The qualifiers for the upcoming DreamHack Austin Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event were filled with a lot of surprises—including one major upset.
With separate online qualifiers for North America and Europe, the two finals teams to advance from their respective qualifier are HellRaisers from Europe, and Luminosity from North America.
For HellRaisers, this is the second $100,000 event the team has qualified for in the past week. An impressive feat, especially given the opposition HellRaisers faced throughout the qualifier, as the European squad eliminated German squad BIG, mousesports, as well as surprise finalists Vega Squadron on their way to the North American event.
But despite HellRaiser’s path to victory, the performance of Vega Squadron in the qualifier may have been even more impressive. The CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) team fought their way through both GODSENT and Team Kinguin on their journey to the final, two teams that were considered favorites heading into the qualifier.
While Vega Squadron’s upset was impressive, nothing in the European qualifier compares to that what happened in North American. The Brazilians in Luminosity Gaming, not to be confused with the organization’s former roster which currently plays under SK Gaming, defeated eUnited, Misfits, and finally CLG in order to qualify—a gigantic upset, considering the squad’s lack of results in the past.
The final series of the qualifier between Luminosity and CLG was particularly exciting. In a monster series that went to a deciding third game, two of the maps ended with both teams pushing past 10 rounds, while CLG won 22-20 in a double overtime in the second game. Ultimately, however, Luminosity closed out the final map Inferno. Now, it’s up to Luminosity to impress as much at the players’ international LAN debut.
DreamHack Austin will run from April 28 to 30.
