Review of DreamHack Open Fall 2020

Not the Most Ordinary Format

The organizers of the championship pleased the audience with an extraordinary format of the tournament. In light of the quarantine, the tournament operators started to change the customary format. At DreamHack Open Fall 2020, after the end of the initial stage of the competition only one contestant from each quartett left the event. In Group A, mousesports were unable to defeat Vitality and OG; in Group B Endpoint got beaten by G2 and Heroic; sAw did not manage to defeat GODSENT and FaZe Clan in Group C; ENCE lost a battle with North and NiP in Group D. The teams that took third places which are OG, Heroic, FaZe Clan, and Sprout moved to the lower bracket.

Apart from the extraordinary format of the group stage, the organizers made amends to the amount of meetings as well. They decided to hold matches for 9, 7, and 5 places which had to make the contestants more motivated to win the battles of the lower bracket. Therefore, all the teams apart from the ones that were the first to leave the tournament had a reason to fight to the end.

Through Hardship to the Stars

Heroic and G2 Esports showed that the placement of the team does not always relate to the way it will perform in the future. For example, Heroic set off from the lower bracket and won the tournament being not in the most favourable condition to do it, and G2 showed that the current situation was completely opposite in fact.

G2 Esports played well in the group stage and made it to the upper bracket. There they lost a battle with BIG, and after that the players were not able to defeat OG. Then the team could not beat FaZe Clan in the match for 9/10 place and lost the meeting with GODSENT in the match for 11 place. In other words, G2 had a carte blanche at the start but the team’s bad performance did not let the players achieve any success.

Meanwhile, Heroic beat North in the lower bracket 2-0, after that the players defeated Sprout 2-1. In the third round, Heroic put in efforts and beat BIG 2-1, after that they were unable to defeat NiP and lost 1-2.

Danish Derby

The most interesting part started after Heroic’s triumph over Ninjas in Pyjamas. At the final of the lower bracket Heroic faced a difficult task: the players had to beat their countrymen from Astralis.

The battle between Astralis and Heroic was one of the most interesting and intriguing meetings at DreamHack Open Fall 2020. The first map was Nuke and it managed to hold the audience and the players in suspense till the very end. To define the winner, the teams had two series of additional rounds. As a result, the map ended with 22-20. Inferno was the second map and it was easy and very boring for Astralis — the battle ended with 16-8 for gla1ve and his teammates. On Vertigo, Heroic showed their mastership in attack and later in defense. As a result, the Danish meeting beat their countrymen with 16-11 and made it to the final.

Is Danish CS:GO the Best CS:GO?

In the grand final, the players met with an easier opponent which is Team Vitality. The French gamers were strongly motivated to win DreamHack Open Fall 2020 after they made it to the final four times but lost later on. This way they would draw a line in the series of the failed finals and managed to earn a solid monetary prize and get a trophy at the major tournament. The start of the battle showed all the audience that they should not expect an easy and fast game. On Overpass, Vitality moved the game to the additional rounds and beat Vitality 19-17 there. On Nuke, the story was the same, however unlike the previous map, overtime moved to the second series of extra rounds and as a result, Heroic won 22-20. On Inferno, they were confident enough to beat the opponents with 16-11, and Vitality won a game on Vertigo with 16-10. Mirage cleared up the situation and the fifth map killed the intrigue. At first, Heroic took 10 rounds as defense and, moving to the attack, they lost only two rounds and won a map 16-7.

Heroic proved that patience and hard work bring success and the start in the lower bracket may make the situation harder but it doesn’t make it hopeless. Having taken first place at DreamHack Open Fall 2020, Heroic earned the main monetary award $33,000 and got a bonus of 2,500 Regional Major Rankings. Besides, they got a direct invitation to Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge 2020 with the prize pool of $500,000. The tournaments will be taking place from 15 till 20 December this year.

The gamers from Team Vitality may only hope that their performance will be successful and that they will be able to make it to the final of another major tournament. Perhaps, next time the gamers will be luckier and they will have a chance to defend the champion title and go away from copying Team Liquid from 2018 when the Americans entered the final battles again and again but were unable to win the tournament.

Results of the Tournament

• 1 place: Heroic — $33,000 + 2,500 RMR points + an invitation to IEM Global Challenge 2020
• 2 place: Team Vitality — $21,500 + 2,344 RMR points
• 3 place: Astralis — $14,000 + 2,188 RMR points
• 4 place: Ninjas in Pyjamas — $10,000 + 2,031 RMR points
• 5 place: BIG — $7,500 + 1,875 RMR points
• 6 place: Fnatic — $6,500 + 1,719 RMR points
• 7 place: OG — $6,000 + 1,563 RMR points
• 8 place: Sprout — $5,000 + 1,406 RMR points
• 9 place: FaZe Clan — $3,250 + 1,250 RMR points
• 10 place: North — $2,500 + 1,094 RMR points
• 11 place: GODSENT — $2,250 + 938 RMR points
• 12 place: G2 Esports — $1,500 + 781 RMR points
• 13-16 place: mousesports — $500 + 390.75 RMR points
• 13-16 place: Endpoint — $500 + 390.75 RMR points
• 13-16 place: sAw — $500 + 390.75 RMR points
• 13-16 place: ENCE — $500 + 390.75 RMR points