Intel Grand Slam Season 1 Continues with the DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018

Sixteen teams from around the world will convene at Le Dome de Marseille this week for the first Masters tournament of 2018 and the latest tournament that is part of the Intel Grand Slam Season 1 in the DreamHack Masters Marseille.

There is a prize pool of $250,000 available with 16 teams competing in the tournament, 12 by direct invitation and four that earned their spots through one of four regional qualifiers.

The tournament begins with a Group Stage of four groups of four with the opening and elimination matches played over a best-of-one format and the winner and decider matches played over the best-of-three.  The top two teams from each group enter the playoffs.

The playoffs are a straight single-elimination event through to the final.

Tournament Information

• DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018
• Series – DreamHack Masters and Intel Grand Slam Season 1
• Sponsors – Corsair, Monster Energy, H4x.gg,, SLIVER.tv
• Type – Offline (LAN)
• Location – Marseille
• Venue – Le Dome de Marseille
• Prize Pool – $250,000
• Starts – April 18
• Ends – April 22
• Tier – Premier

Qualifed/Invited Teams

• Astralis
• Cloud 9
• Team EnVyUs
• FaZe Clan
• Fnatic
• Gambit Esports
• G2 Esports
• Team Liquid
• Mousesports
• Natus Vincere
• Ninjas in Pyjamas
• SK Gaming
• Valiance (European Qualifier)
• Space Soldiers (European Qualifier)
• Renegades (North American Qualifier)
• TyLoo (Asian Qualifier)

Prize Money Allocation

• Winner – $100,000
• Runner Up – $50,000
• 3^rd & 4^th – $22,000 each
• 5^th to 8^th – $10,000 each
• 9^th to 16^th – $2,000 each

Group Draw

• Group A – FaZe Clan, Cloud9, G2 Esports, Team EnVyUs
• Group B – mouesports, SK Gaming, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Valiance
• Group C – Fnatic, Natus Vincere, Renegades, TyLoo
• Group D – Team Liquid, Astralis, Space Soldiers, Gambit Esports

Roster Changes

Ahead of the tournament there have been some major changes to the roster for several competing teams with perhaps the biggest news being that FaZe Clan’s star player olofmeister will be taking a short break for personal reasons and will miss the tournament, Xizt will join the team to replace him for Marseille.

Other changes see shox moving to the bench for G2 Esports with mixwell replacing him in the team on a trial basis. Taco has stepped down at SK Gaming and Stewie2K replaces him after leaving Cloud9 to sign up with SK. Cloud9 have since signed FNS to replace Stewie2K. Team Liquid have also signed TACO as a replacement for steel who has stood down.

Skadoodle had announced he was currently inactive with Cloud9 in late March with his participation unclear until April 11 when the player announced that he was back with the team and expects to participate for them in the event.

Latest DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018 Betting

Betway have a number of interesting outright markets for the event in Marseille including outright winner betting and betting on which of the four teams will win each of the groups. The odds for this event are as follows:

Outright Winner of DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018

• SK Gaming – 4/1 Favourite
• Astralis, FaZe Clan – 5/1
• Mousesports – 11/2
• Cloud9, Fnatic – 6/1
• G2 Esports – 7/1
• Team Liquid – 8/1
• Natus Vincere – 10/1
• Ninjas in Pyjamas, Space Soldiers – 16/1
• Gambit Esports, Renegades – 50/1
• Team EnVyUs, Valiance, – 100/1
• TyLoo – 300/1

Group Winners of DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018

• Group A – FaZe Clan 11/10, G2 Esports 7/4, Cloud9 3/1, Team EnVyUs 20/1
• Group B – SK Gaming 21/20, mousesports 13/10, Ninjas in Pyjamas 5/1, Valiance 66/1
• Group C – Fnatic 3/5, Natus Vincere 39/20, Renegades 8/1, TyLoo 50/1
• Group D – Astralis 21/20, Team Liquid 9/4, Space Soldiers 3/1, Gambit Esports 10/1

Intel Grand Slam Season 1 Standings

The DreamHack Masters Marseille is the seventh event in the Intel Grand Slam season, which sees a $1,000,000 cash prize on offer to any team that can win four out of ten successive Intel Grand Slam events. Unlike standard cash prizes received by the team, the money for the Intel Grand Slam will be awarded directly to each of the players.

In addition to the $1,000,000 prize for any team that can muster four wins from ten successive Intel Grand Slam events, there is also a $100,000 Spoils Bonus on offer for any team that defeats a team that has had three victories in an event.

So far six events have produced five different winners as follows, with just one team racking up two victories.

• SK Gaming – 2 wins (4 events remaining to claim prize)
• Fnatic – 1 win (9 events remaining to claim prize)
• Ninjas in Pyjamas – 1 win (7 events remaining to claim prize)
• FaZe Clan – 1 win (6 events remaining to claim prize)
• G2 Esports – 1 win (5 events remaining to claim prize)

At the moment, no team is ready to trigger the bonus payment, though a win for SK Gaming in Marseille would put them on three wins, with three events remaining where they could win the prize if they landed another victory.

This would also trigger the opportunity for any other team to trigger the $100,000 spoils bonus by eliminating SK Gaming from a tournament.

The remaining events in the Intel Grand Slam this season following the DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018 are as follows:

• Intel Extreme Masters Sydney – May 1 to May 6 ($250,000)
• ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals – May 14 to May 20 ($1,000,000)
• ESL One – Belo Horizonte 2018 – June 13 to June 17 ($200,000)
• ESL One – Cologne 2018 – July 3 to July 8 ($300,000)
• DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018 – August 29 to Sep 2 ($250,000)

Who will win DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018?

The bookmakers have SK Gaming as the favourites to win this event, but as the odds show, they are not firm favourites.  What the Intel Grand Slam Series has shown us in its first season is that the difference in quality between the very top teams is very small and depending on the players playing (or absent) for each team and the maps played in a match, this can have a huge influence on which teams succeed.

So while SK Gaming may be the bookmakers favourites any of the top 11 teams in the betting have a realistic chance of success, with only those rated as 50/1 shots or more being unlikely to feature. For me, I think olofmeister’s absence will hit FaZe Clan hard and I think that as such the likely strongest challengers to SK Gaming will be Fnatic (6/1) who have won the Intel Extreme Masters World Championships and the World Electronic Sports Games back in March and who are bang in form at the moment.