Seven of the top 10 CS:GO teams in the world will be competing at DreamHack Masters Malmö, which starts on Tuesday, Oct. 1.
Team Liquid, Astralis, and Evil Geniuses are the favorites coming into the event, but Vitality, ENCE, and Natus Vincere are also strong teams. All one of them will battle for their share of the $250,000 prize pool.
Here’s everything you need to know about DreamHack Masters Malmö
Stream
DreamHack Masters Malmö will be broadcasted on DreamHack’s two Twitch channels since the event will feature simultaneous matches until the quarterfinals. You won’t want to miss any of the action on the main broadcast or the second channel.
Format
The competition will last six days, with the grand finals set to be played on Oct. 6. Sixteen teams will fight for their share of the $250,000 prize pool and the champion will gain one point for the Intel Grand Slam.
The teams will be split into two double-elimination GSL groups. All matches will be played as best-of-three series, except for the opening round, which will be a best-of-one game. The three top teams from each group will advance to the playoffs.
A breakdown of the prize pool hasn’t been announced by DreamHack yet.
Teams
Group A
- Astralis: Nicolai “device” Reedtz, Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen, Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth, Emil “Magisk” Reif, and Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander
- ENCE: Aleksi “allu” Jalli, Jere “sergej” Jalo, Miikka “suNny” Kemppi, Jani “Aerial” Jussila, and Sami “xSeveN” Laasanen
- Vitality: Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, Dan “apEX” Madesclaire, Richard “shox” Papillon, Cédric “RpK” Guipouy, and Alex McMeekin
- G2: Fabien “kioShiMa” Fiey, Kenny “kennyS” Schrub, François “AMANEK” Delaunay, Lucas “Lucky” Chastang, and Audric “JaCkZ” Jug
- FURIA: Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato, Yuri “yuurih” Gomes, Andrei “arT” Piovezan, Vinicius “VINI” Figueiredo, and Henrique “HEN1” Teles
- Fnatic: Jesper “JW” Wecksell, Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson, Robin “flusha” Rönnquist, Maikil “Golden” Selim, and Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin
- TYLOO: Hansel “BnTeT” Ferdinand, Wing Hei “Freeman” Cheung, HaoWen “somebody” Xu, YuLun “Summer” Cai, and YuanZhang “Attacker” Sheng
- Envy: Noah “Nifty” Francis, Sam “s0m” Oh, Jacob “FugLy” Medina, Bradley “ANDROID” Fodor, and Ryan “ryann” Welsh
Group B
- Team Liquid: Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, Keith “NAF” Markovic, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski, Jake “Stewie2K” Yip, and Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella
- Evil Geniuses: Ethan Arnold, Tarik Celik, Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte, Cvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov, and Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz
- mousesports: Finn “karrigan” Andersen, Robin “ropz” Kool, Chris “chrisJ” de Jong, Özgür “woxic” Eker, and David “frozen” Čerňanský
- Natus Vincere: Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, Denis “electronic” Sharipov, Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács, Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov, and Egor “flamie” Vasilyev
- North: Valdemar “valde” Bjørn, Markus Kjærbye, Nicklas Gade, Philip “aizy” Aistrup, and Jakob “JUGi” Hansen
- Ninjas in Pyjamas: Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, Simon “twist” Eliasson, Fredrik “REZ” Sterner, Jonas “Lekr0” Olofsson, and Nicolas “Plopski” Zamora
- OpTic Gaming: Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke, Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen, René “cajunb” Borg, Nikolaj “niko” Kristensen, and René “TeSeS” Madsen
- Grayhound: Chris “dexter” Nong, Olivier “DickStacy” Tierney, Joshua “INS” Potter, Simon “Sico” Williams, and Liam “malta” Schembri
Schedule
Tuesday, Oct. 1
- 5am CT: Astralis vs. Envy
- 5am CT: G2 vs. FURIA
- 6:20am CT: ENCE vs. Fnatic
- 6:20am CT: Vitality vs. TYLOO
- 7:40am CT: Liquid vs. OpTic
- 7:40am CT: Na’Vi vs. North
- 9am CT: mousesports vs. NiP
- 9am CT: NRG vs. Grayhound
- 10:20am CT: Group A lower bracket first match
- 10:20am CT: Group A upper bracket first semifinal
- 2pm CT: Group A lower bracket second match
- 2pm CT: Group A upper bracket second semifinal
Wednesday, Oct. 2
- 5am CT: Group B lower bracket first match
- 5am CT: Group B lower bracket second match
- 8:40am CT: Group A lower bracket first semifinal
- 8:40am CT: Group B upper bracket first semifinal
- 12:20pm CT: Group A lower bracket second semifinal
- 12:20pm CT: Group B upper bracket second semifinal
Thursday, Oct. 3
- 5am CT: Group B lower bracket first semifinal
- 5am CT: Group B lower bracket second semifinal
- 8:40am CT: Group A lower bracket final
- 8:40am CT: Group A upper bracket final
- 12:20pm CT: Group B lower bracket final
- 12:20pm CT: Group B upper bracket final
Friday, Oct. 4
- 9am CT: First quarterfinal
- 12:50pm CT: Second quarterfinal
Saturday, Oct. 5
- 8am CT: First semifinal
- 11:50am CT: Second semifinal
Sunday, Oct. 6
- 10am CT: Grand finals
Key storylines
EG’s debut at ESL One New York couldn’t have gone better. Stanislaw and crew were the best team at the tournament and only dropped a single map in the grand finals against Astralis. They finally broke their curse, but can they repeat the formula in Malmö?
Liquid, on the other hand, were eliminated by Astralis once again. They don’t look as dominant as they were before the StarLadder Berlin Major. There’s no time to practice ahead of Malmö, either, so we probably won’t see the reckless Liquid from the first part of the year.
This event is set to be a far more difficult DreamHack Masters Malmö than it was last year when Astralis lost to North in the grand finals. The Danes will play after losing ESL One New York to EG and they’ll want to prove that their Major run wasn’t an exception.
A lot of teams will be competing with new players, but one of the most highly-anticipated debuts will be shox on Vitality. He won’t be the in-game leader for the team, so most fans will be expecting some vintage performances from the French star.
Can Na’Vi play well without Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko leading the way? The legendary captain retired after BLAST Pro Series Moscow and Boombl4 took over the in-game leadership. GuardiaN has arrived and s1mple will be the secondary AWPer. Na’Vi will have a lot of new stuff to show off in Malmö.
