DreamHack Open 2019 lands in Rio de Janeiro

The 2019 CS:GO Dream Open season kicks off in the Marvelous City, as 8 teams set their sights on $100,000 of prize money. Rio is the first stop out of the seven planned DH Open events this season. The teams will butt heads at the marvelous Carioca Arena part of the Olympic Complex in Rio.

Dreamhack Open features five Brazilian rosters Furia, INTZ, Sharks, W7M, Redemption POA. The foreign talent comes in the form of eUnited (NA), AVANGAR (CIS) and Valiance (EU). Two squads cancelled their participation last minute as Luminosity Gaming had scheduling conflicts with the ESL Pro League while AGO had to pull out due to an injury of star player Dominik “GruBy” Swiderski.

The teams are divided into two groups and will play a best-of-one match before going into an elimination bracket. Out of the two groups, it seems Group B (Sharks, Valiance, W7M, Redemption POA) is more decisive and straightforward as Valiance are the absolute favourites in the group and to take home the entire thing. The only potential challenge for Valiance in Group B comes from the young Sharks squad led by Rodrigo “RCF“ Figueiredo.

Group A, on the other hand, features four squads equal in strength and seeding, making it a real group of death. The only weak performing team in the group comes in the form of INTZ who are having a really bad month in the world of CS:GO. They are yet to pick up a win this month as they managed to lose three consecutive best-of-three’s at the ESL Pro League Season 9 and finishing in last place. eUnited, Furia and Avangar are all at par in terms of relative strength, and we can definitely expect nail-biting action to see who comes ahead in Group A.

I personally expect an AVANGAR vs Valiance final, a repeat from the semifinal at the Dreamhack Masters Dallas qualifier a month earlier.

The action at Rio kicks off tomorrow April 19th at 18:00 CEST at Twitch.tv/dreamhackcs

For everyone interested in CS:GO betting and throwing down some bets, the predicted winners are marked in bold.