DreamHack Zowie will make its first appearance in the United States, coming to the Austin Convention Center in Texas, May 6-8 for the 2016 DreamHack Zowie Open. In what DreamHack calls "a natural addition to the expansion to the US," this $100,000 tournament will showcase some of the best teams in North America.
However, the top two seeds in the tournament want to make sure fans and pundits know that Brazil is in the house and playing to take the biggest chunk of prize money. Will the teams from the USA have anything to say about it? Let's take a look.
Eight teams have been seeded into two groups of four with each group playing matches in the usual five-match, double-elimination format. The two teams that survive each group will advance to the playoff bracket, where they will play a series of best of three matches to determine the DreamHack Zowie Open Austin champion.
Group A
1. Luminosity Gaming
2. Counter Logic Gaming
3. Cloud9
4. Splyce
Looking at these four teams, you immediately see Luminosity and predict it'll walk away with this group. The winners of the MLG Major in Columbus and the North American ESL Pro League Season 3, Luminosity has the résumé to make a person believe it can handle the teams in Group A. But a ninth place finish in the DreamHack Masters Malmo in April had teams flocking to video reviews to see how TyLoo and mousesports took out Luminosity. This group is filled with some very smart players and coaches and I'm sure they have done their homework.
That being said, Luminosity is still the favorite to win this group. Marcelo "coldzera" David has been masterful in Luminosity's last 10 matches going 9-1 with a +55 K/D kill/death ratio (222/167) against teams like Cloud9, Team Solo Mid, and Complexity. More importantly, coldzera is an absolute beast in big tournaments. At MLG Columbus, coldzera had a rating of 1.36 and a +84 K/D. In Malmo, he went 1.13 and +22 K/D. While Luminosity will likely ride the success of coldzera throughout the tournament, Tacio "TACO" Filho could be considered the one weak spot for the team. TACO comes into DreamHack Zowie Austin with a -4 K/D (169/173) and 0.97 rating in his last 10 matches. With the team playing well lately, going 17-3 in its last 20 matches, and with a yearning to put Malmo behind it, I can see this Luminosity team making it to the semifinals.
Counter Logic Gaming is the pride of the American CS:GO scene. While its abysmal 5-17 finish in the ESL Pro League may have you think it'll be tournament fodder, there is reason to believe this team could have some success. Just this past weekend alone, CLG picked up four wins, going 2-0 against Liquid and Without a Roof in the first season of the Esports Championship Series. CLG will be leaning on MLG Columbus all star, Tarik "Tarik" Celik, and his ability as an entry fragger to get those first kills and hold down entry positions on the map.
But will CLG get out of Group A? My answer is no.
Cloud9 has been going through some changes recently, as it opted to bench Ryan 'freakazoid' Abadir and hire a new coach, Andrew "Irukandji" Timmerman, on a trial basis. Taking the place of freakazoid on the roster for this event will be Alec "Slemmy" White. Slemmy comes over from Without a Roof and, quite frankly, looks to be in over his head. His 0.85 rating is the second worst of any player in this tournament, with NRG's Fatih "gob b" Dayik earning the dubious honor of having the worst rating at 0.82.
Splyce Gaming must be the chosen sons of the CS:GO gods. It continues to find ways to get into these major tournaments. It seized its opportunity in the MLG Columbus Qualifier when MongolZ had to drop out. When a couple of other teams couldn't make it to Austin because of scheduling conflicts, Splyce was given the nod. This team has added two stand-ins for this tournament -- freakazoid and Jaryd "summit1g" Lazar. The diehard fans will recognize summit1g as one of the old school players that had some success in the early days of Counter-Strike.
It will be exciting to see these two stand-ins play and how they can perform with their new team. Arya "arya" Hekmat is quickly becoming a name as an in-game leader and he seems to have some rapport with these two new players, which could lead to some success.
Most likely to get out of Group A: Luminosity and Splyce
Upset watch: Cloud9
Group B:
1. Tempo Storm
2. Team Liquid
3. Selfless
4. NRG
This definitely looks to be the easier group for the likes of Tempo Storm and Team Liquid. But if you go back to last March and see the matches Selfless had to play to get to DreamHack Zowie Austin, you'll see that it bested Tempo Storm 2-1 in the semifinals. Don't count out NRG with its third/fourth finish at Counter Pit League Season 2. NRG and Selfless are going to have to step up their game if they're going to make this group competitive. One map win isn't going to do it here.
If Tempo Storm wants to succeed, it must find some consistency in its play. Tempo Storm has some really good wins recently, taking matches from Virtus.Pro, SK Gaming and Dignitas in its run to finish first at the CEVO Gfinity Professional Season 9 finals. Henrique "HEN1" Teles has been outstanding, posting a 1.13 rating and +29 K/D against some of the best teams in the world. This kid is turning into a superstar before our very eyes.
"But just when Liquid thought it was riding high, it dropped two quick matches to mousesports and TyLoo and were ousted in Malmo."
The other team in this group that people have their eyes on is Team Liquid, the third/fourth place finisher at the MLG Major in Columbus that took out both Fnatic and CLG. But just when Liquid thought it was riding high, it dropped two quick matches to mousesports and TyLoo and were ousted in Malmo. Those losses have given pause to pundits in their evaluations about just how good this team really is. One man trying to shift those thoughts will be Spencer "Hiko" Martin and his outstanding 1.11 career rating. If he and Kenneth "koosta" Suen can get things going, Team Liquid should not have any problem getting to the semifinals.
Selfless is the least experienced team in the tournament when it comes to playing majors on the national stage. It's done enough in qualifiers to make a name for itself, but hasn't done much after. These guys did in fact outright qualify for the DreamHack Zowie Austin event beating teams such as Splyce and Tempo Storm. There is a bit of mystery about how this team will perform -- which brings a lot of excitement for CS:GO fans everywhere.
Noah "Nifty" Francis is the player to watch, as he's taken on the AWP as his weapon of choice over 49 percent of the time. He will look to put a couple of teams in his cross hairs in Selfless' attempt to get out of this group.
If there is a team that is on the cusp of breaking through and winning a tournament, it's NRG eSports. This is a squad that took third/fourth at the Counter Pit Season 2 Finals, followed by a fifth place finish in the North American edition of the ESL Pro League Season 3. It has some significant wins over teams such as Renegades, Complexity, CLG and Team Liquid, but is that a good predictor of what will come? We'll see.
Just note that NRG is definitely a wildcard that needs to overachieve if it has any chance of getting out of group play. The odds are stacked against it, but what did that matter in Malmo?
Most likely to get out of Group B: Tempo Storm and Team Liquid
Upset Watch: NRG eSports