What we learned from DH Bucharest

20-9-2016 22:30

DreamHack ZOWIE Open Bucharest has come to a close and we're ready to take a look back and figure out what we've learned from the eight-team, $100,000 event.

Yet another event is done and dusted and $100,000 in prizemoney allocated, as Virtus.pro emerged victorious from DreamHack ZOWIE Open Bucharest which took place this last weekend.

First of all we'll go over what has happened over the course of the last few days to give you a quick recap in case you missed some of the action.

The Romanian event featured seven teams who attended the previous weekend's SL i-League StarSeries in Kiev, which gave us a lot of context in terms of where the teams stood and what their chances were.

Virtus.pro added another trophy to their cabinet

Virtus.pro and Cloud9 topped their groups with ease, but the other two semi-finalists, Envy and Dignitas, had to fight hard for their place in the top four. Both of them lost their initial battle and had to go through two best-of-three's.

The Americans marched on to the grand final following a match with Envy in which both teams won long streaks of rounds, while Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas's squad escaped Dignitas by the skin of their teeth after the decider, Overpass, came down to a combination of mistakes on Dignitas' part and amazing play from Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski in a 1v5 scenario.

The Poles grabbed the title in dominating fashion, only letting nine rounds slip on each map after Cloud9's baffling Train pick, giving Virtus.pro a Christmasy atmosphere.

Here are some of the best maps from the Bucharest event:

Group stage
HEROIC	34-31	Envy	Mirage	BO1 Initial round
Gambit	14-16	Envy	Cobblestone	BO3 Elimination
Envy	13-16	HEROIC	Nuke	BO3 decider

Playoffs
Virtus.pro	14-16	Dignitas	Cobblestone	Semi-finals
Virtus.pro	16-13	Dignitas	Overpass	Semi-finals

What have we learned then?

Virtus.pro are just fine

When NEO and company shockingly went out in last place a week ago, we weren't quite sure what to make of the team that had broken into the top three following their win at ELEAGUE.

However, historically they've proven to be more than capable of fulfilling the promise that is usually just an awful cliché — coming back stronger. Numerous times have we seen them do poorly online or at select offline events, only to witness them triumph or at least impress at the next one, with MLG Columbus coming to mind as one of the examples.

We shouldn't have worried about Virtus.pro's form

This time it seems their disappointing run in Kiev wasn't quite the same story. In the winning interview, NEO admitted there was more to it than simply bad form and that they didn't take the result to heart whatsoever.

We can only assume there were personal or organizational issues that made them lose focus for the $300,000 event, but one thing we can be certain of is that the Polish roster are very much on their feet and should still be considered huge contenders.

Cloud9 are a force to be reckoned with

Since the addition of Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta, Cloud9 have been a completely different beast online, and now, after three offline events in as many weekends, we can safely say it has translated to offline competition as well.

They weren't greatly contested at Northern Arena, save for the grand final, since the level of competition there was simply not high enough for us to evaluate their true status.

StarSeries helped us understand where Cloud9 stood, but they were lucky enough to avoid most of the dangerous teams and reached the semi-finals with wins over a big underdog in VG.CyberZen, the incomplete Envy roster and FlipSid3.

We can't count Cloud9 out anymore

After the third event, Bucharest, where the American-Canadian lineup only lost to an elite team, we know where to put them. The big losses to Ninjas in Pyjamas in Kiev and Virtus.pro at DreamHack mean they're not ready to break into the elite just yet, but they've also shown conistency against a number of teams below the elite, such as FaZe, Dignitas, Envy, HEROIC and FlipSid3.

Cloud9 are floating somewhere in the middle area, between the elite-level teams and those just below. They haven't figured out how to take the next step just yet, but the days where we counted Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert's team out at bigger events are over.

EnVyUs are making good progress

StarSeries gave us a glimpse of Envy' role adjustments and how they affect the team's playstyle and results, but since they attended the Kiev event with Christophe "⁠SIXER⁠" Xia, we didn't get the full picture. DreamHack provided us with one, as Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt was back in the roster — and played very well up until his underwhelming display in the semi-final.

Vincent "⁠Happy⁠" Schopenhauer retained his lurking role, but he finally realized his previous ultra-passive approach was doing more harm than good — making Envy awfully predictable and playing 4v5 more often than not.

At the last two events, he started taking a lot more initiative and became more of an aggressive type of lurker, using valuable information and picks to guide the team as he took over leadership once again.

Happy's transformation seems to be the key to improvement

The 24-year-old wasn't quite as effective in Bucharest as he was at StarSeries, but since the rest of the team delivered on an individual level, especially Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire who had an amazing event, it wasn't all that noticable.

Thanks to Happy's transformation and recently assumed leadership, as well as some of the players being in form, Envy are making good strides towards becoming an elite-level team again. It might take a little while longer, as we saw in the very streaky semi-final affair, but they're getting there.

dignitas' lineup may be the best one yet

Since the beginning of 2016, when Dignitas had a few good tournaments with Jesper "⁠TENZKI⁠" Plougmann and Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye in the roster, we haven't seen the Danes making significant improvement.

Parts of it came down to the team missing a dedicated AWP player. Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen took up the role because he had to, but he was nowhere near comfortable enough with the weapon.

dignitas haven't been nearly this good since February

With René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg replacing Kjaerbye, that problem was solved. Dignitas made up for the lack of power shortly afterwards, replacing TENZKI with Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif.

MSL might be target of much criticism, but we can't get away from the fact that this version of the Danish roster is working better than the previous ones. The last two events proved just that — in both cases they were only rounds away from reaching the grand final, taking huge favourites G2 and Virtus.pro to their limit in the process.

You can follow HLTV.org's Milan "Striker" Švejda on Twitter

i learned alot :O

2016-09-20 20:46

2 replies

Please refrain from hunting for first comment and focus instead on reading the news. Irrelevant and off-topic comments will be deleted. This behaviour is not welcome and will be severely moderated.

2016-09-21 00:03

1 reply

2016-09-26 12:53

Go go dignitas !

Nice article i enji

awesome "what we learned"!

2016-09-20 20:47

100% correct. Apex is the best rifle around...when he's on point. Otherwise he's lackluster and lacks impact. If he could increase his consistency he could be one of the most impactful players ever.

2016-09-20 22:57

Lol we learned nothing.

2016-09-20 20:48

Astralis is not top 1 DK anymore. VP are the only team capable of winning a tournament > get out of groups in the next one > win another tournament after that, all back to back. Envy are relying 2 much on an inconsistent player. When apex gets in beast mode they win, if he fails to deliver they lose, there is no middle ground. Cry9.

2016-09-20 20:49

we learned nothing from dh bucharest :)

2016-09-20 20:51

I know Cloud9 is being compared to the team they fielded last Summer, but I don't think they're there quite yet. Last Summer they could hang with anybody, made 3 finals in a row, etc. They're good again, but not quite to the level of last year. I'm hoping they improve a little more and make us proud.

2016-09-20 20:52

Agreed. While they're on a roll recently, it feels like there's something lackluster about them still. Their train match just didn't seem on point against VP; it felt really underwhelming from their side, but perhaps that's just because they felt a lot of pressure since this has been the first final that NA has made in a while. Hoping they can improve down the road.

2016-09-20 20:59

second final if you count liquid's cologne run

2016-09-20 22:06

Happy to read that 'EnVyUs make progress" and something positive about them. EnVyUs is not as bad as they look. People just expect them to win every tournament and still see them as a tier 1 team which always upset while they're just now a tier 2 team which actually makes good results.

2016-09-20 20:55

Tier 2 atm, but, they are a major champions, need to improve more and become t1 in the end of the year, like past year. Do not forget they are a part of EnVyUs, this kind of org forces them to have good performances(i think). What do you think about this point mate? EnVyUs atm is really passive with your bad results, they hired a Major Champion Team and now became a t2 team.

2016-09-20 21:39

n0thing

2016-09-20 20:56

We learned that Virtus Pro should change their name to Virtus throw

2016-09-20 21:01

Great analysis !

2016-09-20 21:19

kennyS is the best player in the world.

2016-09-20 21:32

lol my comment got deleted because i called it a tier 2 LAN??? wtf hltv ????

2016-09-20 22:24

6 replies

"lmao shit tier 2 lan" is not the same as just calling it tier 2 lan, deal with it or find another site.

2016-09-20 22:39

Hi remember me XD

2016-09-20 23:44

2016-09-21 02:38

^Bow to your leader and ask for his forgiveness

2016-09-20 22:51

Nomad is on fire Kreygasm

2016-09-20 22:53

Get rekt, pretentious idiot.

2016-09-21 08:47

"Best dig lineup yet" Feelsgoodman. Fuck Astralis (old dig)

2016-09-20 23:42

We learned that VP can win tier2 tournaments with tier2 teams attending, we learned that cloud9 is in a good road to become good once again, we learned that envyus are still dogshit, we kept in mind that danish scene is a bunch of chokers. We learned alot from this tier tournament.

2016-09-21 00:01

"we kept in mind that danish scene is a bunch of chokers" lol

2016-09-21 00:29

what we learned is dont fuck with polaks or they will plow you :p

2016-09-21 00:30

what we learned: anti cheat is still not working

2016-09-21 00:37

9 replies

Seriously... If you don't believe that players are playing without cheats, then you might as well start trying to expose football players about doping. There is no proof that anyone cheats at the moment. CSGO is full of weird aimlocks and sprays in smokes. Its all because of luck, instinct and sounds. There's so many factors into that. Try to enjoy watching CSGO, rather than whine like a bitch.

2016-09-21 08:27

8 replies

Just because you dont know it doesn't mean it wont happen

2016-09-21 10:12

csgo is full of 'weird aimlocks' because pros cheat if they didnt cheat, every pro would maybe accidentily do something that looks like an aimbot locking on i dont know maybe a few times each year, and thats being very generous the current situation in which the same players do the same lockons in the same predictable situations (you only need to look at the score and the number of players alive to know when shox is going to toggle, for example) cannot be reasonably explained by anything other than cheating. you cant just say its all a coincidence without providing a reason so few players can have so much coincidence. you are being an unreasonable whiny bitch that would rather hide behind fantasies than accept reality. try to enjoy it while it lasts

2016-09-21 10:54

You should just stop watching and playing CSGO, if you really think that is true.

2016-09-21 11:45

5 replies

oh now youre not just telling me im a bitch, but how i should spend my free time as well? sincerely. go fuck yourself. if you cant deal with the fact that not everyone who plays the same game you do believes all the same things you do, youre the bitch. pros cheating doesnt effect the enjoyment i get out of the matches i play, and i also enjoy watching matches and trying to predict when players will toggle their aimlock. its a challenge. i have fun with this game and im not going to let sad cheaters or sad bitches like you take that away from me.

2016-09-21 11:53

4 replies

It was a friendly remark. The game clearly doesnt make you happier in life. It seems you have anger issues because of the game.

2016-09-21 13:05

3 replies

I have anger for sure. But it is neither caused by counter strike, nor is it an issue. More people should be angry more of the time. World would be a better place for it. It also isnt a friendly remark. Giving orders to people you dont know, is not a friendly act. And im sure you know this. Go fuck yourself, again, for trying to bullshit me, again. Worry about your own issues, fuckboy.

2016-09-21 16:13

I said "should". You do know that if i "ordered" you to do something, the phrase would look a bit different. Youre clearly a very troubled boy and i wont answer you again. Good night, sleep tight.

2016-09-21 19:32

you can play it off by being fake nice to me now, but you acted like a fucking tool, bitch.

what we learned is dreams come true NoKappa

2016-09-21 01:02

I've learned that the only good team did what they had to. Win. Tier9 tournament with 1 good team '-'

2016-09-21 02:01

Tier9 tournament with 1 good team '-' VP #2 Cloud9 #5 Dignitas #6 EnvyUs #9 Faze #14 Heroic #11 Flipsid3 #15 Gambit #17 I guess Portugal won a tier 9 tournament also this summer in football. it was "only" the Euro, not even SA teams, amagaad.

2016-09-21 08:34

hltv ranks elegiggle

2016-09-21 12:03

portugal scene

2016-09-21 16:51

I'm saying that VP is good and you flame portugal cs scene? kys toilet cleaner your shift didn't ended yet. Go back to work.

2016-09-21 19:14

We learned that the crowd had signs guiding VP to victory. They need better security and one way windowed booths for the players. No excuse for that type of crowd and sportsmanship. trash event youtube.com/watch?v=b-hXxBNHA9g

2016-09-21 04:39

twitter.com/Tgwri1s/status/7775594216312..

2016-09-21 08:17

that apex is the best player in france

2016-09-21 06:24

We learned that Virtus can win only tier3 tournaments with tier3 teams :P But that's fine, let them enjoy their few seconds :) Till the next Tier1 tourney, hehe

2016-09-21 08:07

Vincent "Happy" Schopenhauer retained his lurking role, but he finally realized his previous ultra-passive approach was doing more harm than good — making EnVyUs awfully predictable and playing 4v5 more often than not. At the last two events, he started taking a lot more initiative and became more of an aggressive type of lurker, using valuable information and picks to guide the team as he took over leadership once again. I aren't think that, he is still passive baiting his teammates.

2016-09-21 08:58