Team Spirit and forZe are back in the ranks. Who will win DreamHack Summer – the first tournament since the July break?

Choosing a favorite now is partly a fortune-telling on the coffee grounds. The teams haven’t played for a month and how they used their free time is a big mystery. It remains to focus on the results that the teams had before June. And according to this logic, the main contender for victory in the tournament, of course, BIG…

When Fatih gob b dake ended his playing career, someone might think that this is where the story of BIG as one of the most interesting underdogs in the scene will end. But, as it turned out, this was only the beginning. In January 2023, gob b became the main counter-strike organization in the organization, and it almost immediately began to bear fruit. Already at the end of January, the team won the home DreamHack Open, but if then everything could be attributed to luck, instability of rivals (substitute anything), now such a language will not turn out to be said: well, the team cannot win on luck alone for three months in a row 3 / 4 matches against top-10 squads.

The key permutations in the roster itself, of course, were the replacements Johannes nex Mageta and Owen smooya Butterfield on super talented Floriana syrsoN Richet and Niels k1to Gruna… Johannes tabseN Wodartz At first, he established himself as a very stable and strong player, and this season another of his strong points showed up – he is comfortable leading the team. And, of course, one cannot fail to note the merits Tiziana tiziaN Feldbash and Cana XANTARES Durtkardes: the first is a good support, and the second is the FPL star and the main striking force of the squad.

how say colleagues of BIG in the German scene, the tabseN team devotes a tremendous amount of time to Counter-Strike – in this regard, the quarantine and withdrawal of tournaments online played into the hands of the team. Before the break, the roster tore everyone in a row, and so far there is no reason to believe that something will change in early August.

Win odds – 3.75.

Complexity Gaming – the only (nominally) American team that got out of their comfort zone as much as possible during the pandemic. The players had the opportunity to return to the United States to the club’s base, but the cybersportsmen made a strong-willed decision and remained in Europe. The team is clearly not looking for easy ways and really wants to grow. The captain of the roster plays a significant role in this regard Benjamin blameF Bremer – perhaps his signing was the most important decision of Jason Lake in the formation of the new roster. When the captain literally breathes the game, it cannot but charge the teammates, and blameF is just that. To understand this, just read his latest tweets: “Training in a couple of hours, I can’t wait!”. After this, there is a feeling that Complexity will definitely be fine.

Now Complexity Gaming ranks tenth in the HLTV.org ranking. And this is an excellent result, considering that the team was stuck at the bottom of the top 30 back in early May. The roster proved to be excellent in online tournaments, especially at BLAST Premier Spring 2023, where he beat NAVI, FaZe, and Vitality. Of course, misfires do happen, considering them Complexity is one of the favorites of the tournament.

Win odds: 5.00.

You can also expect a successful game from OGalthough the composition Nathan NBK Schmitt is now slightly inferior to both BIG and Complexity Gaming… Nevertheless, compared to last winter, when the team was just formed, its progress is obvious.

By the summer, the international squad had gained good shape, and most importantly, it had learned to consistently beat the teams below the class. The roster showed itself especially well at the last tournament before the break – cs_summit 6, the second championship of the Regional Major Rankings series. According to the results of the championship, OG became the third and bypassed such bison as Fnatic, G2 Esports, FaZe Clan and mousesports… Of course, we can say that OG was lucky with the grid (it is), but it achieved the result.

Longer term, OG’s potential remains a mystery. A big responsibility in this regard lies with NBK as the unofficial leader of the roster (recall: the captain – Alexi Aleksib Virolainen), but he is not getting younger and is unlikely to ever achieve the same individual success as in 2013-2015. It is possible that OG’s current form is its ceiling in this iteration of the roster, but even so, the team will be a serious contender for any team.

Win odds – 6.50.

FROM Heroic in the spring the strongest disturbances took place. In March, the team seemed to have bought FunPlus Phoenix, then it became known that the deal was in jeopardy, because Astralis as the strongest, she decided to entice one of the key players of the roster – Patrick es3tag Hansen… As a result, the deal with the Chinese organization fell through, and the head Heroic began to blame the four-time world champions for everything – they allegedly conduct business dishonestly.

According to social media, this mess hit the squad captain the hardest Kasper cadiaN Möller… He was clearly unhappy with what was happening: it seemed that a good team, which showed itself brightly towards the end of last year, could have completely disintegrated. But this, fortunately, did not happen, and in the summer Heroic improved significantly.

It is possible that the arrival of a new coach – a veteran and one of the most memetic characters in the Counter-Strike scene – was the key to success. Nicholas HUNDEN Petersen, who recently surprised everyone with how strong a team he managed to gather under the wing Tricked esport (she was later bought MAD Lions). With HUNDEN, Heroic’s results took off immediately.

In May-June, Heroic won several good online tournaments (HomeSweetHome and LOOT.BET Season 6), and also surprised everyone at cs_summit 6, where it got into the top four. Perhaps the Danes are the main dark horse of the upcoming DreamHack. It is very interesting to see where the HUNDEN and cadiaN tandem can lead the team – for some reason I believe in them.

Winning odds – 7.00.

Another underdog according to the bookmakers – MAD Lions, although I do not believe in this composition, and there are several reasons for this.

First of all, at the end of July, the team lost its main star – Lucas Bubzkji Andersen took Astralis away. The team has lost a lot of firepower, and it is far from a fact that the innocent who came to replace it will be able to make up for the loss. In addition, the newcomer is a Pole, which means that the team will have to communicate in English, and you and I know very well how such experiments end in Tier-2 level rosters. American teams like Team envy will not let you lie.

The second and, perhaps, the key reason – Louise peacemaker Tadeu… Perhaps there is no more controversial coach in the professional Counter-Strike scene. We know perfectly well his rather authoritarian disposition, which has always brought a lot of destructiveness – just remember Team Liquid, which reached the final of the Major, but, as it became known later, was torn from the inside by the conflicts to which the peacemaker had most direct relation…

The team’s prospects depend on how well the peacemaker and the captain synergize with each other Asger AcilioN Larsen… And judging by the results, the roster is still very far from being in the top 10. Yes, in the spring the team won the FLASHPOINT league and performed well at BLAST Premier Spring 2023, but, for example, in the qualifiers for cs_summit 6, they lost without a chance to the far from the strongest PACT.

MAD Lions is an example of a team that is much more comfortable playing in a LAN environment, but when offline tournaments will return is a big question. A few more unsuccessful qualifiers and online championships, and the team will no longer apply for invites. However, Parimatch believes that AcilioN’s roster at DreamHack has at least the same chances as Heroic.

Winning odds – 7.00…

So we got to ours. The bookmaker gives the same odds for the success of forZe and Team Spirit, but it cannot be said that both teams approach DreamHack in the same form.

The biggest mystery (and at the same time the hope of the CIS) is Team Spirit… In May-June, the chopper collective showed phenomenal results both on the domestic and international stage. What are victories at ESL One: Road to Rio and second place at WePlay! Clutch Island, where the roster was second only to NAVI. In addition, the team surprised the European tops – at the same DreamHack Masters Spring 2023, the roster confidently defeated Fnatic and was a couple of rounds away from defeating FaZe.

The biggest question is how the team spent their vacation. We know perfectly well that our teams are rather slowly being drawn into the season, so there is a risk that Spirit will give up, which we really would not want, because it is the chopper team that has shown itself the brightest in 2023 among the representatives of the CIS.

ForZe continues to search for himself. In the spring and summer, the team’s training process has changed dramatically, and the mentor has also changed. Initially, the most experienced came to a kind of position of a consultant. Sergey lmbt Bezhanov, but this did not bring results, and the management decided to castle: it was lmbt who became the head coach, and Anatoly liTTle Yashin, roughly speaking, faded into the background (but did not stop working with the team).

The management is trying with all its might to maintain the composition, as recently confessed Club CEO Sergey MegioN Ignatko… The answer to the question of whether there will be a reshuffle will be given by the coming championships, including DreamHack. However, the players seem to be trying not to think bad. As stated Evgeny FL1T Lebedev, the team’s immediate goal is to win DreamHack and the last RMR series championship.

ForZe began to get involved in the second half of the season before the same Spirit: in August the team Andrey Jerry Mekhryakov has already played two matches at the Eden Arena Malta Vibes Cup 6 – and won both. We hope the series will not end there.

Winning odds – 9.00.

The only outsider of the tournament is a roster with a self-explanatory name Team EndPoint (“Final”). The team gathered in January 2023 and, in general, almost immediately began to show decent results for a tier-2 / tier-3 team.

In May Team EndPoint won the British National League from ESL, and also became the champion of #HomeSweetHome: Week 8, where forZe won in the final. But the rest of the squad did not show anything supernatural, with varying success playing against opponents of their level.

At DreamHack, the EndPoint roster is the main contender for early departures, but still not to say that these are exclusively whipping boys. They are definitely capable of surprising on a pair of cards, all the more you should not forget that online always favors underdogs.

Win odds: 26.00.

Odds are taken from the website of the betting company Parimatch and are relevant at the time of publication of the material. After registration there is a 100% bonus on the first deposit.

The matches of the European division DreamHack Open Summer 2023 will be held from 8 to 16 August. Participants will compete for $ 90,000, as well as ESL Pro Tour points, which are required to qualify for the Masters series championships.