DH Open Stockholm Group A synopsis

Tournament organiser DreamHack will have seemingly no rest, as just a day after the conclusion of DreamHack Open London, the organiser's next event commences in Stockholm, Sweden and will run from September 22-26.

This event is quite unlike many others however as its prestige is not in prize-money but rather the eight coveted major qualification spots for next month's CS:GO major at DreamHack Cluj-Napoca which the event will reward.

HLTV.org felt that it was appropriate to conjure up a little prepatory dish ahead of each group stage (with each one playing out in the course of a day this week) to help prepare you with some notes on each team's background.

While not in the full-length, quantitative, and comprehensive style of a true preview, hopefully these synopses will answer any questions about lesser-known teams as well as the past few months' histories of certain teams.

We begin with a synopsis of Group A, which features two European contenders, a North American icon, and an Australian underdog. With teams already bootcamping at the hotel in Stockholm ahead of the best-of-three action in a few hours' time, let us take a glance at each of the outfits involved.

Cloud9 

What might have been called the best team out of the four assembled in Group A during the midsummer months is no longer presumed to be the top dog, a noteworthy development in and of itself that could make fine room for hours of analysis.

Following a string of impressive summer performances, Cloud9 walked into ESL One Cologne with a tough task ahead of themselves, which involved defeating two ongoing rivals in the form of mousesports and Virtus.pro. The team succeeded in the former task, but then fell to Virtus.pro rather characteristically: and then the real shocker for Cloud9 was being sent out from the event in the second group stage by Mikail "⁠Maikelele⁠" Bill's Kinguin.

Humbled and crestfallen, Cloud9 attended the ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational where, after a closely fought loss to the new EnVyUs lineup on de_cbble, the Canadian-American team continued to display one of the shakiest de_dust2 playstyles with a a grueling overtime loss to an Indian-summer-playing NiP lineup.

Time and time again we hear: the skill for Cloud9 is there, and this sentiment bodes true. What is lacking for this team at the current moment is a confidence and certainty over player positions and roles that is leading to late-game chokes and overall entropy in C9's achievements. DreamHack Stockholm might just be the final chance to fix their act.

Player	Age	Majors	Rating (past 3 months)
Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham	22	5	1.16
Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek	21	4	1.08
Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert	24	6	1.03
Ryan "⁠freakazoid⁠" Abadir	22	1	0.86
Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares	27	6	0.81

ROCCAT

Cloud9's opponents in the day-one opener will be the Finns of ROCCAT, who qualified for DreamHack Open Stockholm via the European Open qualifier under the name of MIXCAT. Ironically, a big part of this team's qualification strength, and a large reason for its subsequent notoriety in the current scene, will be missing from this event in a rather "dodgy" fashion.

The core of this team (in Mikko "⁠xartE⁠" Välimaa and Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi) were already known as ROCCAT in mid-July before that particular Finnish concoction erupted following a disastrous run at the ESL One Cologne European qualifier that included losses to Hungarian k1ck and being crushed by Kinguin.

xartE, who is no stranger to showing up to major qualifiers and going on a tear, will also try to make use of former 3DMAX teammate Tom "⁠stonde⁠" Glad along with Finnish talent Niko "⁠naSu⁠" Kovanen and the relatively lesser known Juho "⁠juho⁠" Lampinen.

Player	Age	Majors	Rating (past 3 months)
Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi	21	0	1.09
Tom "⁠stonde⁠" Glad	22	1	1.01
Juho "⁠juho⁠" Lampinen	20	0	0.99
Niko "⁠naSu⁠" Kovanen	25	0	0.91
Mikko "⁠xartE⁠" Välimaa	23	1	0.89

dignitas

The lineup that has had to settle for the moniker of "Denmark's second best team" will have to make another go of it following a disappointing run at Cologne's European qualifier this summer where the team lost to both Kinguin and then FlipSid3 in an overtime thriller.

Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche and co. have been searching for a spiritual answer to their obvious team dynamic problems and found an apparent one in the replacement of Nicolaj "⁠Nico⁠" Jensen with Swede and ex-fnatic player Andreas "⁠znajder⁠" Lindberg.

This change came into fairly good effect recently when dignitas were able to make it out of groups at DreamHack Open London, although the team were no match for their fellow countrymen of TSM in the semifinal (despite a close showing on de_overpass).

dignitas will certainly be favourites in their opener against Immunity, although the Australian team are no walkover and have been able to take European teams to their limits. Another failed major qualification (following equally distressing runs at the offline qualifiers for Katowice and Cologne this year) would surely be a death knell for this team.

Player	Age	Majors	Rating (past 3 months)
Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup	19	3	1.17
Andreas "⁠znajder⁠" Lindberg	22	2	1.11
Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye	17	1	1.07
Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche	20	4	1.06
Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen	20	3	0.92

Immunity

Immunity's players showed a bit of a devil-may-care attitude at Cologne and this underdog mentality may continue to work in their favour ahead of a best-of-three brawl in Stockholm come tomorrow. After all, the team narrowly lost to Kinguin on de_dust2 in the last major's elimination match.

Previously this year, Immunity also managed to upset Team Liquid at the FACEIT Stage 1 finals and have taken teams such as NiP and Titan to their limits at both FACEIT S1 and Gfinity Spring Masters 2.

Although the variables and intangibles needed to become a top ten team in CS:GO are a certain mixture of fixed skill and mindset to which some teams may never ascend, this Immunity team remain a sort of ticking time bomb.

With each event and map they play on European terrain, they improve and develop. Although dignitas are heavily favoured in the opener, expect the boys from Australia to put up a hell of a fight as they put their previously acquired knowledge to use.

Player	Age	Majors	Rating (past 3 months)
Ricardo "⁠Rickeh⁠" Mulholland	23	1	1.31
Karlo "⁠USTILO⁠" Pivac	22	1	1.21
Chris "⁠emagine⁠" Rowlands	24	1	1.04
Iain "⁠SnypeR⁠" Turner	29	2	0.91
James "⁠James⁠" Quinn	21	1	0.86

Groups D, C, and B

We will return tomorrow with the next group's synopsis, however keep in mind that it will be Group D as Groups C and B will play out afterward due to visa issues and late arrivals from certain teams.

The winner of the opener and then the winner's match tomorrow will be the first team to advance to a major spot at DreamHack Cluj-Napoca whereas the elimination match winner and winner's match loser will both have to wait all the way until Saturday for the Group A decider match.

For the time being, stay tuned to our Hot Matches panel as well as our News section for up-to-date match write-ups, stats, and updates as first game is less than twelve hours away.

stich writes for HLTV.org and also posts other CS:GO thoughts to his Twitter.