DreamHack Masters Winter groups revealed

The Swedish tournament organizer has announced the groups and first match-ups in the four regional DreamHack Masters Winter events.

The 32 teams competing at DreamHack Masters Winter—16 in Europe, eight in North America and four in both Asia and Oceania—, have all been placed in their respective groups, and their first match-ups have been revealed.

The four tournaments, taking place between November 30 and December 6, will have a total $250,000 on the line, with Europe taking the lion's share with $150,000, North America getting $70,000 and $30,000 split evenly for Asia and Oceania.

The top two Danish sides, HEROIC and Astralis, will headline the groups in Europe, where there will be notable competition from the likes of Complexity, FaZe or G2, among others, including the visiting North American teams Evil Geniuses, Liquid and FURIA.

The two teams that made it through the qualifiers, Gambit and c0ntact, have been placed into Group A, and will play their opening matches against Evil Geniuses and HEROIC, respectively.

The initial double-elimination stage will see the top two teams in the upper and lower brackets from each group go through, ahead of a single elimination playoff, which will start in the quarter-finals and end in a best-of-five grand final.

The first match-ups are:

Group A

HEROIC vs. c0ntact
FaZe vs. Spirit
Complexity vs. ENCE
Evil Geniuses vs. Gambit

Group B

Astralis vs. GODSENT
Liquid vs. MOUZ
G2 vs. Sprout
FURIA vs. North

North America will follow the same schedule and format as Europe but with a reduced number of teams, four in each group. The top two in each group will then move on to the playoff stage, which will start in the semi-finals.

The groups are wide open for the second line of teams in North America to shine, as No. 19-ranked Chaos and No. 24-ranked TeamOne are among the favorites as the regional powerhouses will be playing in the tournament's European division.

The two Brazilian-majority squads in contention, TeamOne and Yeah, have not only been placed in the same group, but will face off in their opening match, while New England Whalers and Mythic will be on the other side of the bracket.

The opening matches in North America are:

Group A

Chaos vs. Rugratz
Triumph vs. Rebirth

Group B

TeamOne vs. Yeah
New England Whalers vs. Mythic

The two smallest tournaments of the four, the Asia and Oceania divisions, will run on a shorter schedule, from December 01-06, as double-elimination brackets with all matches being played to the best of three maps except the best-of-five grand finals.

In Asia, ViCi will try to repeat the feat of defeating TYLOO, which they did at the PAL Fall RMR tournament to break a 13-match losing streak against their regional rivals, breaking YuLun "⁠Summer⁠" Cai and company's iron grip on the region.

Much like TYLOO in Asia, Renegades are the dominant force in Oceania, although unlike the Chinese team, Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong's men have yet to lose a single event in their region since the beginning of the online era.

The first match-ups in Asia and Oceania are:

Asia

TYLOO vs. TIGER
ViCi vs. Invictus

Oceania

Renegades vs. Rooster
ORDER vs. AVANT