Extra Salt, Triumph score wins in DreamHack Open March

Alan "⁠Shakezullah⁠" Hardeman's men will take on Liquid in the Group A winners' match while Extra Salt will face off against Bad News Bears for the fourth time this year.

Extra Salt and Triumph have secured wins in their first DreamHack Open March match-ups, besting paiN and High Coast to advance to the winners' matches in their respective groups. Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou led his side to success with a 1.41 rating to take down the Brazilian team in a two-map series, while a reverse-sweep was required from Triumph for them to claim victory over Ben "⁠ben1337⁠" Smith's troops.

paiN emerged ahead of an early back-and-forth on their map pick, Nuke, but were quickly left trailing as Josh "⁠oSee⁠" Ohm and JT combined to give Extra Salt the edge, pulling ahead 9-6 at the break. A pistol win kept JT's side in control as they wasted little time in closing the map, and the team maintained momentum into Vertigo with a strong showing on the attack. paiN managed to recover towards the end of the first half,. and mustered a string of five rounds following the side swap to briefly pull ahead 12-11, but were once again put on the back foot as oSee found opening kills with his AWP to help propel his side to victory.

High Coast looked to be in good form as they kicked off their match against Triumph on Inferno, battering the CT defenses for a dominant lead at halftime and attaining match point shortly after the side swap.

A comeback effort from Triumph came about too late as High Coast were able to close out their map pick, but Shakezullah's side were able to even the series score in fast fashion as they converted a 5-0 start on Train with a stalwart defense in the second half, winning eight rounds in a row to take the map and force a Dust2 decider.

There, Triumph were able to recover after starting the map trailing 2-5, posting a three-round lead by the break before assuming control on the CT side, managing a string of retakes to shut down High Coast's hopes and lock them out of the map for a 16-10 victory.