Astralis have sen out a strong message by winning DreamHack Masters Marseille. But as we know there are always winners and loser in every competition.

We have already rounded up all teams who impressed at DreamHack Marseille. Now let’s turn our attention to some of teams who had a disappointing tournament.

Losers of Marseille

FaZe Clan’s disappointing run

FaZe hasn’t been the same since IEM Katowice 2018. The team faced problems at V4 Sports Festival and were beaten by Virtus.Pro in the semifinals.

Coming to Marseille fans were jaded. The team had to replace ‘olofmeister’ as the player asked for a break. In his place, ‘Xizt’ stepped in and while the Swede did a fairly decent job, it just wasn’t enough.

The team couldn’t even secure one map from Cloud9 and qualified for the playoffs by simply beating EnVyUs two times.

In the playoffs, FaZe was eliminated by Astralis and once again, couldn’t win one map in their best of three.

Xizt may be a problem within FaZe but he’s not the only one. During the match against Cloud9, we saw FaZe failing to control bomb sites and losing duels to weaker-armed opponents often. This certainly shouldn’t happen.

Hitting A Wall

FaZe has hit a wall. What can they do now? Can Karrigan level up his tactics and strategies? Should he change ‘Xizt’ roles, since the player is just playing the same spots that olofmeister played?

In Karrigan’s position, it’s probably hard to change things now. If they try to use Xizt better, when olofmeister come back they might need time to adapt, which they won’t have. But can they endure this phase of barely making to the playoffs?

We have yet to see. FaZe next event is IEM Sydney 2018, where they will be in the same group of Cloud9 and SK Gaming.

SK Gaming needs more time to adapt

We all know that SK Gaming would need sometime to adapt to their new player, Stewie2K. Changing the spoken language in-game isn’t an easy task, even more when four of your players all speak Brazilian.

During Marseille we saw SK Gaming leaving the tournament during the group stage. The team were beaten by Ninjas in Pyjamas and Mousesports and only won a single map in the whole tournament, against Valiance.

In their matches against Mousesports and NiP, it was clear that Stewie2K isn’t living up to expectations. Not only him but Coldzera, SK’s star, also is seemingly having some difficulties to shine in this new formation. Boltz keeps being unreliable and fer and FalleN also were hit negatively by the change in this initial period.

Adapting might take much longer than expected

The language barrier was clearly limiting SK Gaming Marseille but that’s not the only issue.

Coldzera was having a hard time picking aim duels and the mid round decisions from FalleN weren’t working. We know that SK can bounce back but it will take time, a lot of it.

Their game strategies were exposed. ChrisJ, Mousesports in-game leader abused of exploits that TACO left in formation and from boltz underwhelming performance. Not only him but ‘Dennis’, the in-game leader from NiP also built his game over SK weaknesses.

SK Gaming next tournament is IEM Sydney starting May 1st. There they will be facing TyLoo in their first match. At this point, if TyLoo pull an upset it won’t even be that big of a surprise anymore.

Space Soldiers reputation as an online-only team intact

Turkish fans of the squad were hyped to see their team in a premier LAN. The atmosphere was right, and they had a group where they could possible advance for the playoffs if they could upset Team Liquid.

In their first match against Astralis, Space Soldiers were demolished. However, losing to Gambit without even playing 10 rounds was demoralizing. Leaving Marseille on the first day of the competition ruined fans hopes.

The Turks must find out what was wrong and how to fix it. The difference in the K/D between players in the team was astonishing.

We expected more from SS, especially from MAJ3R, who finished the event with his worst rating ever since he joined the team.

Travelling around the Globe

Space Soldiers qualified for enough events in the past months and they will be travelling around the globe to play amongst the best teams. DreamHack Masters Marseille was only the first of these.

So now, XANTARES’ squad must get back on their feet and try once again. We surely will have lesser expectations for SS in the upcoming tournaments but we still want to see them coming up and rivaling top teams.

Their next event will be IEM Sydney 2018 where they will be in the group A with FaZe, C9 and SK Gaming. There, we want to see them making mends with their fans for the Marseille performance and doing well.

Closing out the top five after Marseille

We came to Marseille with the expectation to see a match up between Mousesports and FNATIC. The winner would take the spot of number 1 in the World Rankings.

In the end, Mousesports were eliminated by Natus Vincere in the quarterfinals and FNATIC by Astralis in the semifinals.

These results came not because Mouz and Fnatic played worst than they did in StarSeries or IEM Katowice, the tournaments that they won, but because the competition has moved to a new level. Now, Na’Vi and Astralis should be leading the rankings with the aforementioned two following closely behind.

NiP also did well in the tournament but followed with a quarterfinal placing after getting beaten by FNATIC. Dennis’ squad managed to beat SK convincingly and Mousesports after a disputed best of three.

The Swedes are looking brightly and can certainly be the gatekeepers of the top five.

Upcoming Premier Events –

IEM Sydney 2018 and EPL Season 7 Finals

IEM Sydney 2018, starting 1st May, will be starring sixteen teams, including Astralis, Na’Vi, Mousesports and FNATIC.

Soon after, the EPL Season 7 Finals in Dallas, with the group stage starting on the 14th of May. We expect to see the aforementioned teams alongside with the exception of FNATIC. In compensation we will be seeing the new OpTic lineup in LAN for the first time, and also NiP.

While Sydney will give us some great matches, the really excitement comes with EPL. Teams fought during the online season for their spots and for sure are now looking to take the big piece of the $750.000 total prize pool.

May will be a busy month for the premier teams and I can’t wait for these events. Will Astralis start they definitive era now or will someone be able to stop them? Let us know what’s your opinion!