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Starting Nov. 16, the next big event in the DreamHack series of tournaments will take place in Atlanta. Eight teams will battle it out for the $100,000 prize pool across the three days of action.
This is the fifth DreamHack event of the season following Montreal, Masters Stockholm, Valencia and the Summer event held in Jonkoping, Sweden.
Here’s a quick list of those winners:
- Montreal – Team Kinguin
- Masters Stockholm – North
- Valencia – North
- Summer – The Imperial
With many of the top teams in CS:GO electing to forego the standard DreamHack events this year, focusing only on the two big Masters tournaments, lesser known teams have enjoyed earning a little extra cash and publicity.
North have earned plaudits not only by defeating Astralis in the Masters Stockholm but then following that up with an impressive win in Valencia too. They lost in the semifinal stage in the Summer event, but they will not be in Atlanta.
DreamHack Atlanta 2018 – Teams
- Invited – compLexity Gaming, Team Envy, Fragsters, Ghost Gaming, Luminosity Gaming, Rogue
- Qualifiers – Team Vitality (Europe), eUnited (North America)
Group Draws
- A – compLexity Gaming, eUnited, Luminosity Gaming, Team Envy
- B – Ghost Gaming, Fragsters, Rogue, Team Vitality
The format of the tournament will follow the standard DreamHack structure. There will be a four-team GSL Group Stage, starting with two best-of-one contests, followed by three best-of-three matches to decide the final positions in the group.
The two top seeds from each group then contest the semifinals. The two semifinal winners battle it out in the final for the $50,000 top prize.
Betting odds
The bookmakers feel this event in Atlanta is one of the most open DreamHack events in modern times. In the absence of the very top teams, that is certainly true. The odds, therefore, are very open, as we see here from Betway.
- Team Vitality – 3/1
- compLexity Gaming, Luminosity Gaming – 4/1
- Fragsters – 11/2
- Ghost Gaming – 15/2
- eUnited – 8/1
- Rogue – 10/1
- Team Envy – 25/1
It is rare you see a qualifier for a tournament rank as the favourite, but here we are. Team Vitality, whose League of Legends team made such a good impression in the recent World Championship, rank as the slight favourites ahead of the more experienced duo of compLexity Gaming and Luminosity Gaming.
eUnited would likely have ranked a little higher than 8/1 shot, but the team has made a couple of key roster changes of late. There’s real uncertainty (and maybe upside) there.
I think the best value bets come in the middle of the list. Both Fragsters and Ghost Gaming have put in some solid performances of late. Against slightly easier opposition here, I think Fragsters are a very solid bet to win this event.
Dota 2 Kuala Lumpur Major update
The first Major of the new Dota 2 season has been underway in Kuala Lumpur since Nov. 9. The $1,000,000 prize pool has attracted the very best Dota 2 teams in the world, including many of the top teams from The International 2018, to compete.
Champions of that event, OG, are not present, however, which hands a great opportunity to the other teams to lay claim to a top prize of $350,000 and 4,950 Dota Pro Circuit Points for the winner. That’s out of the 15,000 DPC points that will be allocated at the end of the event.
There are now just six teams remaining in with a chance of landing the title. Let’s recap.
Group Phase
In truth, there were few surprises in the Group Stage of the tournament. All the big hitters made it through their group, perhaps with the exception of Team Aster, who had expected to do well in the tournament but were relegated into third spot in Group B by Vici Gaming.
Team Secret, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Evil Geniuses, PSG.LGD, Fnatic, Virtus.pro, and Alliance were the other seven teams to earn one of the seeded spots in the Upper Bracket.
That meant that the other eight teams dropped into the Lower Bracket Round 1 and the dreaded one-game, win-or-bust opportunity to make it through to Round 2.
Main Event
The Upper Bracket saw the four matches produce three solid wins for the top three teams in the tournament with Team Secret beating Vici Gaming, PSG.LGD defeating Alliance, and Virtus.pro overcoming Fnatic, all by the same 2-0 scoreline. In the other game, Ninjas in Pyjamas caused something of a shock, defeating Evil Geniuses, who had topped Group B, 2-1.
This has set up Upper Bracket semifinals of Team Secret vs. PSG.LGD and Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Virtus.pro, which will be played Nov 16.
In the Lower Bracket, TNC Predator, painX, J.Storm, and Forward Gaming came through their one-shot games, eliminating paiN Gaming, Tigers, Team Aster, and Gambit Esports in the process.
Of those teams, only TNC Predator made it past that stage, as they defeated Alliance 2-0 to move into Round 3. In the other games, the former Upper Bracket teams, Vici Gaming, Fnatic and Evil Geniuses were the teams to progress.
In Round 3, TNC Predator continued their fine form with a 2-1 win over Vici Gaming. Evil Geniuses defeated Fnatic 2-0 to move into the Fourth Round, where they will face the losing team from the Upper Bracket semifinals. One game will be played on Nov. 16 and the other on Nov. 17.
Join us again next week when we bring you the final result of the Kuala Lumpur Major and the very first Dota Pro Circuit points table of the new season.
