DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018: Preview

CS2 / News / 28 August 2018 — 06:28

Tournament starts on August 29!

A long off-season is finally drawing to a close, which means we will soon be back with the Counter-Strike action. DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018 will be the first event of the second half of the year, taking place on August 29 through September 2.

Details

DreamHack Masters will be the first CS:GO major held in Stockholm. The venue is Ericsson-Globe, a 16,000-seat arena which hosted the Ice Hockey World Championships in 2012 and 2013.

The groups will use a GSL system, with 16 teams split into 4 groups. The original format has been recently, as bo1 elimination matches were replaced with bo3s.

2 best teams from each group will proceed to the playoffs, which will feature a classic single elimination, bo3 format. The prize pool is $ 250,000.

DreamHack Masters Stockholm will count towards the Intel Grand Slam – there, the teams are competing for $ 1,000,000 which will be granted to the four-time champions of ESL and DreamHack Masters events. Thus far, FaZe Clan and Astralis have been standing the closest to this goal.

The European roster, who will be clutching at their last attempt to complete the challenge, are closely followed by the Danes, who have 2 victories and 5 attempts to go. After winning ESL One Cologne 2018, our boys joined the fight, too, and will need three more wins to make it to the goal.

Group stage opponents

We have been alongside NiP, NRG and Ghost Gaming. The last team will our first-round opponent on August 29, 12:00 CEST.

Semifinals
Winners' Finals
To the playoffs

NAVI.GG.BET

Ghost Gaming

NRG

NiP

TBD

Round 1
Losers' Finals

TBD

Let's take a closer look at them: Ghost Gaming is a US-based team featuring three Canadians, one American, and one German player. They have recently added kRYSTAL, who previously played for Imperial.

To make it to this event, Ghost Gaming qualified through a North American qualifier, winning a single ticket to Stockholm after beating Rogue 2-0. They have also qualified for ZOTAC Cup Masters and are battling in the top division of ESL Pro League S8 North America. Their best maps are Train, Mirage and Overpass; while Dust2 is their weakest spot.

Another representative of the NA region is NRG. The last time NRG and NAVI crossed their paths in the StarSeries S5 grand final, our boys celebrated a confident 2-0 victory (16-8 - Overpass, 16-7 - Mirage). Overall, NRG had a fantastic season, becoming a big revelation in the American scene.

They finished the regular part of ESL Pro League S7 second behind Team Liquid, had numerous successful showings in other qualifiers and ended it all on a high note by winning IEM Shanghai 2018. The only time NRG seemed unassertive was in the American minor, where they took fourth place and failed to qualify the FACEIT Major 2018.

Rounding out group B are the legendary NiP, who have made it through all the stages to finally come to the major. Reaching this milestone was a priority task for them, so the veterans of the team, GeT_RiGhT and f0rest, will be entering the event with renewed vigor.

Dreamhack Masters will be their chance to play in front of a home crowd, and NiP will do all it takes to get the best result possible. The recent shuffle replacing draken with Lekr0 was meant to give the new energy to the team and make it more flexible without a clearly defined sniper. We'll see how well it turns out in action!

We hope that vacation days helped our boys recharge and regain focus, and they will have a convincing start into the new season. Cheer for NAVI! #gonavi