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The DreamHack Zowie Open, also known as DreamHack Bucharest 2016, takes place in the Romanian capital’s Polyvalent Hall with a host of the world’s best teams descending on Romania to battle it out in the next big $100,000 event.
Eight CS:GO teams face off this weekend
The action gets under way today, Friday 16th September and continues through until the final is completed on Sunday 18th September, by which time the next winner in the DreamHack series of events will be known.
Eight teams will contest the tournament, which includes six invited teams plus two qualifiers. The teams competing in Romania over the weekend are as follows:
- Cloud9 (invited)
- Team Dignitas (invited)
- Team EnVyUs (invited)
- FaZe Clan (invited)
- FlipSid3 Tactics (invited)
- Virtus.pro (invited)
- Gambit Gaming (qualifier)
- Heroic (qualifier)
Heroic are the former members of Team X, who left that team to form a new team under the Heroic banner.
The tournament is split into two stages. The first stage being the Group Stage, which has seen the eight competing teams drawn into one of two groups.
- Group A – Virtus.pro, Heroic, Team EnVyUs, Gambit Gaming
- Group B – Cloud9, Team Dignitas, FaZe Clan, Flipsid3 Tactics
The teams will compete against each other in the group stages with the top two teams making it through into the bracket section of the event. The two teams finishing in the bottom two sections of the group will be eliminated.
After the group stage is complete, the bracket section will begin with the top team in each group taking on the team that finished second in the other group in the two semi finals.
These will be single-elimination best of three matches with the winner earning a place in the final.
The two teams knocked out at this semi-final stage receive a prize of $10,000, with the runner up in the event taking home a nice $20,000 and the winner of the event pocketing the lion’s share of the prize money by landing a $50,000 prize.
The esports bookmakers have already been running the rule over the teams competing in Romania across the weekend and Bet365 Esports have Cloud9 as the 4/1 joint favourites alongside Virtus Pro and Heroic.
Team EnVyUs are 9/2 shots, with Team Dignitas and FaZe Clan 5/1 shots. The outside teams are Flipsid3 Tactics at 11/1 and Gambit Gaming who are the rank outsiders at 22/1.
You can check our esports betting odds tracker for up-to-date odds on this event and others from a variety of the best esports gambling sites.
It is worth noting that this event does have a tendency to spring shocks.
At the last event, the Summer Event in Sweden, the two teams that finished second in the Group Stage -Immortals and Ninjas in Pyjamas – were the two that made it through to the final. The Immortals team eventually coming out on top in a 2-0 victory.
This DreamHack event looks like being one of the most open in many years and as such, there is sure to be a lot of interest on the esports betting markets now that the action is underway.
2016 KeSPA Cup to determine the best StarCraft II player in the world
The majority of competitors battling it out to be named the best StarCraft II player in the world have already been decided with 12 of the 16 qualifiers for the 2016 KeSPA Cup already known.
Unsurprisingly, all 12 of those finalists hail from Korea, with the top four Proleague players (herO, Zest, Stats and Maru) being joined by the eight players who made it through their groups in the highly competitive Global Qualifiers recently.
- Patience
- Classic
- Trap
- TY
- ByuN
- Pet
- Rogue
- Solar
The finalists consist of six protoss players plus three each who are Terran and Zerg players. These 12 players will be joined by a further four players after the results of the North American and European Qualifiers are known.
In the European Qualifier, the 16 players will compete across two brackets with the winners bracket providing one qualification spot and the losers bracket providing the second.
The action gets under way on the 16th September with the two qualifiers from Europe taking their place in the 2016 KeSPA Cup Main Event taking place in Seoul from the 27th September through to the 3rd October.
The qualifying system for the North American Qualifiers is based on exactly the same structure, however in this section players from North America, Latin America, China, Oceania, South East Asia and Taiwan are allowed to compete for one of the two qualifying places available.
The action got under way on the 15th September.
The KeSPA Cup is a big deal in StarCraft II esports circles as it is recognised by many as being the unofficial world championship for players to compete against each other to be identified by their peers as the best player in the world.
The competition has been running since 2014 and was actually run twice in 2015.
Zest was the first winner back in 2014 beating herO in the final, but herO earned his victory in the first of the 2015 events. SoO was the winner of the second 2015 tournament, which means that no player from outside Korea has ever won the event.
SoO is also the only non-protoss player to win the event as a Zerg player.
The action for the two qualifying events takes place online over the weekend and the names of the two finalists should be known shortly thereafter. It is a good idea to tune in to your chosen esports betting provider to check out what betting odds are available on this.
Then later in the month, we can provide you with news on the individual odds for the players set to contest the KeSPA Cup Main event in a subsequent article.
Is there any player from Europe, North America or indeed from anywhere else around the world that can challenge the dominance of South Korean players when it comes to top level SCII gaming? Over the next few weeks, we will likely find out.
