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Alright, here we are again, ladies and gentlemen! I am proud to announce the Dreamhack Masters event for CS:GO that will be happening in the wonderful city of Dallas, Texas! This will be part of the long-running Intel Grand Slam event as well which has a separate prize pool of $1,000,000 smackaroons that will go to the winner.
Dreamhack Masters will have a $250,000 prize pool itself. The tournament will be held in the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center, which is just outside the heart of Dallas. It will be a 5-day event and it will start on the 28th of May and will end on the 2nd of June.
Today we shall check the list of participants, roster changes and also give our betting tips for the top Dallas 2019 Dreamhack CS:GO teams.
Teams
There will be a total of 16 teams that will be participating in this tournament. 10 of those teams will be granted direct invites, while 6 of them will learn their spots through regional qualifications all around the world. The invited teams are the French squad, Vitality; the boys from down under, Renegades; the North American based organization, NRG Esports; the other Danish squad, North; the Swedish powerhouse, Ninjas in Pyjamas.
North America is represented with the most recent winner of ESL Sydney, Liquid; the legendary Swedish organization, Fnatic; The international lineup of Faze Clan; the Finnish stalwarts, Ence; and to complete the direct invitees, from North America, Cloud 9.
To complete the 16 teams, Windigo Gaming and G2 Esports earned their spot from the EU qualifiers. Furia Esports qualified by way of the NA qualifiers, Isurus Gaming came from the South American qualifiers, TyLoo from the Chinese qualifiers, and last but not the least, the new kids on the big block, Lucid Dream from the Asian qualifiers.
Roster and Lineup Changes
There are a few roster and lineup changes that will be happening. First of all, Johnta, who was previously the coach of TyLoo left his post. He has no new team as of yet and TyLoo has not found any replacements for him.
Rambo who was also a longtime coach of Cloud 9 will resign from his post. His vacated spot will be taken over by Valens, who was previously a player and also had a previous coaching stint with Cloud 9 as well.
For the player side of lineup changes, the first and most noticeable one would be Adren being released by Faze Clan. It has been months in the making, and even if Adren was able to show noticeable improvement, they still dropped him from the squad. Replacing him would be Neo from the old Virtus Pro squad. Neo will be in trial right now in the Faze lineup, and let us just hope that this will be a permanent roster fix.
The second team with a player shuffle will be North. They just released Cadian. As a replacement Awper for North, they have signed JUGi from Optic Gaming. This will be the first big and stable team that JUGi will be in, so there will be a lot of eyes that will be watching his performance in these events in the future.
Format
The format for this tournament is fairly simple. The 16 teams will be split in the middle and will be separated into 2 distinct groups. Each of the groups will be playing in a double elimination GSL format. The first matches will be in a Bo1 series, while the remaining matches will be in a Bo3.
Only the top 3 squads advance to the Playoffs. The winners secure a berth in the semifinals in the playoffs, while the remaining two qualified squads occupy a quarter-final slot. All matches in the playoffs will be played in Bo3, including the Grand Finals.
CS:GO Dreamhack Dallas Betting Predictions
Now here comes the fun part. I will be predicting the top three teams from each group that will most likely advance to the playoffs. Aside from that, I will also be picking up a dark horse from each of these groups who will most likely provide an upset against the well-established teams.
This will also be a fun predictions list as seeing there is no Astralis again that is joining in this event. So this tournament will be more like a royal rumble between the squads and see who comes out on top. So without further ado, let’s start with Group A.
Group A
This list already has a clear cut winner in my mind and also the runners up.
I am already partial to picking Liquid as the clear cut winner in this group. If we are going to judge by their opening matches, they already have a clear path going to the Upper Bracket 3rd round.
Their first match will be against Lucid Dream, and there is a night and day difference between these two. And while they will be playing against either Vitality or North in the second round, I am sure that while they will not coast against them as a clear cut winner, I am sure that they will still come out on top even if they get scrappy wins against them.
The second playoff contender I have in mind would be FaZe Clan. It has been a long thing coming that they needed to replace Adren. Although Adren was showing a very good performance towards the end, it still was not enough to save his spot.
However, with Neo onboard, I do hope that this is the start of the restructure that they have been badly needing all these years. Even with that in mind though. Faze is still a strong squad and still cannot be ignored.
The third squad that I think that will be able to sleep walk in this group would be Ninjas in Pyjamas. These Swedes have been grinding for wins on and off this year.
We have seen that Forest and Get Right, if they get on a roll can be devastating to play against, especially in maps like Train or Inferno. The only teams that are strong against them on those maps are Astralis and MiBR, and guess who are not in this competition? Both those squads!
Dark Horse. Now, for my dark horse pick for Group A, it will be none other that Vitality. NBK and the rest of the former EnvyUs members have been tearing it up lately in the minor tournaments that has been happening lately.
They have notched wins against a lot of other EU teams that are competing in this event and even on the upcoming FaceIt ECS. If they continue with this crazy winning streak that they currently have, I see them going far in this event and even usurping a spot from a team such as FaZe Clan.
Group B
Group B looks more like a true group of death in my opinion. There are a lot of challengers in this group. However, I still have 3 squads in my mind that will most likely rise up on top.
The first one would be the boys from down under, Renegades. Their performance lately is nothing to scoff at. The youngster, Liazz has been a very good addition to the squad and as of late, AZѕR has been stepping up in his leadership role.
Couple that with the crazy work ethic and clutch explosiveness of Gratisfaction, and they are a very deadly team to go up against.
The next deadly team that is in this group is the new and improved NRG. Their semi-final slot finish along with Renegades in the Star Series I League is an indication of their improvement lately. The recent addition of Tarik to their roster, who was one of the players that was released from the old MiBR before they went to the all Brazilian lineup, was a clutch addition to the roster.
With Tarik in the team, they have someone to clear corners along with Daps whenever they plan and execute on some sites, whether they are retaking or creating entry plays. The team dynamics that they currently have is on a good state, and with that, they manage to pull some very good performances against other established squads.
Now the last one that I have in mind and probably the one that will most likely win this group would be Fnatic. If their IEM Sydney and Star Series performances are of any indication, they have been showing significant improvement to their squad lately. If you remember during the first three months of this year, they even barely managed to get anywhere near the top 8 of any competition that they join in.
For starters, they got dismally eliminated by G2 during Katowice, but that did not stop Fnatic from improving. Now, with them being on a hot streak right now, I do see them being able to steamroll their competition if they keep their morale up.
The dark horse for group B would be of no surprise for you guys. I am sure that all of you knows what the Finns are capable of. Ence has been off and on recently, but that does not mean that we can write them out of the competition altogether.
If you can remember, they went against the odds in Katowice and surprised everyone by getting into the Grand Finals and played against the current best team in the world, Astralis. If they can do the same performance that they did in Katowice, I see them getting in another Grand Finals showdown here with most likely, Team Liquid.
If you have your own betting tips regarding who is going to win this CS:GO Dreamhack Dallas event, feel free to share them in the comments below!
Good luck!
