Preview of DreamHack Open Tours 2019

General information

The tournament for $100,000 by DreamHack will be going on in the French city Tours. The winner will be lucky to gain the main money prize of $50,000. Such teams as mousesports, G2 Esports, Windigo Gaming, AVANGAR, Valiance, Ghost Gaming, Instinct Gaming and FrenchFrogs are going to participate in the competition.

As for the format, it will be the one everybody is used to. The teams will get split into two groups, each represented by four teams. There they will play by the GSL system and after that four best participants will get chosen to pass to the playoff. All the three matches of the final stage will be held in the Bo3 format.

Favorites of the tournament

mousesports (place in the HLTV rating — #12)
Win odds: 3

On 14 March mousesports completed their roster that looks great and shows great promise. The two months resulted in the 12 position in the world rating by HLTV and the roster almost got to Top Ten Best Teams. Even though mousesports is a Tier-2 team, however they could hardly be called like that as they play with representatives of Top Ten and win over them. For instance, recently mousesports have defeated Renegades. They also triumphed at the matches with G2 Esports and BIG that hold the 15 and 18 places, correspondingly. Almost all the participants of the championship are weaker than any of the mentioned. We think that mousesports is one of two main favorites to win the championship and DreamHack Open Tours 2019 may be a good start for the recently completed roster and the first triumph for the players in this roster.

mousesports roster and rating of the players:

Chris ‘chrisJ’ de Jong — 1.11
Robin ‘ropz’ Kool — 1.27
Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen — 1.12
Özgür ‘woxic’ Eker — 1.20
David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský — 1.21
Allan ‘Rejin’ Petersen — coach

AVANGAR (place in the HLTV rating — #13)
Win odds: 6

AVANGAR is one of some teams where the captain puts more efforts in the game in terms of individual skills than the players themselves. We are talking about Ali ‘Jame’ Djami. When the team can't show a good result, their in-game leader is trying hard to get control over the situation. Jame combines three things that seem to be uncombined: sniper rifle, management of the team and good shooting. Besides, the other players are in great shape now as well. AVANGAR have a series of four wins having defeated such opponents as HellRaisers, North, forZe and Virtus.pro. We think that the odds of the win of AVANGAR are a bit overvalued and sportsbook don't reflect the true chance of the Kazakh team. AVANGAR must take at least the 3-4 position. In our opinion, they may also make it to the final and their main opponent will be mousesports Jame and the team may have a great fight with.

AVANGAR roster and rating of the players:

Timur ‘buster’ Tulepov — 1.06
Alexey ‘qikert’ Golubev — 1.15
Ali ‘Jame’ Djami — 1.32
Bektiyar ‘fitch’ Bahytov — 1.01
Sanjar ‘SANJI’ Kuliev — 1.00
Dastan ‘dastan’ Akbaev — coach

Teams that have a chance to win

Valiance (place in the HLTV rating — #20)
Win odds: 5

In the world rating and win odds at sportsbooks Valiance is lower than their closest opponent, G2 Esports. In our opinion, the situation is different in real. Now the team is in a great shape and has a series of five wins against not very strong opponents, but all the meetings were won without scoring a point with a big gap except for the last match where the battle ended up by the score of 19-17. As a reminder, one of the players of the teams is a young Lithuanian talent EspiranTo who has already got a title of MVP and is one of the key representatives of Valiance.

The European team may not be called a true favorite of the upcoming competition, but Valiance does have a good chance to win and can surprise the audience pleasantly. We expect an interesting game and we will see how far they can go.

Valiance roster and rating of the players:

Nestor ‘LETN1’ Tanic — 1.06
Nemanja ‘huNter’ Kovac — 1.25
Nemanja ‘nexa’ Isakovic — 1.22
Rokas ‘EspiranTo’ Milasauskas — 1.03
Otto ‘ottoNd’ Sihvo — 1.16

G2 Esports (place in the HLTV rating — #15)
Win odds: 4

On 7 March, G2 Esports had another change in their roster to improve their results. In the end, they released bodyy and the duties of a players were passed to AMANEK. 10 days after the reshuffle, the French took the 3 place at WESG 2018 World Finals and here is the end of the story about their good results at LAN finals. The best performance of G2 Esports during the period happened at ESL Pro League Season 9 Europe where they won over Natus Vincere, Fnatic and Windigo Gaming and thanks to that they got an invitation to EPL #9 Finals. We should also note that since that time a month has passed but the French team is not stable at their performances in our opinion, so they can perform worse than they are expected.

G2 Esports roster and rating of the players:

Richard ‘shox’ Papillon — 1.15
Kenny ‘kennyS’ Schrub — 1.22
Lucas ‘Lucky’ Chastang — 1.06
Audric ‘JaCkz’ Jug — 1.13
Francois ‘AMANEK’ Delaunay — 1.03
Damien ‘maLeK’ Marcel — coach

Windigo Gaming (place in the HLTV rating — #17)
Win odds: 8

Windigo Gaming is the strongest team in Bulgaria. In the middle of March, the roster won WESG 2018 World Finals gaining the main prize of $500,000 and after that Windigo's results worsened. Now v1c7oR and his teammates can win only over Tier-2 and Tier-3 teams and we still don't know what we should expect from them at the upcoming DreamHack Open Tours 2019. The only thing we can be sure about is that they are unlikely to make it to the final. The Bulgarian passed to Group А together with mousesports, Valiance and Instinct Gaming. They are sure not to take the first place in the group, however if they fight with Valiance well, they will be able to make it to the semifinal where they will finish participation in the tournament.

Windigo Gaming roster and rating of the players:

Georgi ‘SHiPZ’ Grigorov — 1.13
Kamen ‘bubble’ Kostadinov — 0.99
Viktor ‘v1c7oR’ Dyankov — 0.99
Yanko ‘blocker’ Panov — 1.05
Valentin ‘poizon’ Vasilev — 1.16
Александр ‘Shockwave’ Нетреба — coach on probation

Outsiders

Ghost Gaming (place in the HLTV rating — #29)
Win odds: 20

If we take a look at the outsiders, Ghost Gaming look better than the others, but we should not ignore the fact that they are not stable at their results and they don't have a good game. Ghost Gaming passed to Group B with such teams as G2 Esports, AVANGAR and FrenchFrogs. AVANGAR are likely to make it to the playoff and the same results are expected to happen with the French from G2 Esports. As a result, Ghost Gaming are likely to be left behind and take the third place in their group. It means that the Canadian-American will get the 5-6 position in the tournament bracket of DreamHack Open Tours 2019. We are going to get to know soon where it is true or false.

Ghost Gaming roster and rating of the players:

Matthew ‘Wardell’ Yu — 1.16
Joshua ‘steel’ Nissan — 0.95
Kenneth ‘koosta’ Suen — 1.16
Jason ‘neptune’ Tran — 0.89
Ryan ‘freakazoid’ Abadir — 1.05
James ‘JamezIRL’ Macaulay — coach

FrenchFrogs (place in the HLTV rating — #50)
Win odds: 21

Four French and one Belgian got together to achieve the top, but now they are not good at it. At the recent matches we can notice that the team is in a bad game shape and the players are unlikely achieve anything great. FrenchFrogs got to Group B where they will fight for passing to the final stage together with G2 Esports, AVANGAR and Ghost Gaming. The team is likely to take the last place in the group and the whole tournament bracket and in the end the players will be the first to leave the competition. If FrenchFrogs take at least the 5-6 place, their performance will be successful indeed.

FrenchFrogs roster and rating of the players:

David ‘Davidp’ Prins — 1.07
Ali ‘hAdji Haïnouss — 1.13
Logan ‘LOGAN’ Corti — 0.98
Bryan ‘Maka’ Canda — 1.05
Gaëtan ‘JiNKZ’ Jamin — 0.96

Instinct Gaming (place in the HLTV rating — #90)
Win coefficient: 35

Instinct Gaming is the main outsider of the championship. The French team got to Group А where they will fight with mousesports, Windigo Gaming and Valiance. Instinct has a chance to pass to the playoff but they will have to work hard to surprise their opponents Windigo and Valiance. They will not be able to win over the players from mousesports, but they can try to fight with the other two, even though this attempt will be in vain. The team has been assembled recently, but if the players find the necessary energy and motivation, they will be able to make it to the playoff.

Instinct Gaming roster and rating of the players:

Simon ‘Fuks’ Florysiak — 1.08
Antoine ‘to1nou’ Pirard — 0.87
Matthieu ‘matHEND’ Roquigny — 0.82
Timothée ‘DEVIL’ Démolon — 1.25
David ‘devoduvek’ Dobrosavljevic — 0.97