DreamHack Open Austin preview

DreamHack ASTRO Open Austin 2017 is a three-day, eight-team tournament that will be held from April 28-30. The prize pool is $100,000, the standard figure for the DreamHack Open stops, with $50,000 going to the tournament winner.

The tournament will feature two GSL-style groups that will use a combination of BO1 and BO3 matches, followed by a BO3 single-elimination bracket in the playoffs.

The groups for DreamHack ASTRO Open Austin 2017 are as follows:

Group A	Group B
HellRaisers	Immortals
Gambit	G2
HEROIC	Cloud9
Luminosity	Liquid

Group A is filled with  'upset teams': HellRaisers, Gambit and HEROIC have all managed to get LAN wins against strong opposition, but are yet to establish themselves as teams that could make deep runs at events with any kind of consistency.

On the other hand, Group B has teams who have won or been deep in tournaments, but have recently gone through roster changes or have fallen out of form—and will be looking to improve on that in Austin.

The storylines, the pretty even level of the teams in attendance and a packed group stage schedule that will feature six BO1s and four BO3s ensure that DreamHack ASTRO Open Austin will be an exciting event from start to finish.

Ratings used are from the past three months on LAN, if available

Group A

HellRaisers (#8)	Age	Rating
Patrik "⁠Zero⁠" Žúdel	18	1.07
Kirill "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow	27	1.05
Bence "⁠DeadFox⁠" Böröcz	22	1.05
Vladyslav "⁠bondik⁠" Nechyporchuk	23	0.92
Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk	21	0.86
Ivan "⁠Johnta⁠" Shevtsov (coach)

Offline results in 2017
3rd-4th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
15th-16th	ELEAGUE Major

HellRaisers reached the playoffs of a LAN event for the first time with their current roster at the SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals and managed to finish top four straight away, putting up a decent fight against eventual winners FaZe in the semis.

With their strong finish in Kiev, the team consisting of players from three different European countries managed to break into HLTV.org's top 10, the highest this organization has been in quite some time. ANGE1 and co. will be looking to hold on to their ranking—and potentially climb higher—in Austin.

That won't be an easy task, however, as every team at DreamHack Open Austin, even the underdog Luminosity, is pretty dangerous, especially in the opening BO1 matches.

HellRaisers’ strengths and weaknesses, in a weird way, lie in the same places. They play a lot of maps, giving them a wide map pool, but don't have a strong map or two on which they can always rely. The situation is similar in the player department, as all five players have good showings from time to time, but it's hard to single out a main star for the team.

As a result, they are a squad that doesn't need to rely on a single player having a big performance or getting the veto down to their favorite map to get wins, but it might be hard for them to replicate their Kiev form if they are not sure what was key to their result there.

Gambit (#11)	Age	Rating
Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev	27	1.13
Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov	22	1.09
Rustem "⁠mou⁠" Telepov	25	0.99
Mihail "⁠Dosia⁠" Stolyarov	28	0.89
Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko	29	0.86
Mikhaylo "⁠Kane⁠" Blagin (coach)

Offline results in 2017
2nd	cs_summit
12th-14th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
5th-8th	DreamHack Masters Las Vegas
5th-8th	ELEAGUE Major

In terms of maps and players, Gambit are the polar opposite of HellRaisers. Most of their firepower comes from AdreN—at StarSeries S3, we saw what happens to the team when the Kazakh veteran doesn't show up—, and have a very defined map pool, with Cobblestone and Overpass as their home maps.

Gambit are coming into DreamHack Austin 2017 fresh off their second-placed finish at cs_summit, with a couple of good things to bring into the event in Texas. Firstly, we saw AdreN bounce back after a poor event in Kiev, and the team also seemed to widen their map pool as Zeus decided to pick Inferno and Train before Cobblestone and Overpass versus SK in the grand final.

Was that map veto just a curveball for teams that are going to be looking at Gambit going into Austin? Maybe it was, but it could end up being enough for Gambit to get an advantage in the veto at this event.

Looking at the talent, leadership, experience and form at their last event, cs_summit, Gambit seem like one of the favorites to go deep in the tournament.

HEROIC (#15)	Age	Rating
Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså	21	0.96
Nikolaj "⁠niko⁠" Kristensen	18	0.91
Jakob "⁠JUGi⁠" Hansen	20	0.90
Andreas "⁠MODDII⁠" Fridh	27	0.83
Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer	26	0.78

Offline results in 2017
3rd-4th	IEM Katowice
3rd-4th	DreamHack Open Leipzig (4/5 of the current lineup)

Only a few days after adding JUGi to their roster, HEROIC attended IEM Katowice and surprised many by clinching the first place in their group after a rough start to the tournament. The Danish team went on to play Astralis in the semi-final and lost after two well-fought maps.

However, a quick glance at the HEROIC players’ LAN ratings shows that their top-four finish is misleading to a degree. Firstly, they skipped the quarter-finals due to topping the group in Poland, with their first place in Group B not clear-cut by any measure.

HEROIC, Natus Vincere and North all ended the group stage with a 3-2 result, but Snappi's team took first place due to wins over the other two teams they were tied with—despite having the worst overall round difference. Even their decent showing against eventual winners Astralis must be taken with a grain of salt as domestic matchups tend to result in tighter matches quite often.

Heroic will attend a LAN after two months of practicing with JUGi

The run in Katowice maybe wasn't indicative of HEROIC's status back in March, but the team should be looking much better in Austin, their second LAN with this lineup. The young gun trio of JUGi, valde and niko seem to be the main driving force in the team's online matches, and they will be looking to replicate that form in an offline environment this weekend.

If things go well, HEROIC could go far, but as outlined at the beginning of the preview—even getting out of the group won't be a simple task.

Luminosity (#29)	Age	Rating
Gustavo "⁠yel⁠" Knittel	24	1.11
Bruno "⁠shz⁠" Martinelli	19	1.03
Gustavo "⁠SHOOWTiME⁠" Gonçalves	20	1.03
Vinicios "⁠PKL⁠" Coelho	22	1.03
Lucas "⁠destiny⁠" Bullo	19	0.92
Felippe "⁠felippe⁠" Martins (coach)

Offline results in 2017

None

Luminosity have been slowly rising through the ranks of North American Counter-Strike and have finally got a chance to compete at a LAN, their first since ESWC 2016, which they attended with David "⁠Xp3⁠" Garrido filling in for yel, who could not travel due to health issues.

And it's their AWPer yel who has been the driving force of the team in recent times, getting them through the DreamHack Austin qualifiers, in which they beat teams such as Complexity, Misfits and CLG. Alongside him, the team has SHOOWTiME, the former Immortals player and SK stand-in, who claimed that their goal for this tournament is to get to the playoffs. 

Getting out of Group A will be no easy task for Luminosity as they are the clear underdogs of the tournament due to lack of previous achievements or recent LAN showings in general. If we are going to be surprised by the Brazilians, it will probably have to come from yel outshining the likes of mou, JUGi and DeadFox in terms of AWPing.

Group B

Immortals (#7)	Age	Rating
Lincoln "⁠fnx⁠" Lau	27	1.05
Henrique "⁠HEN1⁠" Teles	21	1.02
Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass	20	1.01
Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes	23	0.93
Lucas "⁠LUCAS1⁠" Teles	21	0.85
Rafael "⁠zakk⁠" Fernandes (coach)

Offline results in 2017
9th-11th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
3rd-4th	IEM Katowice

Following the swap between SK and Immortals, which saw the Brazilian legend fnx join the second-best team from his country, Immortals had two contrasting tournaments. At their first event, IEM Katowice 2017, fnx and co. reached the semifinals by beating North in the quarters, but placed only 9-11th at the StarSeries Season 3.

The low placing in Kiev could perhaps be forgiven if Immortals had had a tough draw in the Swiss system, but that wasn't the case. The Brazilians lost to FaZe, North and CLG, with only the first of the three being a truly elite team. To make it worse, the wins against MVP Project and UYA weren't really impressive as they dropped 20 rounds over two maps and had to make a comeback in the match against the Chinese side to stay alive in the tournament.

Immortals continue to live and die by Hen1's AWP 

The obvious difference between the two LANs was HEN1's form. The Brazilian AWPer has always been inconsistent—when he is on form he is perhaps the fastest and deadliest sniper in the game, but his off days are not that rare and often lead to Immortals having bad games, especially since the departure of João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos.

If there is anything positive to take from their event in Kiev, it is that boltz had some maps where he reminded us of what he is capable of—Immortals will need more from him if they want to get through HEN1's bad games and go deep into tournaments on a regular basis.

At DreamHack Austin, Immortals should be making it out of the groups at least, especially as they are likely to face Cloud9, to whom they have not lost on LAN since 2015.

G2 (#9)	Age	Rating
Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon	24	1.26
Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub	21	1.19
Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire	24	1.03
Alexandre "⁠bodyy⁠" Pianaro	20	1.02
Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt	22	0.99
Edouard "⁠SmithZz⁠" Dubourdeaux (coach)

Offline results in 2017
5th-8th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
9th-11th	ELEAGUE Major (3/5 of the current lineup, as EnVyUs)
1st	WESG World Finals (3/5 of the current lineup, as EnVyUs)

The French Superteam didn't impress straight away, as their online form was poor and they weren't able to qualify for a LAN event for quite some time. G2's new five finally made their debut at StarSeries Season 3 and dominated throughout the group stage in Kiev, qualifying for the playoffs with a 3-0 record.

It was not only the wins, but the fashion of them that got everyone turning their heads towards G2. On the three maps that they played, against Ninjas in Pyjamas, SK and HellRaisers, the French team dropped only 16 rounds in total.

The field at DH Austin seems great for G2 who are looking for their first trophy

One of the team's strengths lies in the double-AWP setup, with kennyS and shox picking up the big green guns quite often, sometimes even on the Terrorist side. The drawback of buying two $4,750 guns is that their economy can suffer, but the high individual skill on G2 allows them to get wins on force and low-buy rounds, balancing out the matter to a certain degree.

In Kiev, the Frenchmen were eliminated in the quarter-finals by eventual winners FaZe, but there is no team of FaZe's caliber in Austin. G2's skill, experience, and form going into DreamHack Open Austin make them the most obvious candidate for the title.

Cloud9 (#14)	Age	Rating
Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip	19	1.13
Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta	20	1.02
Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham	23	0.99
Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert	26	0.89
Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek	22	0.86
Soham "⁠valens⁠" Chowdhury (coach)

Offline results in 2017
4th	cs_summit (4/5 of the current lineup)
9th-10th	IEM Katowice
9th-12th	DreamHack Masters Las Vegas

It's hard to take much out of Cloud9's showing at cs_summit considering they were using Braxton "⁠swag⁠" Pierce, who ended up being their second best player at the event, and in the end they got eliminated by an OpTic team that doesn't even have a permanent fifth.

Even if there is not much to be drawn about the team as a whole, we can take a look at individual players and where they stand. In Stewie2K, Cloud9 have the most in-form North American player at the moment, Skadoodle is probably the best true North American AWPer, while autimatic brings a decent amount of firepower, with the in-game leader duties seemingly not affecting him too much.

On the flipside, Null element has continued his slow drop off and looks like he will never reach the heights that seemed destined to him when he impressed the world at ESL One Cologne 2014, while n0thing has had good games but hasn't been lighting up the server consistently for years.

With all taken in account, it will be down to the former trio to carry Cloud9 to the playoffs, and with G2 almost certainly getting a playoffs spot, Stewie2K and co. will have to overcome their rivals Liquid and break Immortals' streak to do so.

It's hard to take much out of Cloud9's showing at cs_summit considering they were using swag, who ended up being their second best player at the event, and in the end they got eliminated by OpTic, who don't even have a permanent fifth.

Even if there is not much to be drawn about the team as a whole, we can take a look at individual players and where they stand. In Stewie2K, Cloud9 have the most in-form North American player at the moment, Skadoodle is probably the best true North American AWPer, while autimatic brings in a decent amount of firepower, with the in-game leader duties seemingly not affecting him too much.

The Stewie2k and autimatic combo could do damage to any team in Austin

On the flipside, shroud has continued his slow drop off and looks like he will never reach the heights that seemed destined to him when he impressed the world at ESL One Cologne 2014, and n0thing has had good games but hasn't been lighting up the servers consistently for years.

With all taken into account, it will be down to the trio of Stewie2K, autimatic and Skadoodle to carry Cloud9 to the playoffs, and with G2 almost certainly getting a playoff spot, they will have to overcome their rivals Liquid and break Immortals' streak to do so.

Liquid (#17)	Age	Rating
Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken	17	1.10
Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski	19	1.08
Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz	23	0.86
Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella	21	0.86
Josh "⁠jdm64⁠" Marzano	26	0.80
Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado (coach)

Offline results in 2017
5th-6th	cs_summit
9th-11th	ELEAGUE Major (3/5 of the current lineup)

Liquid are another team that will be in Austin after attending cs_summit. Their first LAN event with Twistzz came just a few days after the youngster officially joined the team, so it was hard to expect much from them at the event in California, especially since their addition of stanislaw didn't happen that long ago either.

The North Americans have an interesting mixture of players in their hands at the moment, but it will be down to stanislaw to bring out the best of the misfiring stars nitr0 and jdm64, give direction to the youngest member of the team, Twistzz, while hoping that EliGE will reach his ELEAGUE Major level again when everything else comes into place.

Considering the team only had a couple of days to practice since cs_summit, DreamHack Open Austin will probably still be too early for Liquid to do much—with the stacked group they are in not helping the cause.