is another team to keep eye on. They are young, domestic team and they won two Qualifiers to get to the main event. It is not easy at all, especially if we consider that these Qualifiers had only Play-off Stage.
MODI and friberg from Heroic also play on home soil. They and their teammates did pretty well recently. Heroic won a very strong major in TOYOTA Master CS: GO Bangkok tournament. They defeated TYLOO in finals with score 3:2. That is not the only tournament that they won in the last couple of months. The Danish-Swedish team had a lot of success in Games Clash Masters 2018. Team Kinguing was their victim in finals. Therefore, Heroic has a decent chance to do something significant in DreamHack Open Winter 2018.
First round results (UPDATE)
The initial round has already finished. We can say that the biggest surprise was made by Bravado. The South African team have beaten a 13th team in the world, OpTic in a close match. Another amazing victory was made by Heroic. After opening 5 rounds they crushed LDLC. The French team won only one out of next 17 rounds. I have to mention spectacular “last-second win” by G2. Namely, the result was 15-14 in favor of G2, and they were Terrorist side. They dropped the bomb, so it was unreachable. Seven seconds before end G2 managed to eliminate last three members of ENCE in a miraculous way.
OMG @G2esports! @G2shox WHAT. A. ROUND! 16-14! ⚡⚡⚡#DHOpen pic.twitter.com/9UbmFegEV8
— DreamHack Counter-Strike (@DreamHackCSGO) November 30, 2018
Here are all results:
CompLexity Gaming[16] – x6tecne Galaxy [10]
OpTic[14] – Bravado[16]
LDLC [6] – Heroic [16]
ENCE [14] – G2 [16]
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