DH Open Stockholm Group B synopsis

Today, Group C at DreamHack Open Stockholm saw mousesports stop the trend of North American teams qualifying for the next major with a successful qualification by the German team while the third team to go out of the tournament was Winterfox.

Group B will kick off next in Stockholm, and we will see a fourth team officially qualify for DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca, as well as a fourth team leave the tournament. Two teams from Group B will survive until Saturday when they will play a do-or-die match at the Annexet Global Arena.

With the full schedule for this week's remaining games at DreamHack Open Stockholm available here, we conclude 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.

Today's feature is Group B, which features a French team that underwent a high profile overhaul yesterday, a Polish underdog, a Ukrainian-Kazakh juggernaught, and a mysterious Vietnamese team.

Titan

With our original report of the recent signing of Gamers2 Belgian Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom to Titan reaching over 1,000 comments, it is unlikely that many have not heard of the power move which took place just yesterday.

The replacement of the recently improved Swissman Mathieu "⁠Maniac⁠" Quiquerez with ScreaM should bring an entirely new playbook to Titan's style of Counter-Strike come tomorrow.

Titan of course have had to contend with a continuing series of disappointing performances as of late. After being knocked out in the group stages by Renegades at ESL One Cologne, the Francophone team did passably at Gaming Paradise with a third place finish but then flopped at the more illustrious ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational, where they finished in 5-6th place, only defeating Na`Vi.

Titan's opener against Skyred tomorrow should pose no issue, as there is nothing to suggest that the Vietnamese team have the necessary collection of experience and skill to be able to take down the French-Belgian team. However, the match-up of Titan against HellRaisers, if it does occur as the winners' match, should send sparks flying.

Player	Age	Majors	Rating (past 3 months)
Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon	23	6	1.12
Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom	21	4	1.09
Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy	26	2	0.99
Kévin "⁠Ex6TenZ⁠" Droolans	25	5	0.98
Edouard "⁠SmithZz⁠" Dubourdeaux	26	6	0.91

Skyred

Skyred have had an odd path to DreamHack Open Stockholm. The Vietnamese team, who are widely held to be one of Asia's best outfits, actually lost the DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca Asian pre-qualifier to QeeYou, but then had to scramble to get travel preparations in order when the Chinese team unexpectedly dropped out of the event.

The team will also have to make-do with a stand-in in Cong "⁠crazyguy⁠" Anh Ngo for one of the team's most consistent fraggers, Hoang "⁠cLb⁠" Nguyen Vu, who will be unable to attend due to a family emergency.

Skyred nevertheless remain a dominant force in Asia, having defeated their Chinese rivals of TyLoo to win Rising Stars Asia #1, nearly making it to the semifinals of the ESL One Cologne Asian qualifier in Kuala Lumpur, as well as topping their group at the first season of the mixBOT Pro League Invitational.

With Asia given another opportunity to impress, Skyred won't be hard pressed to one-up QeeYou's dismal ESWC 2015 performance, where the Chinese team only managed to beat LDLC White and played with a "P90 rush" style that was certainly eyebrow-raising.

With a ratings-stacked lineup (which should deflate following the team's match ups against better equipped teams tomorrow), it will be interesting to see who emerges as the star of Skyred.

Player	Age	Majors	Rating (past 3 months)
Cong "⁠crazyguy⁠" Anh Ngo	19	0	1.69
Ngoc "⁠Zac⁠" Thien Nguyen	21	0	1.26
Hoang "⁠J0hnnyP⁠" Tri Phan	23	0	1.06
Hoang "⁠d@rklord⁠" Giang Phung	20	0	1.04
Tuan "⁠TuKoN⁠" Tu Nguyen	24	0	0.95

Vexed

Vexed Gaming are the eBettle lineup, with the gambling organisation deciding to take the plunge and separate its competitive lineup as a new brand aside from the organisation's other functions.

Vexed's qualification run back at the ESL One Cologne 2015 European qualifier was a thing of legend, and saw Karol "⁠rallen⁠" Rodowicz & co. take down Epiphany, HellRaisers, and Titan. The Poles went on to win Assembly Summer 2015 in Helsinki, and manged to save face at the Cologne major in a stacked group that included fnatic (as well as nearly defeating CLG).

Vexed have been playing quite well in online matches since Cologne, however many of these matches have been against lesser talented teams. Tomorrow will show if the team can once again defeat HellRaisers and Titan (which they did in July) to qualify for DreamHack Open Cluj. The team will be hoping that lightning does indeed strike the same place twice.

Player	Age	Majors	Rating (past 3 months)
Karol "⁠rallen⁠" Rodowicz	21	2	1.11
Bartosz "⁠Hyper⁠" Wolny	25	1	1.07
Piotr "⁠peet⁠" Ćwikliński	24	1	1.06
Dominik "⁠GruBy⁠" Swiderski	20	1	0.97
Damian "⁠Furlan⁠" Kislowski	20	1	0.95

HellRaisers

HellRaisers did not attend ESL One Cologne, and have generally had a quiet few months aside from the team's marathon run at the Acer Predator Masters finals, which the team won over mousesports.

The sudden departure of a longtime veteran of this team's core, Mihail "⁠Dosia⁠" Stolyarov, came as quite a surprise, although it had been undeniable that the Russian player's performance had been in a slump for quite some time.

Reduced to a Ukrainian-Kazakh lineup, HellRaisers bit the bullet and took-on one of CS:GO's hottest, and most volatile, properties of 2015: bringing in Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev as a stand-in for the event. With experience playing with the HellRaisers team back during DreamHack Winter 2014, s1mple will be returning to familiar waters.

The team now have the firepower that is required in order to mount a successful major qualification campaign, and are well poised for the opener against Vexed Gaming tomorrow. Controlling potential communications fireworks should they erupt however, may prove a second battle in and of itself.

Player	Age	Majors	Rating (past 3 months)
Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev	17	1	1.12
Rustem "⁠mou⁠" Telepov	23	0	1.07
Kyrylo "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow	26	5	1.06
Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev	25	4	1.02
Emil "⁠kUcheR⁠" Akhundov	27	5	0.99

Saturday, September 26th

By the end of Friday, we will have four teams officially qualified for DreamHack Cluj-Napoca and eight more teams ready to enter the Annexet Global Arena and do battle come Saturday.

Given the action of the past three days, the match-ups that will go down on Saturday are as follows:

12:05	dignitas	vs. Immunity
15:05	FlipSid3	vs. CPH Wolves
18:05	Liquid	vs. Renegades
21:05	Group B winners' match loser	vs. Group B losers' match winner

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, Group D, and Group C synopses if complex words and witty writing are to your taste.

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