Overview
Photo Source: Dreamhack Masters
With the events of the major just dying down just one week ago, another large tournament began in Sweden. The tournament is taking place in Malmo, Sweden and is part of Dreamhack Masters. 16 of the world’s best teams have been invited to participate, but olofmeister’s hand injury resulted in Fnatic pulling out of the tournament to allow him to recover. G2 received the spot that Fnatic vacated. Guardian from Na’Vi also had to deal with a wrist injury and was forced to sit the tournament out while his team will be using their coach and former player, starix, in his place. Despite this, the tournament still features some of the best teams in the world with the current major winners, Luminosity Gaming, Danish super-team, Astralis, and the famous Ninjas in Pyjamas, to name a few.
Day 1, Group A
Luminosity Gaming
Team Liquid
Mousesports
Tyloo
The first game of the tournament began with the favorites LG taking on the dark horse from China, Tyloo. It was unlikely that Tyloo would be able to beat LG due to their lack of international experience despite being the best team in China by far. It looked like it LG would begin their dominating performance by taking the first 11 rounds on the unfavored T-side on Mirage. Tyloo managed to recover 3 rounds by the end of the half and even picked up the first 4 rounds on the other side before LG closed out the game. Mousesports vs Liquid was a much closer matchup and it showed in the score for the match. The map played was Dust 2 and the first half ended indecisively with Liquid edging the advantage to themselves with 8 rounds. However, mousesports’ T-side proved to be stronger and they ended the map 16-13.
Day 1, Group B
Natus Vincere
G2 Esports
Counter Logic Gaming
GODSENT
Na’Vi took on GODSENT in the first game of this group and stormed to a 13-2 CT half on Train with strong AWP play from their coach turned player, starix. It looked like Na’Vi would convincingly take the game, but GODSENT put up a strong CT side of their own and the game got uncomfortably close for Na’Vi at 15-11 before Na’Vi finally closed the game out. G2 came into their game as potentially the best French team with the huge slump that EnVyUs has been going through over the last few months. Despite this, CLG put their stamp of authority on the match, dominating the French side for the entire game and ending up with a surprising win of 16-2.
Day 1, Group C
Astralis
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Team Dignitas
Lounge.gg
Astralis played against CS:GO Lounge’s team on Mirage as the opening game for this group. Lounge started strong by taking the pistol round as the CT’s to give themselves the early economic lead. Astralis picked up the first gun round and the next round off of a huge flank play from Karrigan. The Danish team ran the score all the way up to 10-5 and despite a force buy win by Lounge, they closed it out at 16-9. NiP looked to be like their old form again with their 16-2 record in the ESEA Pro League and their improved form. Dignitas didn’t even blink as they took down the legendary team easily, 16-2 on Overpass with a terrific 13-2 T-side which they closed out with a pistol win after the half.
Day 1, Group D
Virtus Pro
EnVyUs
Tempo Storm
FaZe Clan
VP has been a team that recently has performed horribly in online games, but has shown up for offline games as they shown by being the only team to take a map off of LG in Columbus. They showed up once again, trouncing FaZe in the opening match of the group, 16-8 on Train. The TS vs nV match was much more exciting with TS jumping out to a huge lead with a 12-3 half as the T-side. nV grabbed the pistol round on the other side and a few consecutive rounds, but TS answered with 2 rounds of their own to take tie point. nV would not die easily however, and pulled the score even at 14-14 before a great A site setup from TS shut down nV and they would go on to lose both rounds to allow TS to move onto the winner’s match.