DH Open Stockholm Group C synopsis

Today's Group D action saw CLG join their North American compatriots of Cloud9 as the second team to qualify for DreamHack Open Cluj while Lounge Gaming went out of the tournament with two consecutive best-of-three losses.

Group C will kick off next in Stockholm, which is again out of order as Group B features Skyred, a Vietnamese team who came in as a last minute replacement to the Chinese QeeYou and who ran into their own roster difficulties as well, thus delaying the group.

Tomorrow, another team will officially qualify for the next major at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca, while two Group C teams will have to wait until the consolidation matches on Saturday at the Annexet Global Arena. We will also see a third team leave the tournament early.

With the full schedule for this week's remaining games at DreamHack Open Stockholm available here, we meanwhile progress with our attempt to briefly introduce all 16 competitors to you as well as to provide short historical overviews of recent occurrences in each respective team.

Next up is Group C, which features two North American teams looking to make their first major, an Australian enigma, and a German team that has been constantly competing for a top ten status.

mousesports

Since mousesports' upset group stage exit at ESL One Cologne, which saw Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik and his men lose to Cloud9 and then FlipSid3 in groups and leave the tournament unexpectedly early, the team have made one major roster change: replacing Timo "⁠Spiidi⁠" Richter with European star player Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač, who had been previously sitting on the team's bench.

Since then, the team have only taken part in one offline tournament: the disastrous Gaming Paradise where mouz managed to finish 5-6th, however there's not much you can take away from the showing considering the odd format, hardware issues, and overall awkwardness of playing at that event.

With NiKo and Johannes "⁠nex⁠" Maget hitting their shots, mousesports are poised to yet again qualify for a major, and especially to win their opener against Winterfox (who are weaker ratings-wise across the board); however the recent months' cooldown of Dutchman Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong is an anomaly in this team that could certainly be done away with.

Player	Age	Majors Attended	Rating (past 3 months)
Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač	18	0	1.16
Johannes "⁠nex⁠" Maget	23	3	1.13
Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong	25	2	1.06
Denis "⁠denis⁠" Howell	21	3	0.98
Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik	28	1	0.80

Winterfox

It's a longstanding phenomenon that teams which receive a newfangled sponsorship ahead of an important event tend to play better or at least with more passion to prove themselves: this may very well be the case with the North American-European Winterfox conglomerate.

Since Winterfox decided to sign this team, whose roster includes Swedes, Americans, and a native Frenchman-turned-American, so close to the event itself, there is not much to guage Winterfox's performance by.

The team, who fielded Peter "⁠ptr⁠" Gurney until the American AWPer left of his own accord in August, were playing under the Luminosity organisation at both ESWC 2015 and CEVO-P Season 7 finals, and failed to exit groups both times.

Meanwhile, the team's sole offline performance under the Mythic name (merely a paperweight until a new orgnisation could be found) was at the ESL One Cologne North American qualifier where Jacob "⁠pyth⁠" Mourujärvi & co. once again failed to leave groups after a close loss to eLevate.

However, with the addition of previous eLevate player David "⁠Xp3⁠" Garrido and some time for Jonatan "⁠Devilwalk⁠" Lundberg to gel in North America, the team have performed better online as of late. The biggest concern continues to be a poor ratings spread for this team, with perhaps too few "carrys" and too many "supports."

Player	Age	Majors Attended	Rating (past 3 months)
Jacob "⁠pyth⁠" Mourujärvi	22	0	1.09
David "⁠Xp3⁠" Garrido	28	0	0.99
Todd "⁠anger⁠" Williams	28	2	0.98
Alexander "⁠LeX⁠" Deily	25	0	0.89
Jonatan "⁠Devilwalk⁠" Lundberg	24	2	0.80

Renegades

Oddly enough, following such a high profile signing as that which the ex-Vox Eminor team received from the Los Angeles-based Renegades organisation, this team's lodestar has been slightly dimmed as of late.

At ESL One Cologne, Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill's men managed to defeat Titan and send the French-Belgian-Swiss team humbled out of the tournament; however, they were easily manhandled by NiP in the decider match and thus left in groups yet again.

But the team's performance at DreamHack Open London this past weekend was the most watered-down display yet by the Australians in the past few months, with a loss to dignitas (revenge by the Danes for losing to Vox at the Katowice qualifiers in a way) and then inexplicably to the British EZSkins team, thereby going out in groups.

The brightest two spots on this team in terms of fragging have been youngster Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage as well as the slightly more seasoned Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward. If these two don't show up in the team's opener with Team Liquid tomorrow, results such as this 2-0 defeat of Liquid at Gfinity Spring Masters II will seem unlikely.

Player	Age	Majors Attended	Rating (past 3 months)
Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage	19	3	1.06
Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward	22	4	1.01
Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill	26	4	0.95
Luke "⁠Havoc⁠" Paton	25	4	0.89
Yaman "⁠yam⁠" Ergenekon	26	1	0.86

Team Liquid

Team Liquid are one of the most exciting squads to keep an eye on at DreamHack Open Stockholm, and there is good reason why. With the addition of Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin and a string of impressive online performances, this team's stock has one of the highest potentials to rise compared to past major qualification attempts (Liquid has failed at both qualifiers so far this year).

However, that does not mean you should wager horse and home on Team Liquid, as any lineup with Eric "⁠adreN⁠" Hoag on board (going as far back as the Curse days) is prone to a curse of choking on European servers.

The addition of James "GBjames" O'Connor as coach by the team may therefore be a gambit to try and alleviate some of the pressures of calling off adreN's shoulders.

With two frag-oriented players in Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella and Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski (who remain the most vulnerable to slowing down offline however), one of the best North American anchors in Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina, and the versatility of Hiko, this team appears poised to go far.

But you never know, this is that one team that has an invisible mental hurdle to clear which only they themselves can find, identify, and set aside.

Player	Age	Majors Attended	Rating (past 3 months)
Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella	20	1	1.12
Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski	18	0	1.10
Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin	25	4	1.09
Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina	20	0	1.06
Eric "⁠adreN⁠" Hoag	25	2	0.98

Group B

We will return tomorrow with the final synopsis, which will be a Group B that features Vexed, Titan, Skyred, and HellRaisers.

By the end of these four groups, four teams will already have an assured spot in the next CS:GO major at DreamHack Cluj. Four more teams will emerge from each group at the consolidation match showdown in the Annexet Global Arena on Saturday, September 26. Two of these match-ups are already known: dignitas vs. Immunity and FlipSid3 vs. CPH Wolves.

We will continue posting actively on Twitter and HLTV.org as the matches get underway tomorrow, and you can also check out the Group A and Group D synopses if complex words and long written statements are to your taste.

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