North slay Giants, Luminosity stun G2 in Valencia

North and Luminosity are off to great starts at DreamHack Open Valencia after dispatching Giants and G2, respectively, on Inferno.

The opening match of the tournament, featuring the Iberian Giants squad and a North side with Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas as a stand-in, began with the Portuguese team taking a 3-0 lead after winning the pistol round with an A execute on the back of a quad kill from Joao "⁠KILLDREAM⁠" Ferreira.

Giants continued to find gaping hopes in the North defence and cruised to a 7-0 lead, much to everyone's surprise. But the game turned once North got their first round on the board. The Danish players starting playing with confidence and every aim duel seemed to be going their way. With the Portuguese side unable to punish North's aggression, Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen's men took eight rounds straight to end the half on top.

Now on the Terrorist side, North destroyed the B site in the pistol round with a fast execution. The Danish team continued to power forward in search for the victory, with Giants only managing to get a round when they were trailing 7-13.

There was no follow-up from Giants, however, so they got immediately reset. With the economy control and just two rounds away from victory, North kept up a high pace en-route to comprehensive victory.

The next match quickly became a scrappy affair as rounds kept going back and forth and neither side seemed able to even win two rounds in a row. With the score tied at 2-2, Luminosity put together a string of rounds after punishing some sloppy play from G2, who surprisingly lost a 4v2 and a 3v2.

Down 2-6, G2 called a tactical pause in a bid to halt Luminosity's momentum and the move immediately paid off as the Frenchmen won their third round of the game with a messy B split thanks to a trio of kills from Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon. That was the start of a great run from G2, who won the last five rounds of the half to go up 8-7.

After switching to the Terrorist side, Luminosity ran all over the G2 defence, winning six rounds right off the bat to put an enormous amount of pressure on the French players.

G2 then finally put their foot down and held back the Brazilians two rounds in a row. It looked like the momentum was now swinging in G2's favour, but Luminosity regained control of proceedings and locked down the map without losing any more rounds.